Test 2 Week 8 PSYC122 Flashcards
Acoustic speech sounds that express meaning, Around 200 different types of human made sounds are used in language- not any single language has all 200, Single unit of sound that changes meaning
Phonemes (sounds)
How many phonemes in English?
45
How many phonemes in Tongan?
17
acoustically different but not functionally different
Allophonic
signals difference in meaning
Phonemic
Unbound/free morphemes
Words, Content + (grammatical) function- stands alone, has a meaning
Bound morphemes
Affixes, suffixes, (grammatical) function- only meaningful when related to words
The smallest language units that carry meaning
morphemes
carry content, carry semantic information in content, open set of words, can create new ones, Bricks in language/syntax
Content morphemes/words
linked to the grammar of language, close set of words, don’t change, structure/grammar of language is set, not as important for semantic aspect of knowledge but necessary for grammar, combines two content words together, The mortar that holds the bricks together
Function morphemes/words
relies on processing content words
Semantic processing
relies on processing function words
Syntactic processing
Inability to process syntax, understand but struggle to communicate, struggle to form sentences but can use content words, semantic system, retrieve content words but not function words
Broca’s Aphasia
- Right-handed People: left hemisphere, mostly lower edge of frontal lobe and upper edge of temporal lobe
Broca’s Area: located near areas that control speech muscles
Wernicke’s Area: left temporal lobe →next to primary auditory cortex →translates sounds into meaning
Language-Relevant Brain Areas
Refers to the structure of language→ phrases and sentences
Syntax
What is syntax cued by
Morphology, Word order, Word class
Speech is effortless but meaning is impaired, very few content words, devoid of any meaning, neologism (made up words), difficulty in understanding language
Wernicke’s Aphasia
Statement that expresses an idea
Proposition
Early infant speech perception
Newborns able to perceive many basic phoneme contrasts (hearing the differences between sounds)
Not restricted to the sounds in the language they are growing up in
Detection of phonemic change experiment
“ba” versus “ga”, 1- and 4-month-olds
HAS: High Amplitude Sucking- suck harder when interested, get used to current sound, interest spikes up again in new sound
Perception of consonant sounds becomes categorical → different categories of sound
Detection of phonemic change is modified by experience
9 months: Children fine tune their perception to the language they are growing up in
Cooing
2 months
Reduplicated Babbling
6‐7 months → same syllable over and over
Variegated Babbling
Variegated Babbling → 11‐12 months → syllables with different consonants and vowels
10 Months: baby’s sounds have adapted to language it hears → adults can tell which language baby is learning
Infants make a limited set of sounds- Why?
- the shape of the infant vocal tract,
- development of motor cortex
Comprehension Versus Production
- Word comprehension (receptive vocabulary) precedes productive vocabulary by an average of 4 months
- Initial acquisition rate for comprehension is twice that of production
The Vocabulary Burst
Major increase in productive vocabulary acquisition rate after first 50 words are learned, Why?
Symbolic nature of language
Control over articulation
Easier retrieval
“dog” only for family dog but not other dogs
Underextension
- “dog” to refer to dogs and cats
- “moon” for orange, lamp, fingernail clipping
- “milk” for white blanket, puddle
Overextension
Words Acquired % Overextended
1‐25 45%
26‐50 35%
51‐75 20%
These aren’t conventional adult words; however, they hold symbolic meaning for the child
protowords
A single word that stands for an entire statement
Holophrases
Later syntactic development
By 4 years syntax beginning to resemble
adult language
- Nativist views of language
Children are biologically predisposed to learn language
Language bioprogram hypothesis
Sensitive period: ideal time for acquiring certain parts of
language → harder afterwards (maturational constraints)
Sensitive period ends by puberty once lateralization occurs
Evidence for sensitive period
- Isolated children
- Deaf signers
poverty of the stimulus
the argument that the linguistic input received by young children is in itself insufficient to explain their detailed knowledge of their first language
Isolated Children: The Case of Genie
- Intensive language training over many years
- Different rates of progress seen in acquiring words versus acquiring syntax
Deaf Signers (Newport 1990)
- Native: exposed to sign from birth
- Early: Exposed to sign at 4-6 years
- Late: Exposed to sign at 12 years
- General learning capacities
Alternative views to nativist accounts
Children use domain general skills
Children have highly developed pattern recognition systems
- Allow children to form language categories through picking up on regularities, without resorting to innate language categories
- Evidence from word boundary studies
- Evidence from forming categories
Counterargument to poverty of the stimulus claim
- Social Learning
Response to innate explanations to language learning – poverty of the stimulus argument
Parentese
- Simplified speech
- Exaggerated intonation
Social responding to infants’ language attempts
Children’s vocabularies are strongly associated with the amount of language parents use with their children
Child-centred talk
Caregivers adapt talk to child’s
level
Situation-centred talk
Child learns to adapt to situation
