language Flashcards
language
a shared symbolic system for purposeful communications
symbolic: units to reference something else
shared: common among a group of people
purposeful: to communicate and translate thoughts
is human language unique
some animals communicate very basically - ants use chemical signals through antenna, bees use body movements, some monkeys have basic vocalization styles
however, human language can generate an infinite variety of sequences in novel ways
environment and language
vocabulary is shaped by the environment
morphology decreases with languages spoken by more people
lexical tones are partly determined by climate
gender inequality and language
countries with gendered languages experience higher average gender inequality
changing language = making changes in society
language differences men and women
women use more adjectives and first person plurals than men (we need to hurry) and use a ‘reverse accent’ more than men (end statements like questions)
aphasia
impaired language function from brain injury
includes:
brocas aphasia
wernickes aphasia
conduction aphasia
broca’s aphasia
non fluent/expressive aphasia
- intact language comprehension
- impaired speech production and articulation
speech is halting and difficult to produce (mostly nouns and verbs)
writing is typically also affected in a similar way
depending on the damage, impairments can range from deficits in producing certain words to problems with generating all forms of language
patient Tan
first example of Broca’s aphasia
could only speak one syllable (tan)
still tried to communicate via gestures, tone, inflection
large lesion in the left inferior frontal gyrus (broca’s area)
broca’s area
large lesion in the left inferior frontal gyrus
wernicke’s area
posterior superior temporal lobe - wernicke’s aphasia usually happens in the left hemisphere
wernicke’s aphasia
damage to the posterior superior temporal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere
affects both written and spoken language comprehension
ability to produce language, but the content is neither meaningful nor comrehensible - “word salad”
paraphasias (3 types)
verbal: substituting a word with something semantically related (something that shares meaning with intended word - ex. swapping terms brother and sister (both mean sibling))
phonemic (literal): swapping or adding speech sounds - shares sounds with intended word
neologisms: using a made up word
conduction aphasia
damage to the neural pathway between Broca’s and Wernicke’s area
production and comprehension intact
repetition is impaired - load dependent
lateralization and language
aphasias indicate that language is left lateralized
lateralization is not fully understood and isn’t linked to handedness - data shows that up to 70% of left handed people demonstrate left hemisphere language dominance
what type of language does the right hemisphere support?
broader aspects of language like prosody and pitch to convey intonation, mood, attitude, gestural communication
what do aphasias show us
laterlization of language and division in language capacities
- acquisition and comphrehension
nuturists vs naturists view of language aquisition
nuturist view: no, we acquire language through the same mechanisms as skill learning
naturist view: yes, we are born with the innate capacity to learn language
behaviourist view of language acquisition
language acquisition is skill or associative learning
language is explicitly trained through trial and error reinforcement and modelling other people
chomsky’s opinion on behaviourism
- language is too complex and acquired too rapidly for a behaviourist view of language learning
- not stimulus dependent
- not determined by reinforcement
- learned rapidly
- we can understand and speak sentences we have not heard before
the innateness hypothesis
grammar and syntactic structure is separate from semantic meaning and we are born with principles of grammar
chomsky’s three examples for how we are born with principles of grammar
Language Acquisition Device (LAD): abstracted entity that supports language
Universal grammar: a part of the LAD that includes rules for all languages
children only need to learn language specific aspects to put “on top” of universal grammar
convergence
support for noam chomsky’s innateness hypothesis
- children are exposed to different learning situations yet converge on the same grammar
uniformity
support for noam chomsky’s innateness hypothesis
- children follow generally the same stages of language development
poverty of stimulus argument
support for noam chomsky’s innateness hypothesis
the linguistic environment of a child is not sufficient enough to allow that child to learn a language via reinforcement, rules or imitation
a child doesn’t hear enough language samples to acquire all language, doesn’t have enough opportunities to learn from mistakes
means there must be something innate about language
