language Flashcards
what are the four main features of language?
symbolic
discrete
productive
combinatorial
what do we use language for?
communication expression of emotion social interaction control the environment expression of social identity
4 aspects of language studied by psycholinguists
production
comprehension
acquisition
disorders
what does symbolic mean?
an element that bears no intrinsic resemblance to its referent
what does iconic mean?
an element that bears resemblance to its referent
advantages of language being symbolic
allows us to represent abstract concepts
can use words flexibly
disadvantages of language being symbolic
requires social interaction to learn
we need instruction and imitation
how is human language discrete?
it is made up of a finite number of elements
finite phonemes (sounds)
finite morphemes (smallest language unite that has meaning or grammatical function)
finite grammatical rules
how is human language productive?
can combine existing elements in new ways without limit as long as you follow the rules
what is recursion?
repetition of a rule or structure in a hierarchical way
what is the difference between linguistic competence and performance?
competence = knowing the rules performance = what we actually produce/can comprehend
what is parsing?
determining the syntactic structure of a sentence
what is syntax-first account of processing language?
build a syntactic structure first and then process meaning of sentence
what is the process of minimal attachment?
you build the simplest syntactic structure possible
what is a garden path sentence?
sentence that leads you to incorrectly interpret the sentence and have to reassess further on in the sentence
what is an interactionist account of language comprehension?
suggests that syntax does not have a special role
people use whatever information is available to them at each point
what is an online measure of how people comprehend utterances?
measures interpretations ‘as they go’
what are offline measures of how people comprehend utterances?
measure final interpretation
what are the methods to measures of comprehension? (4)
self-paces reading
eye tracking (reading)
eye tracking (visual scene)
EEG
what is a saccade? (in eye tracking?)
a rapid jump between location
what is a N400?
negative spike in ERP
happens 400ms after onset of stimulus
when something is presented that they don’t expect
do we anticipate language? evidence.
evidence = boy looking at the cake after hearing ‘eat’
suggest we predict what kind of thing will be mentioned
but cannot completely predict as language is infinite
how do people make predictions?
they imagine what they would say
what is bottom-up processing?
it relies strictly on data
upwards processing from auditory input to meaning
phoneme determine morpheme - determine words - determine phrase - determine sentences - determine conversation
what is top-down processing?
use information from higher levels to process lower levels
use our knowledge and expectations to process & predict
what is word superiority effect?
people are quicker to recognise a letter if it is part of a read word rather than a pseudo word
washing machine experiment
people were given a paragraph describing how to use a washing machine some were given context some weren't those with context - recalled 5.8 ideas without context - recalled 2.8 ideas
what effect does genre have on comprehension?
we comprehend text in a different way depending on the genre
news story - remember the gist
literacy story - remember the phrasing
what is inferencing?
reading between the lines
adding information to our situational model that is not explicitly said
three types of inferences
logical
bridging backwards
elaborative forward
what are logical inferences?
give an example.
inferences that are logically implied by the meaning of the words
e. g. infer a widow is a woman
e. g. infer a bachelor is a man
what are bridging backwards inferences?
give an example.
where we relate new information to old information
e.g. a king’s son is previously mentioned, we infer the the later mentioned ‘prince’ is that son
what are elaborative inferences?
give an example.
using our world knowledge to extend what is said
e.g. hear ‘the actress fell from the 14th floor’ we infer that she dies
name three types of bridging inference
anaphoric/referential
instrumental
causal
what are anaphoric/referential inferences?
link an entity in one sentence to an entity in a previous sentence
what are instrumental inferences?
give an example.
making an inference based on what we know an object can do
e.g. know someone swept the floor. assume the later mentioned broom did the sweeping
what are causal inferences?
give an example.
infer that something in a previous sentence caused something in the next sentence
e.g. Sharron took an aspirin. her headache went away (infer that the aspirin made the headache go away)
what is a situational model?
a mental representation of the state of affairs described in the text
what is the iconicity assumption?
readers assume that the described order matches chronological order
–> the order events come in a sentence is the order they happened
what role does perspective play in comprehension?
we take the narrators perspective
we share what the narrator can or cannot see
what is a semantic illusion?
when we fail to notice that linguistic input does not make sense
when do semantic illusions occur
- when people aren’t warned
- when people are warned
- when people are asked to detect them
what is the ‘Moses illusion’ referring to?
people are asked
‘how many of each animal did Moses put on the arc’
80% don’t notice that Moses is incorrect here
what causes an increase in likelihood of illusion?
how much the imposter word and correct word overlap semantically
the number of words in the context that are associated with the real word
more related information to process
how can we explain semantic illusions?
why do they occur
goal of comprehension is to construct a coherent mental representations - we try to be efficient by taking short cuts when we think we can
cooperative speaker hypothesis - we answer the question we assume they meant to ask
shallow processing - process words less deeply when they are a good fit to the situation
examples of ways to direct focus
put a word at the end
pause after a word
put it in bold
what are redundancy errors?
people fail to notice redundant words
e.g. if both many and often are used, people tend not to notice and skip over one of them
what is a passive sentence?
when the subject has something done to it
what is Gorsjean’s definition of bilingualism?
bilingualism is the use of two or more languages in one’s everyday life
what is monolingual speech mode?
situations where only one language is being used
what is language mode?
two languages can be used separately or together for different purposes/people
what is bilingual speech mode?
both languages are being used
what are some effects of bilingual speech mode?
code switching
word borrowing
what are the three types of bilingualism?
simultaneous
early sequential
late
what are the quantitative and qualitative difference between monolingual and bilingual infants?
quantitative = reduced exposure from each language qualitative = have to learn to detect the differences between the two languages
at what age can infants discriminate between similar sounding languages?
4-5 months
what is a phonetic repertoire and when is it developed?
the sounds you need to make up a language
developed at 6-12 months
what method do monolingual children use when linking words to objects?
mutual exclusivity
what areas of language are affected by bilingualism?
vocabulary size and verbal fluency
what are verbal fluency tasks?
participants have to name as many words in a certain category as possible in a time period
what advantages do bilinguals have?
enhanced executive control
delayed onset of dementia symptoms
can detect grammatical sentences even when they dont semantically make sense
what are some properties of executive function?
control attention
inhibit distraction
expand working memory
switch between tasks without having to start again
what is cognitive reserve?
the protection against cognitive decline that comes from engagement in stimulating intellectual, social and physical activities
what is aphasia?
language disorder due to brain damage
traditional aphasia/language in brain areas model
wernicke-lichtheim-geschwind
what is the WLG model
made inferences about the relationship between brain and behaviour based on lesion studies and autopsies
thought there were three main areas in language
Broca’s area (production)
Wernicke’s area (comprehension)
arcuate fasciculus (join them together)
language function is lateralised in the brain (left side)
where is Broca’s area?
left frontal lobe
what is Broca’s area responsible for?
language production
where is Wernicke’s area?
left temporal lobe
what is Wernicke’s area responsible for?
language comprehension
what are the symptoms of Broca’s aphasia?
comprehension is intact
production in non-fluent (word forms and grammatical constructions particularly simplified)
repetition impaired
what are the symptoms of Wernicke’s aphasia?
impaired comprehension and repetition
excessive and empty speech
paraphasia
what is paraphasia?
wrong combination of words and morphemes
what is neologisms?
making up new words
what are the problems with WLG?
over simplification
actually many areas involved in language
language is processed in the right hemisphere too
what language functions are processed in right hemisphere?
pragmatics
why is voxel-based lesion mapping good?
it keeps the richness of lesion location and linguistic ability
what is network topology?
looking at the size and shape of the parts of the brain
what is left frontal lobe damage associated with?
fluency deficits
what is left temporal lobe damage associated with?
comprehension deficits
how many irregular verbs?
180
what is anomia?
impairment in word finding - end up using grammatical rules too much
what is aggramatism?
impairment in producing fluent grammatical sequences
what effects does Alzheimer’s have on grammar?
more problems with irregular verbs due to damage in temporal lobe
Do Parkinson’s patients have more problems with regular or irregular verbs?
regular
what problems do Huntington’s patients have with grammar?
produce extra suffixes
cannot suppress applying the rule
what does damage to Broca’s area mean for sign language?
very simple signs, mostly nouns, little inflection
what does damage to Wernicke’s area mean for sign language?
regular output fluency but lots of meaningless signs and paragrammatical errors
what is a speech act?
utterances that serve a function in communication
five purposes of speech acts
representative declarative directive expressive commissive
what is an indirect speech act?
the speaker’s intention is not revealed through their words and the listener has to infer what they mean
what are grice’s maxims?
quality
quantity
relevance
manner
what are conversational implicatures?
type of inference that allows us to work out what the speaker intends to convey that they don’t directly express in their utterance
what is audience design?
when you change the content and form of your utterance based on who the addressee is and what they know
what is common ground?
information that you and the addressee share
how do we come to have common ground?
physical co-presence
community membership
linguistic co-presence
when do speakers use more specific names over base level names?
when the context requires it
when they have linguistic common ground
what causes pragmatic impairments?
give examples
developmental difficulties (e.g. autism) RHD damage (e.g. from stroke)
