Language Flashcards
What is language?
a system that relates sounds (or gestures) to meaning
What are the four components of language?
- symbolism
- structured & meaningful
- displacement
- generativity
What are the four components of language?
- symbolism
- structured & meaningful
- displacement
- generativity
phonemes
the smallest unit of sound
/p/ and /b/
phoneme
the smallest unit of sound
/p/ and /b/
morpheme
the smallest unit of meaning
prefixes, suffixes, roots
syntax
rules for word combinations
Stage of Language Development:
0 months
crying
Stage of Language Development:
1 month
cooing
Stage of Language Development:
6 months
babbling
Stage of Language Development:
1 year
patterned speech
Stage of Language Development:
18 months
naming explosion
Stage of Language Development:
2 years
combining words
When do infants start to say their first words?
10-15 months
behaviorist theory of language development
we learn language through reinforcement
nativist theory of language development
children are born with innate mental structures that guide their acquisition of language
What aspects of language support the nativist theory?
- linguistic universals
- children apply rules of grammar to novel words
- language is learned more easily in the critical period
- animals don’t learn language as successfully as humans
intersectionalist theory of language development
innate capacity for language interacts with experience
“Motherese”
What is the critical period?
as you get older, it becomes harder to learn a new language
What happened to Genie?
suffered extreme child abuse and was forbidden to speak –> never fully developed language skills
categorical speech perception
the phenomenon of perceiving speech sounds as two distinct categories instead of on a continuum
True or False:
We think of /ba/ and /da/ as two distinct sounds.
True
Voice Onset Time (VOT)
interval between articulatory release and onset of voicing
As VOT ____, /ba/ sound becomes closer to ____
increases, /pa/
True or False:
Japanese infants who do not have exposure to the English /r/ and English /l/ can hear these sounds.
False
The role of experience is important here. Japanese infants can only hear the Japanese /r/
What is the phenomenon of perceptual narrowing?
As an infant gets older, their language abilities become more speciailized based on exposure
True or False:
A 1 year-old can differentiate between English and Salish.
False
After 6-8 months, a child’s language abilities become too specialized for their native language.
What is a benefit of perceptual narrowing?
infants who are faster to tune into speech sounds of their native language are likely to have larger vocabularies by age 2
What happened in the conditioned head turn response study?
infants were conditioned to detect a sound change in language due to their head turning reflex
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about
strong version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
thoughts and behavior are determined by language
weak version of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
thoughts and behavior are influenced by language
What happened in the masculine & feminine language study?
German speakers came up with more masculine adjectives for “key”
Spanish speakers came up with more feminine adjectives for “key”
What happened in the Russian blues experiment?
Russian speakers were faster to color-match in cross categories than within-categories
No difference with English speakers
