Chapter 9 Language 1 Flashcards
What is language
-occurs on an impressively fast time scale Each speaker produces the sounds of
-the same language in different ways.
Psycholinguistics
an interdisciplinary field that examines how people use language to communicate ideas
Phoneme
The basic unit of spoken languages, such as the sounds a, k, and th
Morpheme
The basic unit of meaning
RUN
RERUN
morphology
The study of morphemes
Syntax
The grammatical rules that govern how we organize words into sentences
Grammar
Morphology + Syntax
Semantics
The area of psycholinguistics that examines the meaning of words and sentences
Pragmatics
Our knowledge of the social rules that underline language use
Basic facts about human language
-Productivity of language is unlimited.
-Language skills are complex and
impressive.
-There are currently over as 7,000 spoken
languages
Languages differ in terms of
Phonemes
Morphemes
the meaning of changes in pitch
use of passive voice
whether nouns have grammatical gender
Chomsky’s Approach
Knowledge of grammar can exits independently of semantic knowledge
People are born with grammar knowledge
Children do not need to learn the basic generalizable concepts of languages
Surface structure vs. deep structure
The actual words written on the page/in the sentence vs. the underlining more abstract meaning of the sentence
Ambiguous sentences
Sentences may have identical surface structures but very different deep structures
Transformational rules
The rules we use to convert deep structures into surface structure that we can actually speak and write
Cognitive-Functional Approach
The function of human language in
everyday life is to communicate meaning to other individuals.
Cognitive processes are intertwined with language comprehension and production.
Children use flexible strategies to create increasingly complex language.
Adults use language strategically.
People can use language creatively.
Demonstration 9.2: Different perspectives on the same event
Clark and Chase (1972)
Negative statements require more processing time than affirmative statements.
Affirmative statements produce fewer errors.
Multiple negatives decrease performance.
Incremental Interpretation
We do not wait until the end of the sentence before making judgements about what it means
This can make certain sentence structures difficult to understand
“On-line” language processing measures
designed to gauge the amount of difficulty
one experiences as the linguistic signal unfolds unit-by-unit over time
Self-paced reading task
Participants see a series of dashes on a
screen masking each word of a sentence. pressing spacebar reveals new words. reaction times (RTs) measured
Explanations for difficulty processing complex grammatical structures:
more demanding on an individual’s memory resources
very infrequent in language
Lexical ambiguity
The fact that a single word can have multiple meanings
People pause longer when they are processing an ambiguous word
Lexical Ambiguity
People are likely to choose one particular meaning:
if that meaning is more common than the alternate meaning
if the rest of the sentence is consistent with that meaning
Syntactic ambiguity
When a sentence has an ambiguous structure, sometime without punctuation
Difficult when initial interpretation is confirmed
general considerations
decades of speculation about specific brain locations associated with language
difficulty locating brain area’s response for language bc language involves multiple cognitive processes
neurologuistics
the discipline that examines the underlying neurological structures and systems that support language and language-related processes
aphasia
an acquired difficulty communicating, typically as a result of damage to the brain caused by a stroke or a tumor
Broca’s area/Broca’s aphasia
Expressive-language deficit
People with Broca’s aphasia may also have some trouble with language comprehension
Wernicke’s area/Wernicke’s aphasia
Receptive-language deficit
many people with Wernicke’s aphasia have problems with language production as well as language comprehension
Lateralization
Each hemisphere of the brain has somewhat different functions
Role of language is the left hemisphere
Speech perception/sound interpretation
Meaning
Imagery
Role of language in the right hemisphere
Emotional tone
Humor
More abstract language tasks
The hemispheres work together
Interpreting subtle word meaning
Resolving ambiguities
Combining the meaning of several sentences
Mirror system
A network of neurons in the brain’s motor cortex that are activated when you watch someone perform an action
Rizzolatti and colleagues
measure responses of single neurons
monkeys watching a researcher break open a peanut
Monkeys’ responses while watching were similar to when the monkeys themselves broke open a peanut.
Calvo-Merino and colleagues (2005)
fMRI data for experts in classical ballet or martial arts
Had them watch videos of classical ballet vs. videos of martial arts
experts in classical ballet showed significantly greater activation in the motor- cortex areas relevant to ballet movements, and relatively little activation in the areas relevant to martial arts.
Individuals who were experts in martial arts showed the reverse activation pattern.
Summary of the mirror system
Language is not limited to spoken and written messages; physical actions are also important.
Sound-based language is not the only way people communicate.
Reading
Slides 275-279!!!
Dual-route approach to reading
Skilled readers employ both a direct-access route and an indirect-access route
Direct-access route
Recognize words directly through vision
Indirect-access route
Recognize word by first sounding out the word
People often translate visual stimuli into sound during reading.—subvocalization
Sound coding may enhance working memory.
Luo and colleagues
pairs of words judged as related or unrelated in meaning
Students made errors on pairs where the second word sounds like a word that is semantically related to the first word
suggests they were silently pronouncing the word pairs when they made the judgments
few errors on pairs where the second word only looked like a related word
Dual-Route Approach With more words
flexible
argues that the characteristics of the reading material determine whether access is indirect or direct
argues that characteristics of the reader also determine whether access is indirect or direct
(e.g., beginning vs. advanced readers; poor vs. good readers)
consistent with brain-imaging research
Whole-word approach (direct access)
argues readers can directly connect the written word—as an entire unit—with the meaning that this word represents
argues that children should not learn to emphasize the way a word sounds
emphasizes context within a sentence
Problem with whole-word approach
Even skilled adult readers achieve only about 25% accuracy when they look at an incomplete sentence and guess which word is missing
Phonics approach (indirect access)
Readers recognize words by trying to
pronounce the individual letters in the word. “sound it out”
argues that speech sound is a necessary intermediate step in reading
emphasizes developing children’s awareness of phonemes
Whole-language approach
Compromise approach
Reading instruction should emphasize meaning.
Reading instruction should be enjoyable, to increase children’s enthusiasm about learning to read.
Discourse
Interrelated language units larger than a sentence
Frederick Bartlett
People’s recall of stories becomes more consistent with their schemas after a long delay.
interaction of bottom-up and top-down processing inferences
Theory of Mind
In everyday life, people try to figure out the mental state of other people in their lives
Skilled readers
frequently organize and integrate information
into a cohesive story
use mental models during reading
e.g., mental map of locations described in writing
construct internal representations e.g., characters in a story
make inferences going beyond the information given
The Constructionist View of Inferences
Readers usually draw inferences about the causes of events and the relationships between events.
Readers actively integrate current information with all the relevant information from previous parts of the text, as well as background knowledge.
Huitema and colleagues (1993)
had participants read a brief story
far/near placement of test sentence from statement of goal
consistent/inconsistent relationship between goal and test sentence
measure reading time for test sentence
reading time longer for inconsistent statements
Readers try to connect material within a text passage and consult information stored in long-term memory;
Factors That Encourage Inferences
Working-memory capacity Metacomprehension skills Expertise
Type of Text
Higher Level Inferences
Some genres of books activate different expectations.
Inferences may be based on how the reader wants the story to turn out.
Mental preferences for a particular outcome may interfere with judgments about how the story actually turned out.
Metacomprehension
Your thought about your own comprehension
Young children do not have the appropriate cognitive skills for Metacomprehension
Teaching Contemplate your own reading strategies
consider relevant background knowledge reading every sentence vs. skimming monitor your understanding
notice when your mind wanders
Teach students to
think out loud
summarize
make predictions about possible outcomes describe puzzling sections
Test Anxiety and Reading Comprehension
People with high scores on the Cognitive Test Anxiety scale also made more errors in summarizing textbook material and more errors on a test of ability to make correct inferences.
Metacognition
Your knowledge about your cognitive processes as well as your control of these cognitive processes
