W8 - Language Flashcards
phonemes
- speech sounds that epress meaning
- signle unit of sound that changes meaning
around 200 diff ypes of human made sounds are used in langauge
phonemes between diff. languages
they may have similar speach sounds but use them in diff. ways to signal meaning
allophonic
acousticall different but not functionally diffrent
in english: spill vs pill
phonemic
signals difference in menaing
in thai: paa (short p) vs phaa (long p)
Morphemes
the smallest language unit that carry meaning
words, suffixes and prefixes
unbound/free morphemes
words
bound morphemes
affixes and suffixes
re, pre, un and ing, er, s
morphemes= words
content
morphemes= affixes and suffixes
Function (grammatical)
semantic language processing relise on processing what?
content words:
Content words map onto concepts
Concept is a unit of semantic memory
Categories – Lecturers, caves, dogs
synactic language processing relies on processing what?
function words (unbound morphemes)
what are content words?
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
what are function words?
pronouns, prepositions, conjuntives
plus words like: that, this, a, the, if, to
Aphasia
the inability to produce and understand language
Broca’s Aphasia characteristics
inability to process syntaxs
mainly talks with content words
Language-Relevant Brain Areas:
Right-handed People: left hemisphere,
mostly lower edge of frontal lobe and
upper edge of temporal lobe
Syntax
the structure of language in phrases and sentences
- rules for odering words are leraned implicity
syntax is cued by what?
Morphology
Word order
Word class
syntax - Morphology:
- bound morphemes e.g talks
- different morphemes e.g he hit him
- word order e.g john loves mary
syntax - Word order
who is doing to whom
- sunject - object - verb (can be ordered diff between languages)
Syntax - Word class
word order helps us identify the word class
- adjective, noun, verb
Wernick’s Aphasia characteristic
inability to understand word reprsenation, semantics, and mapping between phonolgy an semantics
Wernick’s Area
left temporal lobe, next to primary auditoray cortex. translates sounds into meaning
syntax cues meaning
semantics
A proposition
statement that expresses an idea
structure of language maps onto what?
who is doing what to whom
early infants and understanding language
1to 4 month olds
they can discrimminate between all phonemes from all languahes
9 month infants langauge detection
they begin to fine tune their percetion to the language(s) they are growing up in
the set of sounds infants make
cooing
reduplicated babbling
variegated babbling
cooing occurs at?
2 months
Reduplicated babbling occurs at?
the sam syllable over and over
6-7 months
Variegated babbling
syllables with diff conconants and vowls
11-12 months
with occurs after adaption at 10 months
why can infants only make a limmited set of sounds?
- the shape of the infants vocal tract
- development of motor cortex
differences in production vs comprehension
- comprehension of words comes before the prodcution of vocabulary by 4 months avg
- initial acquisition rates for comprehension of words is 2x that of production
- phoneme discrimination (compredension before prodction)
underextension of words
a word that could repsent a whole cattegory is only apllied to one situation.
e.g. dog is only the family dog and not other dogs
overextension of a word
a word is used for more then on distinct category
e.g. dog being used to name both dogs and cats
protowords
have some features of langauge but is not comprehensible
non-verbal functions of language seen in toddlers
- turn taking
- pitch
holophrase
when a singal word is used as a whole sentance.
e.g. water = can i please have that glass of water
language development at age 2
semantic relations are formed through combining words
language at age 4
syntax is added - begins to look like adult language
at how many words does langauge production take off?
50 words
Nativist views of Language
language is innately aquited
- kids have a biological predispotion to learn langauge
- language bioprogam hypothrsis
- Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
evidance for the Nativist view
children acquire language:
1. rapidly
2. effortlessly
3. and without being taught
Nativist view: language bioprogram hypothesis
sensitive period - this ends by puberty obce lateralization occurs
evidence= isolated chilren and deaf signers
Nativist view: Sensitive period vs. critical period
sensitive period is where the developent of anmuages is easiest to obtain and gets harder outside of this time but not impossible.
critical period is were the bevaiour cna only be obtained around a curtain time like goslings attacment to a mother figure. once that period is over the behaviour is set and cannot be chnaged or futher obtained.
Language View: General learning capacities
kids learn language through general learing mechanisms
- alternative view to nativisim
- kids use domain general skills
- pattern recgonition
- against poverty of stim claim
General learning capacity: statistical learning
- learing word bounderies
- babies looked longer at novil word pairs
Social Learning View
Language is learned through social interaction
- innate/ evolutionary explanantion to language
- parentese influnce shilds langauge and vocab
social context of early word learning
- parents guide kids talking
- gaze and objcets are connected
- socila routines help guide learning
interdepedent cultures
- social roles are most salient
- self concept is part of the group
- group goals take priority
- relationships crucial
Independent cultures
- internal attributes most salient
- self concepts seperate from group
- personal goals take priority over groups
interdepedent cultures and learning langauge
situation-centred talk
- child learning to adapt to situations
Independent cultures and learning language
child-centred talk
- caregivers adapt talk to child’s level
what kind of language development did Chompsky favour?
Nature
universa grammer: Language aquisition device (LAD)
what is an LAD
a set of innate neural structures specsific for aquiring language
what kind of language development did skinner favour?
Nurture
that kids learn through imitation, reinforcement, punishment, generalisation and discrimination.
it requires no special principles
telegraphic speech
utterances composed of only the most essential words for meaning (as in a telegram).
