Language: A few basics

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Language A few basics
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Building blocks
The players talked to the fans
Sentence
The players
talked to
the fans
Phrases
The
players
talked
to
fans
the
Words
Morphemes
The
play
er
s
talk
ed
to
the
fan
s
Phonemes
d?
pley
?r
z
t?k
t
tuw
d?
z
f
a
n
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Surface deep structure

• Surface structure
• Syntax grammar rules
• Deep structure Meaning
• Graham steered his three-wheeler into the field
• The 3-wheeler, driven by Graham, entered the
  field
• Doctors should do more to stop smoking
• Human language is unique Productivity

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Do other animals have productive language?

• Gardner Gardner (1969)
• Washoe the chimp
• Sign language (100 words)
• Requests
• Rarely describe
• No clear evidende of productivity
• Child with a vocabulary of 100 words will show
  productivity

• Bonobo chimps
• More skill
• Occasionally use symbols to describe objects or a
  past event
• Use symbols about as well as a 2 and ½ year old
  child uses language.
• Bonobos better fitted to learn language better
  methods

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• All languages in the world, including sign
  languages, appear to have a common underlying
  deep structure.
• Biological basis for language?

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Human Specializations for Learning Language

• Language learning as a specialized capacity
• The information that children get may not be so
  sparse though in almost all world cultures
  parents make special concessions to infant
  understanding in speech by using parentese, a
  slow and high-pitched method of communication
  that may enhance early language learning.
• But even very young infants do start picking up
  language rules very early, extracting a great
  deal of information from what they hear.

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Human Specializations for Learning Language

• Language and the human brain
• Studies of the brain using persons with brain
  damage and modern imaging techniques have allowed
  us to identify two areas vital for the processing
  and production of language.

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Wernickes aphasia difficulty recalling the
names of objects and impaired comprehension of
language
Brocas aphasia inarticulate speech
difficulties with using and understanding
grammatical devices (prepositions, etc.)

• Figure 8.26 Brain damage that produces major
  deficits in language usually includes the
  left-hemisphere areas shown here. However, the
  deficits are severe only if the damage is more
  extensive, including these areas but extending to
  others as well. Many areas of the human brain
  contribute to language comprehension and
  production.

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Language development

• Stages of language development
• There is impressive evidence of the universality
  of stages of language learning, including
  identical stages of productive and receptive
  language in young children of all world cultures,
  young hearing impaired children, and hearing
  children of deaf parents who are learning both
  sign and spoken language.

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Development A few facts

• Infants vocalise the entire range of phonemes
  found in the languages of the world (about 100).
• Around 6 months of age the begin to favour the
  phonemes of their own language and discard those
  of other languages.
• Japanese children loose the capacity to
  distinguish between the sounds L and R as the
  R sound as we know it does not exist.
• Hence when Japanese speakers here an English word
  that contains an R they tend to hear an L,
  the closest sound in Japanese.

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• Table 8.2 Stages of language development

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Human Specializations for Learning Language

• Children exposed to no language
• Some deaf children who do not receive exposure to
  sign language invent their own sign languages,
  which increase in complexity as they mature.
• The unique sign languages of these children have
  some interesting similarities (subject object
  specifications for example).

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Human Specializations for Learning Language

• Children exposed to two languages
• Some children grow up in a bilingual environment,
  receiving roughly equal exposure to two different
  languages.
• These children learn both languages equally well.
• If exposure to the second language begins early
  in life, the representation and storage of the
  languages in the brain is identical.

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Human Specializations for Learning Language

• Children exposed to two languages
• Although exposure to two or more languages can
  slow down the overall process of acquisition, it
  bestows some long-term cognitive benefits as
  well.
• Adults who were raised in bilingual environments
  show an enhanced degree of cognitive flexibility
  in understanding that there are many ways to say
  the same thing.
• There are many practical advantages in being able
  to communicate with speakers of other languages.