Thought and Language Flashcards
what is the hierarchical nature of language?
phonemes, morphemes, semantics, syntax
what is a phoneme?
a single unit of sound that can change meaning, small units that make up words and represent sounds
how many phonemes does the English language have?
upwards of 40 (and not all languages have the same phonemes)
what is phonology?
phonemes combined together in larger units to create a set of phonological rules
what is a morpheme?
the smallest language units that carry meaning (eg. words, suffixes and prefixes)
what is morphology?
rules that determine how morphemes can be combined to make words
what is syntax?
the grammatical set of word and phrase combinations in sentences (rules)
what are semantics?
the meaning of a word, representing specific objects, events, ideas, feelings and actions
what does semantic processing rely on?
content words
what are content words?
words that carry meaning but doesn’t have any direct relation to the concept it stands for (eg. dog)
map onto concepts
what is a concept?
a unit of semantic memory
concepts then form categories
what are function words?
words that specify the meaning relationships between other words and play a functional role in understanding tense and possession (eg. he, she, it, and, or)
what does syntactic processing rely on?
function words
what is a thematic role?
the way in which words are combined into phrases and sentences, and their meanings combine in a rule-governed way
what are an example of content words?
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
what are an example of function words?
pronouns, prepositions, conjunctives
what are pragmatics?
the study of how language meaning is influenced by social context
what is a sentence made up of?
phrases that are combined together
How does Broca’s Aphasia impact of language & speaking ability
results on the overuse of content words and inability to form sentences combining phonemes and morphemes
difficulty in understanding language that is being spoken to them
Where is Broca’s Area located?
near areas that control speech muscles
Which areas of the brain play a large role in the production and comprehension of language
Broca’s and Wernicke’s Area
What does syntax refer to?
the structure of language - who is doing what, where and when
How are the rules for ordering words learned?
learned implicitly and can differ depending on the language
How does word order cue syntax?
it determines who is doing what to whom (eg. subject - verb - object, Jane ate the apple)
How does word class cue syntax?
word class refers to adjectives, nouns or verbs whereby the word order helps us to identify the word class and thus understand what a sentence is about
How does Wernicke’s Aphasia impact on language & speaking ability
inability to produce and/or understand language
issues with phonological sequences, overuse of function words but struggle with content words
Where is Wernicke’s Area located in the brain?
in the left temporal lobe, next to primary auditory cortex which translates sounds into meaning
What is a proposition?
a statement that expresses an idea
What are propositions represented through?
Semantics (meaning)
What is Surface Structure?
organisation of words at a surface level
What is Deep Structure?
the meaning of sentences
What can a change in the order of words result in?
changes the way in which the sentence is interpreted
What does one deep structure but two surface structures entail?
two sentences with different word order, but both have the same underlying meaning
What can a single surface structure entail?
can result in two very different deep structures, whereby the words are organised the same but the meaning of the sentence is ambiguous
What kind of speech can newborns perceive?
they are able to perceive many basic phoneme contrasts (hearing the differences between sounds)
What kind of predispositions do newborns come into the world with?
a preference for a human voice over a fake voice - as they get older a preference for human sounds over animal sounds
What does a HAS show?
High Amplitude Sucking - enables detection of phonemic change through the sucking of a dummy
Used as a technique to analyse whether babies can detect different sounds and whether they are interested in different sounds
What is categorical speech perception?
whereby the perception of consonant sounds becomes categorical (ba vs pa)
At what age do babies learn Categorical Speech Perception?
around the age of 9 months
What is a VOT?
the time interval between release of consonant and the onset of voicing (for ba and pa there is a 25msec difference in VOT)
What is perception of sound categories defined by?
dependant on the language that you are raised in
At what age to children fine tune their perception of language to the environment they are growing up in?
around 9 months old
How is detection of phonemic change modified?
through experience
How does older infant speech perception differ to younger infant speech perception
older infants are less likely to discriminate sounds and language that they aren’t used to hearing compared to younger infants
