Chapter 11: Language Flashcards
Language
- System of communication using sounds or symbols
- Express feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences
Hierarchical System
Components that can be combined to form larger units
- Words—> phrases—>sentences—>story
Rule-based Nature of Language
Idea that there are rules in language that specify permissible ways for arranging words and phrases
- Language is governed by rules
Universality of Language
- Deaf children invent sign language that is all their own
- Pidgin/ creole languages
- All humans with normal capacities develop a language and learn to follow its complex rules
- Language is universal across cultures
- Language development is similar across cultures
- Languages are “unique but the same”
Pidgin languages
2 non-overlapping languages are forced together to communicate
- Not as many grammatical rules
Creole language
Next generation of Pidgin, but have rules of grammar
B.F. Skinner- Verbal Behavior
Language learned through reinforcement
Noam Chomsky- Syntactic Structures
- Human language coded in the genes
- Underlying basis of all language is similar
- Children produce sentences they have never heard and that have never been reinforced
Psycholinguistics
Discover physiological process by which humans acquire and process language
- Field concerned with psychological study of language
- Comprehension
- Speech production
- Representation
- Acquisition
Comprehension
How do people understand spoken and written language
Speech production
How do people produce language
Representation
How is language represented in mind
Acquisition
How do people learn language
Lexicon
Person’s knowledge of what words mean, how they sound, and how they are used in relation to other words
- All words a person understands= “mental dictionary”
Semantics
The meaning of language (words and sentences)
Lexical Semantics
Meaning of words
- Each word has one or more meaning
Word Frequency
Relative usage of words in particular language
Word Frequency Effect
Demonstrates how past experiences with words influences our ability to access their meaning
- we respond faster to high-frequency words - Rayner and Duffy fixation and gaze times - Eye movements while reading - Look at low-frequency words longer
Lexical Decision Task
Task is to decide as quickly as possible whether strings of letters are words or non words
Variable Word Pronuniciation
Use context to understand words with unfamiliar pronunciations
Ex. “Didjoo?”, “Gonna”
Speech Segmentation
- Perception of individual words even though there are no silences between spoken words
- Context
- Understanding of meaning (known vs unknown language)
- Understanding of sounds and syntactic rules
- Statistical learning
Lexical Ambiguity
When a word can have more than one meaning
Lexical Priming
Priming that involves meaning of words
- Tarenhaus: N-N condition and V-N condition
Parsing
Mentally groups the words into phrases
Garden Path Sentences
Sentences that begin by appearing to mean one thing, but then end up meaning something else
Temporary Ambiguity
When the initial words are ambiguous, but the meaning is made clear by the end of the sentence
Meaning Dominance
Some meanings of words occur more frequently than others
Biased Dominance
When a word has more than one meaning, and one meaning is more likely
Balanced Dominance
When a word has more than one meaning and all meanings are equally likely
The garden path model of parsing
Model of parsing that emphasizes syntactic principles as major determinant of parsing
- Listeners used heuristics (rules) to group words into phrases - Grammatical structure of sentence determines parsing - Late closure
Heuristics
A “rule of thumb” that provides a best-guess solution to problem
Late Closure
Parser assumes new word is part of current phrase
Constraint-based approach to parsing
Approach to parsing that proposes that semantics, syntax, and other factors operate simultaneously to determine parsing
Combines:
- Syntax
- Word meaning
- Story context
- Memory load
- Subject-relative and object-relative sentence construction
Subject-Relative Construction
Sentence construction in which subject of main clause is also subject in embedded clause
Object-Relative Construction
Sentence construction in which subject of main clause is object in embedded clause
Tabenhaus and Trueswell (1995)
- Visual word paradigm, the context of a scene
- Eye movements change when info suggests revision of interpretation of sentence is necessary
- Linguistic and nonlinguistic information used simulataneously
Visual World Paradigm
In experiments an language processing, determine how subjects are processing info in a scene as they respond to specific instructions related to scene
Nonlinguistic information
Info provided by scene
Inferences
In language, process by which readers create info that is not explicitly stated in text
Narrative
Story that progresses from one event to another
Coherence
Representation of text or story in reader’s mind so that info in me part of text/story is related to info in another part
Anaphoric Inference
An inference that connects an object or person in another sentence
Instrument Inference
An inference about tools/ methods that occur while reading text or listening to speech
Causal Inference
Inference that results in conclusion that events described in one clause or sentence were caused by events in previous clause/ sentence
Situation Model
Mental representation of what text is about
Limits on biological preparation for language
- for example, “wolf children”
- none could be rehabilitated to use language normally
- ex. Genie the Wild Child
- Critical periods
Given-New Contract
In conversation, speaker should construct sentences so that they contain both given info and new info
Common Ground
Knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions shared between two speakers
Referential Communication Task
Task in which two people are exchanging info in conversation, when this info involves reference- identifying something by naming or describing it
Entrainment
Synchronization between partners in conversation
Syntactic Coordination
Process by which people see similar grammatical constructions when having conversation
Syntactic Priming
Hearing statement with particular syntactic construction increases chances that statement that follows will be produced with same construction
Theory of Mind
Ability to understand what others think, feel, or believe
Broca’s area
Difficulty in understanding sentences with complex syntax
- Nonfluent
Wernicke’s aphasia
Fluent
Linguistic Relativity
Linguistic relativity is the hypothesis that people who speak different languages think differently
Bilingualism
Children raised in bilingual homes learn both languages as quick;y as monolingual children learn one language
Prosody
The pattern of intonation and rhythm in spoken language
- Often creates emotion in spoken language (a speaker’s “soaring oratory”)
Music as the “language of emotion”
Music creates emotion through sounds that have no meaning
Language combines words and music combines tone to create […] that unfold over time
Language combines words and music combines tone to create structured sequences that unfold over time
Tonic
Key of musical composition
- Tonic note is first note of scale in particular key
Return to the Tonic
In musical composition, coming back to tonic note that was at beginning of composition
Congenital Amusia
People have problems with music perception, including tasks such as discriminating between simple melodies or recognizing common tunes
