LANGUAGE Flashcards
evolution of language (phlongeny)
Proto languages
neurobiology
genetics
communication is
turn taking
geture (body language)
eye gaze control
touch
evolution of language was
relatively understudided during the last century, interest renewed in 1990’s because of new techniques (neuroimaging, genetics)
debate about the evolution of language pricipally concerns
language prodution accomplished via speech or sign communication
The first written (cuneiform) scripts appeared
4-500 years ago in mesopotamia
protolanguages represent
evolutionary precursors to modern notions of full/complete language (also called ursprache)
The three proprsed types of protolanguage are
1: gestual
2: musical
3: lexica;
if we assume that language is uniquely human then language evolved
around 60,000 years ago
the mechanism for infinte express is
recusrive syntax (phrase struture grammar)
humans can understand and produce an infinite number of senteces
language evolved from either
1: a visual/ manual communication system (pantomime, gesture, sign)
2: a vocal/ auditory (phonological) communication system (musical)
3: a vocal/ auditory communication system with shared lexicon but no syntax (Lexical)
gesture thepries are unable to explain
the mechanism by which transition to a completly vocal system occured
co speech gestures are
1: diectic e.g. pointing to something with finger extended
2: iconic e.g. using both hands to show size
non communication gestures
Can express different thoughts to what we intend to communicate
Are produced when others are not present e.g. when on the phone
Blind children gesture to sighted children and non sighted
Transition to spoken language: Corballis 2002 said we had to communicate in the dark yet
yet silence would be important to avoid predators
The two neurobiology mechanisms that have neen proposed to support gestual evolution is
cerebral lateriswation and mirror neurons
mirror neurons
a class of visomotor neurons that fire both when goal directed mouth or hand actions are both observed and executed
The arcuate fasciculus connects both the
Brocas and Wernkices areas
Study of those with aphasia found that
music perception does not engage the language system
music differs from language due to
its use of repetition
Like gestual theories of language evolution, musical protolanguage theories
struggle with the mechanims for the evolutionary transition to a spoken language
lexical protolanguage
inverts. replaces a number of asumptions made by other theories.
- a learned lexicon (but no syntax) - learning expression via the auditory vocial modality
children between the ages of 1 and two build
a lexicon that is essentially grammer free e.g. up for plz pick me up. children aquire syntax gradually to 8 years. comphrehnsion precedes this route
nicaraguan sign language
Created by deaf children on first entry into special education schools
As children entered the school they were exposed to LSN and a process of creoliziation occurred ( they developed grammar, including an inflectional verb morphology system and a noun classifier system
LSN sign language provided evidence that
1: a casual effect of language on thought
2: an innate ability to learn language (chomsky)
however they are language prepared humans - already have everyrhing needed to create fully syntacic language
none of the gestural, musical or lexical protolanguage theories can
fully account for the evolution of language. no justification to adhere to a strong position one way or another
Foxp2 = speech motor controol. mutations to this
disrupt oral and facial sequencing in humans
all genes are pleiotropic meaning
they infuelnce multiple, seemingly unrelated trait
if we assume that language is unique ot humans then the language genotype is
fixed
The diversity of the linguistics structure affects how people
perceive and think about the world
linguistic relativity
suggesting that the structure of a language influences its speakers’ worldview or cognition, and thus people’s perceptions are relative to their spoken language.
examples of linguistic relativity
Does how we perceive colour differ according to our language?
Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blue and darker blue. There is no ingle word for blue. Finnish does not have a colour term for purple
If we have no words ffor left or right or in front or behind, how do we know direction? Indigenous Aus languages use ‘compass’ headings
landmark use typically does not emerge before
5 years of age
landmark use typically does not emerge before
5 years of age
humans are not good at
walking in a straight line unless they have landmarks
About a third of human languages use only
absolute spatial coding
e.g. e..g compass bearings used by speakers of Guugu in North QLD e.g. uphill-downhill axis used by speakers in mexico
relative would say that the
fork is to the left of the spoon
absolute would say that the
fork is to the north of the spoon
intrinsitic would say the
fork is at the nose of the spoon
FoRs reflect spatial language use experiment
dutch particpants have same frame of reference - gave relative responses
the mexicans gave abolute responses
living in urban vs rural environments are associated with
using relative vs absolute FoR, yet there are eamples of rural communities with native languages using relative For
spatial cogntition and sign language
- instead of using spatial terms, established sign languages use siging space to represent spatial relations iconically
- In instanbul children under 5 whos hearing parents had not exposed them to sign language did not use gestures to convey spatial relations and perfomed significantly worse on a non linguistic spatial mappign task
linguistic relativity and time ENGLISH
English speakers tend to think of time horizontolly (they use front and back metophors)
e.g. we can look FORWARD to the good times ahead or think BACK to the days past and be glad they are BEHIND us
linguistic relativity and time MADARIN
mandarin speakers are more likely to think about time vertically e.g. they use spatial metaphors to talk about the order of days, weeks ect. @knowldege handed DOWN to future generations
linguistic relativity english vs manderin
They showed different RT patterns: both showed a cononicality effect on the horitzonal axis, but only mandarin speakers showed a canoicality efect on tthe vertical axis
speakers of languages without strong future tenses tnd to
be more responsible abotu planning for the future
language infleunces our perception but
to a limited extent
human infants arrive in the world with strong predispositions to
perceive and think in certain ways to think of both space and time as a continuem
More than 65 percent of the worlds population are
biligual
the three most spoken languages in the world are
chinese, spanish and english
evidence suggest that bilingualism influences
academic performance
- children in primary school bilingual programs with fewer hours of ENglish outperformed comparable children in ENglish in Victorian statewide testing
early studoes on biligualism in children reported superior perfomrnace in monolingual children
these studies were methologically flawed:
- failed to control for age, gender and socioeconomic status
- testing was typically condicted solely in one language
- bilingual competency/proficiency was not established
- later reivews showed an effect soley in verbal intelligence
in the first controlled study, bilingual children outperformed monolingual children in non verbal intelligence
It is true that language and literacy development in monolingual childrne is
better in early years
- receptive vocab in early langiage is worse in biliguals
- morphosyntacic acquisition is worse in bilinguals
bilingual children catch up - why the early delay
bilingual children typically receive less input in each of their 2 languages than mono children and this input is seldom equally balanced between them
- the delay is a function of the exposure to each language and their relative complexity
everday speaking of more than one language results in the precociou development
of the other cognitive abilities
metalinguistic ability
allows children to analyse linguistic representations to extract general grammatical rules and state them explicitly and control attention to different aspects of a sentence or a word such as phonological form or its meaning
syntaic awerness (biligual children)
bilingual children are better at identifying gramatically incorrect sentences
phonological awerness (bilingial children)
bilingual children are better at phoneme segmentation tasks requring them to @spread out@ and count the soundes of a given word but this varies according to whether L2 is phonologically simpler than L1 (Italian, spanish)
measuring metalinguistic awerness in bilgual infants
- bilingual infants (4-5) months orient their gaze faster to an unfamiliar language being spoken and look longer at silent video clips of an unfamilar language being spoken
bilingual inhibitory control
- according to alternative specfic selection models both languages are active but biliguals develop the ability to selectively attend to candiates in the intended language context e.g. are better able to focus attention on an intended response
Theory of mind - bilingual
bilingual children do this better - they are exposed to envrionment where they are aware that there are different languages around
theory of mind - bilingual
bilingual children outperform monolingual on false beleif tasks
is it due to executive processing? or sociolinguistice awerness
