Midterm 1 Flashcards
Speech Language Pathologists vs Audiologists
SLPs diagnose speech language problems, and work with people that may have receptive, expressive, or pragmatic difficulties
Audiologists specialize in issues related to hearing impaired hearing lost, hearing aid assistance, etc.
When are Communication Difficulties developed
Can start from birth, or can be developmental or acquired
Receptive Language
Understanding and comprehending language
“The Input” I.e. a child’s ability to listen and follow directions
Expressive Language
The production of language
(speaking, gesturing, writing, facial expressions, and vocalizations)
Pragmatic Language
The social context of language
I.e. it’s hot so you ask someone to open the window
Language Modalities
Visual Gestural: signed languages, perceived visually
Tactile-gestural: perceived via touch, gestures are intended to be felt, not seen
Auditory-vocal: spoken
Linguistic Flexibility
Language is creative so grammar can be debated
Descriptive Grammar
Describes what happens in a spoken language and accepts the pattern differences people use without judgement
I.e. some English speaks use double negatives for negation
The Three Types of Grammar
Mental: what is implicitly known about a language’s structure and systematicity
Descriptive: what a linguist observes are a language’s structure and rules, what happens in a spoken language
Prescriptive: socially embedded notion for “correct” ways to use language
Hockett’s design features of language
Mode of communication, semanticity, pragmatic function (all communication system needs these)
interchangeability, cultural transmission, arbitrariness, discreetness
Displacement and productivity (unique to human language)
Speech Teachers
People who help individuals with problems like stuttering, articulation disorders, language delay, etc.
Semanticity
Principle that all the signals/symbols in a communication system convey a meaning or function
Pragmatic Function
Language serves a purpose and it doesn’t need to be profound
I.e. chit-chat
Interchangeability
Individuals ability to transmit and receive messages
Cultural Transmission
Principle that we acquire language through interacting with other users of that system
Arbitrariness
Words are not predictable and don‘t dictate meaning
I.e. “Bank” could mean two different things
Discreteness
Idea language is comprised of categorical units that can be combined in different ways
Displacement
Ability to talk about things, actions, ideas, and people whom we are physically or spatially separated
I.e. talking about Julian to Steph when we’re in Van and he’s in Calgary
The Three Kinds of Language
Formal: computer languages and mathematical proofs
Natural: those that evolve naturally in a speech community
Constructed: specifically invented, can become natural if they are learned as a first language and are used by a speech community
Evidence Based Practice (EBP)
Central concept that any treatment should be supported by scientifically based evidence in it’s effectiveness
Outcome measures should have the best possible face validity
Efficacy
Referring to the effectiveness of a therapy procedure
Three Types of Research
Basic: research questions and activities that improve basic knowledge (foundational)
Applied: research questions/activities that have more immediate consequences, applying findings to improve something
Clinical: applied research on clinical populations
Outcome Measures
How to determine whether a treatment or invention works and if it has good face validity
Levels of Evidence: VI
Weakest level: a well informed expert says something is true
Level of Evidence: V
Second weakest: Case reports and or literature reviews
Gives no control or comparison group, small sample size and can’t be generalized
Levels of Evidence: IV
Third weakest: Research studies/treatments lacking a control or comparison group
A lack of controls means that any treatment could have improved the person or group, not just the one used
Levels of Evidence: III
Third Strongest: experimental study that is not randomized, has a comparison or control group, very common in the field
Levels of Evidence: II
Second best: one randomized control trial—a well designed experiment with the random sampling
Hard to in the field and almost never done because individuals come from such diverse backgrounds that it’s hard to match them
Levels of Evidence: I
The strongest: meta-analysis or systematic review from many RCTs (Randomized control trial)
Hard to obtain
What is language
Socially (shared with others in a community) learned and conventionalized (arbitrary and agreed upon) symbolic system
Language Variation
Idea there is nothing inherently correct about one way of speaking—no language is better or worse than another
Accent
How a person’s sound of speech and the melody and rhythm of their speech differs
Dialect
A language variant typically associated with a geographical region or group of people
May include accent but also may include unique vocab, grammar and rules
Examples of cultural factors that can influence communication
Race, ethnicity, social class, education, occupation, geographical region, gender, sexual orientation, situation, context
Age-Normed standardized test
Data is used to compare a child’s language performance with the goal of having an accurate estimate of the age when typically developing children master a particular linguistic dimension or element
Cultural Competence
Necessary recognition of a difference as a difference and not a delay or impairment
Sometimes cultural biases can cause SLPs to diagnose children with a language delay
Code Switching
Essentially switching between languages or dialects, often for the words more common in the respective language
I.e. Broken Chinese
Simultaneous bi/multilinguals
Someone who has roughly equal exposure to multiple languages and cultures at age 2 or younger
Sequential Bilinguals
Individual who learns one language from birth, and an additional language at an early age (3-4 years old)
Late Learning Bilinguals
Individual who learns one language from birth and another at a later age (adolescence or adulthood)
Accent Modification
An SLP provided service typically seeking to reduce one’s foreign accent
Controversial because it is presented as homogenizing an individuals identity
Phonetics
The small units that comprise words (sounds and signs)
I.e. sip vs zip (Changes meaning)
I.e. Toronto vs torono
Articulatory Phonetics
The ways which your articulates move and coordinate actions, studied through ultrasound and palatography
Acoustic Phonetics
Physical Manifestation of speech sounds, studied through spectrograms
Auditory Phonetics
The human response to stimuli
Phonotactic Constraints
Restrictions on possible sound combinations and what sounds can occur together in certain positions
I.e. Nguyen in English doesn’t really have a clear pronunciation
I.e English doesn’t allow two stops or a stop and nasal combination at the beginning of words—gnostic=drop the first consonant
Phonetic Transcription
Goal of being able to write down a language such that any one who knows the alphabet can read and produce the appropriate sound
Each symbol represents one phone (sound) and if sounds are different they need different symbols
Also states that if two sounds are within a certain similarity but differed from context, the same symbol should be used
(English often fails this)
Airstream Mechanisms
Pulmonic Egressive: Air comes out of the lungs
Pulmonic Ingressive: Air comes into the lungs
Glottalic egressive: air is moved out by the glottis moving
Glottalic ingressive: air is moved in by the glottis moving
Velaric ingressive: air is moved in by tongue action
The Glottal States
Voiceless: Open vocal folds
Voiced: approximated vocal folds
Whisper: partially closed vocal folds
Nasalized sounds
Sounds that involve both nasal and oral airflow
I.e. mm and nn sounds in English
Suprasegmentals
Refers to speech features
Stress: what carries emphasis or prominence (i.e. record noun vs verb)
Length/duration: how long a sound is
Pitch: lexical tone in a word, intonation across a phrase
Linguistically Significant Parameters in Articulation (Signed Languages)
Place of articulation, movement, hand shape, hand orientation, non-manual markers
Location (Signed Language Parameter)
Some words may have the same hand shape and movement, but the meaning may changed based on where it occurs
I.e. Cheek vs Chin
Movement (Signed Language Parameter)
Some words may have the same shape and location, but the movement is different and therefore changes the meaning
Hand shape (Signed Language Parameter)
Different hand shape changes meaning (can be at the same location with the same or no movement)
Orientation (signed Language Parameters)
Same place and shape, but the angle at which the movement occurs could change meaning
Non-manual markers (signed language parameters)
Any gestures not made with the hands
I.e. tongue gestures or head movement
Phonology
The systemized organization of sounds and primes
Morphology
The internal structure and organizing principle of words
Where a sound can go in a language and where it can’t
Phonotactic Restraints
Restrictions on possible combinations and positions of sounds, including syllable types
I.e. in English, the suffix -al is restricted to bases with main stress on the final syllable (arrival, committal, referral, etc.)
I.e. In signed, hand shape is not permitted to change while hands are held at some particular location if there is a movement component to the sign
Foreign Accent
In part is because you apply the phonotactic and inventory patterns from one language to another
Meaningful vs Not Meaningful
Meaningful: The meaning of the word is changed if the sound is changed
i.e. Wick vs Wig
Not Meaningful: When a sound is changed but the meaning remains the same
Contrastive vs non-contrastive sounds
Contrastive: When replacing one sound with another changes meaning
Non-contrastive: When two sounds in a language can be interchanged without changing meaning.
Phoneme
Speech sounds that are perceived as variants of the same sound
i.e. /k/ is a phoneme occurring in cat, kit, scat, skit
Allophone
Each member of a particular phoneme; if linguistic meaning doesn’t change then they are members of the same category
i.e. the /k/ in scat and kit are phonemically considered to be the same although they are different in terms of aspiration, voicing, and articulation
Natural Class
Group of sounds in a language that share distinctive features (it is language specific), they are all affected the same way in the same environments
i.e. /t, d/ are the only alveolar stops in English, so they’re the natural class of alveolar (oral) stops
What are the Phonological Rules
Assimilation, dissimilation, insertion, deletion, metathesis
Assimilation
When neighbouring sounds become more similar to each other
i.e. unfamiliar, unbelievable, unstable
Dissimilation
When sounds become less similar
I.e. the greek word “Epta” will sometimes be pronounced “Efta” so there aren’t two stops beside one another
Insertion
Adding a sound when it’s not specified
I.e. Hamster, but is often said as Hampster
Deletion
Taking away a sound
i.e. Library (where most delete the first r)
Metathesis
Rearranging of a sequence so it better aligns with the phonotactics of a language
i.e. the “tl” sequence is uncommon in English, so for chipotle, some may say chi-po-lt-e because “lt” is a more common sequence
Derivational Morphology
Affixes that can change the meaning of a word where it often, but not always changes its lexical category
i.e. English prefixes and suffixes
Imagine -> Imagination (Noun to verb)
Imagine -> reimagine (lexical category is the same, meaning changes)
Free vs Bound Morphemes
i.e. Imagine is a free content morpheme, it can stand alone
i.e. Re is a bound content morpheme, alone it means nothing
Reduplication
New words formed by repeating some whole or part of another morpheme
i.e. English: “Do you like-like him?
i.e. In Indonesian, it’s used for plurals: ibu (mother) vs ibuibu (mothers)
Syntax
Studies how linguistic expressions can be put into larger expressions
Essentially building sentences following a languages’ rules
Principle of Compositionality
Idea that the meaning of a sentence or phrase is based on the meanings of the linguistic expressions it contains and how they’re combined
i.e. Ralph, Ali, and Loves changes based on how they’re combined: “Ralph loves Ali” vs “Ali loves Ralph”
Syntax vs Semantics
There’s an overlap but they can also act separately
i.e. “Colourless green ideas sleep furiously” is syntactically grammatical but semantically odd
Semantics
Concerned with logic and meaning and how it is constructed in language
Types of Word Order
Subject-Verb-Object (SVO): ~35% of languages
Subject-Object-Verb (SOV): ~44% of languages
Verb-Subject-Object (VSO): ~19% of languages
~2% of languages are VOS, OVS, or OSV
Co-Occurrence: Arguments
linguistic expressions that are syntactically required by another linguist expression: often the subject(s)
(The argument is depended on)
i.e. “Sally told Polly she’s leaving” where Polly and She’s leaving are both required arguments of told
Co-Occurrence: Adjuncts
linguistic expressions that are allowed but optional (like adjectives)
i.e. “Sally likes small dogs” where dogs is the argument and the adjective is the adjunct
Co-Occurrence: Agreement
Alignment of grammatical features to convey grammatical information about a number (i.e. single vs plural), person (i.e. first, second, third person), and linguistic gender
i.e. “The apples fall from the tree” vs “the apple falls from a tree”
Linguistic Meaning: Sense
A mental representation of a meaning or concept
i.e. When shown a photo of a cat and dog, knowing which one is a cat
i.e. A salal berry looks like a blueberry and I have never seen them so it’s hard to differentiate or imagine (so I don’t understand the linguistic meaning enough)
Linguistic Meaning: Reference
The relationship of a word to its real world referent (essentially what a word is referring to)
Aphasia
General term for a family of conditions introduced by stroke or brain injury that can cause a loss in ability to produce or understand language
i.e. Broca’s aphasia, Wernicke’s aphasia, conduction aphasia
Proposition
A claim expressed by a sentence
Truth Value
The ability of a proposition (meaning of a sentence) to be true or false
Truth conditions
The conditions that need to hold in the world for a proposition to be true
(you need to know things about the world in order to make sense of sentences)
Felicity
Describes whether an utterance is contextually appropriate or not
Can be felicitous or infelicitous
i.e. ‘What do you do for a living?’ Saying ‘I have a job’ is infelicitous where ‘I am a prof at UBC’ is felicitous
Cooperative principle
The assumption that interactive language use is going to be cooperative
Context
Whether an utterance is contextually appropriate and what it means depends on the following
preceding linguistic context
i.e. ‘Yes’ means something very different in response to different questions
Situational context
i.e. ‘Hana is so tall’ depends on who Hana is, who they’re compared to, scale, etc.
Social Context
i.e. Who can tell who to run laps; a gym teacher would have the social contextual authority but a Ling TA wouldn’t
Three Main Theories to Acquire Language
Active construction of a grammar theory: Children invent the rules of the grammar themselves when exposed to a language which creates grammatical knowledge
Connectionist Theories: Children learn language by creating neural connections and they bind together linguistic and contextual experiences
i.e. A child hearing “banana” will create connections with the sound structure to meaning and context
Social interaction theory: Children learn language through social interaction with other language users
Lennenberg’s biologically controlled behaviours
Behaviour emerges before it’s necessary and it’s appearance is not a result of a conscious decision
i.e. children begin speaking but are still highly dependant on their parents and any child exposed to language will learn it (unless they have severe disabilities or something)
Canonical Babbling
Babbling where a single CV is repeated
i.e. mamama, bababa, dedede
Evidence for the Critical Window
Neglected children not exposed to language did not have the capacity to learn language after
Signers who joined when older were not as proficient
Methods for studying language development in pre-lingual babies
High amplitude sucking (how interested are thy if you put a soother in their mouth)
Head-turn preference procedure (which direction they turn their head to show interest in stimuli)
Preferential looking (How are they creating associations, i.e. if you say block do they then look at a block)
Linguistic Transfer
Describes one language describing another within an individual
i.e. a bilingual’s languages will have an effect in each other and will depend based on the individual
Psycholinguistics
Studying the mechanisms and processes the mind uses to produce and comprehend language
Neurolinguistics
Focuses more on the neurology of how language is produced or comprehended
Four Areas of the brain hemisphere
Temporal lobe: Perception and recognition of auditory information
Frontal lobe: Higher thinking and language production
Occipital love: Vision
Parietal lobe: less concerned with language so we don’t care
Superior or dorsal
Meaning towards the top
Inferior or ventral
Meaning towards the bottom
Contralateral
Idea that the right brain controls the left side of the body and vise-versa
Which hemisphere is language mainly processed?
The left hemisphere
Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG)
Organizes articulatory patterns and directs the motor cortex for talking and signing
Located in the left hemisphere, AKA Broca’s area
Superior Temporal Gyrus (STG)
Houses the auditory cortex where early sound processing occurs
located in both hemispheres, AKA Wernicke’s Area (includes the STP as well)
Sylvian Parietotemporal Area (STP)
Turns phonological representations into articulatory-motor representations
Essentially the ability to move the lips, tongue, jaw, and throat with heard sounds (critical for acquisition, like mimicry in infants)
Located in the left hemisphere, AKA Wernicke’s area (Includes the STG as well)
Middle and Inferior Temporal Gyri (MTG/ITG)
Where the brain processes word meanings and conceptual representations (semantic sense)
Located in the left hemisphere
Arculate Fasciculus
Primary dorsal pathway connecting the STG and SPT
Breaks down words into component sounds/signs and with syntactic processing and speech production
Extreme Capsule
Connects the STG and MTG/ITG with the IFG
Analyzes semantics of incoming speech and helps with syntactic processing
Broca’s Aphasia
Caused by damage to Broca’s area and creates challenges with motor sequences
Individuals can understand most things but are often missing parts when producing language
Wernicke’s Aphasia
Challenges comprehending the speech of others, leads responses to pragmatically or semantically not make sense
Often a misunderstanding leading to unexpected responses and can be semantically incoherent
Conduction Aphasia
Damage to the STG, results in the inability to repeat what has just been said
Acquired disorders for reading and writing
Caused by damage to the angular gyrus, which converts audio and visual information
Alexia: Acquired inability to read and comprehend written words
Agraphia: acquired inability to write words
Angular Gyrus
A Region of the Occipital love, Responsible for converting audio and visual information
Productivity
A language’s capacity to create infinitely novel messages from its discrete units
Van Riper’s Early Vision of Communication Sciences
A mix of linguistics, medicine, and psychology
