PSYCH 1X03: Language

What is language

• Language is a uniquely human form of communication that involves arbitrary associations, is productive, and is rule-governed

Describe the 3 things that are required of language

• Arbitrary Associations: The word used to represent an object is not constrained by any characteristics of the thing itself, allowing the word chosen to be completely arbitrary 

• This is why various languages exist—the same concept is represented by different words in different languages

• Productive: Language has a limited set of rules that can be used to combine a limited set of symbols in infinite ways 

• Essentially:  we can create new sentences using the words we already know 

• Rule-Governed: The infinite combination of symbols are constrained by the rules of each language 

• Ex: each oral language has its own set of rules about which phonemes can occur in succession

Onomatopoeia

• there are some words whose sounds are associated with their meanings → onomatopoeia: sounds of the words attempt to imitate the natural sounds to reflect the meaning 

• Ex: meow, splash, hiss  

Morphemes

• Morphemes: In oral languages, smallest units of sound that contain information. In sign language, units of sign rather than sound

• Are often words, but a single word can be made up of more than one morpheme

• Ladybug → lady + bug (2 morphemes) 

• Some morphemes can be standalone words while others must be combined with other morphemes to make sense 

• Standalone morpheme: bug 

• Morpheme that must be combined: “s” → bug + s → bugs 

• Morphemes tell you information: bug = the object, s = there is more than one object 

Phonemes

• Phonemes: In oral languages, the smallest units of sound 

• A morpheme can be broken down into its constituent sounds which are phonemes

• Ex: morpheme drag can be broken down into its phonemes 

→ d / r / a / g 

• Note that each letter of a written language does not represent a single phenome 

• Some letters represent more than one phenome 

• Ex: In English, the letter c can make a /s/ (cis) or /k/ (cook) sound 

• Combinations of letters can make new phenomes 

• Ex: sh and th  

Transparent orthographies

• Transparent orthographies: Consistent letter-to-sound correspondence, so that a given letter (phoneme) will always make the same sound

• In some languages (ex: Italian), a given letter will always make the same sound

• Children learning to read languages with transparent orthographies have a much easier time than children learning to read English and master reading relatively quickly

Grammer + grammer across languages

• Grammer: Refers to the rules that govern how we put words together to form a sentence. Differences in grammatical rules between languages are common 

• Ex: assigning gender, order in which words can occur in a sentence 

• It is hard to describe the grammatical rules of your native language - you seem to intuitively know them 

Overregularization + examples

• Overregularization happens when kids apply regular grammar rules to words that are irregular.

• Ex: “Goed, runned”

Semantics

• Semantics: Refers to the meaning of a word. Can also mean that we are able to understand the different meanings for a word depending on the context 

• Ex: Were all of your members present? Did you like your present? Focus more on the present than the future. 

What order do children develop language skills

What is the segmentation problem

• The Segmentation Problem: Segmenting individual words is hard in speech of a foreign language 

• Sounds like a run on sentence

What is Universal Phonemic Sensitivity and what was discovered about it in relation to children

• Universal Phonemic Sensitivity: The ability to discriminate between all phonemes of all languages. 

• Researchers found that infants have universal phonemic sensitivity using a head-turn procedure

• Head-turn procedure: If a child turns their head when they hear a different phoneme from what was playing originally, the child is able to discriminate between the phenomes 

• Infants are able to discriminate phonemes from different languages, not just their native one

• Ex: infants from English-speaking families, English-speaking adults, and Hindi-speaking adults were tested to see if they could differentiate between 2 different Hindi /t/ sounds → infants performed almost as well as Hindi adults 

What is perceptual narrowing + why does it occur

•  perceptual narrowing: The process where one loses the ability to distinguish between contrasts in sounds not used in one's native language 

• infants lose this discriminative ability during the first year of life

• Infants are born prepared to deal with any language and as their perceptual system is exposed to a particular language setting, it develops accordingly. 

• Ex: Infants who are immersed in an English-language setting will benefit from being able to discriminate between /r/ and /l/, since both sounds are used in English. In contrast, infants immersed in a Japanese-language setting will not benefit from maintaining that ability, since the distinction between these sounds is irrelevant

Infant Directed Speech

• Infant Directed Speech: When people talk to infants, they tend to speak in a higher pitch and exaggerate changes in pitch and use of rhythm → helps 6-7 month olds discriminate between different vowel sounds used in their native language 

Cooing and pragmatics

• When infants begin cooing, parents can practice conversational skills with the infants by taking turns to coo and vocalize with the infants which leads to development of pragmatics 

• Cooing: Infants begin cooing at 12 weeks, making sounds that combine consonants with ‘oo’ and ‘ah’ sounds 

• Pragmatics: The skills that allow children to communicate appropriately and effectively in a social situation, such as taking turns during a conversation 

Holophrastic Stage

• Holophrastic Stage: When a child uses a single word to indicate the meaning of an entire sentence, develops during 10-18 months 

• Ex: Child says “ball!” → child wants you to give him the ball

Naming Explosion/Word Spurt

• Naming Explosion/Word Spurt: A rapid expansion of vocabulary seen between the ages of 18-24 months

Fast Mapping

• Fast Mapping: When children learn the meaning of a word after only 1 or 2 encounters with it

Girls vs Boys in Language Development

• Girls usually have larger vocabularies and better language skills than boys between 2-6 years old

• Girls start using words about social relations and for objects that need to be cared for (doll, baby) earlier than boys 

• Boys start using words for loud moving objects earlier than girls 

Expressive Vocabulary vs Receptive Vocabulary

• Expressive Vocabulary: Words that children can actually speak 

• Receptive Vocabulary: Words that children can understand but may not yet speak 

• Receptive vocabulary develops before expressive vocabulary

First born children vs second born children in language development

• First born-children tend to develop larger vocabularies earlier than second-borns 

If you damage the Broca’s area, what happens

• Damage to Broca’s area (in left frontal lobe): difficulty in the production of fluent speech 

If you damage Wernicke’s area, what happens

• Damage to Wernicke’s area (in left temporal lobe): individuals speak fluently, but their speech makes no sense; individuals have difficulty understanding written and spoken language 

What is Foreign Accent Syndrome and how do you get it

• Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS): Patients after regaining their speech following a brain injury in the left hemisphere involved in motor control of speech appear to speak fluently but with a foreign accent 

• Foreign accent only appears to be that way because of slight changes in the way they speak

Overextensions vs Underextensions

• During the holophrastic stage (10-18 months), children make overextensions

• Overextensions: Errors that involve using a fairly specific word for a broader set of related items 

• Ex: using ‘car’ to label a truck, wagon, and bus 

•  Underextensions: An error where a general term is used for only a particular instance of an item. Less common than overextensions 

Telegraphic speech

• Telegraphic speech (18-24 months): Infants use short phrases that contain only the most crucial information they are trying to communicate, much like those that would be used if you were sending a telegram

• Ex: “more juice” → I want to drink more juice 

Holphrastic stage vs telegraphic speech

• Holophrastic Stage: using a single word to describe meaning of entire sentence

• Telegraphic speech (18-24 months): Infants use short phrases that contain only the most crucial information they are trying to communicate, much like those that would be used if you were sending a telegram

• Ex: “more juice” → I want to drink more juice 

Overregularization vs overextension

•  Overregularizations: Syntactic errors that involve using a grammatical rule too broadly 

• Ex: “foots” → feet, “mans” → men, “runned” → ran

• Overextensions: Errors that involve using a fairly specific word for a broader set of related items 

• Ex: using ‘car’ to label a truck, wagon, and bus 

Advantages and disadvantages that bilingual children have over monolingual children

Advantages:

• enhanced non verbal cognitive abilities (selective attention, task switching, inhibition of distracters), episodic and semantic memory (better organization of information, increased flexibility) 

Disadvantages:

• limited language processing and proficiency 

• Suggestion that this is due to having smaller vocabularies for each language 

Whorfian Hypothesis (what it is + evidence in support + counter-evidence)

• Whorfian Hypothesis/Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: The idea that language may influence how we perceive and experience the world → our very thoughts are shaped by language 

• Evidence in support: Piraha of Brazil

• Piraha language contains only three counting words: one, two, and many 

• When asked to match groups of objects to how many were in each group, they were able to with groups containing one or two items, but struggled with many items 

• Counterevidence: Arapaho of Wyoming

• Have only one word to describe a senior male relative 

• However, they understand the differences between an older brother, father, uncle, grandfather and how they are related to each other 

What do modern views say about the development of language (nature vs nurture)

• modern views hold that it is a combination of both factors that results in human language

Social Learning Theory (what it is, support, criticism)

• Social Learning Theory: Language abilities are acquired through imitation and instrumental/operant conditioning (positive reinforcement → ex: when a baby accidentally says “mama” and his mother praises him, use of positive reinforcers → ex: girl learns that ice cream is delicious, she is able to say ice to indicate she wants ice cream) 

• Support for theory: Case studies of children who have not been exposed to language throughout their childhood (ex: Genie) 

• Criticism: Language is too complex and acquired too rapidly to be learned, errors early in development are not performed by adults so they cannot be imitated, and patterns of reinforcement used are insufficient 

Innate Mechanism Theory (what it is, support, criticism)

• Innate Mechanism Theory: Humans are born with an innate mechanism that allows them to learn language 

• Support for theory: The spontaneous development of sign language in deaf children, young infants and newborns prefer to listen to speech over non-speech sounds, infants show very specific neurophysiological responses to the first language they are exposed to, universal language milestones occur in a consistent pattern at certain ages 

• Criticism: Infant monkeys and chinchillas also show very specific neurophysiological responses to some aspects of language 

• Calls into question if language is actually a uniquely human quality

Language Acquisition Device

• Language Acquisition Device (LAD): An innate mechanism of language acquisition that allows language to develop rapidly; proposed by Noam Chomsky

• All languages follow universal rules and the LAD allows humans to understand and use these universal rules

Interactionist Theories of Development

• Interactionist Theories of Language Development: Recognition that children are biologically prepared for language, but also require extensive experience with language in the environment for adequate development

• Children play an active role in acquiring language by formulating, testing, and evaluating hypotheses about the rules of language

• There are three influences on language development: biological maturation of the brain, social interaction, and cognitive preparedness

Sign Language and Language Development

• There is evidence for spontaneous development of sign language in deaf populations (ex: LSN) 

• People from different cultures use different sign languages 

• The structure and syntax of sign languages do not necessarily mimic the oral languages spoken in their culture of use 

• A given sign language can also have different dialects used in different regions 

What part of our brain is activated when dealing with taboo words

• Taboo words activate brain areas associated with negative emotion: right hemisphere

→ basal ganglia = producing swear words

Categorie

euphemism vs Dysphemism

euphemism: a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.

Dysphemism: Harsh or offensive expression used to describe something unpleasant or negative

Emphatic swearing vs cathartic swearing

Emphatic swearing: For emphasis 

Cathartic swearing: swearing that makes us feel good → ex when we stub a toe and let out swear words, we’ll feel less pain