AP Psychology - Language

language

sub category of communication

language uses rules to communicate

what is the difference between language and communication?

phoneme

smallest unit of sound; every letter of the alphabet has this

morpheme

smallest unit of language that carries meaning; suffixes/prefixes; any word by itself

semantics

the interpretation of word meaning; politicians change words around to make them sound better

syntax

the order of words (that make sense); if this does not exist then there is no language

babbling

4 months

one word stage

12 months

two word stage

24 months

telegraphic speech

the use of nouns and verbs to get a message across; correlates with 24 months

four words; uses syntax

3-4 years

overregularization

applying standard grammatical rules where they don’t belong; correlates with 3-4 years

age 7

what is the critical period for learning a language?

operant conditioning

skinner explained language acquisition on the basis of learning principles such as association, imitation, and reinforcement; nurture

universal grammar

chomsky believed that the rate of language acquisition was too fast to be explained solely through nurture. He believed that our brains are prewired to understand parts of speech through an internal language acquisition device; nature; has the edge

aphasia

impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to broca’s area (imparing speaking) or to wernicke’s area (impairing understanding)

linguistic determinism

the strong form of Whorf’s hypothesis -- that langauge controls the way we think and interpret the world around us

linguistic influence

the weaker form of “linguistic relativity” -- the idea that language affects thought (thus our thinking and world view is “relative to” our cultural language)