Language

Question 1

What is the anthropological approach to language concerned with?

Answer 1

The evolution of language, the role of language in culture and society, and linguistic relativity

Question 2

What is the linguistic approach to language concerned with?

Answer 2

How people use language, structure of sentences, competence versus performance, and traditional focus on syntax

Question 3

What is the biological approach to language concerned with?

Answer 3

Is there a biological disposition to language, the brain structures involved in language

Question 4

What is the computational approach to language concerned with?

Answer 4

The development of algorithms, and programs, performance focus, heuristics and semantics

Question 5

What is the psychological approach to language concerned with?

Answer 5

psycholinguistics, performance focused

Question 6

What does pragmatics refer to?

Answer 6

How language is used, various forms of expression that vary with social context

Question 7

What are conversational postulates?

Answer 7

assumptions we make during conversations.

Question 8

How does the cooperative principle and the maxim of quantity help us understand each other?

Answer 8

speakers and listeners work together to ensure mutual understanding and provide enough information for the given purpose.

Question 9

What are some cross-cultural studies about language?

Answer 9

Whorfian hypothesis: strucutre of language affects cognition (relativity)

Dani people: perception of color space (universality)

Question 10

What does the McGurk effect tell us about language?

Answer 10

It tells us about the interplay between auditory and visual speech perception

Question 11

What is the arcuate fasiculus?

Answer 11

The area connecting Brocas to Wernickes

Question 12

Explain the phonemic restoration effect

Answer 12

Informs us about the role of context in determining sound. EX: It was found that the *eel was on the axle.

Question 13

What does it mean to say that human language has high productivity?

Answer 13

Human language has the ability to improvise new combinations of signals to represent new ideas

Question 14

What do the studies of nonhuman language abilities tell us?

Answer 14

Teach us how best to teach language to those that can’t learn easily

Indicate language evolved from a precursor found in other species

Illustrates the ambiguity of our concept of language

Question 15

What are two theories about how humans evolve language?

Answer 15

Language evolved as a by-product of brain development

Language evolved as a brain specialization

Question 16

What are some problems with these theories?

Answer 16

People with full-size brains can show severe language deficits and people with impaired intelligence can have normal language skills

Question 17

How does bilingualism effect the brain at different ages?

Answer 17

bilingual from a young age shows bilateral activity during speech for both languages

after age six, they tend to show only left hemisphere activity.