W11 -Language Flashcards
What is language?
- A system for representing, communicating information about the world
using symbols and rules - Natural language vs. ‘formal’ languages
- Formal languages = finite systems of signs and rules for combination
- Human language vs. animal languages
- Bees, primates, cetaceans
- Closed / finite vs. generative
- Capable of representing abstract concepts
What are the language groups?
ANCESTRAL LANGUAGE
REGIONAL DIALECTS
MODERN LANGUAGE ‘FAMILIES’
Romance languages
What are Language families – number of
languages, relative number of speakers?
Total = 6500
Indo-European
Afro-Asiatic
Japonic
Sino-Tibetan
Austronesian
Austro-asiatic
Niger-Congo
Dravidian
Altaic
What are the:
Functional components of language:
1) ARTICULATION (phonetics)
- Movement of the tongue, lips and jaw to modify a sound wave
- Classified by place of articulation
- Labial sound = moving lips together
- Alveolar sound = when tongue presses against top teeth
- Palatal sound = manipulating tongue against pharynx
- …and by manner of articulation
- Voiced vs. unvoiced eg. the vs thhe
- Fricative, plosive etc.
What are the:
Functional components of language:
2) PHONOLOGY
- The sound combinations from which the syllables and words of a language are built up
- ‘Legal’ phonological structure varies across languages
syllables onset rhyme
nucleus coda
phonemes f əʊ n
- The International phonetic alphabet (IPA) is used as a common notation
What are the
Functional components of language:
3) MEANING (semantics)
- The representation in long term memory of concepts and the
relations between them - Actions, objects, properties => verbs, nouns and adjectives
- Largely independent of grammar
- Mapping between concepts and symbols generally arbitrary
- though nb onomatopoeia – e.g. ‘hiss’
What are the
Functional components of language:
4) SYNTAX
- The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language
- Relies on grammatical markers and word order
- In English, word order (SVO) is paramount in assigning role:
S V O S V O - The dog bit the man vs. The man bit the dog
- Other languages rely on ‘markers’ of word role:
S V O O V S - Canis morduit hominem vs. Hominem morduit canis
What are the
Functional components of language:
5) COMPREHENSION
- The ability to represent the meaning of words or sentences spoken or written by another person
- Entails knowledge of 1 – 4, but also:
- Context:
- ‘I reached the bank’
- Pitch:
- shī shì shí shî
- Stress:
- ‘Do YOU live here?’ vs. ‘Do you LIVE here?’ vs. ‘Do you live HERE?’
- Prosody:
- ‘Woman! Without her, man is helpless’ vs. ‘Woman, without her man, is helpless’
What is the
Cerebral organisation of language:
‘THE LANGUAGE NETWORK’
Dependent on the left hemisphere network of cortical regions and connections.
The knowledge has been built up over a century looking at the brains people that developed language difficulties after trauma. Later using advanced imaging techniques, more recently looking at activity in normal subjects while they perform language tasks.
-Broca’s area
- Auditory cortex for understanding speech
- Wernicke’s area - important for decoding incoming signals
- Fasciculus Arcuatus - connects anterior and posterior parts of the language network together.
What is the
Cerebral organisation of language:
1) ARTICULATION and PHONOLOGY
These depend on the inferior parts of the motor homunculus - controls tongue, mouth, larynx and glottis - corresponds to the anterior portions of broca’s area.
What is the
Cerebral organisation of language:
2) MEANING
Temporal poles
Densely interconnected with widespread regions
of association cortex ‘Modality-independent’
representations
Meaning and semantics = highly dependent on left and right temporal poles. There is a dense set of connections between temporal poles and areas of association cortex where individual features of the world as we experience registers and process.
What is the
Cerebral organisation of language:
3) SYNTAX
Arrangement of words of meaningful sentences.
Left inferior frontal gyrus
What is the
Cerebral organisation of language:
4) COMPREHENSION
-Primary auditory cortex = need to represent an -auditory signal to be able to understand speech.
- Temporal poles = need to understand the significance of the symbols you are comprehending.
-Left inferior frontal gyrus = SYNTAX
Arcuate fasciculus
Left posterior superior
Temporal gyrus
What are the
Language change after brain damage
1) STROKE
- Broca’s aphasia
- Wernicke’s aphasia
- Conduction aphasia
- Adynamic aphasia
What is Broca’s aphasia
- Difficulty with articulation and phonology
- Speech: Halting, fragmented, distorted,
agrammatic - single words usually - Comprehension: Preserved for words;
reduced for sentences - Follows damage to: Broca’s area
- Typical pathologies: Middle cerebral artery
infarction; haemorrhagic stroke - Eg. man with his wife doing an interview about voices of aphasia.
