Language Flashcards
Language
Set of rules used to communicate
Can be spoken or written/signed
Hockett’s universal characteristics of language
(6)
Semanticity: Language conveys meaning
Arbitrariness: Signal doesn’t resemble what is represents (is an arbitrary symbol system)
Flexibility and naming: Referents have labels that can be changed
Duality if patterning: Signal can be broken down into smaller units
Productivity: We can create infinite number of new meaningful utterances from a finite number of meaningful signals
Displacement: We can communicate about things that aren’t present
Behaviourist theory of language acquisition
Language is acquired the same way as any other learned behav (reinforcement and gradual shaping of babbling)
Problems:
- Children say things they’ve never heard
- Children don’t say things they hear a lot
Innatist theory
Poverty of stimulus (Chomsky)
Principles of language are inborn, not learned (A bioprogram that develops once child is exposed to language)
Poverty of stimulus: There is insufficient data for children to learn rules of grammar based on exp alone
1) Not all language heard by children are complete well-formed utterances
2) Children come to understand and use sentences that are never heard in their learning enviro
3) Children learn grammar despite receiving little negative evidence
Universal Grammar (UG)
Parameter setting
(innatist theory)
UG: Considers the principles, elements, and rules that underlie all possible human languages to be innate
- Task of acquiring language is a task of parameter setting: identifying which setting of each parameter applied to their language
Language bioprogram hypothesis (Bickerton)
(Innatist theory)
Children have an innate grammar that is available biologically if the language input is insufficient
Deaf children not exposed to sign language will develop their own system that incorporates many of the formal features of the language
Pidgin
Creole
(Innatist theory)
Pidgin: Quasi-language that doesn’t contain full grammar
- Adults will use if there’s no common language
Creole: Combo of 2 preexisting languages
- Children of adults who use pidgin will typically generate this
Phoneme
Smallest unit of sound that makes a diff to meaning
- Can be consonants or vowels
Distinctive features in phonemes:
Voicing
Place of articulation
Manner of articulation
Voicing:
- Voiced: When vocal cords vibrate (/b/)
- Unvoived: When vocal cords don’t vibrate (/p/)
- Voice Onset Time: When vocal cords start to vibrate
Place of articulation: Where air flow is altered to make speech sound
Manner of articulation: How air flow is altered
- Stops: Blocking then releasing air (/p/)
- Fricative: Air is forced thru narrow passage (/f/)
- Nasals: Air is passed thru nasal cavity (/m/)
Lack of invariance problem
(Phonemes)
Phonemes are different depending on the context they’re in
- Phonemes always coarticulated
- Accent, speed, etc all affect speech stimulus
Segmentation problem
(Phonemes)
We clearly hear separated words but there aren’t any clear breaks between words in acoustic signal
The McGurk effect
(Phonemes)
We use vision to help us hear
- Understanding language creates an avg between visual and audio inputs
Categorical perception
(Phonemes)
Phonemic boundary: Where one phoneme becomes another phoneme
- We use categorical perception for phonemes
- Categorize base on VOT (vocal onset time)
- Ex: /ba/ and /pa/ only differ in VOT intervals
Morpheme
Smallest unit of meaningful unit in language
- Ex: Snowman has 2 morphemes
Free morphemes
Bound morphemes
Free: Have meaning on their own
Bound: Contribute to word meaning but aren’t words themselves
- Ex: “s” to add plurality
