Cognitive Psychology

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Cognitive Psychology Chapter 9 Language
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11/15/2009

• Language
• What is language?
• Hockets defining features
• Five levels of analysis
• Whorfs hypothesis

Study Question. Compare and contrast animal
communication with human language. Use Hocketts
defining features to underscore the distinction.
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Language

• Language vs. communication
• Continuity theory (Aitchison, 1983)
• Human language is a sophisticated calling system
  not fundamentally different from animal cries and
  calls
• Bee hive communication
• Mating and other ritualized displays
• Ververt monkeys
• chutter -gt cobra
• rraup -gt eagle
• chirp -gt lion

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Language

• Language vs. communication
• Problems with continuity theory
• Apparent specifity
• Ververt Monkeys
• chirps for eagles as well as lions
• Intensity of threat or symbollic representation
• Intentionality
• Often difficult to infer the intentions of
  animal communication
• E.g., Whale songs

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Language

• Some definitions
• Language
• A shared symbolic system for communication.
• Linguistics
• Concerned with the characteristics, functions and
  structure of language.
• Psycholinguistics
• Concerned with language as it is learned and used
  by people.

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Language

• Hocketts linguistic universals
• (Defining) features or characteristics that are
  common to all known languages.
• Less essential design features
• Vocal-auditory channel
• Written language developed later than spoken
• ASL much later again
• Essential to the evolution of language
• Broadcast transmission / directional reception
• Transmission is public
• Source can be localized by receiver

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Language

• Hocketts linguistic universals
• Less essential design features
• Transitoriness
• The message fades rapidly
• Must be received when transmitted
• Stored by receiver
• Interchangeability
• We are trans-receivers
• Both receivers and transmitters
• Cf. Mating rituals in birds

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Language

• Hocketts linguistic universals
• Less essential design features
• Total feedback
• Speaker receives information the same time as the
  receiver
• Allows for moment to moment adjustment
• Specialization
• Language sounds are specialized to convey meaning
• Nonlinguistic sounds may communicate meaning...
• E.g., A growling dog
• but language was designed to convey linguistic
  meaning.

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Language

• Hocketts linguistic universals
• Essential design features
• Semanticity
• Linguistic utterances convey meaning by use of
  the symbols used to form the utterance
• Arbitrariness
• The connection between the symbol and the concept
  is arbitrary
• We have few true onomatopoeia.
• English bow wow bang ribbet
• Arabic haw haw bom ------
• Mandarin wang wang peng gua gua
• Korean meong meong ----- gaegol
• Spanish guau guau pum croac

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Language

• Hocketts linguistic universals
• Essential design features
• Discreteness
• Small separable set of basic sounds (phonemes)
  combine to form language
• Duality of Patterning
• Process of building an infinite set of meaningful
  words from a small set of phonemic building
  blocks

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Language

• Hocketts linguistic universals
• Essential design features
• Displacement
• A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
• We take about things are not in the here and now
• Displacement and bee hive communication
• Productivity
• If we were bees, we would make up a new word
• palimony, blindsight,mindsight, Twonies
• Traditional transmission
• Most elements of language are passed from
  generation to generation
• feral children

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Language

• Five levels of analysis
• Grammar The complete set of rules that produce
  acceptable sentences and not produce unacceptable
  sentences
• Three levels
• Phonology
• Sounds of language
• Semantic or lexical
• Meaning
• Syntax
• Word order and grammaticity
• Semantics vs. syntax
• The gorpy wug was miggled by the mimsy gibber.

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Language

• Five levels of analysis
• Two other levels (Miller, 1973)
• Conceptual
• Analysis with reference to preexisting knowledge
• Belief
• Ones own belief of the speaker
• Mary and John saw the mountains while they were
  flying to Vancouver

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Language

• A critical distinction
• Competence Internalized knowledge of language
  that fully fluent speakers have
• Performance The actual language behaviour that a
  speaker generates
• Our speaking performance is not always a good
  indicator of language competency
• Disfluencies irregularities/ errors in speech
• Lapses in memory (er.ummm..er)
• Distractions
• Linguistic intuitions
• Which sounds better?
• I need a long, hot bath
• I need a hot, long bath

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Language

• Whorfs hypothesis
• Linguistic Relativity hypothesis You language
  shapes you thoughts
• Language controls thought and perception
• The Hopi as a timeless people
• Heider (1971, 1972)
• Focal colours
• Dani Language (New Guinea)
• Two words for colours Mola (bright) Mili
  (dark, cool)
• Recognition memory influenced by focality
• Weak vs. Strong L-R

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Language

• Whorfs hypothesis
• Eskimo words for snow (100, 200, or is it
  400?!?)
• Martin (1986)
• Franz Boas (1911 discussing independent vs.
  derived forms)
• 4 Eskimo words for snow
• Aput - snow on the ground Qana - falling snow
  piqsirpoq - drifting snow qimuqsuq - snowdrift.
• English words for water
• Liquid, lake, river, pond, sea, ocean, dew,
  brook, etc.
• gt these could have been formed from the root
  water
• gt Eskimos formed all snow related words from 4
  roots

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Language

• Whorfs hypothesis
• Eskimo words for snow (100, 200, or is it
  400?!?)
• Whorf (1940s)
• We have the same word for falling snow, snow on
  the ground, snow packed hard like ice, slushy
  snow, wind-driven flying snow- whatever the
  situation may be. To an Eskimo, this
  all-inclusive word would be almost unthinkable
  he would say that falling snow, slushy snow, and
  so on, are sensuously and operationally
  different, different things to contend with he
  uses different wards for them and for other kinds
  of snow. (Whorf 1940)
• 7 words for snow (what about sleet, slush, hail,
  blizzard, etc.?)

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Language

• Whorfs hypothesis
• Eskimo words for snow (100, 200, or is it
  400?!?)
• Brown (1958) Three words for snow
• Only looked at the figures in Whorfs paper!
• Eastman's (1975) Aspects of Language and Culture
• Cites Brown "Eskimo languages have many words
  for snow
• (Mentions six lines later that the number was 3)
• Lanford Wilson's 1978 play The Fifth of July
• 50 words for snow
• New York Times editorial (1984) 100 words for
  snow
• The Science Times (1988)
• "The Eskimos have about four dozen words to
  describe snow and ice
• Cleveland weather forecast 200 words for snow