Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Psycholinguists
• Study of the psychological and
neurobiological factors that enable humans
to acquire, use, comprehend and produce
language
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Background
• Ability to communicate one of the most
significant advances in history
• First spoken language
• Then written language
• Written language: one of the
characteristics of civilization
• Ability to transmit information to future
generations, those not present
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Speech
• Act of producing sounds
• Does not need to be meaningful
• Gibberish
• Babble
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Language
• How we communicate meaning
• Can be:
• Verbal
• Written
• Signed words
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Language
Two basic elements:
1) Words
• Way to produce the language symbolically
• Verbally, written, signed
2) Structure
• Rules how language is put together
• Grammar, syntax, semantics, etc.
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Language
Language vs. Communication
• Both transfer of ideas
• Language has structure and words
• Communication does not always have
structure and words
• All language is communication, but not
communication is language
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Words
Words
• Way to produce the language symbolically
• Going from simplest to most complex
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Phonemes
• Smallest distinct sound unit in a language
• Basic unit of speech
• Sound(s) the letter(s) make
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Phonemes
In some languages:
• What is one letter in English is a
combination of letters in another language
• What is several letters in English is one
letter in another language
In some languages:
• Different languages have different
phonemes
• Many languages don’t have: “j”, “th”, or “w”
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Phonemes
English
• Approximately 45 phonemes (depending on
accent)
• 20 vowels
• 24 consonants
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Morpheme
• Smallest unit of language that carries
meaning
• Usually two or more phonemes
Exceptions:
• Indefinite article “a”
• Pronoun: “I”
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Morpheme
• Not the same as a word
• Words can contain several morphemes
Includes:
• Prefixes & suffixes
• Not words, but still convey meaning
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Morpheme
• “Undesirables”
• Contains four morphemes
• Un
• Desire
• Able
• S
Each one adds to the word’s meaning
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Background
Phrase
• Combination of two or more words
• Generally fragment, incomplete thought
Sentence
• Relatively complete statement
• Usually defined as having a noun and verb
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Structure
Two types:
1) Surface Structure
2) Deep Structure
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Structure
1) Surface Structure
• The words forming a sentence have only one
meaning
Example
John kissed Mary.
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Structure
2) Deep Structure
• Multiple meanings can be construed from a
sentence.
Examples:
• They are bouncing babies.
• They heard the shooting of the hunters.
• The assignment of the participants.
• The peasants were revolting.
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Grammar
• System of rules governing language
• Enables us to communicate and understand
each other
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Semantics
• Study of meaning
• Looks at the meaning of words
• Set of rules governing placement of:
• Morphemes
• Phonemes & Words
• Phrases
• Sentences
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Semantics
Example
• Semantics tells us adding “ed” to “laugh”
means it happened in the past.
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Semantics
Example
• Mary looked smart
Can mean either:
• Mary looked intelligent
• Mary was well dressed
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Syntax
• Set of rules for combining words into
grammatically sensible sentences
• Not set in stone
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Syntax
• Varies from language to language
Example:
• English: adjectives generally go before the
noun
• French: generally go after the noun
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Syntax
Example:
• Russian
• Because it’s a case language, order of
words in sentence doesn’t matter
• Generally, the first word is the one that is
emphasized
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Syntax I
love
Language: Structure
you
Я люблю тебя: I love you
Я тебя люблю: I love you
Я тебя люблю: connotation: it’s I that loves you
люблю тебя: doesn’t need pronoun “I”/”Я”
because of the declension of the verb.
• тебя Я люблю: Connotation: It’s you I love.
• люблю Я тебя or люблю тебя Я: Connotation: I
love you
•
•
•
•
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Structure
Syntax
Example:
• Syntax allows “They are hunting dogs,” it
makes sense
• Depending on the the context, semantics
will tell us does it mean:
• They are dogs that hunt
• Or, they were hunting for dogs
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development
• Acquiring language
• Like language structure: simple to complex
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development: stage 1
In fantis : without language
• Cannot produce language
• Cannot understand language
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development: stage 2
Babbling stage
• Age: 4 months
• Not an imitation of adult speech
• All children babble, even deaf children
Able to:
• Read lips
• Able to discriminate & produce any possible
phoneme (vowels & consonants)
• Not just native tongue, but any language
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development: stage 2
Babbling stage
Around 10 months:
• Babbling resembles household speech
• Lose ability to discriminate & produce
phonemes not exposed to
• Become functionally deaf to phonemes
outside native tongue
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development: stage 3
One word stage
• Age: 1 to 2 years
• Speaks mostly in single words
• holophrastic speech: single word used to
express a broader idea or sentence
Example:
"play" = "I want you to play with me"
"go" = "Let's go ride in the car"
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development: stage 3
One word stage
Age: 18 months
• Language acquisition explodes
• Word a week, then a word a day
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development: stage 4
Two word stage
• Age: 2 years
• Speaks mostly in 2 word phrases/sentences
• Telegraphic speech
Example:
• Go now
• Pet dog
• Play ball
• Eat cookie
• Invade Europe
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development: stage 5
Use of complex sentences
Age: by end of year two
50 to 100 + words to communicate
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Language development
Language development: stage 5
Use of complex sentences
• overgeneralization
• Applying a language rule for all cases
Example:
“ed” for the past tense in all cases
•
•
•
•
It breaked
It broked
I eated
I goed
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
• Three major ones
• Theories basically Nature vs. Nurture
• Do we learn language, or is it something we
are born with?
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
1) Operant conditioning
• B.F. Skinner
• Association: Associating things with sound
of words
• Imitation: Imitating sounds/symbols
modeled by others
• Reinforcement: Reward or punishment
based on what we say (“momma” produces
smile, calling something by its wrong name
gets a reprimand)
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
1) Operant conditioning
Deaf parents with hearing children
• Children acquire language more slowly than
those with parents who can hear
Bilingual parents
• Acquire both languages at the same rate
• Use the two at the same time, often in
same sentence
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
2) Inborn universal grammar
• Noam Chomsky
• Language learning: inborn, not learned
• How we acquire words, grammar, etc. so
quickly
• All languages have same building blocks
(nouns, verbs, grammar, etc.)
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
2) Inborn universal grammar
• Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
• Built in learning device
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
2) Inborn universal grammar
“Grammar switches”
Fossilization
• Can only a learn a foreign language so well
before cannot go any further
Examples:
• Russian speakers not using definite &
indefinite articles
• Farsi speakers using he or she incorrectly
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
3) Cognitive Neuroscience
Our ability to learn grammar & language is
based on:
• Neural networks
• Statistical analysis
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
3) Cognitive Neuroscience
Neural networks
• Different neural networks grow cover
phonemes, morphemes, etc.
• Each neural networks form as we
experience and learn
• Information becomes hardwired in
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
3) Cognitive Neuroscience
Neural networks
Example:
• Neural network to form past tense verbs
• First: Add –ed
• Then: Change endings of words from “ow” to
“ew”
• Etc
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
3) Cognitive Neuroscience
Neural networks
Example:
• Using context clues
• Both “Plane” & “left” have many meanings
• Depending on context, we know what the sentence
means (which “left” and which “plane”)
• “The plane just left the airport”
• “The plane to the left”
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
3) Cognitive Neuroscience
Statistical aspects
• Brain analyzes which syllables go together,
when certain prefixes & suffixes are used,
how grammar works, etc.
Examples:
• Syllables “va” “ca” & “tion” usually go
together , so “vacation” must be one word
• Suffix “ed” used for past tense
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
3) Cognitive Neuroscience
Statistical aspects
Examples:
• Unitedstatesofamerica
• Over time, realize that it is three
different words
• Realize where the breaks in the words
are
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
Critical Period Hypothesis
• Older we are, the more difficult it is to
learn a language
• Information of native language hardwired in
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
Critical Period Hypothesis
• Children exposed to more than more
language
• Information of all languages hard-wired in
pretty much equally
• Able to speak each one equally fluent
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
Critical Period Hypothesis
• Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH)
• Window for language learning
• Closes at 7 years old
• Related to the Inborn Universal Grammar &
Cognitive Neuroscience theories
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Theories of language learning
Theories of Language Learning
When child does not learn any language,
language-learning capacity never fully
develops
Related to sensation:
• Child born with cataracts
• Eyes still work fine (transduction, etc.)
• However, parts of the occipital lobe never
fully develop
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
• What comes first?
• Ideas come first and words follow?
• Or, thoughts conceived in words and
can’t conceive of them without
words?
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
• Thinking & language intertwine
• Language determines thinking – too
strong
• Language does influence thinking
• Language – not just vehicle for
thought
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Linguistic determination
• Benjamin Lee Whorf
• Language determines how we think
• “Language shapes a man’s basic ideas”
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Culture and language
• Truly know a culture, need to know
the language
• Languages can tell a lot about a
culture
• L'Académie française
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Culture and language
• To destroy a people, destroy their
language
Example:
Soviet Union – everyone must speak
Russian
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Culture and language
• Untranslatable words
Example:
Eskimos – 57 different words for snow
Which is a myth, but it is still a good
example…
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Culture and language
• Gender specific language
• He = everyone
• Perpetuate stereotypes?
Example:
Board game in the 50’s & 60’s
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Culture and language
Euphemisms
• Change the meaning/connotation of
the word, change how we think about
it
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Culture and language
Euphemisms
Examples:
• misspeaking (lying)
• collateral damage (wartime killing of civilians)
• friendly fire (accidental killing of soldiers by
their own side)
• peacekeepers (nuclear missiles)
• revenue enhancements (taxes)
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Culture and language
Euphemisms
Examples:
Shell-shock ->
Battle fatigue ->
Operational exhaustion ->
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking and Language
Culture and language
• Get rid of the word, get rid of the
idea
• Idea behind political correctness
(Mailperson, chairperson, etc.)
• Always think in terms of males, does
that prevent females from getting
ahead?
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Thinking & Language
Thinking without language
• Not all thinking is language based
• Thinking in images
• Visualizing
Example:
• Dreams
• Visualizing performing an action
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Animals -Thinking & Language
Animal and thinking
• Can animals think?
• Um, ya…
Animal and language
• But can they use language?
• Psycholinguists don’t agree
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Animals -Thinking & Language
Animal and language
• Several examples of animals
communicating
• Bees dancing to show where honey is
located
• Communication, but not language
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Animals -Thinking & Language
Gesturing
• Believed that spoken language evolved from
gestured communication
• Seems to be inborn
• Sign language developed quickly
• Gesturing common among all people (blind
people gesture, people on the ‘phone, etc.)
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Animals -Thinking & Language
Gesturing
Purpose
• Seems to take some burden off brain
• People prohibited from gesturing must
communicate using speech alone
• Unable to gesture shown to disrupt
cognitive processes
• Recently learned information retained
better
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Animals -Thinking & Language
Animal and language
• Apes – logical choice because of
intelligence
• Apes lack physical ability to talk
• Sign language logical choice
Unit X: Thinking & Language
Language: Animals -Thinking & Language
Animal and language
• But can these apes truly use language?
• Unknown, psycholinguists disagree
If so:
• Limited
• Level of a 2 year old
However, many feel it is an example of
perceptual set (we see what we want to
see)
• Only hear of examples when they
communicate, not when they sign nonsense.