Language
By Chevon Garrard
Language Definition
Language is a communication of thoughts and
feelings through a system of arbitrary signals
such as voice sounds, gestures, or written
symbols.
Views of Language
Development
Learning Theory
Skinner proposed that language is
learnt through operant conditioning.
Nativist View
-Children must be exposed to speech for
speech to develop. Children imitate the
sounds that they hear. There parents
encourage verbal interaction.
-Children are born with a device
that helps them develop grammar in any
language.(Chomsky)
Properties of Language
There are six properties of Language
Communicative
Arbitrary
Meaningfully structured
Multiply structured
Productive
Dynamic
Stages of Language
Acquisition
Prenatal response to human voices
Postnatal response to human voices
- Cooing( this is comprised of all possible phones) All
infants coo in the same way regardless of culture,
language, hearing impaired or not.
Babbling(This is comprise only from the distinct
phonemes of the primary language of the infant.
One word utterances
Two word utterances
Telegraphic speech
Basic adult sentence structure (by age 4)
Language Development
At nine months infants can distinguish the sound
of their own language
By 18 months children posses a vocabulary of
about 3 to 100 words
At around 30 months children began to combine
words into two- word utterances or telegraphic
speech(it consist of mostly nouns and verbs with
functioning words mostly omitted.
Ages 2.5 –5 the vocabulary increases
tremendously. Vocabulary becomes more adultlike
Language Dev. Cont.
Pre-school increases the complexity of
language because of the increased
semantics
From ages 6 to 17 the vocabulary
continues to expand. There is a general
understanding of and use of complex
words in sentences. A person learns
about 13 words a day until they are 17.
Components of Language
Phones
- There are 100 possible phones or
sounds possible( no language uses them all
Phonemes
- Distinguishable sounds of a language(all
languages have a different sets of phonemes)
Phonetics
- A written system for representing sounds
Morphemes
The Smallest meaningful unit in the
English language
Ex. Prefixes and Suffixes a-, -ing
Ex. Unladylike(un- not, ladyfeminine,like- having characteristics of
Syntax
How a speaker puts words together
In English,a noun phrase,verb phase,
are combined into sentences.
In other languages such as German or
Latin, words may be strung together in
any order as long as the suffixes are
correct.
Lexicon and Vocabulary
Lexicon the entire set of morphemes a person knows
The avg. person knows about 60 thousand
morphemes
Vocabulary is the number of words a person knows
There is over three million words in the English
Language. Of those only about 200 thousand are used
today.
On avg. an educated person has about 20 thousand
words in their vocabulary
Bilingualism
Additive bilingualism is when the second
language is learned alongside the original
one( Cognitive function is increased)
Subtractive bilingualism is when the second
language replaces the original one(cognitive
function is decreased)
The greater the understanding in both
languages the greater the cognitive benefit.
Effects of Language on
thought
There are different points of view on cognition in
language.
Language determinism states that language
structure does effect cognition
Linguistic relativity proposes that language
creates different cognitive systems that lead
to differing views of similar concepts
Semantics
The branch of linguistics that deals with
the study of meaning, changes in
meaning and the principles that govern
the relationship between sentences or
words and their meaning
Theories of Meaning
Definitional Theory of Meaning is the theory
that the meanings of words can be fractured
into component parts, which are stored in the
mind in a set of levels, such as that
encountered in a dictionary or encyclopedia.
Prototype Theory of Meaning is the theory
that the meaning of words or concepts is
organized in the mind by a system of family
resemblances
Pragmatics
A field of linguistics that was developed
in the late 70’s
It studies how people comprehend and
produce a communicative act or speech
in a conversation(conversation
analysis).
Sociolinguistics
A study of the connection between language
and society,and the way that we use language
in different social situations
It is a wide range of study. It can study the way
that men and women speak to each other, or
study the dialect of people across a region.
Works Cited
http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/kardas/courses/
CS/Lectures/language/language.html
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryofLinguistic
sTerms/WhatsIsAPhoneme.htm
http://www.yourdictionary.com
http://www.wordorigins.org
http://www.gxnu.edu.cn.personal/szliu/definition.
html
http://logos.uoregon.edu/explore/scioling