language language our spoken, written, or gestured works and the way we combine them to...
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Language
Language our spoken, written, or gestured
works and the way we combine them to communicate meaning
Phoneme in a spoken language, the
smallest distinctive sound unit
Language
Morpheme in a language, the smallest unit that
carries meaning may be a word or a part of a word
(such as a prefix) Grammar
a system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others
Language
Semantics the set of rules by which we derive
meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language
also, the study of meaning Syntax
the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language
Receptive Language
By 4 months of age, babies can discriminate speech sounds
They can also read lips: They prefer to look at a face that matches a sound.
They can recognize that ah comes from wide open lips and ee from a mouth with corners pulled back.
Receptive Language Babies can recognize speech sounds from all the
world’s languages
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10
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Percentage ableto discriminateHindi t’s
Hindi-speaking
adults
6-8 months
8-10months
10-12months
English-speaking
adultsInfants from English-speaking homes
Productive Language
Babbling Stage beginning at 3 to 4 months the stage of speech development in
which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language
One-Word Stage from about age 1 to 2 the stage in speech development
during which a child speaks mostly in single words
Language
Two-Word Stage beginning about age 2 the stage in speech development
during which a child speaks in mostly two-word statements
Telegraphic Speech early speech stage in which the child
speaks like a telegram-–“go car”--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting “auxiliary” words
Language
Summary of Language Development
Month(approximate)
Stage
4
10
12
24
24+
Babbles many speech sounds.
Babbling reveals households language.
One-word stage.
Two-world, telegraphic speech.
Language develops rapidly intocomplete sentences.
Language Development
B. F. Skinner: association (of the sights of things with the sounds of words); imitation (of the words and syntax modeled by others); and reinforcement (with smiles and hugs when the child says something right)
Language Development
Noam Chomsky: Given adequate nurture, language will naturally occur.
It just “happens to the child.”
We come prewired with a sort of switch box—a language acquisition device.
Brain and Language Development
Brain and Language Development
Nature & Nurture
Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience activates them as it modifies the brain
Language
New language learning gets harder with age
100
90
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50Native 3-7 8-10 11-15 17-39
Percentage correct ongrammar test
Age at school
Language
The interplay of thought and language
Language
Linguistic DeterminismHypothesis that language determines the way we think
Thinking in Images
Stroop Color-Word Task (9.3.2)
Animal Thinking and Language
The straight-line part of the dance points in the direction of a nectar source, relative to the sun
Direction ofnectar source
Animal Thinking and Language
Gestured Communication
Animal Thinking and Language
Is this really language?
Animal Thinking and Language
Is this really language?
Alex the Parrot