L32 - Language Flashcards
What species uses generative language
Humans
Where is there more cortical folding - left or right hemisphere
Left
Broca vs Wernicke? What do lesions lead to
Broca (frontal lobe) - speech production, Lesions = lose ability to spepak
Wernicke (ftempporal lobe) - comprehension of language
Lesions = fluent speech but inability to use or understand more than the most basic nouns and verbs
Generating words: considering patterns needed to generate words and activate the ___ regions, near ____
motor regions near frontal cortex
Alexia (Word blindness) - what is damaged?
Symptoms?
Occipital lobe
Symptoms:
-Ability to write a passage but cannot read it
-Ability to recognise individual letters as a letter (N= Letter N, B = Letter B)
-Inability to associate indivudal letters with a sound (N= enn, B = bee)
-Inability to read a word as a whole
Word order (subject, object, verb) is different in different languages - it is superficial and arbitrary *There is also variety in how fixed or permissive word order is and there are examples of “non-configurational” languages that are context dependent e.g. Warlpiri (Abo language) in NT
Word order (subject, object, verb) is different in different languages - it is superficial and arbitrary *There is also variety in how fixed or permissive word order is and there are examples of “non-configurational” languages that are context dependent e.g. Warlpiri (Abo language) in NT
Word recursion - superficial or fundamnetal
Fundamental
Piraha language - don’t have words for colour (e.g. red or green), rather they talk about an object in the real world (e.g. leaf - which is green). No tense (life concerned with the present), no recursion. Highly adaptable - can convert language from spoken to whistle form.
Piraha language - don’t have words for colour (e.g. red or green), rather they talk about an object in the real world (e.g. leaf - which is green). No tense (life concerned with the present), no recursion. Highly adaptable - can convert language from spoken to whistle form.
Where is word order learnt
From where you came from (cultural evolution determines linguistic structure)
Founders effect
The loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population
There is a correlation between phonetic diversity and distance from central Africa
-The further away they are from Africa, the less diversity there is
Language gene (although lecturer doesn’t think is is a language gene) affecting speech is called?
FOXP2 - a DNA binding protein, different in humans and apes but doesn’t explain difference in language
You cannot just attribute a function to just one gene. You have to consider the interactions in the network, other things can be affected as well when FOXP2 is affected. E.g. Neurological defects, strange gait
You cannot just attribute a function to just one gene. You have to consider the interactions in the network, other things can be affected as well when FOXP2 is affected. E.g. Neurological defects, strange gait
