Chapter 9: Language and Thought

Question 1

___ and ___ are distinctly human

Answer 1

language and music

Question 2

communication specific to homo sapiens

Answer 2

human language

Question 3

human language is ___ and ___

Answer 3

open and symbolic

Question 4

we are constantly creating new words to our vocabulary

Answer 4

open

Question 5

can say the word Chester, but Chester doesn’t need to be here to know what it represents

Answer 5

symbolic

Question 6

smallest distinctive sound unit (not redundant with letters)

Answer 6

phonemes

Question 7

ex: Tough - Thought - Dough (ough)

Answer 7

phoneme

Question 8

smallest unit that carries meaning; word or part of a word (prefix or suffix)

Answer 8

morphemes

Question 9

ex: kick- word in and of itself is informative
kicker - changes from a verb to a noun

Answer 9

morphemes

Question 10

system of rules that facilitate communication

Answer 10

grammar

Question 11

rules governing order of words in sentences

Answer 11

syntax

Question 12

deriving meaning from sounds

Answer 12

semantics

Question 13

very rudimentary language; pre-language used by earlier species

Answer 13

protolanguage

Question 14

distinguish speech sounds (age)

Answer 14

4 months

Question 15

sound segmentation (age)

Answer 15

7 months

Question 16

infants prefer novelty/preference towards something that is novel and new

Answer 16

preferential looking

Question 17

by exposure to a language, these infants will learn about the regularities of their speech communities (without explicit instruction)

Answer 17

statistical learning

Question 18

ability to produce words

Answer 18

productive language

Question 19

during first 6 months; first sounds made other than crying; almost exclusively vowels

Answer 19

cooing stage

Question 20

5-6 months; spontaneously utters various sounds initially unrelated to household language

Answer 20

babbling stage

Question 21

age 1 to 2; speak mostly in single words

Answer 21

one-word stage

Question 22

begins at about 18 months; speak in 2 word statements

Answer 22

two-word stage

Question 23

begins about 2.5 to 3 years; full grammatical sentences

Answer 23

sentence phase

Question 24

if children are not exposed to any human language before a certain age, their language abilities never fully develop

Answer 24

sensitivity period

Question 25

impairment in language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage

Answer 25

aphasia

Question 26

difficulty with language production

Answer 26

Broca’s aphasia

Question 27

difficulty with language comprehension

Answer 27

Wernicke’s aphasia

Question 28

“fluent aphasia”

Answer 28

Wernicke’s aphasia

Question 29

ex: know what you want to say, only able to say single words

Answer 29

Broca’s aphasia

Question 30

ex: words just rolling out, don’t align with question

Answer 30

Wernicke’s aphasia

Question 31

(7) environmental influences on language

Answer 31

culture, socioeconomic status, birth order, school, peers, TV, and parents

Question 32

changes in adult speech patterns - apparently universal - when speaking to young children and infants

Answer 32

child-directed speech

Question 33

ex: higher pitch, simpler sentences, etc

Answer 33

child-directed speech

Question 34

the idea that we discover language rather than learn it, that language development is inborn

Answer 34

nativist view of language

Question 35

innate, biologically based capacity to acquire language (Chomsky)

Answer 35

language-acquisition device (LAD)

Question 36

nativist theories tend to focus more on ___ while environmental theories focus more on ___

Answer 36

nativist: grammar
environmental: vocabulary

Question 37

2 reasons other primates do not use language at the level of humans

Answer 37

neurological (brain), anatomical (limitations of voice box)

Question 38

We use language because we have been reinforced for doing so

Answer 38

Conditioning and Learning Theory