Lecture 5 - Language Flashcards
1
Q
Langauge
A
- A symbolic system used to communicate complex ideas based on some mutually agreed rules: word meanings & grammatical rules
- rules can vary across languages
2
Q
components of language
A
- phonology (sounds) - how we distinguish and segment sound
- semantics - meaning of words
- syntax - structure/grammar
- pragmatics - how is context appropriate use of language learned?
3
Q
Early speech perception and phonology
A
- sucking behaviour - newborns recognise their mother’s voice and suck more when recognise something meaningful
- infants recognise speech passage heard in utero vs a new passage
- measures of fetal heart rate show inc to mother vs stranger reading same poem = early sensitivity to speech
- phonemes - smallest meaningful units in a language (e.g. cat vs mat). perceptual challenges for infants inc:
> phoneme discrimination
> segmentation of the sound stream into phonemes
4
Q
perceptions of phonemes at or soon after birth
A
- infants discrim similar sounding phonemes e.g. b vs p
- 1-4m evidence for categorical perception - better on either side of a boundary used by adults
- more attention to difs in phoneme than difs in voice speaker
5
Q
perceptions of phonemes - later in first year
A
- perceptual narrowing
- Werker & Tees (1984) - english 6-8m can discrim hindi ‘d’ sounds than english adults cannot. stops at 10-12m for english infants but not hindi
- critical period of language learning until 9-10y
- Early capabilities plus learning indicate an ‘experience expectant’ system - one with an organisation that supports the learning of the phonetic categories in any particular language
6
Q
early speech perception and phonology: speech segmentation
A
- sounds run into each other
- infants pick up statistical patterns in language as a cue to segmentation:
> transitional probabilities - some sound combos are more frequent than others indicating likelihood of a word. - if they get pos reinforcement for this it inc
- infants rapidly learn probabilities even in artificial languages
- stress/pitch patterns also help determine word boundaries & learned at 7-9m
- indicate that infants come equipped to learn the meaningful patterns and distinctions in the language they are exposed to.
7
Q
early speech production
A
- little speech production in first yearm just babling and non-speech sounds
- canonicla babbling - meaningless repetitive vowel sound. occurs about 7-8m
8
Q
semantics
A
- meanings of words.
- comprehension of 50-100words at 18m, 900 at 2y and 8000 at 6y.
- can be picked up naturally or ask what something is. often reinforced e.g. in books
- 14m can understand noun meanings & associated sounds
- 18m could remember words without seeing a picture of them and match the letter to the word.
- comprehension learned faster than production
- associative/perceptual account: associative learning plus perceptual similarity. Smith 2000 - picking up on statistics in environ
- social account: children need social cues e.g. point and eye gaze to learn words
9
Q
Hybrid approach: emergentist coalition model (Hollich et al 2000)
A
- hybrid view emphasising how word learning starts out as an associative process and gradually becomes a process reliant on social and linguistic info
- children learn words using perceptual social and linguistic cues. The reliance on which cue changes over time and is emotionally associated
- mostly associative in 1st year then changes
- builds on constraints and biases e.g. assumption of mutual exclusivity
- syntactic bootstrapping - use syntax to infer meaning. e,g, ‘with’ implies dual thing.
10
Q
The language environment and vocabulary development
A
- longitudinal study of a single child and his linguistic environment (Roy et al. 2009)
> over 3 years 90,000hrs of life recorded.
> how caregivers tune their speach to make it easier to learn a new word
> adults match word length to children which gradually inc
11
Q
syntax (structure)
A
- rules of grammar. without it, telegraphic speech, basic communication.
- rules are specific to language. English order has to be: subject-verb-object
- other word orders include: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material=purpose-noun
12
Q
how is syntax learned - Explicit corrections from parents
A
- factual mistakes corrected
- grammatical errors less corrected
13
Q
how is syntax learned - skinners operant conditioning model
A
- language learned through imitation, trial & error, and reinforcement.
- if something is said right it tends to be reinforced by parents repeating the word
- However behaviourism only studies observables or input & output. chomsky argues to understand language need to posit internal representations
= need an intermediate stage of mental representation
14
Q
how is syntax learned - chomsky’s innate LAD
A
- children have an innate faculty for language acquisition with a metaphorical language acquisition device
- speakers hear and use the surface structure but they are really comprehending the deep structure.
- the rules relating surface to deep structure are too complex to be learned by associative learning
- humans must have an innate capacity for grammar
15
Q
learning grammatical rules and expectations
A
- exceptions of rules have to be learned individually
- general rules are more efficient and can be applied to new words
- Slobin - children at first memorise specific examples, learn to apply rule, over-regularise rule then learn to deal with regular and irregular cases
16
Q
early phonology, semantics and syntax
A
- there is evidence in all three domains that infants come prepared with flexible language learning mechanisms which are experience expectant refined through exposure to a particular language
17
Q
are language learning mechanisms specific to language
A
- critical periods are evidence that language is special
- can be impared with neglect or lack of exposure
BUT - evidence for overlap of language learning mechanisms and other learning mechanisms:
> infants also learn co-occurrence statistics of visual stimuli
> general purpose model of statistical learning could explain errors specific to language
18
Q
how biologically special is language
A
- parts of cortex are already specialised for learning
- speech processing specifically in left temporal lobe at 3m
- listening to forward speech activates near visual cortex area = some visualisation while learning
- BUT after early brain damage dif regions can support nearly normal language acquisition especially if damage occurs early in life
- in congenitally deaf people areas supporting oral functions take on other roles
- human infants well equipped for language but development takes flexible & crucial role
19
Q
how uniquely human is language
A
- animal communication lacks the flexibility of human symbolic systems
- animals trained with symbolic systems lack complexity of human language
- BUT some auditory mechanisms involved in early speech perception are shared with other species e.g. phoneme perception in chinchillas (Miller et al 1975)
- like language birdsong is learned via experience and has sensitive periods
- human language inc ancestral mechanisms shared with other species
20
Q
reading and writing
A
- writing is a symbolic system for making a record of spoken language
- with education, children can become highly proficient at reading at writing which are much more recent than spoken language
- estimates of first proto-language from 100,000 years to 2mil years ago
- earliest known writing 3600BC
- humans reading and writing likely to be based around pre-existing perceptual and motor abilities
- historically a new skill so little scope of evolition for specific mechanisms
- neuronal recycling hypothesis: reading acquisition partially recycles a cortical territory for object & face recognition - VWFA in L hem
- we have a FFA on this spot but bilaterally
- as you become literate left side becomes less active for faces and more for word recognition
- when looking at objects the VWFA is active which is also active when reading/writing/
