Ch. 11: Language

Question 1

Language

Answer 1

Symbolic, shared system for purposeful communication.

Includes units, shared among communities, communicates thoughts.

Question 2

Language globally

Answer 2

Language must correspond to needs of a community, so language will differ based on region/climate. More commonly spoken languages are less complex. Languages requiring tones are spoken in warm areas, where voice control is easier

Question 3

Broca’s (expressive) aphasia

Answer 3

Can comprehend language, but issues with producing/articulating words. Ranges from only certain words to all forms of language including writing. Damage in left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG)

Question 4

Patient Tan

Answer 4

First discovered case of Broca’s aphasia, could only say tan, but could articulate with tone and gestures

Question 5

Wernicke’s aphasia

Answer 5

Damage to (usually left) superior temporal lobe causing fluent, incomprehensible speech. Paraphasias and neologisms

Question 6

Verbal paraphasia

Answer 6

Swapping a word with related things (brother/sister)

Question 7

Phonemic paraphasia

Answer 7

Swapping/adding speech sounds (jungle/gunjle)

Question 8

Neologisms

Answer 8

Invented words

Question 9

Conduction aphasia

Answer 9

Damage to arcuate fasciculus (neural pathway between Broca & Wernicke areas). Can read, write, speak. Cannot find synonyms or repeat phrases.

Question 10

Brain lateralization

Answer 10

Language is mostly in left hemisphere (sometimes not for left-handed people). Aphasia happens here. Pitch and accents (prosody), mood and attitude, often in right hemisphere. Damage here causes lack of creation/understanding of tones/prosody.

Question 11

Nuturist view (linguistics)

Answer 11

Language is acquired through same mechanisms as skill (associative) learning. Trial and error reinforcement

Question 12

Naturist view

Answer 12

We are born with innate capacity to learn language

Question 13

Chomsky

Answer 13

Mortal enemy of nuturist views. Language is not stimulus-dependent, and is too complex/acquired too quickly to be skill learning. We understand phrases we never hear before.

Question 14

Convergence

Answer 14

concept supporting naturist views. We are able to learn grammar rules though we encounter different centence structures.

Question 15

Uniformity

Answer 15

Support for naturist view. All children learn language at the same rate.

Question 16

Poverty of stimulus argument/rebuttal

Answer 16

Children cannot learn from imitation alone, they don’t encounter enough vocabulary/ This isn’t fully true because parents will correct children when they make a mistake (I want butter mine)

Question 17

Phonemes

Answer 17

smallest linguistic unit

Question 18

Morphemes

Answer 18

Smallest meaningful units (dog)

Question 19

Syntax

Answer 19

Rules governing how words are arranged in a sentence

Question 20

Semantics

Answer 20

meaning of words

Question 21

Phonological ambiguity

Answer 21

We use context and visual environment in order to figure out what people are saying (comprehension is not only based on sensory input)

Question 22

Lexical ambiguity

Answer 22

More than 80% of english words have more than one dictionary definition. Words can mean different htings

Question 23

Cross-modal priming task

Answer 23

Given text including homophone. Context for situation briefly introduced. Two words flashed on screen, both related to homophone, but only one to context. People answer less accurately when given little time. Both words were primed, one was then inhibited.

Question 24

Garden path sentence

Answer 24

When parsing a sentence with multiple syntax structures, one interpretation can lead awry (complex houses married and single soldiers and their families)

Question 25

Two theories of sentence parsing

Answer 25

Syntax fist - we use grammatical rules to interpret a sentence when we read it Constraint based model - we use non grammatical info to interpret sentences

Question 26

Dyslexia types

Answer 26

Phonological - cannot read words letter by letter Surface - cannot read words holistically???

Question 27

New attitudes on bilingualism

Answer 27

Lens for examining neurocognitive processes. Alters structure and function of mind. Tool to study structures in the brain

Question 28

How much of the world is bilingual

Answer 28

60%

Question 29

Language coactivation

Answer 29

Both languages are often active in bilingual brains when listening/talking

Question 30

Proof of coactivation

Answer 30

If cognates are more quickly recognized in a lexical task experiment, evidence for coactivation. (Hoshino & Knoll, 2008)

Question 31

Interlingual homographs

Answer 31

Words that are spelled the same in two languages but have different meanings. These create interference in the bilingual brain, especially in late comprehension stages (after first glance) - Libben & Titone (2009)

Question 32

1st vs 2nd language

Answer 32

When speaking L1, speakers can control coactivation, experience less interference. L2 is more prone to mistakes and has less conceptual links.

Question 33

Statistics in late bilinguals

Answer 33

No coactivation seen in brain initially, but ERP reveals use of inhibition against second language, proportional to the level of coactivation (Inhibitory control model)

Question 34

Asymmetrical switching cost

Answer 34

We experience more difficulty switching from non-dominant languages to dominant languages because more inhibition has been activated previously in the brain

Question 35

Bilinguals with domain-general tasks

Answer 35

Bilinguals (especially native bilinguals) do better on cognitive tasks involving interference such as the flanker task, especially after multiple tries

Question 36

Bilingualism in older people

Answer 36

Posterior regions stay more intact as bilinguals get old, delaying memory loss and dementia

Question 37

Adaptive inhibition hypothesis

Answer 37

Because many people are only bilingual in certain parts of their lives, making bilingualism schematic for certain people (only reverting to french at home and english at school e.g.)

Question 38

Entropy

Answer 38

Based on Shannon's Entropy in Information Theory. Reflects linguistic composition/overall balance of language use across many contexts. High entropy: bilingualism in many contexts. Entropy is reflective of all statistics attributed to bilingualism in bilingual studies

Question 39

Lingusitic universalist view

Answer 39

Languages share a common underlying structure, linguistic principles are innate to the human brain

Question 40

Linguistic relativity view

Answer 40

(Coined by Whorf) Language and thought are interconnected. Language influences worldview or cognition