Language

Question 1

What are the 4 theories of language and cognition?

Answer 1

1. Behaviorist: believed language are conditioned behavior
2. Nativist: they are rationalist so they believe language has to be innate
3. Materialists: they focus on what happens in the brain,
4. Interactionists: they focus on cue between environmental cues and innate biology
5. Universalism: thoughts determine language completely

Question 2

What is Piaget theory of language?

Answer 2

1. Believe that children could only talk once they were able to think a certain way, then they had to articulate their thoughts - and for that they needed language

Question 3

What was Vygotsky theory of language ?

Answer 3

• He believed language and thoughts are independent from each other. But merge together once you have a certain level os development

Question 4

What is linguistic determinism/ relativity?

Answer 4

There are two hypotheses for this theories

1. Weak: our language is influencing our thoughts
2. Strong: the idea that speakers of different languages use different cognitive processes that affect how they think ( Sapir-Whorfian hypothesis) - a tribe that didn’t have a grammatical lesson didn’t think about time in the same way we think about time.

Question 5

What is the nativist perspective of theory of development?

Answer 5

• Noam Chomsky: was the guy who came up with the theory
• Concept: the theory emphasises that people have the innate ability to speak it is a natural innate.
• Language acquisition device: all people have this device that allows them to learn any language - the idea is that all languages share the same basic elements
• critical period: the period of time that is the most important for a child to learn language, from birth - 9 years old

Question 6

What is the learning theory?

Answer 6

• language is a form of behavior that is learned through operant conditioning, therefore the belief is children are not born with anything they learn language as a behaviour
• Example of how kids say, mama: the mother reinforces it, however, this doesn’t explain how they say words they’ve never heard before.

Question 7

What is the interactionist approach theory?

Answer 7

• In order for children to learn language, they have the need to communicate with their parents.
• children are motivated by practicing with the parents

Question 8

What is the behaviourist theory of language?

Answer 8

• Skinner it the psychologist behind it- believes that children are trained via operant conditioning

Question 9

What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis?

Answer 9

• Belief that cognition and perception are determined by the language that one speaks.

Question 10

What is the relationship between the brain and language?

Answer 10

• Left hemisphere: hold 90% of people language
• Broca’s area: is important in speech production if damage people have a hard time producing the speech but can understand it -Broca’s aphasia
• Wernicke: helps understand the language when damage people cannot understand language -Wernick aphasia.
• Arcuate fasciculus: the two areas above are connected by these fibres -conduction aphasia is what happens when these fibres are damaged and affect speech production and understanding
  
  • agraphia: can’t write things
  • anomia: can’t name things
• recovery: language however is broken down into various aspects of our brains, which makes it easier for us if we damage a part of a brain to not have it completely destroy us
• corpus callosum: damage can disrupt communication, split-brain patients can’t communicate with the different sides of the brain
  
  • The left side of the brain: needed for language
  • The right side is needed for perception, action, attention
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