Langauge (Ch 8) Flashcards
Human Language definition
Open and symbolic communication system that has rules of grammar and allows its users to express abstract and distant ideas.
Open means that the system is dynamic and free to changes
Symbolic means that there is no real connection between a sound and the meaning or idea associated with it
Over 7000 human languages
All are organizes in a hierarchical structure
Morphemes
Smallest units of meaning in a language
Represented by basic consonant and vowel sounds (phonemes)
Phonemes
Basic consonant and vowel sounds
Make up morphemes
Languages vary in number of phonemes, with some having as few as 15 and others having more than 80.
English has about 40, which combined can create up to 100,000 morphemes
Semantics
The meaning of words and combinations of words in language
Syntax
The rules for arranging words and symbols in sentences (or parts of sentences)
Eg. “Shirin juggled the balls” or “the balls were juggled by shirin”
Both have the same semantic meaning, but different syntax
Grammar
The entire set of rules for combining symbols and sounds to speak and write a particular language
Includes subject-verb agreement, plurals, and use of possessives.
Hierarchical structure of language
Phonemes Morphemes Words Phrases Sentence
Pragmatic
The practical aspects of language that are required for effective and appropriate communication in many different situations
Knowing how to take turns in a conversation or how to speak differently to different people
Protolanguage
Aka Pre-language
Rudimentary language used by homo erectus and homo neanderthalensis.
Differs from human language in that it is thought to consist of words without syntax
Homo sapiens were first to use grammatical and syntactical language less than 150,000 years ago
Difference between Human language and animal communication
Human language can represent ideas that are not tied to the present moment or location
Animal communication focuses on immediate events related to mating, survival, and social identity, and usually prompts an immediate response from listener
Evolution of brain and language intertwined (need bigger working memory and ability for abstract thought)
The more complex the group is, the greater the need for its members to communicate.
Wernicke’s area
Located in left hemisphere and is associated with language comprehension
Develops before Broca’s area, which can be seen by the fact that children understand speech before they can actually speak
Broca’s area
Area in left hemisphere of brain associated with speech production
Develops after wernicke’s area
Cooing
- first strange of language development
- consists of uttering repeated vowel sounds
- occurs during first 6 months
- universal: vary very little from hearing to deaf babies or among babies around the world.
Babbling
- overlaps with cooing
- starts around 5 or 6 months
- infants experimentation with complex range of phonemes, including consonants and vowels
-before babies brains have been fully shaped by their native language that can make many more sounds than their parents
One-word utterances
- begins around 12 months
- descend from protolanguage
- children learn words spoken at the ends of sentences first
- different structures for different languages, so children of different cultures may speak different forms of words first
- due to recency effect
Two-word utterances
- starting around 18 months
- eg. “My ball”
Sentence phase
- starts around 2.5-3 years old
- 3rd stage of language development
- begin speaking in fully grammatical sentences
- transition occurs very quickly
-girls outperform boys in the acquisition of language skills - especially vocabulary
Sensitive Period
- if children are not exposed to language before a certain age, their language skills never fully develop
- sensitive period ends at age 12 (after neural pruning and wiring have reached their peak, and plasticity of neural connection becomes less flexible)
- eg. Of Genie, who was diagnosed as mildly retarded and then neglected/hidden by father. At 13.5 years of age, social worker thought she was 6, and only knew 2 or 3 words. Brain scans showed activity in right hemisphere, indicating that left hemisphere requires stimulation during sensitive period.
Theories of language acquition
- all humans learn spoken language, even those that are deaf
- this suggests that we have an innate, genetically based structures in our brains that enable us to learn language
- different theories emphasize different contributions of nature and nurture
Socio-cultural theories of language
- children who hear more total and unique words, and more complex sentences, develops their language faster and more richly than others
- culture, socio-economic status, birth order, school, peers, television, and parents influence language development
- children of welfare families heard approximately 32million fewer words in a year than a professional family
- children of professional families hear more encouragement words than did children from welfare families
Child-directed speech
- babies try to imitate speech sounds they hear
- adults speak in a higher pitch, raise and lower the volume of their voice, use simpler sentence structures, emphasize the here and now, and use emotion to communicate their messages
Mirror neurons
- cluster of brain cells that facilitate social learning and imitation
- also fires when an individual performs some task but also when an individual observes that task
Sign language
- use visual input and manual output
- recruit same left hemisphere language areas used in spoken languages
- also uses regions of right hemisphere involved in spatial cognition
- degree of right hemisphere activation in signers is strongly influenced by early life experience, since individuals who learned ASL before puberty show much more right hemisphere involvement than those who learned after puberty
Conditioning and Learning Theory
- Skinner believed that language is like any other behaviour - exists because it it reinforced and shaped.
- proposed that we speak because we have been reinforced to do so, not in order to convey a feeling or idea
- parents reaction has a reinforcing effect, making the child more likely to say that word (or not)
- skinner explains language development in terms of shaping, successive approximation, and reinforcement
