language

Question 1

• Panbanisha (1985-2012) the bonobo great ape

Answer 1

• A lifetime in captivity receiving language training
• Taught to use a keypad of approx. 400 geometric pattern in order to communicate
• Keypresses prompted a synthetic voice
• 3,000 word vocabulary (when 14 years old)
• Understood English at the level of 2.5 year old human child (Lyn, 2007)

Question 2

bonobos aren’t as good at language than humans

Answer 2

• Produce simple sentences
• Lacking in correct grammar
• Only sometimes able to refer to things outside of the present tense

Question 3

skinner on language

Answer 3

language is learnt

Question 4

chomsky on language

Answer 4

language is innate

Question 5

universal grammar (chomsky)

Answer 5

• Multiple linguistic universals that form a universal grammar:
• Lexical categories (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.)
• Word order (i.e., SOV: Subject Object Verb; or SVO: Subject Verb Object)
• Recursion (embedding clauses within sentences)
• i.e. “Phillip bought some bread from the shop” can be expanded….
• “Phillip, who had just been paid, bought some bread from the shop, the building next to his place of work”

Question 6

justification for the concept of innate universal grammar

Answer 6

1. It offers an explanation as to why only humans develop language fully
2. It offers an explanation for the broad similarities across the various human languages
3. It offers an explanation for the rapid speed in which children learn to speak

Question 7

criticisms of chomskys approach

Answer 7

• There are not linguistic universals – languages across the world differ enormously
• “Language has been shaped by the brain: language reflects pre-existing, and hence non-language-specific, human learning and processing mechanisms” (Christiansen & Chater, 2008, p. 491).
• Children learn language quickly because language is invented by humans with the limitations of human performance in mind

Question 8

Innate universal grammar - Findings and considerations

Answer 8

• Languages do not appear to share the same universals

• Recursion may be lacking in some languages
• Amazonian language Pirahã
• Some lexical categories are missing in some languages
• Word order appears to be (almost) universal

Question 9

natural language

Answer 9

any language that has developed naturally through human interaction and use.
• Any human language
• Can take different forms (i.e., speech, signing, writing, etc.)

It is fundamental to human cognition and social integration.

Question 10

characteristics of natural language

Answer 10

flexible, generative symbolic representation system for communicating meaning.
• Grammar and syntax are the key mechanisms
• but meaning is subject to inference and pragmatics.
• NL is complex and resource intensive.
• It’s also subject to interference and error.
• But we have a range of short cuts and context is very important.

appears to be unique to humans

Question 11

natural language follows a developmental sequence

Answer 11

Simple -> complex

Babbling -> words -> sentences

Question 12

why is natural language important?

Answer 12

• As a social animal, language is necessary to convey simple and complex meaning and ideas
• May have been a key factor human brain development (encephalization)
• Human brain = 3 times bigger than it should be given body size
• Increased brain size relative to body correlates with sociality
• Only humans have the vocal equipment for spoken language and possibly unique brain areas
• Non-humans able to convey complex messages BUT this is not the same as natural language

Question 13

language skills

Answer 13

• We possess four main language skills:
• Speaking
• Listening (to speech)
• Writing (including typewriting and texting etc.)
• Reading

Question 14

processes involved in language production

Answer 14

• conceptualisation
• formulation
• articulation

Question 15

conceptualisation

Answer 15

Planning the message

• Desired concept to be communicated

Question 16

formulation

Answer 16

Transforming the intended message into speech sounds and sentences
• Including grammatical encoding, morpho-phonological encoding, & phonetic encoding.

Question 17

articulation

Answer 17

Words are turned into speech

• Movements from the tongue, lips, jaw, lungs, larynx, glottis, etc.

Question 18

tip of the tongue phenomenon

Answer 18

a failure in retrieval
• Cannot recall the word, but can recall words of a similar form or meaning
• Brown & McNeil (1966) study
• Subjects given definitions to low-frequency words
• Attempt to recall word associated with definition
• Recall can be guided by partial word information

Question 19

semantics

Answer 19

meaning of encoded language

Question 20

grammar

Answer 20

rules of language

Question 21

pragmatics and inference

Answer 21

knowledge about how to use language appropriates

Question 22

phonology

Answer 22

• Organised into phonemes
• Constitute the spoken sounds of a sentence
• Phonological structure also includes:

• Morphophonological structure
(How the phonemes are arranged/grouped to form words & morphemes)

• Syllabic structure
(How spoken words can be deconstructed into syllables)

• Prosodic structure
(Assigning stress & intonation within a sentence)

Question 23

phonemes

Answer 23

• What you hear, not what you see

* Smallest unit of sound in a word

Question 24

graphemes

Answer 24

• Written alternative to the phoneme
• What you see, not what you hear
• A phoneme can form graphemes in multiple ways (multiple spellings)
• i.e. shun can also be spelt as tion in words such as ration

Question 25

sublexical route`

Answer 25

* Also known as: * Sound-to-spelling conversion * Phoneme-to-grapheme conversion * The word is prepared as in speech until the point where phonemes can be converted to graphemes

Question 26

lexical route

Answer 26

* Direct retrieval of the orthographic word * Stored knowledge about how the word is written * Very important for languages (i.e. English) with deep orthographies * Allows us to spell words with poor sound-to-spelling consistency, or words with same spelling (i.e. there/their)

Question 27

semantics

Answer 27

* Meaning conveyed by words, phrases or sentences | * Not to be confused with syntax/syntactic structure

Question 28

whorfian hypothesis

Answer 28

• Language determines or influences thinking * Strong version:- Language determines thinking * Weak version:- Language imposes constraints on thinking * Weakest version:- Language influences memory * Alternative account: * Roschian hypothesis - Language does not determine our thinking. * Language is only used to describe our perceptions of the world.

Question 29

intertranslatability

Answer 29

(contradiction of the strongest version of the Whorfian hypothesis) • We can translate a statement in one language to a statement in the other • It just may not be the same number of words • Contradicts the argument that a thought expressible in one language is not expressible in another

Question 30

winawer (20070

Answer 30

* Studied categorical perception in English and Russian subjects * Russian has distinctive words for dark blue (siniy) and light blue (goluboy) * Examined performance in a speeded colour discrimination task * Which of the bottom two square matches the top square? * Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colours if they can be categorised separately (i.e., one siniy & one goluboy) * Categories in language can affect performance of basic perceptual colour discrimination tasks

Question 31

pragmatics

Answer 31

literal vs intended meaning

Question 32

traditional approach

Answer 32

* Three stage approach (e.g., Grice, 1975; Searl, 1979) * Stage 1. Literal meaning is accessed * Stage 2. Listener/reader decided if this meaning makes sense in context. * If it does it is accepted * If it doesn’t… * Stage 3. Alternative context appropriate meaning is searched for * Predictions: * Literal meaning should be accessed faster than metaphorical meaning * Literal meanings should be accessed automatically

Question 33

graded salience model

Answer 33

* Graded salience model: initial processing of message is determined by salience or prominence of the meaning rather the type (literal vs. non-literal) * Meaning is really a matter of degree * Frequency of exposure to and familiarity with meaning in question * A lot of our language use is metaphorical and hence common (Cacciari & Glucksberg, 1994) thus extraction of the actual meaning is often fast and effortless (Gibbs et al., 1989)

Question 34

inference making

Answer 34

• Integrating sentence information in to a discourse would be impossible with out drawing inferences

Question 35

shared meaning

Answer 35

• The presence/absence of shared meaning, knowledge etc = very important in understanding the intended meaning • How? • Two heuristics (‘rule of thumb’) are used early on in sentence processing: - common ground -egocentric heuristic