U9 - Language and Thinking

A. CONVERSATION 
  1. Discuss the difference between the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS). How do they both impact language development?
  • Language Acquisition Device
      * Proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1987
      * An innate biological mechanism that contains the general grammatical rules (universal grammar) common to all languages 
      * Among the principles inherent in the LAD are things like noun phrases, verb phrases that are arranged in particular ways, such as subjects, predicates and adjectives. 
      * “Electrical panel with switches that customize into the native language of the kid as they learn the language”
      * enables the child to rapidly develop the rules of language
  • Language Acquisition Support System
      * Proposed by Jerome Bruner in 1983
      * Factors in the social environment that facilitate the learning of a language 
        * Social interactions provide a scaffolding environment to structure the child's early language utterances.
        * Not imitation of parents
  • LAD and LASS interact in a mutually supportive fashion and normal language development occurs
  1. Discuss the properties of language.
  • Symbolic and structured
      * Uses sounds, written characters, or some other system of symbols (e.g. hand signs) to represent objects, events, ideas, feelings and actions
        * The symbols in any given language is arbitrary
        * An agreed-upon meaning to people who speak that language  
      * Rule-governed structure
        * Rules vary across languages
        * Grammar 
          * the set of rules that dictate how symbols can be combined to create meaningful units of communication 
        * Syntax
          * Rules that govern the order of words
  • Conveys meaning
      * Transfer mental representations to the mind of another person
      * Semantics 
        * The meaning of the words and sentences
  • Generative and permits displacement
      * Generativity
        * The symbols of languages can be combined to generate an infinite number of messages that have novel meaning
      * Displacement
        * Language allows us to communicate about events and objects that are not physically present
B. QUESTIONS
  1. Differentiate between surface structure and deep structure.
  • Surface structure
      * A linguistic term for the words and organization of a spoken or written sentence 
        * two sentences with different surface structure may still mean the same thing
  • Deep structure
      * A linguistic term that refers to the underlying meaning of a spoken or written language
        * The meaning that make up deep structure are stored as concepts and rules in long-term memory
  • deep structure provides the semantic component of sentence, while surface structure communicates the proper phonological information to express that thought
  1. Discuss the different types of heuristics.
  • affect, anchoring, availability, and representativeness.
  • Heuristics
      * General problem-solving strategies that we apply to certain classes of situations
        * Mean-end analysis
          * Identify differences between the present situation and the desired state, or goal, and then make changes that will reduce these differences
        * Subgoal analysis
          * Formulating subgoals, or intermediate steps, toward a solution
      * Representativeness heuristic
        * Infers how closely something or someone fits our prototype for a particular concept, or class, and therefore how likely it is to be a member of that class
      * Availability heuristic
        * Bases judgements on the availability of the information in memory, namely the events and information that are most important and significant to us, or more recent
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  1. Differentiate between the following terms: phonemes, morphemes, and semantics.
  • Phonemes
      * The smallest unit of sound in a language
        * Vowel and consonant sounds that are recognized in any given language
          * English has 44 phonemes
  • Morphemes
      * The smallest unit of meaning in a given language
        * English morphemes include whole words, prefixes, and suffixes
          * There are over 100,000 English Morphemes
  • Semantics
      * Rules for connecting symbols to what they represent 
  1. Discuss the difference between "bottom-up" and "top-down" processing.
  • Bottom - up processing
      * Individual elements of a stimulus are analyzed and then combined to form a unified perception
        * Analyzing the hierarchical structure of spoken language as a set of building blocks that involve the use of phonemes to create morphemes and the combination of morphemes to create words
  • Top - down processing
      * Sensory information is interpreted in light of existing knowledge, concepts, ideas and expectations, people’s unconscious expectations shape what they perceive
        * Speech segmentation
          * Perceiving where each word within a spoken sentence begins and ends 
          * Using contexts to predict the stops 
  1. Discuss the areas of the brain that are important in language.
  • Broca’s area
      * In the left hemispheres’ frontal lobe
      * Most centrally involved in word production and articulation
      * The thicker the cortex in this area, the better grammar learning aptitude
  • Wernicke’s area
      * In the rear portion of the temporal lobe
      * More centrally involved in speech comprehension
  • People with damage in one or both areas typically suffer from aphasia, an impairment in speech comprehension and/or production that can be permanent or temporary
  • Visual area
      * Involved in recognizing written words
        * Respond to spoken words in children who were blind from birth
  1. Discuss the biological theory of language acquisition.
  • Biological theory of language acquisition
      * Human children begin to master language early in life without any formal instruction, despite limited thinking skills
      * All adult languages throughout the world have common underlying structural characteristics
        * However sound discrimination happen after 6-12 months
      * LAD
        * An innate biological mechanism that contains the general grammatical rules (universal grammar) common to all languages 
        * Allows children to learn any languages in the world, switches on and off to the rules in the primary language
  1. How does social learning impact language development?
  • Child-directed speech
      * High-pitched intonation used all over the world to teach children words by pointing out objects and naming them
  • Operant conditioning explanation for language acquisition
      * Positive reinforcement of appropriate language and nonreinforcement or correction of inappropriate verbalizations
  • Social interaction
      * Social interaction facilitates lexical and phonological development at the early stages of child language acquisition.
  • Language acquisition support system
      * Factors in the social environment that facilitate the learning of a language
  1. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of bilingual language development.
  • Advantages of bilingual language development
      * Greater flexibility in thinking and better performance on standardized intelligence tests
      * Less likely to drop out of school, develop higher self-esteem, achieve better academic performance
      * Better English Fluency
      * Understands the symbolic meaning of nature
      * Better performance on perceptual tasks that require them to inhibit attention to an irrelevant feature of an object and pay attention to another feature
  • Disadvantages of bilingual language development
      * Confusion between two sets of vocabularies and grammar
      * an apparent delay in language acquisition; interference between the two phonological, lexical, and grammatical systems; and a possible decrease in vocabulary in both languages.
  1. Discuss the linguistic relativity hypothesis.
  • Linguistic relativity hypothesis
      * The idea, suggested by Benjamin Whorf, that people’s language determines the ways in which they perceive and think about their world
      * Linguistic determinism
        * Language controls
      * E.g. 
        * Himba tribe, which speaks a language that has no word for blue or distinction between blue and green.
          * They have difficulty identifying blue, but have several words for different shades of green
        * Base-ten languages makes it easier for Asian children to understand numbers and addition and subtraction
        * Gender stereotype with sexist language
        * Influences how we think
  1.  Discuss the differences between human and animal language development.
  • Human language development
      * It is possible to extend and modify the human language, and this means that people can change the skills, symbols, and techniques used to pass information from one person to another. 
  • Animal language development
      * However, animal language is static and will never develop due to its nature.
      * Ape language
        * Symbols, sounds, ideas
        * They do not a vocal cord to produce language
        * Up to 200 symbols, can comprehend some language
  • Human language is symbolic, using a set number of sounds (phonemes) and characters (alphabet), which allows ideas to be recorded and preserved. Animal communication is not symbolic, so it cannot preserve ideas of the past.
  1. Differentiate between propositional thought, imaginal thought, and motoric thought.
  • Propositional thought (verbal)
      * Thinking that takes the form of verbal sentences that we say or hear in our minds
  • Imaginal thought (image)
      * A form of thinking that uses images that can be from any sense modality
  • Motoric thought (movement)
      * Mental representations of motor movements, such as throwing an object
  1. Discuss the difference between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning.
  • Inductive reasoning
      * Bottom-up processing
        * Evidence to conclusion
      * Reasoning that proceeds from a set of specific facts to a general conclusion or principle
  • Deductive reasoning
      * Top-down processing
        * Theory to evidence
      * Reasoning from a general principle to a specific case
  1.  What are the steps in problem solving?
  • Interpret frame and understand the problem
  • Generate hypotheses or possible solutions
  • Test the solutions, hypotheses, seeking to disconfirm one or more of them
  • Evaluate results and, if necessary, revise steps 1,2,or 4
  1. Discuss how confirmation bias and overconfidence impact our decision making.
  • Confirmation bias
      * Then tendency to seek and favor information that reinforces our beliefs rather than to be open to disconfirming information
        * Difficulty in test and challenge one’s ideas during decision making, obstacle to getting evidence to make the correct decision
  • Overconfidence
      * The tendency to overestimate one’s correctness in factual knowledge, beliefs and decisions
        * The more confidence, the less accurate
  1. Define wisdom and list its five major components.
  • Rich factual knowledge about life
      * knowledge about human nature social relationships, and major life events
  • Rich procedural knowledge about life
      * Strategies for making decisions, handling conflict, and giving advice
  • An understanding of lifespan contexts
      * An awareness that life involves many contexts, such as family, friends, work, and leisure
  • An awareness of the relativism of values
      * Recognizing that values and priorities differ across people and societies
  • The ability to recognize and manage uncertainty
      * An awareness that the future cannot be fully known

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