cognitive and language and bilingualism

Question 1

define concepts.

Answer 1

fundamental building blocks of thought, use features.

Question 2

state how concepts are useful.

Answer 2

• enable us to generalise from past experiences to new observations
• conceptual hierarchies - economy of representation
• allows us to predict new outcomes

Question 3

state probabilistic views of concepts.

Answer 3

• no defining features, only characteristics ones.
• concepts represented by prototypes, poor exemplars share fewer or lesser-known features.
• lack of clear boundaries.

Question 4

name the main problem with prototypically.

Answer 4

• ad-hoc categories:
• no obvious prototype or better/worse exemplars.
• conceptual combination

Question 5

describe the ‘theory-theory’ theory.

Answer 5

knowledge-based.

- based on peoples goals, assumptions, understanding and experiences.

Question 6

give evidence that language and thought are closely linked, but not the same.

Answer 6

• prelingual babies show evidence of conceptual categories (phoneme discrimination) and so can tell the difference between things without language.

Question 7

Sausune is the founder of…

Answer 7

semiotics (arbitratiness)

- connection between signifier and signified is fundamentally arbitrary.

Question 8

give evidence that language is arbitrary.

Answer 8

experimental tests on nonsense words.

- booba and Kiki effect.

Question 9

give examples of patterns in certain sound meaning connections across thousands of languages.

Answer 9

‘small’ = i , ‘full’ = p or b

Question 10

give an example of a free morpheme and a bound morpheme.

Answer 10

free = 'dog'
boud = 'dogs'

Question 11

what can be concluded from the ‘wug’ test.

Answer 11

• 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.

Question 12

define decomposability in relation to language.

Answer 12

words can be broken down into meaningful pieces (morphemes) , children acquire this morphological system and can apply it to novel words (systematically)

Question 13

define the mental lexicon.

Answer 13

• 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.

Question 14

describe the difference between full listing (words as wholes) and full praising (words decomposed).

Answer 14

full listing maximises computational efficiency and minimises storage efficiency, whereas full praising maximises storage efficiency and minimises computational efficiency.
= both is good!!

Question 15

idiosyncratic words must be … , fully transparent words can be …

Answer 15

… stored, … computed.

Question 16

name strategies to maximise efficiency.

Answer 16

• techniques
• constructions
• influences

Question 17

describe the expressive part of language, including adv and disadvantages.

Answer 17

• 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.

Question 18

describe the efficient part of language, including adv and disadv.

Answer 18

• principle of parsimony = avoid needlessly multiplying entities, more efficient.

Question 19

give an example of too much efficiency leading to ambiguity.

Answer 19

‘fluffle’

- “the fluffle is attacking the fluffle” - which animal is attacking??

Question 20

what is meany by linguistic economy?

Answer 20

each language strikes a different balance (expressive and efficiency).

Question 21

describe the garden paths sentences.

Answer 21

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

Question 22

true or false: people don’t bother caring if the sentence makes sense, if it subjectivity makes sense to them its good enough!

Answer 22

true !

Question 23

give reasons why language is complex for monolinguals to start.

Answer 23

• age acquired
• context
• type of learning

Question 24

what is the difference between cognates and interlingual homographs?

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

give ‘visual’ evidence relating to whether bilingualism is connected or separate.

Answer 25

• bilinguals were slower for interlingual homographs, implying they had to access both languages.

Question 26

(monolinguals / bilinguals) experienced interference when listening to words that sound the same but have different meanings.

Answer 26

both!

Question 27

true or false: speaking two languages does not interfere with signed language.

Answer 27

false - bilinguals were slower when the words were unrelated and the signs were similar than monolinguals.

Question 28

define joint activation.

Answer 28

languages are active even when only one is being use.

= bi-directional influence of between languages.

Question 29

language faculty priorities … not efficiency.

Answer 29

communication!

Question 30

define code-switching.

Answer 30

switching between languages, especially mid-conversation or mid-sentence.
- bilinguals dynamically adapt to the demands of the current context.

Question 31

describe the distinction between top-down and bottom-up processes in relation to psycholinguistics of code-switching.

Answer 31

• bilinguals take advantage of priming, but also control their language switching depending on task demands.

Question 32

descrive verbal fluency effects of code-switching.

Answer 32

• name words starting with a particular letter, when bilinguals did this in their L2 first they were slower than doing it in their L1.

Question 33

state bilingual advantages.

Answer 33

• 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.

Question 34

bilinguals children are better at:

Answer 34

• identifying correct grammar in odd sentences

- finding embedded figures

Question 35

bilingual adults are better at:

Answer 35

• stroop task

- Simon task

Question 36

in relation to memory, bilinguals have an adv on the Simon task which requires …
and no adv on pointing task.

Answer 36

working memory.

Question 37

state disadvantages of bilingualism.

Answer 37

• 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

Question 38

give a reason why bilinguals have an adv for phonological fluency.

Answer 38

effortful production requires monitoring and controlling attention.