What Is Language? Flashcards
What is language?
Language is the unique property of the human cognitive system that differentiates us from the rest of the animal kingdom
How many languages are spoken in the world?
6,000 (Anderson,2009)
What is the most spoken language?
Chinese (>1 billion people)
What is English used as?
“Lingua Franca”
What are the main properties of language?
Symbolic: uses written signs, sounds, and gestures to refer to objects, events, ideas, and feelings
Structured: rules govern how words may be combined
Creative: symbols can be combined in an infinite number of ways
Meaningful: each word is associated with an idea or concept
What is language?
A code used to communicate with others
What is speech?
The oral expression of language
What are phonemes?
They are the smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of speech (save-gave)
Combined in certain ways (according to phonological rules) to fork words
How many phonemes does the English language have?
English has more than 40 phonemes which can only be combined in a certain number of ways
What are morphemes?
They are the smallest meaningful units of language:
Includes word stems (dog and run)
Prefixes “un”
Suffixes “-ing -ed”
Rules and how they should be interpretations e.g. Past tense (ed) or plural (s)
Higher units of analysis?
Words: stand alone and still have meaning, unlike many morphemes
Syntax: words can be combined to form phrases and sentences, according to a set of rules known as syntax
Semantics: concerns the meaning of an utterance or phrase
Pragmatics: the relationship between context and meaning
What is a lexicon?
All the words we know (mental dictionary)
A catalogue of words which is essentially the vocabulary of a person
The average student has a vocabulary of between 50,000-100,000 words
Why is the Broca’s area important?
It is the area of the brain that is responsible for speech production
Why is the Wernicke’s area important?
It is the part of the brain that is responsible for speech comprehension
What is the process from language from perception to production?
Visual cortex - Wernicke’s area - primary auditory cortex - Broca’s area - Motor Cortex
Where is language typically lateralised?
It is typically lateralised to the left hemisphere
When does the language development phase end?
It doesn’t, it continues throughout your life
In post-natal - 6 years, what are the stages of language development?
Post- natal: cooing (interactional vocalisation) - physical limitations in the vocal tract
4-12 months: Babbling (putting together vowels and consonants) - phonological development
-2 years: babbling to word production (1/2 word) -semantic/syntactic development
-6 years: vocabulary from 8,000 to 14,000 - pragmatic development
What are three ways of studying language?
Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistics
Psycholinguistics
What is linguistic anthropology?
Study of how language influences social life, represents and transmits cultural knowledge
What are linguistics?
Study of the rules of language, meaning of written and spoken language
What are psycholinguistics?
A branch of psychology: the study of the processes of language acquisition, comprehension and production
What tools or methods can be used to investigate language?
MRI, NIRS, EEG
What is habituation?
They can differentiate between language and recognise their mums voice
