Language
Structure of Language
• Phonemes
- Consonants, vowels,
sh,
ch,…. in the
How th,
many
morphemes
How many
phonemes (sounds)
following
words?
• Morphemes
are
People
in these words?
Swimming
- Dog, van, ing, ed,…
Thing
Orange
Psychology
Literally
Hopes
Reddish
Sun
Radish
Quickly
Waited
Wish
George’s
Weigh
Misspell
Laughed
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Structure of Language
• Words = 1 or more morphemes
• Syntax = set of rules to
combine words
“The girl the boy saw.” – violates syntax
• Semantics govern meaning
“The rapid freedom ran around
the curious emptiness.” – obeys
syntax, but makes no sense due
to meaning of the words
Language Development
• Receptive Language - ability
to comprehend speech
• Productive Language –
ability to produce words
• Surface structure v.
deep structure
– “Joey was swinging too high,
and the rope broke and he
fell on his head.”
– “Joey hurt his head when he
fell off the swing.”
Language Development
•
•
•
•
Babbling stage (4 months)
One-word stage (1 year)
Two-word stage (2 years)
Telegraphic speech
Challenges in Language Development
• Overextension
– Same word applies to many things
– “Juice” refers to milk, water, juice, etc.
• Underextension
– Only use word to apply to one specific example, rather than
using it for others
– Calls own dog “dog”, but not other dogs “dog”
• Overregularization/overgeneralization
– Apply grammar rules w/out making appropriate exceptions
– EX: She “goed” to the store
Thinking in Images
• Implicit memory – mental picture of how you
do a task
• Watching an activity will activate brain’s
internal stimulation of it
– Pianist mentally rehearses song
– Dancer mentally imagines choreography
Explaining Language Development
• Skinner & Behaviorism
– Association for seeing & hearing words
– Imitation
– Reinforcement or
punishment
• Nature or nurture?
Thinking & Language
• Linguistic determinism
(Whorff)
– Language determines way
we think
– Culturally influenced
• Nature or nurture?
Thinking & Language
• Bilingual advantage
(Lambert)
– Bilingual children who
learn to inhibit one
language while learning
another, are also better
able to inhibit their
attention to irrelevant info
Explaining Language Development
• Chomsky (Nativist theory) & Inborn Universal
Grammar
– Language acquisition device: innate mechanism or
process that allows language (unique to humans)
– Universal grammar: common
structure for language
among all cultures
• Nature or nurture?
Explaining Language Development
• Critical Periods – specific time period early in life
for language development
Do animals use language?