Chapter 9 - Language & Thinking

Language

A system of symbols and rules for these symbols to generate infinite messages and meanings

Grammar

Rule-governed structure for language

Syntax

Order of words

Semantics

Meanings behind words and sentences

Generativity

Characteristic of language that means - the symbols of language can be combined to make infinite meanings

Displacement

Characteristic of language that means - language allows us to refer to events that are not currently present (past, future)

Surface structure

Type of structure referencing the symbols and their orders

Deep structure

Type of structure referencing the underlying meaning of symbols when combined

Phoneme

Smallest unit of speech in a language that signals a difference in meaning

Morpheme

Small unit of meaning in a language (ex. Dog, log, prefixes)

Bottom-up processing

Analyzing elements of stimulus and creating a perception

Top-down processing

Using existing knowledge and expectations to process something

Speech segmentation

Perceiving where a word begins and ends

Pragmatics

Knowledge of practical aspects of language - knowing how to respond without context

Broca's Area

Area of the brain involved in word production and articulation

Wernicke's Area

Area of the brain involved in speech comprehension

Aphasia

Impairment in speech comprehension or production

Language acquisition device (LAD)

Biological mechanism to learning common grammatical rules

Operant conditioning explanation

Social learning has a lot of influence in learning a language - Skinner developed this explanation

Language acquisition support system (LASS)

Learning system represented by social and environment factors - proposed by Bruner

Sensitive period

This is when second languages are best learned

Critical Period Hypothesis

Neurological factors occurring at puberty mean that thereafter you can't just pick up a language as you did when you were a child

Linguistic relativity hypothesis

Whorf's belief that speakers of different languages have different views of the world, language determines our capability of thought

Propositional thought

Expressing a statement in our mind, how most thinking occurs

Imaginal thought

Consists of images that we can "see," "hear," or "feel" in our mind

Motoric thought

Mental representations of motor movements

Concept

Basic unit of semantic memory

Deductive reasoning

Reasoning where one begins with a set of premises and then assesses their "fit" to come to a conclusion

Inductive reasoning

A type of reasoning in which generalizations are based on a large number of specific observations (based on fact)

Belief bias

Abandoning logical rules in favour of personal belief

Framing

Emotions making one abandon logical reasoning

Algorithm

Formulas to automatically generate solutions

Heuristic

Strategies to apply to certain classes of situations

Means-end analysis

A heuristic where differences between beginning and end state are identified

Subgoal analysis

Goal cut down into intermediates

Confirmation bias

Looking to confirm a belief rather than disconfirming our ideas

Metacognition

Understanding of own cognitive abilities

Wisdom

Involves factual and procedural knowledge about life, understanding of lifespan, relativism of values

Universal Characteristics of Languages

Symbols, structure, meaning, generativity, displacement