Language Flashcards
How is spoken language acquired
Without specific instruction and becomes automatic it requires little attention and we are able to do things like walking and talking
What is required to produce an effective language
Physical cognitive and social skills
What is onomatopoeia
The formation of a word from a sound
What are phonoesthemes
What’s the sound as they mean such as flap Flee flick fling
What are phonemes
The smallest unit of sounds
Categories determined by aspects of the local tractor including lips teeth and tongue placement vibration of vocal chords opening and closing of our throat and other manipulations
Morphemes?
Smallest unit of meaning in language
Many are whole words and others are parts of words
Adding something that creates additional meaning and is created by stringing Phenomes together
What is syntax?
Grammatical rules for ordering words and modifying words
Allows us to altar surface structure but maintain deep structure
Set of rules of the language by which we construct sentences
What are semantics?
Literal meaning of morphemes, words and sentences
Pragmatics
The way language is used and understood in every day life
Literal meaning is not always the intended one for example my door is always open
Not a part of language that plays a critical role in interpreting it
Non-verbal communication?
Can speak louder than words through body language and gestures facial expressions and vocalisations
These can be culturally influenced
What is early language learning (before birth)
Infant start hearing language after about five months in the womb newborns can recognise their mothers voice and native language
What is babbling
Intentional but meaningless vocalisation.
This is when babies make basic sounds
At what age do babies understand their own name
Approximately six months
When do babies understand other words
9 to 12 months
When do babies start saying their first words
Approximately 12 months
How many words roughly can a baby say between 12 and 18 months old
20 to 100 words
What happens between 18 and 24 months of age to a babies vocabulary
There is a vocabulary explosion and by 24 months several hundred words are known
How many words does a baby know at 48 months
Several thousand
What are some early linguistic errors in phonemes
Children produce words in perfectly at first production constraints rather than lack of knowledge
What are some early linguistic errors with semantics
Hard to learn exactly what words mean
Overgeneralisation and under generalisation
Does the real world follow syntax perfectly
No very rarely
Why do babies babble
They are practising producing phonemes
Does learning have a critical period
There is a suggested sensitive period of up to 7 years
How do babies learn that their production of phonemes is good
When they get it right they get reinforced by their parents
What is the development of extra linguistic communication life
The development is more gradual
24 months they can use the speakers looking and pointing to help their understanding as well as their emotional tone
What is the development of syntax like
By two years old they can put two words together in the right order they can understand basic syntax rules before they can display them
The number of words they can put together gradually increase
What’s benefits does learning another language have
It creates a heightened linguistic insight awareness of how language is structured and used
What are dialects
Language variations used by groups of people who share geographical proximity or ethnic background
Why is it harder for adults to learn a new language?
They don’t start off super basic like babbling etc.
What is sign language
It is a complete language system that is visual rather than auditory
Are signs iconic or arbitrary
Some are iconic but many arbitrary which means that they are based on random choice
Which brain areas are activated during sign language
Some brain areas that are involved in processing spoken languages are activated in sign languages
How do you deaf babies begin to learn sign language
They show the same stages of language learning is hearing babies they babble with their hands and acquire their first signs
What Are the theories of language acquisition
Imitation and learning theories
Nativist theories
Social pragmatic and social interactionist theories
General cognitive processing theories
What is the imitation and learning theory
Skinner
Language learned through imitation and classical and operant conditioning
Parents model words phrases and shape through reinforcement
What are the critiques of the imitation and learning theory
Children generate new words/combinations
Parents tend to reinforce correct meaning, not correct grammar
What is the nativist theory
Chomsky and Pinker
Children come into the world knowing how language works
Language acquisition device - brain organ that houses rules for acquiring language
Limitations of the nativist theory?
Syntax is learned very slowly.
Descriptive: doesn’t actually explain how it occurs or generate testable hypothesis
What is the social pragmatic theory?
Particular aspects of the social environment structure language learning.
Infant directed speech
Grammatical feedback
Joint attention
Social interaction
What are the limitations of social pragmatic theory
Social cues may be more difficult to use then theory assumes or other non-social cues may be used
What is the general cognitive processing theory
Learning language is just like learning anything else
The ability to perceive learn and recognise patterns is enough to learn language
What are the criticisms to the general cognitive processing theory
Children are better than adults are learning language but not everything else
There are distinct cognitive processes and brain activation that occurs during language processing meaning that there is something special about language acquisition
Which of the learning theories are the best
Only the social pragmatic and general cognitive processing theory are currently testable
How do animals communicate
When animals communicate they behave in a way that sends a signal about important information to others
Are there any differences between different animal species in communication
Different animal species different in types and complexity of communication systems
Often to do with aggression and sex
Can animals communicate beyond sex and aggression
Some animals can say more
Bees dance to tell its mates where to find food this is body language
Monkeys share specific alarm calls for different predators
Explain reading in skilled adults
It takes years to achieve but it becomes automatic we can’t not read things and example of this is the stroop task
How do children learn to read
First the child must understand the written words hold meaning it has a direction and is divided into words
They must understand that each grapheme has its own phoneme and extract sounds in meetings from the graphical shapes
Why is English one of the hardest alphabetical systems to learn
Because there are so many inconsistencies
What is the dual route model of reading
Whole word route:
- whole word recognition
- familiar and irregular
Phonetic route:
- phonetic decomposition: graphemes translates into phonemes
- unfamiliar and non-words
Involves sounding out words by figuring out the correspondence between the print letters and sounds
What is the most efficient way to teach somebody to read
Instead of teaching whole word reading it is better to teach phonics
What is mental lexicon
The mental store of information about words
The mental lexicon is defined as a mental dictionary that contains information regarding a word’s meaning, pronunciation, syntactic characteristics, and so on.
How does the temporal region organise words
It’s sort out nouns- persons animals and tools
What is wernickes area and what role does it play
Role in speech comprehension
Damage causes receptive aphasia
When you have poor comprehension speech sounds normal but has no meaning
Where does speech production occur
Broca’s area
Damage leads to expressive aphasia
Damage to this area leads to normal comprehension speech is meaningful but awkward and it is difficult to get across what you want to communicate
What is the wernicke-geschwind model
How both of the areas for language production and language comprehension work together to process language in the brain
What does language being generative mean?
It is a system that allows us to create an infinite number of sentences etc
