Language Flashcards
What’d Darwin believe about language?
Language is special; every human has a natural tendency to speak.
Creolization
People with different languages come together to form a new langauge
What would later generations do with creolized languages?
They would make them better with syntax and cohesiveness
Syntax
how words are combined to make meaningful and coherent phrases
Morphology
most basic meaningful units and how words are composed
Phonology
basic units of sound
How many phonemes are in the English language?
Around 44
What’s cool about listening to sounds in your language vs. languages you don’t know?
You mentally can seperete words.
How many words in Oxford Dictionary?
270,000
Recursion
Linguistic structures that repeat themselves with implied clauses
What did Noam Chomsky believe about acquiring language?
Nativism. All innate where it isn’t much learning, but more growth
How does Nativism fail to explain language?
An isolated kid won’t know language. Also, syntax must be learned
Brith to 4 months (language acquisition)
Babies prefer the sound of their own language.
What can babies do better than adults in language acquisition?
Distinguish phonemes
When does the babbling stage begin? What happens with deaf children?
6-7 months
12 months (language acquisition)
Some word order and actions/objects
When’s telegraphic speech phase?
16-18 months
When do people learn function morphemes (in, of, a, etc.)
18 months
When does learning language become difficult? What about sign language?
post-puberty. same for sign langauge
When’s the critical period for language acquisition?
around 2 to puberty
How do humans and animals differ in communication?
Animals have no phonology, morphology, syntax, etc.
How were primates at learning and being taught language?
They took very long to even learn a few words
Does language change the way you think? What did Darwin think?
Darwin thought maybe langauge is the thing that makes humans able to reason better than animals
Do false-belief tests show that language is necessary for theory of mind?
No. 15-month babies can know Sally & Anne
How does language affect thinking?
In some complex things that humans do (ex: higher numbers of math needs symbol system)
