PSYO 1012 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Confirmation Bias, Mirror Neuron, Language Acquisition Device
4 Jul 2018
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Lesson 2: Language & Thought
Chapter 8
Define the essential components of language (including morpheme, phoneme, syntax,
and grammar)
Human Language: an open (dynamic and free to change) and symbolic (no real connection
between a sound and the meaning or idea associated with it) communication system that has
rules of grammar and allows its users to express abstract and distant ideas.
-Linguists estimate that there are over 7000 different human languages
Morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in a language that are represented by basic consonant
and vowel sounds.
-Can be combined to form over 500,000 words
Phoneme: basic consonant and vowel sounds
-The English language has approximately 40 phonemes that can be combined to form
100,000 morphemes
Semantics: the meaning of words and combinations of words in a language.
Syntax: the rules for arranging words and symbols in sentences.
-Example: Kimber juggled the balls. The balls were juggled by Kimber.
oSame meaning – semantics
oDifferent ordering of the sentence – syntax
Grammar: the entire set of rules for combining symbols and sounds to speak and write a
particular language and includes such matters as subject-verb agreement, plurals, and the use of
possessives.
Pragmatics: the practical aspects of language that are required for effective and appropriate
communication in many different situations. Involves the knowledge of how to take turns in
conversations or how to speak differently to certain people.
Protolanguage: the pre-language that is thought to consist of words without syntax.
-Language is likely less than 150,000 years old
-Human language can easily represent ideas that are not tied to the present moment or
location
Describe the stages of language development and explain the term sensitive period
-The ability to understand words develops before the ability to produce words
-Language comprehension occurs in the left hemisphere in Wernicke’s area and language
production is associated with Broca’s area.
1. Cooing: The first speech sounds consist of vowels such as “ah, ee, ooh”
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-Occurs during the first 6 months
-Little variation in sound between hearing and deaf babies
2. Babbling: an infant’s experimentation with a complex range of phonemes, which include
consonants as well as vowels.
-overlaps with cooing and begins around 5-6 months
-sounds are not recognizable as words
-they make more sounds and hear more sounds
3. One-word utterances: occurs at the end of the babbling stage, around 12 months
-Likely descended from the protolanguage
-Children tend to acquire words that are spoken at the end of sentences first
-“More”, “Dada”, “No”
-First phase of language development
4. Two-word utterances: occurs around 18 months.
-“mo wawa” (more water)
-During this phase, parents become translators because children find unique ways to say
things such as the “ba” example from a water bottle being extended to any form of water
-Second phase of language development
5. Sentence Phase: this is the third phase of language development where children begin to
speak in fully grammatical sentences around the age of 2.5-3.
-Girls tend to outperform boys in the acquisition of language skills, especially vocabulary
The Sensitive Period: if children are not exposed to any human language before a certain age,
their language abilities never fully develop.
-Begins in the first years of life and ends around age 12
-Sensitive periods end after neural pruning and neural wiring have reached their peak at
which point the plasticity of neural connections becomes less flexible
Compare and contrast language acquisition theories and describe evidence of language
in non-human species
-All humans learn to speak, including those who were born deaf
-We have innate, genetically based structures in the brain that enable us to learn language
Socio-Cultural Theories: we learn language from the people around us. We acquire vocabulary
by hearing others speak and we figure out what they mean by the context.
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Document Summary
Define the essential components of language (including morpheme, phoneme, syntax, and grammar) Linguists estimate that there are over 7000 different human languages. Morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in a language that are represented by basic consonant and vowel sounds. Can be combined to form over 500,000 words. The english language has approximately 40 phonemes that can be combined to form. Semantics: the meaning of words and combinations of words in a language. Syntax: the rules for arranging words and symbols in sentences. The balls were juggled by kimber: same meaning semantics, different ordering of the sentence syntax. Grammar: the entire set of rules for combining symbols and sounds to speak and write a particular language and includes such matters as subject-verb agreement, plurals, and the use of possessives. Pragmatics: the practical aspects of language that are required for effective and appropriate communication in many different situations.
