Language Flashcards
What is language?
A shared symbolic system for purposeful communication
- Symbolic: There are units to reference something else
- Shared: It is common among a group of people
- Purposeful: To communicate and translate thoughts
Lexical tones are partly determined by…
climate
* Tonal languages spoken in warmer climates
When does morphology/complexity of a language decrease?
Morphology (complexity) decreases with languages spoken by more people
What is Aphasia?
Impaired language function, usually from brain injury
What is Broca’s aphasia?
Expressive aphasia
* Intact language comprehension
* Impaired speed production and articulation
- First described in Patient Tan
- 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
- Impairments range from deficits in
producing certain words à problems
generating all forms of language - Depends on amount of damage to Broca’s
area
What is Wernicke’s aphasia?
- Posterior superior temporal lobe
damage - Typically left hemisphere
- Language commonly in left hemisphere
- Written and spoken comprehension is
affected - Language content is not meaningful nor
comprehensible - “Word salad
Verbal Paraphasia
substituting a word with something semantically-related
* Shares meaning with intended word
* Swapping term brother with sister
Phonemic (literal) Paraphasia
swapping or adding speech sounds
* Shares sounds with intended word
* Calling Crab Salad: Sad Cralad
Neologisms Paraphasia
using a made-up word
* Mansplain
What is Conduction aphasia?
Neural pathway from between Broca’s and Wernicke’s area
* Reminds us language depends on a network of brain regions
* Speech production and comprehension intact
* Impaired repetition
* Load dependent
How is language split in the brain
Language is often considered left lateralized
Broader aspects of language are supported by the right hemisphere
* Prosody and pitch to convey intonation, mood, attitude, gestural
communication and overall comprehension
What does the right hemisphere do for language?
Right hemisphere seems to be important for higher-order
non-literal language use
* Example: Speech prosody (the music of language)
* Evidence: Right-hemisphere lesions disrupt ability to
interpret and express prosody of speech
* Problems understanding the emotion of a phrase
* Problems understanding sarcastic speech
What is the Nuturist or behaviourist view of language acquisition?
- Language acquisition is skill or associative learning
- Explicit training of language
- Trial and error reinforcement as well as
modelling other people shapes language
What is the Chomsky and Naturist views of language acquisition?
- Language is NOT
- stimulus dependent
- determined by reinforcement
- Language IS
- complex and acquired rapidly
- allows us understand and speak what we
have not heard before
What is the The innateness hypothesis?
Grammar, syntactic structure, is separate from semantic meaning and cognition
“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”
- We are born with principles of grammar
- Language Acquisition Device (LAD): 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
