language

Language

a system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and that convey meaning

Grammar

a set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages

Phonemes

The smallest units of speech that distinguish one word from one another

Phonological rules

indicate how phonemes can be combined to form words

Morphemes

the smallest meaningful units of language

Morphological rules

indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words

Content

Type of morpheme that refers to things and events (e.g., “cat,” “dog,” “take”)

Function

Type of morpheme that serves as grammatical functions, such as tying sentences together (“and,” “or,” “but”). Make up half of a sentence and make human language complex.

Syntactic rules

indicate how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences

Babbling

happens between ages 4-6 months, involves combinations of vowels and consonants that sound like real syllables but are meaningless, all infants go through

telegraphic speech

speech that is devoid of function morphemes and consist mostly of content words (around 24 months, usually 2 words) “more milk”

overregularize

when a child overextends a rule, for example that past tense is indicated by -ed, then run becomes runned or even ranned instead of ran.

4-5

age when many aspects of language acquisition is complete. Skills become more refined with appreciation of humor, sarcasm, or irony.

nativist theory

language development is best explained as an innate, biological capacity

universal grammar

a collection of processes that facilitate language learning

behaviorist

approach where language develops through reinforcement of operant conditioning, skinner

nativist

approach where language development is an innate biological capacity, chomsky

interactionist

approach where language is both innate and social interactions and culture also play a critical role

aphasia

condition where damage to brocas/wernickles areas creates difficulty in producing or comprehending language

brocas area

area in brain involved in the production of the sequential patterns in vocal and sign languages, frontal cortex

wernickles area

area in brain involved in language comprehension, temporal cortex

Concept

a mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related objects, events, or other stimuli

Prototype theory

the concept that we classify new objects by comparing them to the “best” or “most typical” member of a category, image processing

exemplar theory

the concept that we make category judgments by comparing a new instance with stored memories of other instances of the category, analysis/decision making

category-specific deficit

neurological syndrome characterized by an inability to recognize objects that belong to a particular category, even when the ability to recognize objects outside the category is undisturbed