Introduction, design features, animal communication, language & thought

Psycholinguistics

Combines concepts of psychology & linguistics to show ho psychological & neurobiological factors allow humans in the acquisition, usage, production & comprehension of language

Key concepts of psycholinguistics

Understanding language, producing language and conversation and dialogue

Aphasia

Language disorder caused by damage to parts of the brain that control speech and language comprehension

Generativity (in language)

Ability to use a finite set of words and grammatical rules to produce and understand an infinite number of novel (new) sentences and ideas

Prevarication

Act of avoiding the truth, speaking evasively, or misleading someone without telling a direct, blunt lie

Sound symbolism

The direct, non-arbitrary connection between the sounds of spoken words and their actual meanings

Syntax

The arrangement of words and phrases in a specific order to form well-structured, meaningful sentences

Broca's area

Located in the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe (typically in the left hemisphere). Its responsible for speech production and language processing. 

Lexigram

A figure, symbol, or geometric shape that represents a word or concept

Linguistic determinism

The strong view that the structure and vocabulary of your native language completely determine and limit your thoughts, perceptions and worldview

Linguistic relativism

The weak view that the language you speak gently influences how you think and see the world

Egocentric

Means self-centred so locations are encoded relative to your own body, eyes, or head (e.g. “the cup is to my right”)

Allocentric

Means other-centered so locations are encoded relative to the environment, landmarks, or other objects, independently of where you are standing (e.g. “the cup is on the table by the window”)

Egocentric vs allocentric

Refer to two different spatial reference frames the brain uses to encode the location of objects and navigate the world

Mentalese

The hypothetical, innate mental language of abstract symbols and syntax that the human brain uses to process thoughts before translating them into spoken or written words

Communication

When the transmiter encodes information into a signal that passes to the receiver who decodes the signal and is capable of responding appropriately. Commuication is not the same as language.

Verbal communication

Spoken/written transmission of a message. Also includes dialects and regiolects, language of a group (e.g. AAVE), constructed languages (e.g. Esperanto)

Non-verbal communication

Non-linguistic aspects (e.g. body language, gestures, emotions). Language also has non-verbal elements (e.g. tone, rhythm, stress)

Language

A type of communication, a structured system of symbols (“words”) and the rules (“grammar”) by which they are combined

When is a language a language?

This is debatable as its a unclear/political decision (e.g. Londoner vs Geordie). There are between 3000 and 8000 languages. Languages die out at a rate of 1 every 2 weeks

Most common 1st langauge

Chinese, Spanish, English. For 20% of the population English is the 1st and 2nd language

Psycholinguistics relevance in many different domains

Education (e.g. what makes someone a good reader), clinical (e.g. aphasia, dyslexia), development (e.g. language learning), automated langauge (e.g. Siri), legal etc

Hockett (1960, and later) language design features

Proposed 16 design features to distinguish language from communication. Some more essential than others; a communication system needs all these features to be called a “language”. Important features for humans include: semanticity, arbitrariness, displacement, productivity/generativity, prevarication, reflexiveness

Semanticity

Words are symbols/signs that express meaning

Arbitrariness

No intrinsic relation between (most) words and their meaning (but onomatopoeia); e.g. “whale”, “microorganism”

Displacement

Not tied to here & now, can talk about past, future, somewhere else, hypotheticals (if…then…)

Productivity/Generativity

New language can be generate; a finite collection of sounds and words allows an infinite number of messages; as long as we obey the rules of language any message can be understood by other language users

Prevarication

We can lie

Reflexiveness

We can use language to talk about language

Animal language

Animals certainly can communicate

Bee dance

Novel messages but only about food

Dolphins

Can communicate there is something new in the water but no evidence of syntax use but there is some evidence that they can understand human syntax

Songbirds

Overlap with human language acquisition like babbling, critical period, left-hemipshere specialisation

Apes

They have very rich commuication systems, 95%-98% genetic overlap, estimated IQ of 3 year old. Bonobos more intelligent & vocal than chimps

Apes brain asymmetries