language Flashcards
linguistics
structure of language
phonetics, syntax, semantics, cross-language comparisons, language universals
psycholinguistics
processing of language
understanding the mechanisms of language behavior e.g., normal adult comprehension and production of language; neurolinguistics; language acquisition;
language in non-humans
socio-linguistics
social aspects of language
Linguistic factors, such as …
voice pitch, pronunciation (dialect), word choice, intonation
… influence our judgements about the speaker’s:
age, gender, geographical identity, socio-economic class, intelligence, personality, mood
Examples: R’s in New York (Labov, 1966) Disney
competance
what one knows background knowledge of language you posess, can hear the mistakes people make sometimes
Implicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right” Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules
performance
what one does, how the knowledge is used
competance and performance distinction
Norm Chompick challenged BD skinner with this idea
syntax
structural properties of language
Tag question
element attached at end of utterance; not a true question nor a full declarative statement;
a way of asking for confirmation
That was a horrible movie, wasn’t it
tag question formationrules
- Copy the auxiliary of the main verb to the right of the sentence.
- Make it negative if the original is positive or positive if the original is negative.
- Add the pronoun that corresponds to the subject in person, number, and gender.
conversational inference: cooperation
there are rules that govern how language operates in a wider social context
popular ( but incorrect notions of language:
prescriptive linguistics:
Language change is corruption, this isnt true as languages change all the time
Some languages are more advanced than others “Received pronunciation” is better than dialects “Do’s” and “don’ts” of language use
popular ( but incorrect notions of language:language aquisition
children learn language by imitation this plays a small role in how children learn language
propertiesof language: human language
flexible, symbol-based and rule-based mode of communication that permits conveyance of any kind of information. Its properties include: creative structural meaningful referential interpersonal/communicative
properties of human anguage: creative
a limitless # of thoughts can be expressed in a limitless # of ways.
properties of human language: structual
sounds are combined into words, and words into sentences according to rules (i.e., grammar).
hierarchical
properties of human language: meaningful
ideas are conveyed by individual words and how they are organised into sentences.
Ex: The cat ate the dog. The dog ate the cat.
properties of human language: referential
it refers to and describes things and events in the world.
propertie of human language: interpersonal/communicative
it has a social function
how many languages in the world
5000
basic units of language
phonemes > morphemes > sentences > conversations (sounds) & words
Phonems
elementary sounds of speech
• phonemes are NOT letters
to, too, two, through, threw, shoe, clue, view
• vowel & consonant phonemes
• combining phonemes is rule-governed
• 11-144 phonemes in any given language English has ~ 40; Hawaiian has ~16
morphemes
smallest meaningful unit of lang.
• can be a word, word stem, or affix (prefix, suffix)
derivational & inflectional morphemes derivational – change the grammatical class
V + -able = Adj (adorable, believable)
V + -er = N (singer, runner) inflectional – grammatical markers
V + -ed = past tense (walked) N + -s = plural (cows)
words
content vs. function words
Content words = carry the main meaning
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs Function words = grammatical words
articles (a, the, this), conjunctions (and,
but), prepositions (in, above)
psychological reality of the content/function distinciton in aphasia
selective
impairment of content (Wernicke’s) or function words (Broca’s aphasia)
ambiguiry is when words have same forms but different meanigs, genrally unaware of ambiguity
sentence
Syntax = the rule-governed system for grouping words together into phrases and sentences
• Sentences introduce a concept that they are about, the subject (or noun phrase), and then propose something about that concept, the predicate
(or verb phrase).
neuropsychology of language: Aphasia
Aphasia = disorder of language from injury to language areas
Broca’s aphasia
problems in production (“telegraphic” speech) difficulty w/ function words syntactic deficit
Wernicke’s aphasia
fluent but meaningless speech (“empty” words) difficulty w/ content words semantic deficit
neologisms & logorrhea
language development/acquisition
“Nature” - language is innate; biological predisposition “Nurture” - lang. learned via environmental stimulation
Points of debate:
• imitation & correction?
• whole-object constraint
• over-regularisation (‘goed’, ‘tooths’)
• motherese “child-directed speech” • pidgin creole
Conclusion: infants are immediately sensitive to language, but need to interact to learn
stages of language production 0-12 months
age stage behaviour
0-3 vegetative sounds cough sic burb
3-5 cooing and laughing sounds wih . intonation
5-12 babbling consonant vowel . . sounds
6-9 reduplicatiod ba ba ba
9-12 variegated ba di bi
stages of learning perception: 0-12 months
age discrimination 45 min 1 week 2-4 mo 6-8 mo
45 min round lips vs. tongue protrusion . . imitation
1 week mother’s voice vs. other’s voices own . language vs. foreign language
habituation paradigm
2-4 month all possible phoneme distinctions [video]
6-8 months categorise phonemes across diff. voices [video] lose non-native distinctions
stages of learningproduction 1-5 years
1 yar– holophrase (1 word stage) – “bye” “dada”
1.5 years– telegraphic 2 word stage– “she cold”
2-4 years— short sentences negation and question formation–“dada no play” “dada play?”
4-5 years– more complex forms regularisation
“goed>went”
teaching language to chimpanzees
Hayes (1950s) Gardner (1960s) Terrace (1970s) more recently
raise chimp as if human sign language with Washoe more systematic approach work with bonobo chimps
characteristics of human language lacking in animals
syntax, creativity, displacement, prevarication
language acts: production
(speaking, writing, signing)- phonemes / graphemes morphemes
words
language acts: comprehension
(listening, reading) phrase, clause, sentence syntax (grammar) semantics (meaning)
language acts: accuisition
(1st and second language)
discourse (interpretation) communication (social)
dysfunction
aphasia, dyslexia, Az
