Language and Communication Notes
Introduction
- Welcome to week six. The lecture will cover language and communication in psychology.
- Acknowledgment of the elders and ancestors of the Wurundjeri people and other indigenous folks.
- Musupol (Mew) will be taking the class today.
Language and Communication Overview
- Imagine a life without language to appreciate its importance.
- Key subtopics:
- Language and its components (definitions).
- Nonverbal forms of communication.
- Language acquisition.
- Neural basis of language.
- Language and psychology.
Defining Language
- Language is a communication system using words and rules to organize them for transmitting information.
- It's a human exceptionalism though it can be taught to other species.
- There are over 7,000 spoken languages worldwide.
- English is the most common spoken language with 1.1 billion speakers, but Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers (over 900 million).
- No universal sign language; about 300 sign languages exist.
- Australia has over 250 indigenous languages.
- Unfortunately, about 40% of languages are dying out.
Components of Spoken Language
- Every spoken language has common components:
- Phonology:
- The study of phonemes (sounds).
- English has approximately 44 unique sounds.
- Each language uses a distinct set of phonemes.
- Example: Japanese treats the sounds of r and l as the same phoneme, while English distinguishes them.
- Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound and usually do not carry meaning.
- The combination of sounds create meaning.
- Morphology:
- The study of morphemes (the smallest unit of meaning).
- Morphemes include words, prefixes, and suffixes.
- Prefixes (e.g., re-, un-, dis-) change the meaning of words (recover, unfollow, dissatisfied).
- Suffixes (e.g., -ed, -ing, -er) can change the tense or meaning of words (typed, typing, painter).
- Example: The word "dogs" has four phonemes (d, o, g, s) and two morphemes (dog + -s, making it plural).
- Morphemes combine to form the lexicon of a language (words).
- Semantics:
- The meaning of morphemes and words. Difficulties can arise in understanding or locating meaning
- Grammar:
- The set of rules used to create words from morphemes (morphology) or combine words into sentences.
- Grammar includes syntax, which is the organization of words into sentences.
- Word order systems vary by language (Subject-Verb-Object, Verb-Subject-Object, etc.).
- Examples:
- SVO (English, Thai): The dog ate the bone.
- VSO (Arabic): Ate the dog the bone.
- SOV (Korean, Quechua): The dog the bone ate.
- Some languages (e.g., Walpiri) have free word order, using suffixes to indicate the subject.
- Not all communication involves spoken language. Five key forms of nonverbal communication:
- Haptics:
- Use of touch to convey comfort, threat, or intimacy.
- Touch is a primary means of communication from infancy.
- Acceptability and meaning of touch vary by context and culture.
- Examples: a friendly pat on the back vs. a stranger's touch.
- Prosemics:
- Space and distance influence communication.
- Feeling close or distant to someone metaphorically stems from physical closeness.
- Breaches of personal space can affect interpretation of communication.
- Personal Presentation and Environment:
- Presentation and surroundings communicate internal state.
- Personal presentation includes physical traits (body shape, weight, height) and clothing, accessories, hairstyles, body art, etc.
- Accessories (e.g., wedding rings, religious symbols) convey messages.
- Environment (room, desk) reflects internal state.
- Kinesics:
- Bodily movement conveys internal states.
- Involves gestures, facial expressions, posture, and eye contact.
- Gestures:
- Adapters: Movements satisfying personal needs (fidgeting).
- Emblems: Culture-specific movements with direct verbal translations (okay sign, thumbs up, head nod).
- Illustrators: Gestures illustrating size, shape, or emphasis.
- Facial Expressions:
- Convey emotions and set the tone for communication.
- Matching facial expressions to speech enhances comprehension.
- Posture:
- Sitting or standing posture serves as nonverbal cues to acknowledge others and to express interest.
- Leaning in indicates engagement, while sitting back with arms crossed may indicate defensiveness or disinterest.
- Eye Contact:
- Regulates interaction and conveys interest or intimidation.
- Varies by cultural context.
- Pupil dilation indicates interest or attraction, while constriction suggests boredom or disengagement.
- Vocalics:
- Vocal qualities accompanying verbal messages (paralanguage).
- Includes pitch, volume, rate, vocal quality, and verbal fillers (e.g., "um," "like").
- Variations in pitch distinguish questions from statements.
- Volume and speaking rate influence intensity or credibility.
- Examples:
- Saying "I love running" with sarcasm to indicate hate.
- Emphasizing different parts of a sentence to change meaning (e.g., "She is my friend.").
- Saying "I'm fine" in a quick, short tone to convey the opposite.
Language Acquisition
- Humans can learn any language they are exposed to.
- Language acquisition involves nature (genetics) vs. nurture (environment).
- Children master language easily at a young age.
- Key Theories:
- B.F. Skinner (Operant Conditioning):
- Language acquired through reinforcement.
- Children learn words when they receive reinforcement for using them.
- Focuses on environment.
- Noam Chomsky (Nativist Theory):
- Children have innate abilities for language acquisition (language acquisition device).
- Suggests a critical period for language acquisition.
- Focuses on genetics.
- Interaction Theory:
- Combination of genetics and environmental factors influence language.
- Stages of Language Acquisition:
- Prelinguistic:
- Infants use facial expressions and gestures to communicate.
- Infants discriminate among phonemes of human languages.
- Infants enter the babbling stage, where they use babbling sounds, which is just repetitive single syllables like ba ba ba or da da da, to communicate.
- Holophrastic (One-Word Stage):
- Children utter their first word to communicate using one-word sentences.
- Two-Word Stage:
- Children combine words to form two-word sentences.
- Combine a noun and a verb (Mommy go) or a noun and an adjective (Big Dog).
- Telegraphic Stage:
- Construct calligraphic sentences consisting of three or more words.
- There might be errors in sentence structure.
- e.g., the doggy eat food instead of the dog is eating its food.
- Multiword Stage:
- Children start to sound like adults but with a more limited vocabulary.
- They construct complex sentences using conjunctions and prepositions.
Neurobases of Language
- Broca's Area:
- Located in the frontal lobe; associated with Broca's aphasia (non-fluent aphasia).
- Characterized by non-fluent speech and impaired speech production.
- Indicates a problem with morphology and syntax.
- Wernicke's Area:
- Characterized by impaired speech comprehension, is known as fluent aphasia.
- Sound like they know what they're saying, yet the words that they use don't make sense; it's a word salad.
- Indicates a problem with semantics.
- Classical Model:
- Broca's area is responsible for speech production.
- Wernicke's area is associated with language comprehension.
- However, this model has limitations and only explains the lexical level of language.
- Comprehensive Model:
- Multiple areas involved in language processing (frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes).
- Dual Stream Model:
- Two routes for processing spoken language:
- Dorsal stream: Phonological processing (processing sounds).
- Ventral stream: Semantic processing (understanding the meaning of words).Processing are simultaneous.
- Highlights that language processing is more distributed and dynamic.
Language and Psychology
- Does language shape thought or vice versa?
- Saker-Wolf Hypothesis:
- Linguistic Determinism: language determines thought.
- Linguistic relativity: language influences thought. . Researcher: key research
*Researchers: key research - English vs Mandarin Speakers:
- Horizontal vs Vertical conceptualization of time.
- English speakers use horizontal dimension (running behind and don't get ahead).
- Mandrian speaker use both (describe the past as being up and the future as being down).
* Mandrian speaker showed quicker recognition of temporal relationship between months under that vertical priming condition.
* Limited research shows that language actually determines our thought.
- Dany people of Papua New Guniea
- Only have two terms for color (mili for cool/dark and molar for warm/light).
- Researchers were interested in how that might influence how they process color or perceive color.
- Very similar color perception between the two group.
- Influence on color perception (Right Visual field)
- Participant were faster is it had a different name them them background
- Researchers were interested in whether people would identify colors faster depending on where the color was presented in in the in the picture visual task.
Conclusion
- Before I wrap up this lecture component, I just wanted to direct you to the past session that's being held this week!
- Thank you for the time
