Language and Communication

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Language and Communication
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I. What is language?

• A system for communicating with others.
• Symbols are used to represent sounds that when
  put together form words, phrases, sentences.

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II. What is the relationship between language
thought?

• 1. Language shapes thought - the language of a
  persons culture influences how they perceive
  information from their surroundings.
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis Two different cultures
  with different languages will have different
  perceptual experiences.

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Two concepts of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

• A. Linguistic Reality- argues that each culture
  experiences events differently from another
  culture.
• B. Linguistic Determinism- states that the
  language of a given culture actually causes that
  culture to perceive events differently from other
  culture.
• Thus, language directs thought.

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Evidence supporting the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

• Eskimos have about 20 different names for snow,
  whereas American's have maybe 2-3.
• Suggested the perceptual realities for Eskimos
  were different than for Americans.

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Eleanor Roschs (1972) famous Dani tribe study.

• Rosch compared color perception between Americans
  members of the Dani tribe of New Guinea.
• While Americans have a vast of names for
  colors, the Dani tribe only has 2 one for dark
  "cold" colors one for lighter "warm" colors.
• If the Whorfian hypothesis was correct, language
  should influence memory for colors.

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Rosch study

• On each trial, the Americans Dani tribe members
  were presented with single color chips for 5 sec.
  
• After a 30 sec.delay, the Ss had to choose the
  same color chip from an array of 40 color chips.
• Both sets of Ss performed equally well on the
  task.
• Hence, differences in language do not necessarily
  translate into different perceptual experiences.

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2. Thought shapes Language

• Piaget argued thought makes language development
  other forms of symbolic representation
  possible.
• Evidence Infants first words are often for
  objects events in which they show most
  interest.
• So they learn words for what they think about.

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Evidence against Piagets view

• Adults use of language influences children's
  classification of objects events in categories.
  
• Children characterize objects events
  differently from adults (walnuts round candles
  may be classified as balls because they are
  both round).
• Children learn from parents to modify how they
  classify objects events based on the language
  parents use around the children.

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Language thought influence each other

• Vygotsky --language thought are 2 separate
  independent processes that come together when the
  child is 3 years of age.
• After 3, the two become intertwined
  inseparable.

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Vygotskys egocentric speech

• A young child will speak to himself/herself in a
  monologue fashion.
• This sounds non-sensical to adults, but is
  directed to the self. It is used to facilitate
  or guide behavior.
• (E.g., "Tommy bad boy" or "Tommy go home" )

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Inner speech

• Egocentric speech disappears by age 4- 5
  becomes internalized. This is inner speech
  (non-vocalized).
• Vocal speech becomes social speech used to
  communicate with others.
• Adults have two forms of speech inner
  social.

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III. How do children acquire language? Skinner
vs. Chomsky

• A. Skinners view- Children acquire language
  (grammar) through reinforcement modeling.
• Children imitate utterances theyve heard from
  their caregivers are often reinforced for it.
• Parents shape language development by correcting
  childrens incorrect grammatical mistakes.

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Criticisms of Skinners view

• 1. Children will make statements they have never
  heard anyone else say.
• (E.g., "What is that truck doing,
  washing the street for?")
• 2. Parents often dont correct kids for making
  grammatically incorrect statements, but for
  making semantically incorrect ones.
• (E.g., Where you going?)
• 3. Kids born of immigrants living in a new
  country, learn the language of the country they
  live in.

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B. Chomskys perspective Nativist view

• Children born with innate structure to acquire
  language, called a language acquisition device
  (LAD).
• Within the LAD we have a universal grammar -- a
  system of rules that are elements or properties
  of all human languages.

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Chomskys view

• Children form grammatical rules in order to
  acquire language.
• Once, they have formed a "rule" they try to apply
  the rule in speaking.
• (E.g., adding ED after a verb for the past
  tense.)

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Support for Nativist view

• 1. Normal children in all cultures acquire
  language relatively quickly learn it well.
• 2. Humans acquire language more easily quickly
  during a certain period of development.
•   (critical period infancy to puberty)
•   3. Kids become fluent in 2nd languages more
  easily than adults.
•  
•  

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Criticisms of Chomsky

• 1. Comparisons between languages reveal different
  grammatical systems.
•   There is no evidence for a true universal
  grammar.
• 2. Learning principles do explain much of how
  language is acquired.

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IV. Learning to speak

• Young infants learn to identify the basic units
  of sound (phonemesba) from their language.
• By 1 mos. Infants are capable of categorical
  speech perception.
• Babies preference for sounds in own language.

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Learning to speak

• By 6 mos. Infants can identify organize
  different phonemes into their categories (pa,
  ba).
• In 2nd half of first year, infants focus on
  larger speech units that are crucial for making
  sense of what they hear.

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Child-directed speech (CDS)

• Adults speak to infants toddlers using CDS.
• CDS-- form of language characterized by short
  utterances made with a high-pitched voice.
• Is not deliberate seems to keep babies
  intrigued by what we are saying!!! 

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Stages of Sound Production in 1st year

• Stage Begins Description
•  
• Crying At birth signals of distress
•   Cooing At about 1mos. Oo sounds that occur
  during social exchanges
• with caregiver
• Babbling Middle of 1st Strings of
  consonant- year vowel combinations
• Patterned Close of 1st year Strings of
  pseudowords Speech made up of phonemes

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Word Acquisition

• Children usually utter their first words between
  6 15 mos.
• This leads to a rapid naming explosion in which
  children acquire words at very fast rate.
• By 2 years of age, typical children utter about
  50 words.

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How do Children Acquire Words?

• Children -learn both the concept appropriate
  phoneme to link the two together.
• Kids use fast-mapping, a method by which a new
  word is linked with something they already know.

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Mervis Bertrand (1994)

• Presented 16-20-month-olds with 5 objects.
• 4 objects were familiar (ball, cup, shoe, car) 1
  was novel (garlic press).
• Kids asked what familiar objects were, then asked
  for a zib. Kids who fast-mapped, learned
  immediately the garlic press was a zib.

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What words do kids learn first?

• objects, actions, states.
• Objects learned first, because they are
  perceptually salient.
• Verbs are learned latter, because they are more
  complex.
• Words indicating state (small cat) possession
  (my cup) appear between 2 2.5 years.

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Underextensions and overextensions

• Kids make mistakes when first learning words.
• Underextentions words are applied too narrowly.
  
• (E.g., the word cup may be used to
  refer to only 1 cup the child likes).
• Overextention- word is applied to larger
  array of objects events than is appropriate.
• (dog used to refer to a variety of furry,
  four-legged animals)

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First Word Combinations

• The childs first sentences, which consist of 2
  word combinations occur between 1.5 2.5 years.
• (E.g., Mommy cup. Go truck)
• These sentences are called Telegraphic
  speech, they focus on high-content words leave
  out smaller, less important ones

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Complex speech-occurs between 2-3 years.

• Consist of 3 word sentences.
• Follows the subject-verb-object word order.
• (E.g., Tommy get car)

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V. Language the brain

• Speech predominantly in left hemisphere (99 for
  right-handers).
• Multiple areas involved in language (Brocas
  area, Wernickes area, etc.)
• Wernicke-Geschwind Model of languagetraditional
  view of language processing.

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Brocas Wernickes areas

• Paul Broca (1850s) noticed patients with labored
  speech had lesions in the left prefrontal cortex.
  
• Wernicke (1870s) found patients with fluent
  speech that was incomprehensible, had lesions in
  the left temporal lobe.
• These language disorders, called aphasias.

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Evidence refuting model

• 1. Surgical removal (cortical tissue) of Brocas
  Wernickes areas doesnt usually produce long
  lasting language disruption.
• 2. Cat Scans (patients-language problems)
  failed to find damage restricted to the classic
  Brocas Wernickes areas in patients with
  aphasias.

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Clear finding

• Large left hemispheric lesions do often produce
  large language-related disruptions (aphasias).