language - introduction Flashcards
learning objectives from lecture 1
Be able to discuss whether language is a uniquely human ability
-Be able to critically evaluate the evidence from
◦ “Alex the parrot”
◦ Non-human primates
-Understand the terminology used to describe language
◦ Syntax, semantics, morphemes, phonemes
-Understand the factors affecting phoneme pronunciation
-who trained Alex the parrot and for how long
-what did he learn (what did the training teach him)
-Irene Pepperberg trained him for 13 years
- had a vocabulary of around 80 words, he knew object names , adjectives and some verbs.
- he produced and understood short sequences of words.
-could classify objects according to colour and material.
-he understood differences between “same” and “different”
-could count up to 6
what did Alex the parrot not know.
why is this important (whats an important feature of human language)
function words (and, of , the)
- a fundamental thing about how humans use language is that there is a finite number of words, but using function words and verbs we can produce an infinite number of sentences
who is Washoe, and what did he do
-chimpanze trained by Gardner and Gardner
-caught in wild at 1
-raised as a human child
-was taught American sign language (ASL)
what did washoe learn
-ASL
-learned around 150-200 signs -nouns, verbs , adjectives , pronouns
- could combine signs eg “washoe sorru” “hug hurry” “out open please hurry”
-could answer wh- questions (what where when why
-some sensitivity to word order - “you tickle me” vs “i tickle you”
-some evidence she passed signs onto her adopted son
what are the issues with washoe, and show evidence
-trainers may have over interpreted her gestures (when ASL users were brought in to asses her language abilities they were not as impressed as gardner and gardner
- possibility that washoe was responding to non verbal cues that her trainers were giving her unintentionally, eg when she responded to their utterances (phrases) , ts possible their body language was giving them a sign of what their meaning was or what they wanted from her , and she responded to that and it wasn’t necessarily that she understood what they were signing to her, she was just really good and reading their body language
kanzi
-who was he trained by
-what did he learn
-Kanzi the bonobo chimpanzee
-Trained by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
-learned language, and communicated through a symbol board
-First acquired symbols (“Yerkish”) by learning from his mother, Matata
-By 46 months, knew nearly 50 symbols and had produced ~800 combinations of them
-Appears to be sensitive to word order80% of his utterances spontaneous (so doesnt just respond to her but has desire to communicate with people around him)
-
evidence of kanzi the chimpanze communicate
-in the video the chimpanze cant see her face and the reason shes wearing the mask is so that he cant use her eye movements or expression to twll him what to do (so his communication isnt due to verbal cues)
-shows various things she asks him to move and he does
-also asks him to move things not even infront of him physically and he still moves them 9so undesrtands refernces to things he isnt looking at
-sensitive to word order
-claims he knows 3000 words
what does kanzi use to communicate with his trainers
lexigram
the lexigram shows abstract shapes not pictures (hes asked to press certain objects)
Notice that the symbols he is using don’t look like what they mean – therelationship is arbitrary
does kanzie have language? what can he not do
-lacks grammatical knowledge eg “strawberry” can be a request to travel to where strawberries are or to request to eat strawberries
- doesn’t use function words (a, in, to) but appears to understand them
-doesnt use morphology eg -ed, to indicate past tense or -s to indicate plurals
psychology working definition of language
a human communication system that allows us to talk about anything, irrespective of time and space
describing elements of language
syntax vs semantics
syntax - the rules of word order of a language
semantics - the study of meaning
what are words, morphemes and phonemes
word- smallest unit of grammar that can stand alone
morpheme - smallest unit of meaning (eg dogs contains two morphemes - dog and s ) (chased- chase and ed 2 morphemes)
phoneme - a sound of the language, changing phoneme changes meaning of the word ( c/a/t/s. ch/a/s/e/d/
different languages have different ____
give example
phonemes
-eg in english /l/ and /r/ are different phonemes but in Japanese they are the same
-english has 40 phonemes
phonemes dont correspond well to —
written language
eg sh and ch nor represented by individual leters
c and k sometimes sound same, sometimes different (c and s )
