LANGUAGELANGUAGE

Made by Eglė BaliutavičiūtėPsbd8-01

Content:Content:

• Language• Noam Chomsky• Psycholinguistics• Elements of language• Language Students Are Interested In Learning• Experiment with a parrot• Disruption of language caused by brain

damage.

Language – is the most common and universal feature of human

society.

Language gives us power!

Noam Chomsky 1:

• argued that humans are born with an innate linguistic capability

• argued that all languages share a universal grammar

Noam Chomsky 2:

• Suggested that the human brain has a neutral system, the language-acquisition device.

Psycholinguistics – the study of language as it is used and learned

by people.

Elements of language 1:

• Grammar – the system of rules that determine how our thoughts can be expressed.

Elements of language 2:

• Phonology – the study of the smallest units of speech, called phonemes.

Elements of language 3:

• Phonemes – the smallest units of speech that affect meaning.

Elements of language 4:

• Syntax – ways in which words and phrases can be combined to form sentences.

Elements of language 5:

• Semantics – the rules governing the meaning of words and sentences.

Language Students Are Interested In Learning

Experiment with a parrot:• A psychologist Irene Pepperberg

has been trying to answer a question: “Do animals use language?”. She started with very simple words as cork and carrot and then started teaching a grey parrot simple sentences. Soon it could respond to questions as What colour is the box ?. Now the parrot has the ability to distinguish between more than 300 objects by form , size and colour.

Disruption of language caused by brain damage:

• Broca’s Aphasia (severe difficulties in producing speech)

• Wernike’s Aphasia (comprehension is impaired, as are repetition, naming, reading, and writing, but the syntactic aspects of speech are preserved)

• Conduction Aphasia (unable to repeat what they have just heart)

• Anomia (impairment in the normal ability to retrieve a semantic concept and say its name)

Conclusion

More than any other aspect of human knowledge, language involves every aspect of our lives, from the public behavior to the most private thoughts. Language is a system of signs, different from the things signified, but able to suggest them.

References:

• Robert Feldman. “Understanding Psychology”, New York (N.Y.) : McGraw-Hill, 2008.

• Mark H. Ashcraft. “Cognition”, 4th edition, Pearson Education International, 2006.

• http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/(2007-2009 Jörg Rhiemeier,Last update/Letzte Änderung: 2009-02-08);

• http://greatest-mysteries.blogspot.com/2008/04/do-animals-use-language.html(R. I. Fitzhenry , 2009-02-16);

Pictures references:• http://www.socialfiction.org/img/pepper0alex.jpg (2009-02-16);• http://www.aphasia.org.au/Images/aboutaphasia.jpg(The Queensland

Government provided funding to the Australian Aphasia Association Inc. for the development of this website,2009-02-16);

• http://www.sil.org/Mexico/ling/Glosario/sup/E005bi-OrgansArticulation.gif(SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics, 2009-02-16);

• http://etjaichi.kweto.com/davidlisgo/spc/phonemes%203B.png(2001-2006ETJ-Aichi ,2009-02-16);

• http://www.nndb.com/people/590/000022524/chomsky-close.jpg(2008 Soylent Communications, 2009-02-16);

• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Chomsky.jpg(2009-02-16).

The end