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

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

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

80

70

60

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