Chapter 9: Language and Thought Flashcards
___ and ___ are distinctly human
language and music
communication specific to homo sapiens
human language
human language is ___ and ___
open and symbolic
we are constantly creating new words to our vocabulary
open
can say the word Chester, but Chester doesn’t need to be here to know what it represents
symbolic
smallest distinctive sound unit (not redundant with letters)
phonemes
ex: Tough - Thought - Dough (ough)
phoneme
smallest unit that carries meaning; word or part of a word (prefix or suffix)
morphemes
ex: kick- word in and of itself is informative
kicker - changes from a verb to a noun
morphemes
system of rules that facilitate communication
grammar
rules governing order of words in sentences
syntax
deriving meaning from sounds
semantics
very rudimentary language; pre-language used by earlier species
protolanguage
distinguish speech sounds (age)
4 months
sound segmentation (age)
7 months
infants prefer novelty/preference towards something that is novel and new
preferential looking
by exposure to a language, these infants will learn about the regularities of their speech communities (without explicit instruction)
statistical learning
ability to produce words
productive language
during first 6 months; first sounds made other than crying; almost exclusively vowels
cooing stage
5-6 months; spontaneously utters various sounds initially unrelated to household language
babbling stage
age 1 to 2; speak mostly in single words
one-word stage
begins at about 18 months; speak in 2 word statements
two-word stage
begins about 2.5 to 3 years; full grammatical sentences
sentence phase
if children are not exposed to any human language before a certain age, their language abilities never fully develop
sensitivity period
impairment in language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage
aphasia
difficulty with language production
Broca’s aphasia
difficulty with language comprehension
Wernicke’s aphasia
“fluent aphasia”
Wernicke’s aphasia
ex: know what you want to say, only able to say single words
Broca’s aphasia
ex: words just rolling out, don’t align with question
Wernicke’s aphasia
(7) environmental influences on language
culture, socioeconomic status, birth order, school, peers, TV, and parents
changes in adult speech patterns - apparently universal - when speaking to young children and infants
child-directed speech
ex: higher pitch, simpler sentences, etc
child-directed speech
the idea that we discover language rather than learn it, that language development is inborn
nativist view of language
innate, biologically based capacity to acquire language (Chomsky)
language-acquisition device (LAD)
nativist theories tend to focus more on ___ while environmental theories focus more on ___
nativist: grammar
environmental: vocabulary
2 reasons other primates do not use language at the level of humans
neurological (brain), anatomical (limitations of voice box)
We use language because we have been reinforced for doing so
Conditioning and Learning Theory
