Language Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is language?
System of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to transmit in fine no. Of messages that can be adapted to changes in environment
- monkeys alarm systems
What distinguished language from simple communication?
Infinite genrativity: ability to produce endless no. Of meaningful sentences
How is language infinite generativity ?
- Hierarchical system: components comibine to form larger units
- Governed by rules: specific ways components can be arranged
Universality of language:
- in all language + cultures children start babbling round 7 months
- single word stage by age 1
- deaf children babble with hands around same age as hearing kids babble
- first multi-word by 2
Language learnt by reinforcement
- language develoment may be explained by learning principles such as, association, imitation, reinforcement
- child makes random noise (m)
- mum gets excited, pays attention to baby, says oh u what milk
- etc etc etc
- after while m not goof enough
- babay has to say milk
- then praised
Problems with Behaviorism: language
View: children learn language though imitation + reinforcement appropriate speech
Argue:behav amounts ignore that language = generative cant be case that its reinforcement as never heard it before
According to Chomsky: language must be determined by inborn biological programme
Broca’s area and damage to it
- at side of cortex
- above temporal lobe
-involves pre-planning of sentences
Damage to it: Broaca’s Aphasia
- difficulty producing sentences accurately
- speech includes: important context words, leaves out function words
- grammar impaired if Broca’s area damaged
Wernicke’s area and damage to it
- important in understanding speech
- next to auditory areas
Damage: Wernicke’s Aphasia
- deficit in understanding language
- speech retains natural sounding rhythm
- sentences= meaningless
- lack of language comprehension
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Individuals cognition is influenced by language of their culture
Speech perception: what are phonemes ?
Smallest unit of speech sound
Speech perception: what is word segmentation?
Dividing almost continuous sounds of speech into separate phonemes + words
This involves lots of prior knowledge and top down processing
Parsing - comprehension research
- comprehension research divided up between sentences and text
- sentence comprehension involves segmentation, then parsing
What is parsing ?
Using grammar rules to understand a sentence
What we do to understand sentence— included syntax and grammar analysis
2 main levels of analysis for sentence comprehension
- Analysis of syntactical structure of each sentence
- study rules on formation of grammar sentences
- close attention to word order
- focus on sentence structure - Analysis and sentence meaning
-study of intended meaning (pragmatics
-eg irony, metaphors, sarcasm
What is syntax ?
RULES OF WORD ORDER
WHAT HELPS US PARSE?
Prosodies cues
- stress, pauses, rhythms, word duration
Prosodic cues in reading
- evidence that readers use ‘inner voice’ to produce implicit prosody that remembers prosody found in spoken sentences
- readers use of implicit prosody= greatly aided by commas in text
Models of Parsing: Garden Path
- 2 stage serial processing model
- when first see syntax, may initially mislead
- syntax will need revising in 2nd stage in order to make sense of it
Stage 1: syntax analysed, Simple’s ent parsing chose- minimal attachment/ simplistic attachment
Stage 2: does meaning make sense? If not, syntax revised
- Only 1 syntactical structure initially onsdered for sentence
- meaning not involves in selection of initial syntactical structure
- meaing only considered in 2nd stage
Findings to support Garden Path model of Parsing
Eye movement research
- areas of brain, if damaged, directly affect first stages of syntax processing
Tueswell: eye movement tracking— meaning of word does affect initial syntactical parsing stage
Models of Parsing: constraint-based model
- sentences initial interpretation deans on multiple info sources called constraints
- these constraints limit no. Of possible interpretations
- one-stage parallel model
- semantic + word knowledge a;; availe initials and processed in parallel
All aspects considered from beginning of parsing process inn brain
