LANGUAGE

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LANGUAGE

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LANGUAGE

• Unique to a single species
• Astonishing accomplishment
• 4000-6000 different languages
• All languages have a common structure
• Arbitrary symbols convey thoughts among people

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Phonemes

• Smallest unit of language sounds - 45-53 in
  English, clicks in !Kung!
• Several thousand phonemes, 10 - 140 per language
• Cat - 3 phonemes - kuh, aah, tuh

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Phonemes

• Phonological rules mp, not pm lt, not tl -
  Nthlakampx Indians
• Adults have difficulty acquiring and
  understanding phonemes of foreign languages

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Examples

• Navaho in WWII
• L and R sounds
• Pat and tap - same p sound in English, different
  phonemes in other languages
• Schwer, schwerer, schwererer

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Morphemes

• Smallest meaningful combination of phonemes -
  100,000 in English
• Words - and, jump, cow, dollar, strange
• Nonwords - prefixes (anti), suffixes (er, est, s)

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Syntax

• Rules to string words together
• White house - casa blanca
• John ate fish - John fish ate
• Green furiously sleep ideas colorless
• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

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Language Development

• Nurture - Skinner - learning principles such as
  association, imitation, and reinforcement or

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Language Development

• Nature - Noam Chomsky - language is almost
  entirely inborn - we have a
• Language Acquisition Device - LAD in our brains
  with
• Critical periods for language acquisition

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BILINGUALISM

• Early notions - bilingualism is harmful
• Recent studies - bilingualism is beneficial -
  acquire an awareness of the structure of language

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• Is Language the Pinnacle of Human Cognitive
  Abilities?

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Laura - Case History

• IQ 40 - Cant read, write, tell time
• Does not know her age
• Cognitively, a 3 year old
• Well, we were taking a walk, my mom, and there
  was this giant, like, my mother threw a stick
• Talks without communicating

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Williams Syndrome

• Genetic defect
• High verbal and social skills - a gift of gab
• Extremely poor cognitive skills - retarded

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Conclusion

• Language abilities can develop independent of
  other cognitive abilities

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Dyslexia

• Difficulty in learning to read in smart,
  motivated, educated individuals
• Albert Einstein
• Affects 20 of school children

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Dyslexia

• Early explanation - defects in visual system -
  letter and word reversals
• Not supported
• Current hypothesis - deficits in the processing
  of phonemes

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Dyslexia

• SPEAKING phonological processing is automatic -
  preconscious
• Spoken language is instinctive - humans only
  require exposure to speech
• Phonological module automatically assembles
  phonemes into words

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Dyslexia

• READING harder to acquire, effortful, learned
  human invention
• Recode graphemes (letters) into phonemes
• Dyslexia - deficient phonological module
• Therapy - practice in identifying phonemes

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Sex Differences in Phonological Processing

• Phonological module located in
• inferior frontal lobe - Brocas area
• Unilateral left hemisphere in males
• Both hemispheres in females

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Language in Other Species

• Language is communication
• but communication is not always language
• Chimp-language controversy
• First reports pessimistic

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Kellogg's - 1930s

• Donald (their son)
• Gua - chimpanzee
• raised together
• Gua never spoke

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Hayes -1950s

• Vicki - chimpanzee raised in family
• Reinforced sound utterances
• Mama, papa, cup, up
• Vocal anatomy not designed for speech

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Gardeners - 1970s

• Washoe - chimpanzee
• American Sign Language - ASL
• 132 signs in 4 years, 240 at age 27
• Generativity - novel expressions - swan - water
  bird
• Taught 50 signs to Loulis

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Premacks

• Sarah - chimpanzee
• Plastic chips represent words

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Patterson

• Koko - female gorilla
• ASL - 500 signs
• Zebra - white tiger
• Mask - eye hat
• Pinocchio doll - elephant baby

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Rumbaughs

• Kanzi - pygmy chimpanzee
• Bonobos
• Learned spontaneously observing others use symbols

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• In physique, a bonobo is as different from a
  chimpanzee as a Concorde is from a Boeing 747. I
  do not wish to offend any chimpanzees, but
  bonobos have more style. They have a flatter,
  more open face with a higher forehead and an
  attractive coiffure with long, fine, black hair
  neatly parted in the middle de Waal

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Dolphins

• Hand gestures and whistle-like sounds
• Primitive syntax

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Irene Pepperberg

• Alex - African gray parrot

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Reasonable Conclusions

• Ape language is more primitive than that learned
  by children - acquired through explicit training
• Apes are smarter than their language capabilities
  suggest

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• Chomsky - If an animal had a capacity as
  biologically advantageous as language but somehow
  hadnt used it until now, it would be an
  evolutionary miracle, like finding an island of
  humans who could be taught to fly.

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Apes and Humans

• Share about 98.5 of their DNA
• Which genes separate us from the apes?
• Once known, we could add genes to create
  transgenic chimpanzees