Ch 9: Thinking and Language

Question 1

What is the difference between receptive and productive language, and when do children normally hit these milestones in language development?

Answer 1

Infants normally start developing receptive language skills (ability to understand what is said to and about them) around 4 months of age. Then, starting with babbling at 4 months and beyond, infants normally start building productive language skills (ability to produce sounds and eventually words).

Question 2

What was the premise of researcher Naom Chomsky’s work in language development?

Answer 2

Chomsky maintained that all languages share a universal grammar, and humans are biologically predisposed to learn the grammar rules of language.

Question 3

________ __________ is the part of the brain that, if damaged, might impair your ability to speak words. Damage to _________ ________ might impair your ability to understand language.

Answer 3

Broca’s area
Wernicke’s area

Question 4

Benjamin Lee Whorf’s controversial hypothesis, called _________ _______, suggested that we cannot think about things unless we have words for those concepts or ideas.

Answer 4

linguistic determinism

Question 5

What is mental practice, and how can it help you prepare for an upcoming event?

Answer 5

Mental practice uses vivid imagery to mentally rehearse future behaviors, activating some of the same brain areas used during the actual behaviors. Visualizing the details of the process is more effective than only visualizing your end goal.

Question 6

Language development stage at infancy is primarily composed of what?

Answer 6

Crying for everything

Question 7

Language development stage at 6 weeks -3 months of age?

Answer 7

Cooing and laughing

Question 8

Language development stage at 4-8 months of age?

Answer 8

Babbling

Question 9

Language development stage at 9-10 months of age?

Answer 9

Echolalia, the ability to imitate sounds in a pattern that sounds like language spoken at home but is not understandable

Question 10

Language development stage at 12-18 months of age?

Answer 10

Holophrasic speech; first words or single syllables words are used

Question 11

Language development stage at 24 months of age?

Answer 11

Telegraphic speech; short two word phrases and up to 200 words are used

Question 12

What happens with language development at 24+ months of age?

Answer 12

Rapid development into complete sentences

Question 13

What are the structural components of a language?

Answer 13

Phonemes are a language’s basic units of sound. Morphemes are the elementary units of meaning. Grammar- the system of rules that enables us to communicate- includes semantics (rules for deriving meaning) and syntax (rules for ordering words into sentences).

Question 14

What brain areas are involved in language processing and speech?

Answer 14

Broca’s area, a region of the frontal lobe that controls language expression
Wernicke’s area, a region in the left temporal lobe that controls language reception.

Question 15

The three basic building blocks of language are ______, ______, and ________.

Answer 15

phonemes, morphemes, grammar

Question 16

According to Chomsky, all languages share a(n)____________ ____________.

Answer 16

universal grammar