5 - Language

Arbitrary Association

the word chosen is arbitrary.

ignore

ignore

Cooing

begins 8 weeks

Expressive Vocabulary

Words that children can actually speak.

Fast Mapping

Learning the meaning of a word after only 1 or 2 encounters with it.

Grammar

Rules governing how words are combined to form sentences; grammatical rules differ between languages.

Holophrastic Phase

Stage when a child uses a single word to express the meaning of an entire sentence.

Infant-Directed Speech

Speech to infants using a higher pitch and exaggerated pitch changes and rhythm; helps 6–7-month-olds distinguish vowel sounds and may help them learn the vowel categories of their native language.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Innate mechanism for language acquisition proposed by Noam Chomsky.

Morphemes

Smallest units of sound that contain information in oral languages

• in sign languages, the smallest meaningful units are signs rather than sounds.

Naming Explosion/word spurt

rapid expansion of vocabulary between 18–24 months

Onomatopoeia

Exception to the arbitrary nature of language; words imitate natural sounds to reflect their meaning.

Overregularizations

Syntactic errors involving the application of a grammatical rule too broadly.

Perceptual Narrowing

• a person loses the ability to distinguish sound contrasts that are not used in their native language

Phonemes

Smallest units of sound in a language

Pragmatics

• skills that allow children to communicate appropriately and effectively in social situations, such as taking turns in conversation

Productive

• feature of language allowing a limited set of symbols and rules to be combined in infinite ways to produce and understand a wide range of meanings

Receptive Vocabulary

Words that children can understand but may not yet speak; develops well before expressive vocabulary.

Rule-Governed

Language's infinite combinations of symbols are constrained by the rules of each language; for example, rules determine which phonemes can occur in succession.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Idea that language may influence how we perceive and experience the world.

Semantics

Meaning of words; also refers to how a word's meaning can change depending on context.

Telegraphic Speech

• begins between 18–24 months

• infants use short phrases containing only the most crucial information they want to communicate

Transparent Orthographies

• writing systems where a given letter always makes the same sound

Underextension

• using a general term for only a very particular instance of an item

• less common than overextensions

Universal Phonemic Sensitivity

Ability to discriminate between virtually all phonemes across languages; this ability is lost into adulthood through perceptual narrowing.

criteria for a true language

1. ‘regular’ - governed by rules + grammar

2. arbitrary - sound assigned to a concept doesn’t need to represent it in any way

3. productive - limitless ways to combine words to describe objects

sapir-whorf hypothesis

• language influences our thoughts and the way we perceive and experience the world

study of Peraja supporting the sapir-whorf hypothesis

• native language consists of 3 counting words corresponding to ‘1’, ‘2’, and ‘many’

• according to the sapir-whorf hypothesis, members of this tribe should have trouble understanding fine numerical concepts

• tester asked members of the tribe to match groups of objects according to the # of objects in each group; they sucked with groups of 3 or greater objects

evidence that counters the sapir-whorf hypothesis

• some cultures lack specific words to differentiate relatives (e.g. French and Korean) but can still understand the difference between (lets say) mother and aunt, or brother and grandfather

there are over ____ languages active in the world today

3000

morpheme

• smallest unit of sound that contains info

• often a word, but some word contain multiple morphemes

  • e.g. table is 1 morpheme, but tablecloth is 2 morphemes

• not all morphemes can be used as an individual word (e.g. (table)(s))

phoneme

• the smallest unit of sound in speech

  • e.g. dog has 3 phonemes (d o g)

syntax/grammar

the rules that govern how words in a sentence are put together

semantics

meaning of each individual word

• the sentence here doesn’t violate any grammar rules, but the words are arranged in such a way that makes no sense overall

milestones of language

1. cooing

2. turning head towards voices

3. imitates sounds

4. babbling

babbling

• drawn-out sounds made up of a variety of combinations of vowels + consonants

• may sound like a real sentence/question bc of the use of inflection + rhythm in the production of the babble

• combinations progress to become real words

language explodes in complexity b/w _ to _ years of age

1.5, 6

why does it seem like someone speaking in a foreign language is speaking really fast?

you have difficulty segmenting the speech stream into word units (ie. like reading a sentence w/ no spaces in b/w words)

speech segmentation ability in infants does/does not predict expressive vocabulary size in childhood

does (positive correlation)

true or false: infants cannot distinguish b/w more phonemes than adults

false

children develop phonemic sensitivity based on the _______ they grew up with

language

universal phoneme sensitivity

• ability of infants to discriminate b/w any sounds they hear

• includes sounds from non-native languages

head-turn procedure

technique to test an infants universal phonemic sensitivity

• some phoneme is played on speakers (same one over and over) but then a new phoneme is played

• the infant ideally turns their head towards the speaker at the new phoneme, indicating they can discriminate b/w the 2 sounds

true or false: infants are just as good as native speakers in distinguishing b/w foreign phonemes

true

when does universal phoneme sensitivity in infants disappear?

by the end of first year of life

genie case study

• was locked in a small room + no interactions w/ people

• rescued at 13

• had no language skills

• struggled for the rest of her life to learn language

what does the genie case study show

• w/o exposure to language, children can’t develop it

overextension

• children apply a rule too broadly

  • e.g. a child learns his pet is called doggie and uses doggie to label any 4-legged animal

overregularization

• type of overextension

• child makes syntactical error by applying a grammatical rule too broadly

  • e.g. a child says they “played” with their friends yesterday but applies the -ed saying they “runned” instead of “ran”

underextension

• children apply a rule to a specific object only

  • e.g. child uses “doggie” to refer to their dog only but no other dogs

language acquisition device

• innate mechanism, present only in humans, that helps language develop rapidly according to universal rules

• babies like listening to speech rather than anything else

congenitally deaf children develop a universal sign language without formally learning it

congenitally deaf children develop a universal sign language without formally learning it

infants brains are wired to adapt to the sounds and their associated meanings presented in their first environment

infants brains are wired to adapt to the sounds and their associated meanings presented in their first environment

social learning theory

• humans need to socialize with others to learn language

• children learn language through a combination of imitation + operant conditioning

innate mechanism theory

• language acquisition device is present in all humans which innately allows us to learn languages without human interaction

examples of animal communication

• honey bee waggle dance

• bird songs for mate attraction

honey bee waggle dance

1. waggle phase - bee moves forward w/ the direction of the line indicating the direction of the food source

   1. a food source directly in line with the sun is indicated by a waggle in the straight upward direction, with the waggles at an angle indicating the angle away from the line of the sun that the bee should follow to find the food.

   2. distance of the waggle

      communicates the distance of

      the food source from the hive

2. return phase

   1. the bee returns to its starting position in a loop, either to the left or to the right, forming a figure eight pattern.

washoe

• chimp raised by scientists + taught how to communicate via ASL

• lacked grammar (not regular)

sarah

• chimp raised by scientists + taught how to communicate via plastic symbols

• could not generate new sentences (wasn’t productive)

kanzi

• chimp raised by scientists + taught how to communicate via lexigrams

• instrumental conditioning NOT used to teach language

• used full immersion to see if kanzi would learn the language through observation

• no grammar

language is a defining characteristic of _____ cognition

human

broca’s area

thought to play a role in production of language

wenicke’s area

thought to play a role in comprehension of speech

supporting evidence for social learning theory and innate mechanism theory

social learning theory:

• genie case study

• babies learn words when they are reinforced

innate mechanism theory:

• sign language - innate and autonomic grammar

• babies prefer speech sounds over non-speech sounds

• overextensions

• under-extensions

• use of the words “give” vs “get” over time demonstrate the shift in Western culture from community-based to individual-based

our _____ _______ is activated when we use swear words

basal ganglia

our _________ is activated when we hear swear words

amygdala

taboo words activate brain areas associated with ________ emotion: the _____ hemisphere

negative, right

tourettes is connected to what region of the brain

basal ganglia; in charge of uncontrollable swearing in people w/ tourettes

the types of swear words used give a glimpse into what is important in a certain ________. give an example

culture

e.g. in Eastern countries, swear words/insults about family are more common, because people of these cultures value family above all else

euphemism vs dysphemism

euphemism: nicer words to talk about icky thing

dysphemism: purposefully using a crude word because you want the person to think about how bad it is

emphatic swearing

swearing to add emphasis (can be good or bad)

cathartic swearing

swearing to feel better about a situation

rage-circuit theory

when people (or animals) are injured, they emit loud, angry noises (in the case of humans, we swear) to release negative emotions

e.g. you stub your toe and say the f word; you tend to actually feel less pain for a shorter period of time (cathartic swearing)

children learning to lead languages with ________ ___________ have a much easier time than children learning to read English and master reading relatively quickly.

transparent orthographies

languages differ grammatically in terms of the ____ in which words occur in a sentence.

order

at what age do children use 50-250 words

2 years

The pattern of perceptual narrowing in language development indicates that there may be a biological basis for phoneme discrimination that is influenced by _________ in the first year of life

experience

Laurel Trainor baby-talk study

• when people talk to infants, they exaggerate changes in pitch, which helps infants discriminate b/w different vowel sounds

foreign accent syndrome (FAS)

• patients have typically suffered from a stroke/head injury that damaged areas in the L hemisphere involved in motor control of speech

• patients have a foreign accent when speaking their native language

Broca’s area

• area in L frontal lobe

• damage leads to difficulty in production of fluent speech

  • individuals can understand words, but can’t find the words to respond

Wernicke’s area

• area in L temporal lobe

• damage leads to fluent but nonsensical speech + difficulty understanding written/spoken language

still-face procedure

an adult looks at an infant with a non-responsive, neutral facial expression

• infants 2/3 months old will become distressed (indicating that they have expectations about how a face-to-face social interaction should proceed)

• some infants will smile (direct response to social interaction)

by 6 years old, a child has mastered _______ words

10 000

at around _ years of age, increase in vocab starts to slow down, and most children have mastered a large majority of the vocabulary of their language

6

true or false: girls typically have larger vocabularies and overall better language skills than boys between the ages of approximately 2 and 6 years

true

_____-born children tend to develop larger vocabularies earlier than their _____-born siblings

first, second

true or false: girls start using words about social relations and for objects that need to be cared for (e.g., doll, baby) earlier than boys. In contrast, boys start using words for loud moving objects earlier than girls.

true

Interestingly, overextensions in ________ persist longer than overextensions in __________

production, comprehension

(e.g. if a boy uses the word car for a bus, a truck, and a wagon, he can still point to the correct items if asked)

bilingualism has ___ effect on intelligence, but ________ effects on other factors

no, positive

true or false: bilingual children have better episodic and semantic memory

true

true or false: bilingual children have more developed non-verbal cognitive abilities

true

true or false: very young infants and even newborns prefer listening to speech over non-speech sounds

true

Although the symbols used to represent meaning are different in kind to those used in oral languages, sign languages and oral languages follow similar developmental trajectories, activate similar areas of the brain, and have similar underlying structures. This suggests that although the physical methods of communicating languages may differ due to developmental limitations, the fundamental bases of human language are the same, suggesting at least a partially inherent foundation for human language.

Although the symbols used to represent meaning are different in kind to those used in oral languages, sign languages and oral languages follow similar developmental trajectories, activate similar areas of the brain, and have similar underlying structures. This suggests that although the physical methods of communicating languages may differ due to developmental limitations, the fundamental bases of human language are the same, suggesting at least a partially inherent foundation for human language.

interactionist theories

combined role of nature and nuture in language development (both innate mechanism theory and social learning theory combined)

by 2 years old, children have a vocabulary of about ___ words

250

by 2 ½ years old, children have a vocabulary of about ___ words

850