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PSYC 301 > Chapter 10: Language > Flashcards

Chapter 10: Language Flashcards

1
Q

What are the key concepts covered in the language lecture?

A

-language and thought
-the biological roots of language
-organization of language
-syntax
-sentence parsing

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2
Q

What is language?

A

language is a translation mechanism
-we convert ideas into sound waves which are then converted back into ideas

-Have abstract things we are trying to communicate like ideas and have sounds trying to travel - have a translation and someone on the receiver end will receive those sound waves
-language is a human system of communication that uses arbitrary symbols has complex grammar and unlimited productivity
-sound unit is a phoneme and the meaning unit is morpheme and the words are semantics and structure of phrases is syntax and the structure of the larger texts is discourse

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3
Q

What are the key takeaways in the Lera Boroditsk - how language shapes the way we think ted talk?

A

-dont use left and right use north south east and west and they use these to introduce themselves
-sat people facing south organized time form left to right and north is right to left and east is time coming towards body and west time is away from body - time is locked on landscape - east to west
-some languages dont have number so cant count
-colors - faster across linguistic boundary and different colors shift brain give a reaction
-german and spanish sun is female and male and moon is male and female so describe in according terms
-accidents have different constructions in different langauges and english speakers remmeber who did where spanish speakers do not remmeber who did it but the remember the accident - this affects punishment too
-7,000 cognitive universes around the world - what we know about human brain is based on english undergrads so limited

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4
Q

What is linguistic relativity?

A

the hypothesis that people who speak different languages think differently

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5
Q

What is the whorfian hypothesis?

A

benjamin whorf’s original argument was that hopi speakers and english speakers think differently about time
-language affects your thinking, affects color perception and memory, proposed by Benjamin whorf
-hopi speakers think differently about animacy and time

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6
Q

What is an example of linguistic relativity in regards to color vocabulary?

A

a languages color vocabulary and categorization may affect how speakers perceive and remember color
-the berinmo people of papua new guinea have only five words for describing colors
-nol describes the colors that english speakers call green and blue

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7
Q

What is an example of linguistic relativity in regards to spatial terminology?

A

absolute directions like east and west versus relative directions like left or right
- certain tribes use absolute directions and they are better at them than english speakers

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8
Q

What is an example of linguistic relativity in regards to description of events?

A

active voice - sam made a mistake versus passives voice mistakes were made
-memory for agents in accidents
-grammatical genders like spanish german or russian - table is feminine in Spanish and masculine in russian and german is different -as a result people in the language describe it differently so if bridge is feminine they will say it is beautiful and if it is masculine will say it is strong
-In spanish accidentally happened things - when they did studies and participants did things and English speakers remember the actor better when not directed then we can’t pay attention as well so better at English movies for English speakers
-japanese has focus on passive voice

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9
Q

What are the two hypotheses for linguistic relativity?

A

-it is possible that the language you speak determines the concepts and categories you use and influences what you are able to think about - this is the direct effect
-language effect is permanent and cant be reversed

-it is also possible that language influences thought indirectly via attention indirect effect - other factors cancel out this influence

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10
Q

What is the direct and indirect effect for linguistic relativity?

A

direct - language directly and uniquely shapes thought
-the effects of language on cognition are systematic and permanent

indirect - experience that shapes thought - experience depends on what you pay attention to - language is just one of the many factors which guide your attention
-the effects of language may sometimes be large but can be offset by a range of other influences

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11
Q

What are the biological roots of language?

A

-it is suggested that fluent language use in humans is enabled via neural machinery that is specialized for language learning and use
-certain areas critical to produce and understand language - have brocas area which is critical for language production - this area is closely related to the motor cortex and makes sounds
-wernickes area is needed for language comprehension and is near the auditory projection area which is hoe we perceive the sounds and process them and have language

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12
Q

What is chomsky’s innate language learning theory?

A

learning starts immediately after birth
-infants can distinguish phonemes as soon as they are born
-have preference for phonemes from native language as early a 2 days
-can segment speech into separate words by 6 months without understanding the meaning
-by 3 to 4 years old most children can reasonably converse

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13
Q

Does language learning occur even when communication with adults is very limited?

A

yes - in a romanian orphanage studies of child neglect were present due to the 1966 ceausescu banned all forms of contraceptive to keep the population from shrinking after WWII
-offered to take care of children by creating a large network of orphanages
-shortage of staff resulted in a caregiver to child ratio of 1 to 20 or 30
-children who are born deaf are not taught to sign language and they will develop their own gestural language and teach it to people in their surroundings - they also stay at the two year old level
-activity in brocas area and wernickes area is already present in infants
-these areas actively develop in childhood

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14
Q

What is the process of language learning?

A

-environment plays a role in learning and language and children learn the language they are exposed to
-children are sensitive to patterns and regularities
-in studies babies as young as 8 months are able to recognize specific patten of syllables after they learned the patten they show surprise when the pattern is switched
-they derive the broad principles from the language or langauges they are exposed to

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15
Q

How quickly do english speaking children learn he past tense?

A

quite early they first memorize past tense verbs
-by age 3 they lear to derive past tense by adding ed
-children over relate on this pattern which results in over regularization errors - yesterday i goed to the beach

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16
Q

if humans are biologically prepared for language learning what genes underlies this preparation?

A

FOXP2 - people who have muted form of this gene are severly impaired in their language learning

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17
Q

What are some limitations in our innate ability to learn languages?

A

there are limits in our biological preparation for language
-we need a communicative partner to turn linguistic potential into ability
-language learning depends on both a human genome and a human environment

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18
Q

What are two lines of research which contribute to our understanding of how the environment influences language and how biological and environmental factors interact?

A

-studies of language deprivation
-studies testing the sensitive period hypothesis

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19
Q

What is an example of a language deprivation study?

A

genie was 13 and had been abused and deprived of social and language stimulation
-she did not develop syntax above the level of the average 2 year old child years after training

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20
Q

What is the critical period for language learning?

A

optimal language learning period is from birth to age 10 and it is nearly impossible to achieve proficiency similar to a native speaker after the age of 10
-starting between age 15 and 18 can get almost the native speaker ability without traces of accent
-people who start learning a language between 10 and 18 will still learn quickly but since they have a shorter window before their learning ability declines they do not achieve the proficiency of native speaker
-accent if started at 15 years of age
-children stop being able to distinguish phonemes of different languages at 1 years old unless they are bilingual where they can keep this distinction their whole life

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21
Q

Is there a sensitive period for learning languages?

A

-brain mechanisms for acquiring syntax may have limited period pruning and consolidation
-it is easier for young children to master grammar and pronounciation than adults
-learning a language in early childhood created a more efficient language processing network in the brain

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22
Q

What is the brain activity in bilinguals like?

A

all participants were highly profficient fluency in german and italian
-eahp - learned the second language from birth
-lahp - learned the second language from 6 years of age
-need to make grammatical judgments in th second language
-fmri study shows that later adopters have mor activity in the language network because they need more resources than the early

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23
Q

At what rate do bilingual children learn both languages and what happens to their vocab?

A

learn both languages as quickly as monolingual children and they have a tendency to have a temporarily smaller vocabulary than monolingual children at an early age
-Bilingual children have slightly less words in each language than monolingual in one language and by age three this is present but by age 5 this is gone

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24
Q

What are some benefits of being raised bilingual?

A

task switching
avoiding distractions
holding information in mind

-this issue is still debated - advantages may only emerge with certain tasks or in certain age groups children not adults

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25
What is segmentation?
breaking continuous sound stream into words moment by moment sound amplitudes -need to segment the stream of sounds into chunks that make sense - five words yet three blobs seen so this shows that speech is not segmented into words it is rather segmented into sound blobs -when you see them all written down can change your language perception -we usually understand from the context because the sound itself is not the same
26
What are some aids to speech perception?
-perception of languages relies on prior knowledge and expectations to supplement input -the 50 most commonly used words in english make up roughly half f the words you actually hear -phonemic restoration effect - as with vision in speech perception we do not rely on the stimuli we receive we supplement this input with prior knowledge about words and the context in which they appear -recorded naturally occurring conversations -spliced out words from conversations -had participants identify words within and without context -easily identified in context hard to do without context and only 50% of the words were identified
27
What is the McGurk effect?
-what we hear clashes with what we see - what we see overrides what we hear so mouth movements when we look at a face influence what we hear so if we close our eyes we can just hear the sound - BAAA vs FAAAA -hearing and vision illusion pairing sound to a visual of different sound - example of power of context
28
What is categorical perception?
people are better at hearing differenes between catgeories of sounds than within categories of sounds -in english the l and r sound are different so we have no problem in distinguishing lag and rag -in japanese there is no differentiation so cannot distinguish l and r sounds
29
How are new words formed?
new words can be formed -progress in technology has required new terms like hacker and spyware -social and political changes have led to new vocab - metrosexual and selfie
30
What is syntax?
rules that govern the structure of a phrase or sentence -rules do not depend on meaning -colorless green ideas sleep furiously -syntax provides the rules which sequences of words are acceptable and not - the boy hit the ball vs the boy hit ball the
31
What are the differences which emerge in the brain between semantic and syntactic errors?
semantic - n400 syntactic - lan - left anterior negativity
32
What is phrase structure?
the first step in parsing linguistic input is to first break it into phrases one kind of syntactic rule is an phrase to structure rule these phrase structure rules also specify the overall organization of the sentence and therefore determine how the various elements are linked to one another these rules can be depicted via a tree structure -phrase structure helps us understand the sentence - when parsing structure it is easier to understand if the words are grouped in their phrases than individual words -parse while reading or can come back and parse after reading; grouping is important when processing A is better than B
33
What is parsing?
process of determining each words syntactic role in a sentence -people parse sentences as they hear them which can lead to errors
34
What are garden path sentences?
initially suggest an interpretation that turns out to be wrong
35
How is syntax a guide to parsing?
people tend to initially choose the simpler interpretation in parsing sentences even though can can end up being incorrect -people also assume active voice sentences rather than passive voice sentences their assumption influences interpretations -interpretation are further influenced by function words and morphemes signaling syntactic roles like ly signal adverbs
36
What is extralinguistic context?
the physical and social setting in which we encounter sentences - put the apple on the towel into the box (look at image)
37
What is language?
a human system of communication that uses arbitrary symbols and has complex grammar and unlimited productivity - translation mechanisms of sound names into ideas
38
What are phonemes?
sound units
39
What are morphemes?
meaning units
40
What is semantics?
words
41
What is syntax?
structure of phrases
42
What is disourse?
structure of larger texts
43
What is the example of linguistic relativity with russian speakers and color?
russian speakers are faster at classifying because they have different names for the two colors and New Guinea have one word for blue green and they are less fast at classifying these colors compared to English speakers and English speakers are faster at this task compared to New Guinea because they have two different names for blue and green
44
What side of the brain is language?
is left lateralized
45
What can be influenced through language?
understanding memory and attention
46
What is wernickes area?
involved in speech comprehension
47
What is brocas area?
involved in speech comprehension -much of what we know is from lesions and aphasia studies
48
What is brocas aphasia?
non fluent aphasia - girl give mother toy
49
What is wernickes aphasia?
fluent aphasia -well this is mother is away here working her working out o here to get her better but when shes looking the two boys
50
What is BF skinner's side in the language debate?
language is learned by reinforcement we are rewarded for producing words we imitate the speech of people around us
51
What is the n chomsky side of the language debate?
language related areas develop actively during childhood -grammar and phonemes are built in and acquired with minimal exposure -language is based in the genes
52
What is the relationship between biology and language?
-language learning starts quick -infants distinguish native vs non native phonemes until age 1 year of life when they specialize in native -infants prefer native phonemes at 2 days -speech segmentation by 6 months -by 3-4 years able to converse -language occurs when input is limited -the ceausescus policy and orphanages -deaf children create new signs -broca and wernickes areas are present from birth -FOX2 - gene shown to be implicated in language
53
At 8 months of age what can they do?
use statistic learning to track patterns aiding word segmentation - at eight months of age children can understand that pattern of learning and children can understand the plural form of the language -when they learn language they memorize the current and past tense and then when they internalize this understanding of how the past tense is created they do not know irregular words and it does not sound correct - they are progressing in this case from memorizing to generating language -learn broad principles from exposure -past tense learning by 3 they add ed to make past -overregularization errors
54
What are some perks of bilingualism?
dense grey matter theory of mind executive function goal maintenance
55
What is phonological ambiguity?
two words sound the same but are not the difference is in sound segmentation that leads to correct interpretation
56
What is coarticulation?
blending the phonemes at the boundaries the difference in how we say words based on what comes before or after -my name is
57
How does context aid speech perception?
recorded conversation -when presented without context people only undertstood their own words
58
How does prior knowledge aid speech perception?
phonemic restoration effect -filling in the sounds that are missing -hard to tell which phoneme is missing
59
How do categories aid speech perception?
better hearing differences between categories than within sounds
60
How do sound and syntatic rules aid speech perception?
tl is not an acceptable combo at beginning of words
61
What is phonology?
phonemes that make up a word
62
What is orthography?
spelling
63
What is syntax?
combination of words with other
64
What is semantics?
meaning
65
What is referent?
real word object not every word has a referent like unicorn or perfect world
66
What is the generativity of words?
vocab size is fluid new words are made like spyware and words get new meaning like woke
67
What is syntax?
phrase structure rules -syntax is separate from meaning -helps determine relationships -which phrases are acceptable and not
68
What are some syntax rules?
have descriptive rules - basic rules -have presceptive rules - rules that change with time - should we split infinitives - to boldly go where no one has gone before vs to go boldly where no one has gone before
69
What is parsing?
determining the words syntactic roles in the sentence -not modality specific in written and spoken language
70
What are phrase structure rules?
syntactic rule which determines how the components are related to one another can be viewed as a tree structure -have segmentation and then parse the sentence so we can get meaning from the words and sentence structure and break it down into phrases -they help us in understanding sentences -we tend to parse as we hear the sentence -online parsing vs wait till end is an efficiency accuracy trade off
71
What are some ambiguities?
phonological - words sound the same but mean diffeernt things the sky is falling or the guy us fallin -syntactic local or garden path - structure of the sentence leads to an incorrect interpretation at first but inly one meaning - because he ran the second mile went quickly - we will not go down wrong path if waited till end -syntactic global - more than interpretation - he want to discuss sex with jimmy kimmel -lexical one of the words has many meanings - man found bugs in the room
72
What was found in lexical ambiguity studies?
what happens when we hear a word with many meanings? - the man found several insects spiders and bugs in the room is this a words yes or no ant spy hat -immediately after they hear the sentence no delay faster at both meanings but when they are delayed only fasy at meaning that fits sentence is primed
73
How does syntax guide parsing?
-we prefer simple interpretations first -we add new words as the part of the same phrase -we assume the sentence is active voice -interpretation is influence by function words -morphemes signal syntactic roles like ly signals adverbs
74
How does background knowledge guide parsing?
case a - at the by the reporter we are confused we intially considered examined as the main since detectives are known for it case b - not confusin evidence cant examine based on your background knowledge -both the picture help i interpretations an provide extralinguistic context
75
What is prosody?
pattern of rhythym pitch - she is getting married vs she is getting married?
76
What is pragmatics?
knowledge of the general language use what happened to our dinner? well the dog sure looks happy - need high level of understanding to get
77

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