Language Flashcards
What is Language
The principle means by which we acquire and express knowledge
Communication system
tool of thought
Symbolic thought
Signs can be arbitrary
Characteristics of Language
Convey meaning
Arbitrary
Displacement
Productivity
Arbitrary
Nothing inherent about the words that symbolize
Displacement
Allows to move ourselves to different times and places
Productivity
We make new words all the time
Language is key for survival
Worth risk for choking
Animal communication
Convey meaning and arbitrary–
No displacement or productivity
Speech acts
Function and reason
Intentions Commands, questions, commitments, assertions
Indirect speech acts context help
Propositional Content (Meaning)
Meaning
Thematic - Structure a;; together theme
Phonemes
Basic sounds that make up language
- Adults can produce 100
- English 45-46
- 200 Around
Morphemes
Basic units of meaning
Context
Words never in isolation
Helps us figure out what the word is/means
Babies
Can not produce phonemes– learn dependent on culture and language
Swinney Experience
Determine the role of context in word understanding
Start ambiguous - lexical decision test
Both meanings were activated
Changed where task was given, wait words, spy no longer activated, context ruled out interpretations
Syntax
Grammar
word order, structure, organization
Syntax and chomsky
Fought behaviourism
Phrase grammar structure
Transformational grammar
Fought behaviourism
we have an innate ability to learn language/grammar structure
Phrase structure Grammar
Structure/organization, how words are supposed to be used in a sentence.
Order will give new meaning. Effects how we understand sentence.
Surface level grammar.
Transformational Grammar
How do we transform deep meaning into surface stuff, vice versa.
Sentence can mean multiple things
Semantics
Assigning case roles
E.g. After the musician had played the piano was taken off the stage
Speech perception
Difference between auditory and visual sensory register
Role of context and expectations
Phonetic restoration
Spoken language we understand sounds discontinuous–is not!!
Phonetic Restoration
we often may not say all the phonemes in a word, our mind can often fill them out, automatic, take context in entirety
Maximus rules for effective conversations:
Quantity
Quality
Relation
Manner
Violations in these = Conversational implicature
Quantity
Contributing as much info as necessary
Quality
Being truthful
Relation
Being relevant – are you steering it a different way completely?
Manner
Being clear in communication, avoiding ambiguity
Conversation - Common ground view
Build common representation
not 2 individuals
Shared knowledge
Mutually constructed representation
Conversation phases
Presentation phase
Acceptance/Acknowledgement phase - Listener has resp. to say if they understand
Types of Acceptance/Acknowledgement
Continued attention
Initiation of relevant next contribution
Acknowledgement - Nodding
Demonstration - Give clear example. LIke this??
Display - Repeating what they said
Tangrams Research
6 trials
Recorded Conversations
As trial go on, # of words used per turn decreased, number of speaking turns per figure decreased
Bransford & Franks
Suggestive Integration of ideas
Integration
Sentences can have one or more ideas in it – we are terrible at knowing exactly which sentence they saw, we integrate idea– do not remember verbatim
Integration
Integrate ideas into a single representing
Loss of details, gist is retained IS what matters to us
Understanding themes
Increasing comprehension
Affects memory
Trade-off
Presuppositions
Inferences about something that assumed or presupposed to be true
Inferences
Can be correct or not
Many factors affect how inference is made
Logical or pragmatic
Make our life easier
Logical Inference
Demanded by assertion, if there is a storm I don’t go to work
Pragmatic inference
Invited by assertion, use sum, logic-based, eg. some of the students passed the exam
Babbling
Phonemes
Echoic responses by adults
Adults response to baby utterances
helpful to baby’s language development
Not just reinforcement
Assign meaning
Generalize, learn commonalities and difference between items
Whorfian Hypothesis
Language affects how we perceive the world
Inuit words for snow -> many different
Environment shapes language
Strong and weak versions
Northern Russia - not all words for colour
Restricts what you perceive iff you do not have words for it
Bilingualism
Code-switching: Easier to convey thought
Grammar - can be difficult for bilinguals
Working Memory - Can reduce info by using other languages
Culture
Individualistic vs collectivistic
Individualistic
Focus on individual and their happiness, success, conformity looked down upon, autonomy is values
Collectivistic
Relationship focused
focused on root
interdependence
- Effects way we speak to children , way they remember
Hierarchal nature of language
consists of many small components that can be combined to form larger units
Rule-based nature of language
these components can be arranged in certain ways
Psycholinguistics
psych. who study thoughts and behaviours as they pertain to language
What does psycholinguistics study
Comprehension
Representation
Speech production
Acquisition
Comprehension
How people understand spoken and written language
Representation
How language is represented in the mind
how sentences are grouped and connections are made
Thematic Structure
tying all elements of language together
McGurk Effect
An auditory Illusion, audio is manipulated to alter perception of sounds made in speech
Lexicon
all of the words we know
mental dicionary
Parsing
The process of determining the meaning of words by grouping words into phrases
Bransford and Frank
idea complex broken into different 1,2,3, or 4- idea sentenced, hard time remembering which was the one they hear initially
We remember gist, ideas get integrated
Referential Communication Task
a task in which two people are exchanging information in a conversation, when
this information involves reference – identifying something by naming it or describing it
Syntactic Priming
hearing a statement with a particular syntactic construction increases the chances that a
sentence will be produced with the same construction
Falsification rule
to test a rule, it is necessary to look for situations that would falsify its rule
Belief bias
Tendency to think a syllogism is valid if its conclusion is believable
Conjunction Fallacy
relying too heavily on the heuristic and making errors in the conjunction of the
information
the probability of two events cannot be higher than the probability of the single
constituents (the two events separately)
Myside bias
Occurs when evidence is evaluated in a way that is biased toward an individuals own opinions and attitudes
(type of confirmation bias)
Backfire effect
when an individuals support for a viewpoint is strengthened when faced with corrective
facts opposing that same viewpoint
Status-quo bias
the tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision
Illusory correlation
Occur when a relationship appears to exist, in reality there is no relation
wearing a lucky shirt
