Chapter 11: Language Flashcards
A system of communication using sound or symbols which enables us to express emotions, thoughts, ideas, and experiences
Language
Why is the simple definition of language given not adequate?
Doesn’t consider animal communication or body language
What are the two key components of language?
Hierarchical and rule-based
Why is language hierarchical?
Consists of small components arranged in a way that makes a larger unit
Why is language rule-based?
Some of the smaller components follow rules that must be obeyed in order to create meaning
Give an example describing how language is a universal need
Deaf children living in communities that don’t have sign language invent one themselves
Describe how languages are “unique but the same”
Unique: they use different sounds and words, with different rules from each other
Same: they use nouns, verbs, make things negative, ask questions, refer to past and present
What was Chomsky’s perspective on language?
Proposed that language is encoded into human genes
Cognitive aspect that relates to the mind
What was Skinner’s perspective on language?
Posits that language can be explained in terms of reinforcements
Nothing to do with the mind
The field of psychology that concerns itself with the study of language and how it related to psychology.
Psycholinguistics
What are the four major concerns of psycholinguistics?
Comprehension, representation, speech production, acquisition
All the words we know/mental dictionary
Lexicon
The meaning of words and language
Semantics
Describe the word frequency effect
We are more likely to respond faster to high-frequency words (words that appear more often in usage of a language) and more likely to respond slower to low-frequency words (words that appear less often in a language)
The lexical decision task is a way to demonstrate which effect?
The word frequency effect
Describe the lexical decision task
Decide as quickly as possible whether strings of letters are words or nonwords
Can couple this data with eye tracking data:
Longer Gaze and Fixation times on the low-frequency words, Shorter Gaze and Fixation times on the high-frequency words
How are differences in pronunciation navigated?
Using the context around the word and fill in the blank based on previous knowledge
The perception of individual words even though there are often no pauses between words.
Speech segmentation
How is speech segmentation achieved?
Statistical probability (without realizing)
What four factors are related to our ability to understand spoken words?
How frequently we have encountered a word in the past
The context where the word appears
Our knowledge of statistical regularities of our language
Our knowledge of word meanings
Words that have multiple meanings
Lexical ambiguity
How do we navigate lexical ambiguity?
Look for context surrounding the word
Occurs when a word is followed by another word with a similar meaning.
Lexical priming