8. Language

Overview

• Key topics covered:

  • What is language

  • Properties of Language

  • The Basic Components of Words

  • The Basic Components of Sentences

  • Language Comprehension

  • Understanding Words

  • Speech Perception as Ordinary

  • Speech Perception as Special

  • Understanding Meanings: Semantics

  • Understanding Sentences: Syntax

  • Reading

  • Lexical Processes in Reading

  • Fixations and Reading Speed

  • Lexical Access

  • Understanding Conversations and Essays: Discourse

What is Language?

• Defined as an organized means of combining words for communication.

• Communication encompasses the exchange of thoughts and feelings, which may not always be language-based.

• Psycholinguistics studies the interaction of language with the human mind.

• Language comprehension involves:

  • Understanding Words

  • Understanding Meanings (Semantics)

  • Understanding Sentences (Syntax)

  • Understanding Conversations and Essays (Discourse)

Properties of Language

1. Communicative: Facilitates communication.

2. Arbitrary Symbolic: Relates symbols to their representations without inherent connection (e.g., words differ from pictures).

3. Regularly Structured: Structured in specific patterns; different arrangements yield different meanings.

4. Structured at Multiple Levels: Analyzable at various levels—sounds, meaning units, words, and phrases.

5. Generative and Productive: Allows the creation of an infinite number of utterances within linguistic constraints.

6. Dynamic: Evolves over time (e.g., new words emerge like 'netiquette').

Basic Components of Words

• Phone: The smallest unit of sound, e.g., a click.

• Phoneme: Smallest unit of speech sound, distinguishing utterances (e.g., a, i, s, f).

• Morpheme: Smallest unit of meaning; can be content or function morphemes.

  • Content Morphemes: Convey the main meaning of a language.

  • Function Morphemes: Add detail (e.g., prefixes, suffixes).

• Example: 'recharge' has two morphemes: "re-" and "charge".

Basic Components of Sentences

• Syntax: Framework of rules for how words combine to form sentences.

• Sentences comprise at least two parts:

  • Noun Phrase (NP): Contains at least one noun (often the subject).

  • Verb Phrase (VP): Contains at least one verb and its objects.

Language Comprehension: Understanding Words

• Human languages perceive up to 50 phonemes per second.

• Coarticulation: When sounds blend; for example, "p" in "palace" vs. "pool."

• Speech Segmentation: The process of separating continuous sounds into distinct words.

Speech Perception: Perception as Ordinary and Special

• Interaction of auditory perception and cognitive anticipation.

• Phonetic Refinement Theory: Various stages of auditory analysis leading to higher-level processing.

• The TRACE Model: Three levels of feature detection—acoustic, phonemes, and words (influenced by prediction).

• Motor Theory of Speech Perception: Includes visual perception of vocal tract movement, exemplified by the McGurk effect.

Understanding Meaning: Semantics

• Denotation: The dictionary definition of a word (e.g., "snake" = reptile).

• Connotation: Emotional overtones and implied meanings of a word (e.g., "snake" = sneaky, evil).

• Together, denotation and connotation create the overall meaning of a word.

Understanding Sentences: Syntax

• Grammar: Study of language structure.

• Prescriptive Grammar: Rules for correct language use.

• Descriptive Grammar: Seeks to describe how language functions in practice.

• Example: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" illustrates syntactic structure regardless of semantic content.

Analyzing Sentences

• Phrase-Structure Grammar: Divides sentences into functional components (parse sentences as NP and VP).

• Transformational Grammar: Rules mapping tree structures to illustrate syntactical relations.

• Deep Structure: Represents nesting semantic relationships; links various phrase structures.

Reading Processes

• Lexical Processes: Involves saccades, regressions, and sequences of eye fixations.

• Comprehension Processes: Relate to understanding and integrating textual information and context.

• Comprehending Known vs. Unknown Words: Involves retrieving meanings and deriving from context.

• Representing Text Mentally: Building mental models from texts and conceptualizing information.