Language

Question 1

language

Answer 1

a system that relates sounds or gestures to meaning

Question 2

Characteristics of human language (4)

Answer 2

1. Symbolism
2. Grammatically structures and meaningful
3. Displacement (we can talk about events in the past and future
4. Generativity (can create sentences we’ve never heard but still make grammatical sense)

Question 3

Phonemes

Answer 3

the smallest unit of sound
e.g.: /p/ vs /b/ — pit vs bit
*can change the meaning of a word

Question 4

Morphemes

Answer 4

the smallest unit of meaning
e.g. suffix ‘s’ means more than 1

Question 5

Syntax

Answer 5

the rules for word combinations

Question 6

Theory of Language Development: Nurture

Answer 6

argues that we learn language from our environment
*supported by Behaviorists

Question 7

Theory of Language Development: Nature

Answer 7

children are born with innate mental structures that guid their acquisition of language
-supported by Noam Chomsky

Question 8

Support for nature/nativist perspective

Answer 8

-children apply rules of grammar to novel words (wug vs wugs)
-critical age periods to learn a language
-animals don’t learn language as readily or successfully as humans

Question 9

Map the path of language learning in infants

Answer 9

1. Birth - crying
2. 1 month - cooing (oohs and ahhs)
3. 4-6 months - babbling (consonant vowels combos, which change based on the language, e.g. “bah bah”, “dah dah”)
4. end of 1st year - patterned speech (pseudo words and patterns of the language, strings of phonemes from their native language)
5. 10 -15 months - first words
6. 18 months - learning of new words takes off

Question 10

How does the ability to distinguish phonemes change as we age?

Answer 10

We’re better at distinguishing sounds as an infant

Question 11

Explain how the conditioned heard turn procedure works

Answer 11

1. First, you train the child to turn their head when they detect a change in the sound (operant conditioning)
   -child hears “bah” repeatedly. They then hear “dah” when a different toy lights up. Once this association is learned, you slow down turning on the toy.
2. Because infants around 6-8 months can better distinguish between different sounds, they will turn their head when they hear something new in anticipation of the toy turning on.

*recall example of Salish language

Question 12

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Answer 12

argues that language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about

Question 13

Sapir-Whorf strong version

Answer 13

thoughts and behaviors are determined by language

Question 14

Sapir-Whorf weak version

Answer 14

thoughts and behaviors are influenced by language

*this is more likely

Question 15

Evidence for Sapir-Whorf weak version

Answer 15

1. “Key” is feminine in Spanish and masculine in German. Germans tended to describe keys in more masculine adjectives compared to Spanish speakers.
2. Russian Blues Example: two different words for blue can influence reaction times
   -presented people with a swatch of a shade of blue, and participants were to match it to the corresponding shade
   -russian speakers were faster when across categories (one siniy, one goluboy) then within categories) vs no difference between English speakers