*LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

*COGNITION

*Cognition: mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge

*WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

*Language: symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages

*CRITICAL PROPERTIES OF

LANGUAGE

*Language is…*Symbolic: spoken sounds, written words*Semantic: meaningful*Generative: limited number of symbols

can be combined to generate limitless array of messages*Structured: rules govern arrangement of

words into phrases and sentences

*STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE

*Phonemes: smallest speech units in a language that can be distinguished perceptually*The smallest units of sound*Only 40 in English language

*STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE CON’T

*Morphemes: smallest units of meaning in a language*Semantics: the area of language

concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combinations*Consists of denotation and connotation

*STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE CON’T

*Syntax: a system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences*Noun, verb, etc..

*MILESTONES IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

*MOVING TOWARD PRODUCING

WORDS

*1st 6 months: crying, cooing, laughter*Then babbling until around 18 months*10 to 13 months: utter sounds that

resemble words

*USING WORDS

*3 to 50 words by 18 months*Receptive vocabulary is larger than

productive vocabulary*Acquire nouns before verbs*18-24 months: vocabulary spurt*10,000 words by first grade

*USING WORDS

*Fast mapping: process by which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure

*ERRORS IN USING WORDS

*Overextension: when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to*Underextension: when a child incorrectly

uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or actions than it is meant to

*COMBINING WORDS

*End of 2nd year*Telegraphic speech: consists mainly of

content words; articles, prepositions, and other less critical words are omitted

*COMBINING WORDS

*Mean length of utterance: avg length of youngsters’ spoken statements (measured in morphemes)*Overregularizations: when grammatical

rules are incorrectly generalized to irregular cases where they do not apply

*REFINING LANGUAGE

SKILLS

*School-age years receive formal training*Become interested in ambiguities*Shows they are developing Metalinguistic

awareness: ability to reflect on the use of language

*BILINGUALISM

*DEF: the acquisition of 2 languages that use different speech sounds, vocabulary, and grammatical rules*Acculturation: the degree to which a

person is socially and psychologically integrated into a new culture

THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

*BEHAVIORIST THEORIES

*Skinner: children learn language through imitation, reinforcement, other conditioning principles*Parents reinforce by responding

*NATIVIST THEORIES

*Noam Chomsky: children learn the rules of language, not specific verbal responses*Humans are equipped w/a language

acquisition device(LAD): innate mechanism or process that facilitates learning of language

*INTERACTIONIST THEORIES

*Biology and experience make contributions*2 varieties of theory:*1)Cognitive: language development is an

important aspect of more general cognitive developmen*2)social communication: interpersonal

comm. and social context

*CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND

THOUGHT

*Linguistic relativity: hypothesis that one’s language determines the nature of one’s thought