Language & Thinking

Question 1

Definition of Language:

Answer 1

A system of symbols and rules for combining them that can produce an almost infinite # of possible msgs and meanings

Question 2

Definition of Psycholinguistics:

Answer 2

Scientific study of the psychological aspects of language, such as how people understand, produce, and aquire language.

Question 3

What are the properties of language?

Answer 3

Symbols, structure, meaning, generativity, and displacement.

Question 4

Definition of Grammer:

Answer 4

Set of rules that dictate how symbols can be combined to create meaningful units of communication.

Question 5

Definition of Syntax:

Answer 5

Rules that govern the order of words.

Question 6

Definition of Semantics:

Answer 6

Rules for connecting symbols to what they represent.

Question 7

Definition of Generativity:

Answer 7

Characteristics of symbols of language that can be combined to generate an infinite # of msgs that have novel meaning.

Question 8

Definition of Displacement:

Answer 8

The capacity of language to represent objects and conditions that are not physically present.

Question 9

What are the structures of language?

Answer 9

Surface: words and organization of a spoken or written sentence.

Deep Structure: underlying meaning of a spoken or written sentence.

Question 10

The hierarchical structure of language:

Answer 10

Discourse, sentence, phrases, words, morphemes and phonemes.

Question 11

Bottom-up processing:

Answer 11

Perception processing beginning w/ the analysis of individual elements of the stimulus and working up into unified perception.

Question 12

Top-down processing:

Answer 12

Perceptual processing in which existing knowledge, concepts, ideas, or expectations are applied to understand an incoming stimulus.

Question 13

What is Pragmatics:

Answer 13

Knowledge of the practical aspects of using language.
Ex. if you call Bill and someone else answers and ask where Bill is, the person will say hang on and find Bill. Due to pragmatics, ppl understand social context and rules.

Question 14

What does Broca’s area of the brain do during language?

Answer 14

The left hemispheres frontal lobe is involved w/ word production and articulation + hand motor control system, therefore, ppl “talk w/ hands”

Question 15

What does Wernicke’s area of the brain do during language?

Answer 15

The rear portion of the temporal lobe is involved w/ speech comprehension.

Question 16

What would be the outcome of language if damage to the Broca and Wernicke’s areas were to occur?

Answer 16

Damage could cause Aphasia, which is the loss of ability to understand speech (receptive aphasia) or produce it (productive aphasia).

Question 17

What does the Visual area of the brain do during language?

Answer 17

Involved in recognizing written words.

Question 18

At what age do infants perceive the entire range of phonemes found in the languages of the world?

Answer 18

Between 6-12 months old. After they start to discriminate only sound towards their native tongue.

Question 19

What is the language acquisition device (LAD) developed by Noam Chomksy (1987)?

Answer 19

An innate biological mechanism that contains the general grammatical rules common to all languages.

Question 20

What is child-directed speech?

Answer 20

A high-pitched intonation that attracts children’s attention.

Question 21

What is the language acquisition support system (LASS) developed by Jerome Bruner (1983)?

Answer 21

The factors in the social environment that facilitate the learning of a language.
Ex. parents correcting children’s deep structure mistakes.

Question 22

The course of normal language development in children ages 1-3 months:

Answer 22

Infants distinguish speech from nonspeech sounds and prefer phonemes. Undifferentiated crying gives way to cooing when happy.

Question 23

The course of normal language development in children ages 4-6 months:

Answer 23

Babbling sounds begin to occur. The child responds to verbalizations of others.

Question 24

The course of normal language development in children ages 7-11 months:

Answer 24

Perception of phonemes narrows to include only the phones heard in the native language spoken.

Question 25

The course of normal language development in children ages 12 months:

Answer 25

First, recognizable words were typically spoken as one-word utterances to name familiar people and objects (eg., da-da or block)

Question 26

The course of normal language development in children ages 12-18 months:

Answer 26

Begins to use single words to express whole phrases or requests and primarily uses nouns.

Question 27

The course of normal language development in children ages 18-24 months:

Answer 27

Vocab = 50-100 words. Two-word sentences appear. (telegraphic speech)

Question 28

The course of normal language development in children ages 2-4 years:

Answer 28

Vocab = several hundred words added every six months. Two-word sentences change to longer sentences that are grammatically incorrect but exhibit basic language syntax.

Question 29

The course of normal language development in children ages 4-5 years:

Answer 29

The child has learned the basic grammatical rules for combining nouns, adjectives, articles, conjunctions, and verbs into meaningful sentences.