Language and Comprehension

Chapter 9 & 10 of psych 270

What is linguistics

The academic discipline that studies language

What is psycholinguistics

The study of language as it is used and learned by people

What is defining language

A shared, symbolic system for communication

-Language is based on arbitrary connections between linguistic elements (i.e., sounds) and the meaning denoted by those sounds

What are linguistic universals

Features or characteristics common to all known languages

What are the linguistics universals

Semanticity, arbitrariness, flexibility of symbols, naming, displacement, productivity

What is semanticity

Language conveys meaning

-Not all sounds convey meaning (e.g., a cough)

What is arbitrariness

No inherent connection between the units in a language and the meanings referred to by those units

-Spoken words are disembodied from their referent

-Whale is small word for a big animal; microorganism is a big word for a small thing

What is flexibility of symbols

The connection between symbols and meaning in language is arbitrary, so we can change or invent new symbols

What is naming

We assign names to everything in our environment, even our feelings, thoughts, and concepts

-Terms do not have to have physical referent

-e.g., love, justice, knowledge

What is displacement

The ability to talk about something other than the present moment

-Conjugation of verbs

What is productivity (generativity)

Language is a productive and inherently novel activity

-Humans generate sentences rather than repeat them

What is competence

The internalized knowledge of language and its rules that fully fluent speakers of a language have

What is performance

The actual language behavior a speaker generates (the string of sounds and words that the speaker utters; dysfluencies)

What is dysfluencies

Irregularities or errors in otherwise fluent speech

What did Chomsky (1957) argue

That competence is a purer basis for understanding linguistic knowledge than is performance

What is Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The linguistic relativity hypothesis

The language you know shapes the way you think about the events in the world around you

-Does language constrain thought?

-Can we think about ideas that our language doesn’t name?

What are the two forms of the linguistic relativity hypothesis

Strong and weak

What are the five levels of language analysis

Phonology, syntax, semantics and morphology, conceptual, and belief

What is phonology

The sounds of language and the rule system for combining these sounds

Phonemes

What is phonemes

The basic sounds that compose a language

-The smallest unit of sound that makes a difference to the meaning of a word

-English has 46

How do you combine phonemes into morphemes

A small number of units (phonemes) can be used to generate an essentially infinite number of words

Phonemes are combined into words by using rules

-Bat → Pat

-Abt, tba, atp

What is phonemic competence

Extensive knowledge of the rules of permissible English sound combinations

What is syntax

The arrangements of words as elements in a sentence to show their relationship to one another

-A sentence structure

How words are sequenced to form meaningful utterances

-Governed by rules (syntactic grammar)

What is syntactic grammar

The set of rules for ordering words into acceptable, well-formed sentences

-Descriptive (versus prescriptive)

-Word order

-Phrase order

What is word order

A description of rules of how words are arranged to form sentences

-Red fire engine

-Fire engine red

What is phrase order

How larger units of language are ordered

-Bill told the men to deliver the piano on Monday

-Bill told the men on Monday to deliver the piano

What is semantics & morphology

Retrieving word meaning from memory

The mental lexicon

Involves relating words to other words

What is the mental lexicon

The mental dictionary of words and their meanings

What are morphemes

The smallest meaningful unit of language; two types

What are the two types of morphemes

Free and bound

What are free morpheme

A morpheme that can stand alone

What are bound morpheme

A morpheme that contributes to a word’s meaning but is not a word itself

What is conceptual knowledge

Combines meaning of what you experience (e.g., reading a passage) to the concepts that you already have in memory

-Reference to semantic memory

Example: Mary and John saw the mountains while they were flying to California

What are Beliefs

We understand language with reference to our beliefs about the world

-Beliefs about a subject/topic

-Sarcasm vs. sincerity

-Lying vs. truth

Wh

What is aphasia

A general class of brain disorder where language is disrupted

Three basic forms

What are the three basic forms of aphasia

Broca’s, Wernicke’s, and Conduction

What is Broca’s aphasia

Severe difficulties in producing speech

What is Wernicke’s aphasia

Comprehension of language is impaired, as are repetition, naming, reading, and writing - often syntactic aspects of speech are preserved

What is conduction aphasia

People are unable to repeat what they have just heard

What are the other aphasias

Anomia, agraphia, alexia, pure word deafness

What is anomia

Impairment in the normal ability to retrieve a concept and say its name

What is agraphia

Disruption in writing

What is alexia

Disruption in reading

What is pure word deafness

Person cannot understand spoken language

What is comprehension

The capability to understand; knowing

-Beyond a language processes

What does comprehension as mental structure building mean

Lay a foundation, mapping information, shifting to a new structure

What does lay a foundation mean

We build a foundation around the first mentioned idea or character

What does mapping information mean

Map or store relevant information onto the current structure

What is shifting to a new structure mean

Initiate a new structure to represent a new or different idea

What is situation model

A mental representation that serves as a stimulation of a real or possible word as described by a text

-Implication

-Interference

What is metacomprehension

Monitoring how well we are understanding and will remember information later

What is region of proximal learning

Information that is just beyond a person’s current level of understanding