cognitive and language and bilingualism Flashcards
define concepts.
fundamental building blocks of thought, use features.
state how concepts are useful.
- enable us to generalise from past experiences to new observations
- conceptual hierarchies - economy of representation
- allows us to predict new outcomes
state probabilistic views of concepts.
- no defining features, only characteristics ones.
- concepts represented by prototypes, poor exemplars share fewer or lesser-known features.
- lack of clear boundaries.
name the main problem with prototypically.
- ad-hoc categories:
- no obvious prototype or better/worse exemplars.
- conceptual combination
describe the ‘theory-theory’ theory.
knowledge-based.
- based on peoples goals, assumptions, understanding and experiences.
give evidence that language and thought are closely linked, but not the same.
- prelingual babies show evidence of conceptual categories (phoneme discrimination) and so can tell the difference between things without language.
Sausune is the founder of…
semiotics (arbitratiness)
- connection between signifier and signified is fundamentally arbitrary.
give evidence that language is arbitrary.
experimental tests on nonsense words.
- booba and Kiki effect.
give examples of patterns in certain sound meaning connections across thousands of languages.
‘small’ = i , ‘full’ = p or b
give an example of a free morpheme and a bound morpheme.
free = 'dog' boud = 'dogs'
what can be concluded from the ‘wug’ test.
- children learn morphology as they acquire language.
- children learn language from imitating.
- children must apply ‘wug’ to new words e.g ‘wug man’
- wug test showed that children successfully apply morphological rules to novel words.
define decomposability in relation to language.
words can be broken down into meaningful pieces (morphemes) , children acquire this morphological system and can apply it to novel words (systematically)
define the mental lexicon.
- goal is to maximise efficiency
- allocate our mental resources to either storage or computation.
- if we maximise efficiency in one, we don’t have as much left for the other.
describe the difference between full listing (words as wholes) and full praising (words decomposed).
full listing maximises computational efficiency and minimises storage efficiency, whereas full praising maximises storage efficiency and minimises computational efficiency.
= both is good!!
idiosyncratic words must be … , fully transparent words can be …
… stored, … computed.
name strategies to maximise efficiency.
- techniques
- constructions
- influences
describe the expressive part of language, including adv and disadvantages.
- language has a different word for every unique event, person, action etc in the world.
adv = minimal room for misunderstanding
disadv = overloaded with unnecessary detail.
describe the efficient part of language, including adv and disadv.
- principle of parsimony = avoid needlessly multiplying entities, more efficient.
give an example of too much efficiency leading to ambiguity.
‘fluffle’
- “the fluffle is attacking the fluffle” - which animal is attacking??
what is meany by linguistic economy?
each language strikes a different balance (expressive and efficiency).
describe the garden paths sentences.
the default reading of the ambiguous section doesn’t turn out to be the right reading by the end of the sentence.
- requires reader to reanalyse (parse) the sentence for the correct meaning.
e. g Anna and Baby
true or false: people don’t bother caring if the sentence makes sense, if it subjectivity makes sense to them its good enough!
true !
give reasons why language is complex for monolinguals to start.
- age acquired
- context
- type of learning
what is the difference between cognates and interlingual homographs?
congates are the same meaning of a word in more than one language, whereas interlingual homographs are different meanings of the same word in different languages.
give ‘visual’ evidence relating to whether bilingualism is connected or separate.
- bilinguals were slower for interlingual homographs, implying they had to access both languages.
(monolinguals / bilinguals) experienced interference when listening to words that sound the same but have different meanings.
both!
true or false: speaking two languages does not interfere with signed language.
false - bilinguals were slower when the words were unrelated and the signs were similar than monolinguals.
define joint activation.
languages are active even when only one is being use.
= bi-directional influence of between languages.
language faculty priorities … not efficiency.
communication!
define code-switching.
switching between languages, especially mid-conversation or mid-sentence.
- bilinguals dynamically adapt to the demands of the current context.
describe the distinction between top-down and bottom-up processes in relation to psycholinguistics of code-switching.
- bilinguals take advantage of priming, but also control their language switching depending on task demands.
descrive verbal fluency effects of code-switching.
- name words starting with a particular letter, when bilinguals did this in their L2 first they were slower than doing it in their L1.
state bilingual advantages.
- executive function/ inhibitory control - must manage two competing language systems.
- TOM - bilingual children realise that people speak different languages.
- memory - bilinguals have to remember multiple words for the same/similar concepts.
bilinguals children are better at:
- identifying correct grammar in odd sentences
- finding embedded figures
bilingual adults are better at:
- stroop task
- Simon task
in relation to memory, bilinguals have an adv on the Simon task which requires …
and no adv on pointing task.
working memory.
state disadvantages of bilingualism.
- long history of suppressing and discouraging bilingualism.
- bilingual children know fewer vocab in each language
- slower at lexical retrieval
- less semantic fluency
= due to interference of other language
give a reason why bilinguals have an adv for phonological fluency.
effortful production requires monitoring and controlling attention.
