exam 2: language

language can be thought of as

a two-way connector between thoughts and sounds

two basic tasks of language

• speaker role: idea, word/sentence, coordinated vocal articulation

• listener role: language comprehension, construct understanding from sequence of sounds

fundamental properties of human natural language

• arbitrarily symbolic

• generative property

• language structures

what does it mean for a language to be arbitrarily symbolic?

there is no connection between word and meaning

• words don’t have to look or sound like what they describe

• principle of connventionality: the meaning of words is determined by conventions

generative property

we can create an unlimited number of new utterances using rules of language (our internalized knowledge)

• there are a limited number of words, but we can combine them in unlimited ways

• syntactic rules govern how exactly words can be combined & how sequences indicate meanings, so there is a limitless supply of novel combinations

language has multiple levels of structure with generativity at each:

• sentence

• phrase

• word

• morpheme

• phoneme

what is a phoneme?

the sounds of a language; the smallest meaningful unit of speech

• different languages use different phonemes

• path from letters to phonemes is not always intuitive or patterned (c and k have the same phoneme, sh is one phoneme but two letters)

• phonemes are produced by changes to vocal apparatuses: position of tongue, lips, jaw, teeth, etc. consonants are mostly closed, vowels are unobstructed and affected by the tongue

what is a morpheme?

smallest meaningful part of a word, where changing a morpheme changes the meaning of a word

• monomorphemic = whole word means something and its parts don’t (ex. cat)

syntax

rules used to put words together for a sentence; governs how words are combined into larger units

distributionist theory

all parts of the brain are involved in language, not only the frontal lobe as scientists suggested at the time; believed by Broca

Broca’s aphasia

diffficulty with language production due to damage of the left frontal lobes (Broca’s area)

• no function words (the, of, be)

• but comprehension is largely intact

Wernicke’s aphasia

• damage to left temporal lobe (Wernicke’s area)

• can’t comprehend words but language production remains fluent

• fluent speech makes little sense (often called word salad)

• frequent use of made-up words, word substitutions

what are wernicke and broca’s areas responsible for?

• broca → planning/organizing speech

• wernicke → storing sound representations of words

conduction aphasia

• damage to connections between broca and wernicke’s areas

• less severe damage to language ability

• trouble monitoring speech and repeating back sentences

global aphasia

widespread damage to left hemisphere across multiple language areas

linguistic determinism (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)

thoughts & behaviors are determined by language; strong interpretation that believes the structure of native language strongly or fully influences one’s acquired worldview

linguistic relativity

thoughts and behavior are only influenced by language; a milder interpretation

Berlin & Kay (1969)

• tested strong form of linguistic relativity

• found there were universal patterns even between different languages (ex. first two colors named were always black and white, followed by red)

• showed there are universal, physiologically-based principles behind color naming

codability

how easily a concept can be described in a given language

what are two main tasks of language acquisition?

• parsing language sounds: need to learn the phonemes of language eand sort them into categories

• learning rules: how words are combined, grammar, understanding how to generate novel sentences, knowing rules that can be applied

children are able to acquire language despite

limited explicit instruction, lack of correction for grammar/pronunciation for adults

nativist approach to language acquisition (Chomsky, Pinker)

there is innate linguistic knowledge that facilitates learning, since language is so complex and acquisition is not structured, yet is still done at a young age

empiricist approach to language acquisition

• less emphasis on innate abilities

• focuses on learning

• children don’t really need instruction, they just need to process a lot of data

• neural networks can stimulate aspects of acquisition

how do psychologists research language acquisition and phoneme differentiation in babies?

• comparing sucking rate (symbolizes stimulation) after playing one syllable → eventually rate decreases → changing sounds causes sucking again

• older infants: able to sit up and turn their head when listening to a particular sound → habituation → changing sound causes child to turn

  • at 8 mo’s: able to anticipate a sound change but at 1 yr: not able to anticipate anymore

when are infants able to discriminate all phonemes from all language?

by 8-9 months old

when do infants lose discriminations that are not important in their own language?

generally by 10-12 months

Eimas (1985) and sound discrimination

• tested Japanese and American infants

• hear r and l sounds until both groups are able to distinguish the phonemes

• at age 1, Japanese children no longer discriminate l vs. r, since there is no need for a discrimination in Japanese language

motherese/child directed speech

• adults help kids by speaking in certain way

• slower, exaggerated vowels, high pitch

• falling pitch between phrase boundaries, pauses more frequent

• infants prefer motherese but ultimately it doesn’t have a big effect on language acquisition

major stages of language acquisition

• holophrastic (one word): no syntax, need gestures and context, understand some phrases

• telegraphic (two word): correct use of word order according to language (ex. subject-action). can convey information succinctly

• learn syntax/rules: learning through errors like “goed” instead of “went”

what evidence is there to show that language learning in children is generative, not just imitation?

by 4 or 5 y/o, kids will be able to apply syntax rules to new cases, even for nonsense words (ex. know that plural of “wug” is “wugs”)

summary of language development timeline

• 4 mo → babbles many speech sounds

• 10 mo → babbling reveals household’s language

• 12 mo → one word stage

• 24 mo → two word stage

• 24+ mo → language develops rapidly into complete sentences

evidence for a critical period for language learning

• most people can’t acquire native ability after 10 or 12

• second language learners: Johnson & Newport (1990) - Chinese and Korean speakers came to the US, learned English; had better performance on grammatical vs ungrammatical sentences when arriving 3 - 7 and lower as age of arrival increases

animal language research and “clever Hans”

• studying animal language is difficult because of anthropomorphism

• Hans was a horse that appeared to understand human language, but in reality, was just trained to act based on his owner’s gestures, body language, tone, etc.

gorilla Koko

• was taught to sign language and able to use it creatively and spontaneously

• was even able to invent own compound signs

• had a vocabulary of over 1000 signs

• could understand spoken words too

bonobo chimp Kanzi

• was taught to communicate using symbols on a computer (lexigrams), originally by observing his mother, who was in a language-learning study at a lab

• he was able to perform better than his mother, which may indicate there is a critical period for language learning

• language capability was equivalent to about a 2 or 3 year old human

• supports empiricist position