Chapter 10: Language in Context

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Chapter 10 Language in Context
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Some Questions of Interest

• How does language affect the way we think?
• How does our social context influence our use of
  language?
• How can we find out about language by studying
  the human brain?

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Language Affects Cognition Perception, Memory
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Linguistic Universals

• Color naming
• All languages use a set of 11 color names in
  hierarchical order
• Black/white
• Red
• Yellow/green/blue
• Brown
• Purple/pink/orange/gray

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Language on perception demo
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Language Affects Memory

• Washing clothes
• Leading questions in eyewitness testimony

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Linguistic Relativity

• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
• Strong interpretation Thoughts and behavior are
  determined by language
• More evidence against than for
• Milder interpretationThoughts and behavior are
  influenced by language

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Linguistic Relativity Studies

• Bilinguals maintain that they think differently
  in different languages (Wierzbicka, 1985)
• Differences in lexicons support lexical
  relativity when language differences lead to
  differing mental structures
• But Eskimos dont really have words for snow

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Grammatical Gender

• Memory
• Taught Spanish and German speakers object-name
  pairs (e.g., apple-Patrick)
• remembered object-name pairs better when the
  gender of the proper name given to an object was
  consistent with the grammatical gender of the
  object
• Perception
• Masculine in German, feminine in Spanish
• German hard, heavy, jagged, metal, serrated
• Spanish golden, intricate, little, lovely, shiny

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Bilingual Studies

• Additive bilinguals
• Learn a second language without loss to the
  native language
• Subtractive bilinguals
• Learn a second language that interferes with the
  native language
• Simultaneous bilingual
• Learn two languages from birth
• Sequential bilinguals
• First learn one language and then another

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Factors Influencing Bilingualism Fluency

• The earlier in life a second language is learned,
  the more fluent the speaker will become
• Bahrick colleagues disagree
• Vocabulary and fluency is acquired just as well
  in older participants but not fluency

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Bilingual Studies

• Research showing advantages
• enhanced executive functions
• delayed onset of dementia
• acquire more expertise in their own language
• sensitive to subtle aspects of language
• perform better on tests of nonverbal intelligence
  that require recognition of verbal patterns

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Bilingual Studies

• Research showing disadvantages
• have smaller vocabularies
• access to lexical items in memory is slower

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Pidgins and Creoles

• Pidgins
• Communication between two language groups
• between immigrants and locals or missionaries and
  natives in order to be understood by each other
  without having to learn the language of the other
  group

• Creoles
• are complete languages
• Does have native speakers
• Has developed through expansion form and grammar
• Is stable and autonomous in its norms

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Dialects

• A regional variety of a language distinguished by
  features such as vocabulary, syntax, and
  pronunciation

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Spalking in Toonerisms

• Chipping the flannel
• Box in the Jack
• Your model is renosed
• shaking my tower
• Mardon me, Padam
• the cricking of the chirpets
• my stickers were fingy
• heat seaters

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Slips of the Tongue

• Errors can occur at any stage of speech
  production
• Phoneme exchange
• At the lead of spite
• Go and shake a tower
• Word-level error
• I have to fill up my gas with car
• Once I stop I cannot start
• Your model is renosed

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Figurative Uses of Language

• Metaphor
• Two nouns placed together to note similarities
• Argument is war
• Theories are buildings
• Ideas are food
• Similes introduce the words like or as into a
  comparison between items

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Figurative Uses of Language

• Metaphor
• Argument is war
• Theories are buildings
• Ideas are food
• Four key elements
• Tenor
• Vehicle
• Ground
• Tension

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Mixed metaphors

• A bird in hand is better than two burning in the
  bush
• Up the creek without a canoe
• Well burn that bridge before we get to it.
• Strike while the iron is in the fire.

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Pragmatics

• Knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to
  say it or how to be around other people (Bowen,
  2001)
• Study of discourse and conversational skills
• Situational determinants of the use of language

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Pragmatic Skills

• Establish common ground
• Introduce a topic in order for the listener to
  fully understand
• Maintaining a topic
• Or change topic appropriately
• Or interrupt politely
• Appropriate eye contact
• Not too much staring
• Not too much looking away

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Speech Acts

• Five basic categories
• Representative conveys info
• I like polar bears.
• Directive is order or request that causes
  behavior
• Turn on the air conditioner.
• Commissive is a promise/agreement to do something
• I will make the cookies.
• Expressive conveys information about inner state
• I enjoy spending time with you.
• Declaration is a statement that brings about new
  situation
• I am now a vegetarian.

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Social context affects speech act choices

• Bob is a junior executive for a fairly large
  corporation. He is on friendly terms with John,
  the company president, and they occasionally have
  lunch together. A few days earlier, they had both
  attended a company board meeting during which
  John had made a presentation. The presentation
  had not gone well and was obviously not well
  thought out. A few days later, Bob and John are
  alone and having lunch together when John says to
  Bob, What did you think of the presentation that
  I gave to the board the other morning?

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Research on Speech Acts

• Which of the following responses would you give?
• Direct and true I really didnt think your
  presentation was very good.
• Direct and false I really thought your
  presentation was very good.
• Indirect evasive question Dont you think we
  should have our board meeting on some other day
  than Monday?
• Evasive assertion I think we should have our
  board meeting on some day other than Monday.
• Indirect irrelevant question Wasnt that latest
  stock market rally sure a surprise?
• Irrelevant assertion The latest stock market
  rally was sure a surprise.

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Indirect Speech

• Direct speech
• Open the window.

• Indirect speech
• Could you open the window?
• It sure is hot in here.

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Pinkers Theory of Indirect Speech

• Indirect speech can serve three purposes
• Plausible deniability
• Relationship negotiation
• Language as a digital medium of indirect as well
  as direct communication

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Conversational Postulates
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Gender Differences in Language

• Girls tend to talk about one topic
• Girls talk face to face
• Women tend to overlap and finish each others
  sentences

• Boys tease, tell jokes, notice things around the
  room, talk about finding games to play
• Boys talk at angles, eyes straight ahead
• Men perceive this as an interruption, intrusion,
  or lack of attention

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Animal Language
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Grey Parrots

• Labels for more than 35 objects (e.g., paper,
  key, wood, cork, etc.)
• Functional use of No
• Phrases such as I want X, Wanna go Y, where X and
  Y are appropriate words
• Labels for 7 colors
• Can identify number of items up to 6
• Alex can use vocabulary to identify proficiently,
  request, refuse, categorize, and quantify more
  than 100 different objects

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Washoe

• Washoe was able to use term more appropriately
  in different contexts
• First use was more tickling
• Transferred the sign dog to the sound of barking
  by an unseen dog
• Washoe adopted an infant named Loulis
• No humans signed in front of infant chimp
• Loulis still managed to learn over 50 signs from
  other chimpanzees
• No active teaching, rather Loulis just learned
  through observation among other signing chimps

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Nim Chimpsky

• Believed that apes only used signs to get rewards
  from trainers
• Raised Nim in a human-like setting
• Nim learned many words like dirty, sleep, bite,
  and angry
• Nim did not learn to combine words to create new
  meaning on his own
• After the experiments he continued to sign his
  most-used signs seemed to be drink, gum, banana,
  and more

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Koko

• Patterson raising gorilla named Koko since 1972
• Has a greater vocabulary than Nim
• Uses more words per utterances
• Koko uses structure, is creative and spontaneous
  in her language
• Koko has a vocabulary of over 1,000 signs, and
  understands even more spoken English
• Koko invented her own new compound signs (e.g.,
  finger-bracelet for ring)

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Neuropsychology of Language
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Neuropsychology of Language

• Brain and semantics
• ventral temporal lobes, including middle and
  inferior temporal, anterior fusiform, and
  anterior parahippocampal gyri
• the angular gyrus
• the anterior aspect (pars orbitalis) of the
  inferior frontal gyrus
• the dorsal prefrontal cortex
• the posterior cingulate gyrus

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Neuropsychology of Language

• Brain and syntax
• ERP called P600 occurs after hearing a sentence
  with syntactic violations
• ERP called N400 occurs after hearing a sentence
  related to semantic violations

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Neuropsychology of Language

• Brain and sign language
• The locations of lesions that would be expected
  to disrupt speech also disrupt signing
• All right-handers with signing deficits show
  left-hemisphere lesions, as do most left-handers
• Some left-handers with signing deficits show
  right-hemisphere lesions

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Neuropsychology of Language

• Aphasia
• Impaired language function due to brain damage
• Wernickes
• Brocas
• Global
• Anomic

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Normal vs. Wernickes Aphasia
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Normal vs. Brocas Aphasia
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Neuropsychology of Language Autism

• Abnormal social, language, and cognition
  behaviors
• Sex differences in brains
• Extreme male brain
• Executive dysfunction theory
• Problem with frontal lobes