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MR PATROBAS

05 - Language - Notes

MARENGONI COLLEGE
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05 - Language

Introduction to Language
➔ Language may be one of the most complex forms of communication
➔ Most psychologists only consider human communication to be language

➔ Criteria for “true language” as explained by researchers. Language is:

◆ Regular: governed by rules and grammar
● Sentence can be reorganized and still retain its meaning
◆ Arbitrary: what specific sound is assigned to represent a concept is arbitrary
● i.e., nothing about the sound of the word cat indicates its description
● Would not make sense to call one thing differently in another language if we used
sounds to describe an object (i.e., cat in English, goyangee in Korean)
● Allows various languages to use different sounds to label the same item
● Exception: onomatopoeia ⇒ words that resemble sounds (i.e. splash, meow)
◆ Productive: ~limitless ways to combine words to describe objects, situations, and actions ●
i.e. native language development in young learners ⇒ infants have impressive
inclination to learn language and actively experiment with novel word and sound
combinations that haven’t been explicitly taught

➔ How are humans able to use language? Why is language important to the human experience?
◆ We use language to form thoughts (run through a private dialogue in our head)
● Language ≠ thought, but some thoughts do take the form of language
◆ Whorf-Sapir hypothesis: language influences our thoughts and the way we perceive and
experience the world
● Evidence: Piraha, a tribe of hunter-gatherers in Brazil experimented by Peter Gordon
0 Native language contains 3 counting words corresponding to one, two and many
○ According to the strongest version of the hypothesis, the tribe should have trouble
understanding fine numerical concepts bc of lack of fine distinctions
○ Was proven: groups had to match number of objects and performance was good w/ 1
or 2 objects, but worsened with 3+ objects (03:38)
● Counter evidence: Wyoming Arapaho
0 Culture that lacks specific words to differentiate relatives
○ W.A. uses a single word to describe any senior male relatives vs English
speakers use diff words for older brother, father, uncle, and grandpa
○ Despite W.A’s single word, they understand the differences b/w these individuals and
how they are related to one another
○ Additionally in Korean, there are specific terms for uncles depending on mother’s or
father’s side

● Is the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis valid? ⇒ still up for debate

➔ Key unresolved question: can you have abstract thought in the absence of language?

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The Structure of Language

➔ Formal rules of grammar form the structure of language
➔ Over 3000 languages active in the world today
➔ Languages use different words, combine sounds in different ways, BUT contain some similar features
◆ All use sounds or words or symbols to transmit information
◆ Morphemes: the smallest unit of sound that contains information
● In manual or sign language, morphemes are units of sign rather than sound ● Often a
word, but some words contain multiple morpheme
● Can form complete words and a single word can be made of 1+ morpheme
● i.e. (table) = single word w/ 1 morpheme // (table)(cloth) = single word w/ 2
morphemes ○ Each morpheme provides a different piece of info.
0 Each morpheme may stand alone as a single word, BUT
● Not all morphemes can be used as an individual word. Must be added to another to
make sense [i.e. (table)(s) = single word w/ 2 morphemes]
● Morphemes can be broken down into phonemes (about 40 phonemes in English)
0 Phonemes: constituent sounds of morphemes
◆ i.e. dog has 3 phonemes: /d/ /o/ /g/
○ Various languages contain different libraries of usable phonemes and rules about
how they can be combined
◆ i.e. /ch/ /ai/ /r/ is okay, but not /k/ /v/ /t/
○ You can follow phoneme combo rules to make up a plausible word that has
no meaning (i.e. kwijibo is not a word, but sounds like one)
○ Some letters can rep more than one phoneme (i.e. /c/ for s or k sound)
○ Transparent orthographies: consistent letter-to-sound correspondence so
that a letter will always make the same sound (used in Italian)
◆ Makes it easier to learn to read

➔ Syntax: rules that govern how words in a sentence are put together (aka grammar)
◆ i.e. French that uses grammatical genders for nouns
◆ Children tend to make over-regularizations in grammar (i.e. “the boy runned home”, my foots
is growing too fast ⇒ indicate learning process of the rules
● Syntactic errors which involve using a grammatical rule too broadly
➔ As a native language speaker, you are an expert in syntax without having to put much thought into it
◆ Despite this processing fluency, it is generally difficult to describe the syntactic rules of your
own native language (it comes naturally to you)
➔ Semantics refers to the meaning of each individual word
◆ i.e. [colourless green ideas sleep furiously beside the kwijibo] has no meaning
◆ As a child’s vocab increases, semantic knowledge increases
◆ Semantics also refers to the fact that we are able to understand different meaning for the word
depending on the context in which it is presented (i.e. “present” has 3 meanings - verb, noun
(gift), tense/time)
Development and the Segmentation Problem
➔ Infants are limited in how they can communicate their desires (by crying)
➔ Language production increases systematically throughout infancy and childhood

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➔ Young infants show language-related skills (i.e. respond to the presence of another and smiling
socially)
➔ Early activities followed by babbling
◆ Making a wide range of drawn-out sounds that combine consonants and vowels
◆ Includes rhythm and infection ⇒ sounds like they are asking a question of involved in a
conversation
➔ Development progresses and they can repeat certain combos of sounds
particular to the language ⇒ eventually forms the basis for frst words

➔ Milestones: 12 weeks (cooing sounds), 16 weeks (turns head towards

voices), 6 months (imitates sounds), 1 year (babbles), 2 years, 2.5 years
>
◆ Also refer to TB pg 134
➔ At 1.5-6 years: “language explosion” ⇒ vocab increases very rapidly,
most children have mastered the major aspects of language.
Complexity of syntax continues to improve

➔ Separating individual words is difficult in the speech of a foreign

language ⇒ problem translates into perception that a person is
speaking an unfamiliar language often sounds like they are speaking
very quickly
◆ Illusion caused by difficulty in segmenting the speech stream into word units
◆ Like reading a stream of words with no spaces in between them

➔ Does an infant’s proficiency at speech segmentation predict later langage ability?

◆ Study by Newman and colleagues: familiarise infants from
7.5-12 mos with a target word
● When infants were later read stores, could they
detect the target word from speech stream? Infants
were observed to see if they could segment the
word
● When those infants turned 2 yrs, parents completed
a checklist of expressive vocab
● Better segmentation ability = more vocab
◆ At theoretical level, this gives us a glimpse into
understanding how language develops
◆ At clinical level, this could lead to infant screening test to
predict later problems in language development, and direct early treatment interventions

Universal Phonetic Sensitivity

➔ Work from UBC research
◆ Young infants can discriminate more phonemes than adults can
◆ Recall: not all languages use the same set of phonemes

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◆ i.e. Japan and Korean languages do not use /ra/ or /la/ phoneme
● Adults have difficulty hearing these sounds, yet infants can distinguish these sounds
➔ Universal phoneme sensitivity: the ability of infants to discriminate b/w any sounds they are tested on
◆ Includes sounds from non-native languages
◆ Adults cannot do so ⇒ indicates hat there may be some developmental basis for phoneme
discrimination that is infuenced early on in life
◆ Technique for testing universal phoneme sensitivity: conditioned head-turn procedure
● Used since infants are pre-verbal, indirectly measures the perception of phonemes
● Training: infant learns to discriminate 2 diff phonemes + turn his head towards the
speaker
0 When he turns his head for a new sound, he is rewarded with a toy
● Phase 2: infant is habituated with a specifc phoneme. When a new test phoneme,
infant turns its head towards it ⇒ shows that it can discriminate the two sounds
◆ Interesting comparisons come from testing different phoneme discriminations across infants
and adults from different language cultures
● i.e. 3 groups of subjects were tested on their ability to discriminate 2 different
phonemes which are present in Hindi and not in English
0 Results: infants w/ head-turn procedure performed almost as well as adult
Hindi speakers. Similar findings with other languages and specific phoneme
discrimination

● When does universal phonemic sensitive in infants disappear? ^

◆ Infants are especially well-tuned to do this

● Exposing an adult to a new language for 10 months will improve her ability to speak
and understand the language, but she needs more time with intensive learning to
discriminate fine phonemic contrasts VS
● Learning another language at a young age leads to superior mastery of all aspects of
language
◆ Process of losing ability to distinguish contrasts in sounds not used in native language is called
perceptual narrowing

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● Development for perceptual narrowing indicates that there may be a biological basis
for phoneme discrimination
● Our perceptual abilities are influenced by the stimuli we’re exposed to (i.e. phonemes
that we’re immersed into)
● Laurel Trainor, McMaster U describes an important factor that helps infants learn
about patterns in their own language: infant-directed speech (aka ‘motherese’)
○ When people talk to infants, they tend to speak in a higher pitch and
exaggerate changes in pitch and use of rhythm
○ Exaggerated changes in pitch help 6-7 month olds discriminate between
diferent vowel sounds ⇒ possibly learning the categories of vowels present
in their native language

Theories of Language Development

➔ Social learning theory: children learn language through a combo of imitation and operant
conditioning
◆ Parents provide explicit models for language (i.e. baby is babbling and stumbles upon the
word “mama”, the mother will respond excitedly with praise, smiles, and attention) ◆
Evidence for social learning theory:
● Children who have not been exposed to language throughout their childhood ⇒
i.e. Genie, who was locked in a small room and had virtually no interactions with
other people till the age of 13. She had virtually no language skills when she was
rescued
○ Indicates that without exposure to adequate language sources, children fail to
develop these skills
◆ Children’s language development is far too rapid and complex to be driven by imitation and
reinforcement alone (can’t be just by social interaction)
● Once children have learned to produce words, they combine them in new ways that
could not have been reinforced
◆ Overextensions occur when children apply a rule too broadly (i.e. doggie for any other 4
legged animals, runned as past tense)
● Overextensions in production persist longer than overextensions in comprehension
○ i.e. may use the word “car” for a bus, truck and a wagon, but can point to the
correct items if asked
○ Like the pattern that expressive vocab develops after receptive vocab
◆ Underextensions categorise objects too specifically (i.e. doggie for only her pet)

➔ Alternative to social learning theory: innate mechanism

◆ Proposed by Noam Chomsky ⇒ language develops rapidly due to an innate mechanism, which
he called a Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
● Although various languages may rely on variations of grammatical rules, all
languages follow certain, fundamental, underlying rules
● LAD, present only in humans, helps language develop rapidly according to universal
rules ◆ Evidence for innate mechanism theory:

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● Work with congenitally deaf children whose parents teach their children lip-reading
instead of sign language
○ Though children have not been exposed to sign language, children in the
U.S. and China have been observed to spontaneously use signs as a form of
communication
○ Have not been taught these signs or any formal rules of language, yet they
sign in a consistent manner that follows grammatical rules
○ Grammar rules for this spontaneous signing do not necessarily match those
of their parents’ native language
○ Suggests that children were not using a learned grammar, but one which was
innate and automatic
● Neurological data: very young infants show neurophysiological responses to the first
language they are exposed to
○ Prefer listening to speech rather than non-speech sounds
○ Suggests that infants’ brains are pre-wired to adapt to the sounds and their
associated meanings present in the environment
● Universal language milestones occur in a consistent pattern at certain ages

➔ Interactionist theory: a combined role of nature and nurture play a role in language development ◆
Children are biologically prepared for language, but also require extensive experience with language
in the environment
◆ Children play an active role in acquiring language by formulationg, testing, and evaluating
hypotheses about the rules of language
● Paired with brain maturation leads to language mastery
◆ Three influences on language development: biological maturation of the brain, social
interaction, cognitive preparedness

Animal Communication
➔ Can animal communication be considered language? Can non-human animals be taught to use
language as humans do?

➔ Waggle Dance done by honeybees since honeybees are social insects

◆ When a forager is successful in finding a source of food, it returns to the hive and
performs a waggle dance to
communicate the location of
the food to other bees
● Waggle
phase:
bee
moves
forward
with the
direction of the line indicating the direction of the food source
● Return phase: bee returns to its starting position in a loop, to the
left or right, forming almost a figure-8 pattern. Each waggle dance
may have as many as 100 repetitions

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➔ Other forms of communication can be quite complex (i.e. birds w/ highly complex songs for mate
attraction and competition)

➔ What is the difference between human and animal communication?

◆ Best seen in experiments where researchers tried to teach animals to use human language
◆ Early experiments used classical conditioning techniques

◆ Washoe was a chimp raised by scientists and taught how to communicate using ASL
● To test his abilities, a team of outside observers rated Washoe’s use of ASL
● Determined she did learn to use sign to communicate simple requests and could
combine them to communicate more complex request
● HOWEVER, this is still short of language because she didn’t seem to communicate
using any systemic grammar

◆ Sarah was another chimp raised in a lab setting and taught to use plastic symbols to
communicate demands
● Learned to use many symbols over time ⇒ evidence of large vocabulary
● Able to answer simple questions
● Indicates that she developed the ability to use complex symbols to communicate
● HOWEVER, she had not learned to combine them in novel combinations ⇒ one
criteria of true language use
● Humans effortlessly combine phonemes and words in novel ways, Sarah cannot

◆ Kanzi was taught to communicate using lexigrams (a set of geometric figures)

● THIS TIME, trainers did not use classical conditioning technique
● They used complete immersion in the language ⇒ hoped Kanzi would learn
language by observation
● Seemed to use all the lexigrams correctly, often combining them to communicate
without any reward or prompting // able to communicate requests and respond to
demands
○ Could communicate some novel requests
● Understood some requests that he had never previously seen
● HOWEVER, grammar was still limited with no understanding of advanced concepts
(i.e. nouns, verbs, plurals)
● Most successful language attempts, but understanding was significantly limited

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ADDITIONAL READING

Application
➔ Specialisation of certain brain areas are important for the speech production and comprehension
◆ Damage to Broca’s area in the left frontal lobe leads to difficulty in production of fluent speech
● Understand what is being said to them, but have trouble finding the words to respond

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◆ Damage to Wernicke’s area in the left temporal lobe allows people to speak fluently, but their
speech makes no sense
● Also have difficulty understanding written and spoken language

➔ Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) ~ page 136

◆ Results from brain damage, typically from a stroke or head injury that damaged areas in the left
hemisphere involved in motor control of speech
◆ When they regain speech after the incident, they seem to have a foreign accent
◆ Still retain language skills
◆ Rare. First case was in the early 1900s
● In one case, 6 months of speech therapy helped an accent diminish substantially
● In another case, FAS was gained without a stroke or brain injury
0 Over the course of a year, her language began to deteriorate in other ways
and she had trouble producing fuent speech ⇒ FAS was a sign of a
degenerative neurological disease
◆ Monolingual patients often start using an accent of a language they have never used or heard
◆ Analysis indicates that while it sounds like they are speaking with a foreign accent, the
perception is caused by fairly simple but consistent changes in the way they speak
● i.e. an Italian woman’s “il” sound changed to sound like a Spanish “el”
0 Similar changes with pronounciation of several Italian consonants, making
them sound like they were spoken by someone with a Spanish accent
◆ FAS patients' speech is modified in its basic timing and rhythmic properties, or prosody,
leading to the perception of a foreign accent
● Accents do not actually meet all patterns of any particular language
◆ Our tendency to organise sensory input into a meaningful whole contributes to our perception
of a consistent foreign accent in these patients
● Foreign language that is perceived often depends on the listener

Early Language Skills

➔ Infants show language related skills before they produce language
◆ i.e. respond to the presence of another

◆ In still-face procedure, an adult looks at the infant with a non-responsive, neutral expression
● 2-3 month olds will become distressed ⇒ they have expectations about how a face-
to-face social interaction should proceed
● At this age, we typically see an infant’s first social smile in response to an interaction

◆ Next: cooing at 12 weeks

● Makes sounds that combine consonants with “oo” and “ah” sounds
● Parents practice “conversational skills” with their infants by taking turns cooing or
vocalising with them
0 Turn-taking is important for conversational skills (speaking in turn)
○ Skills that allow children to communicate appropriately and effectively in a
social situation are called pragmatics

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◆ Next: imitating sounds and babbling between 6-12 months

● Makes a wide range of repetitive combos (i.e. “bababa”, “nanana”)
● Cooing and babbling may constitute a form of practice for later language production

◆ Next: formation of first words at ~ 1 year old

● Does this by repeating certain combinations of sounds
● First words refers to something important in their infant environment
● Tendency to use more nouns than verbs
● Holophrastic phase at ~ 10-18 months: A single word is used to indicate the meaning
of an entire sentence (i.e. “ball!” means they want you to give them the ball)

◆ Next: naming/learning explosion aka word spurt from 18-24 months

● Rapid increase in vocabulary expansion
● Before it was about 2-3 words/week
● At 2 years old, they have ~250 words // 2 ½ yrs old: 850+ words // 6 yrs old: 10,000+
● Characteristic process during this rapid growth: fast mapping
0 Children learn the meaning following only 1 or 2 encounters with the word
● Telegraphic speech: use short phrases that contain only the most crucial info
0 i.e. “where teddy”, “more juice”

➔ There may be large individual differences in vocabulary size

◆ i.e. for 1 ½ year olds, range was 6 to 357 words
◆ Girls typically have larger vocabularies and better language skills than boys from ages 2-6 yrs
● Potential reasons: biological factors (maturation rates, especially in language areas of
the brain) and environmental factors (maybe girls use more language interactions)
◆ Birth order can play a role in vocab size
● First-born children tend to have larger vocab vs the second-born
● Age differences at which girls and boys use particular words
● i.e. girls may use words about social relations and objects that need to be cared for
earlier than boys (i.e. doll, baby) VS boys using words for loud moving objects earlier
than girls

Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary

➔ Expressive vocabulary: words that children use to speak
➔ Receptive vocabulary: words that children can understand but may not yet use
◆ Develops before expressive vocabulary ⇒ usually understand more words than they can
produce

Application Pt. 2
➔ Research in the 20th century seemed to suggest that bilingual children are less intelligent than
monolingual children (concluded from lower IQ scores by bilinguals)
➔ HOWEVER, there are limited measures of intelligence and confounds in research
◆ Failed to consider socio-economic status, if tests were familiar
➔ In fact, bilingualism was found to have no effects at all for intelligence

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➔ Additionally, bilinguals had specific enhanced non-verbal cognitive abilities (i.e. selective attention,
inhibition of distracters, task switching) due to the use of two separate linguistic systems
◆ But, they do perform worse for factors such as language processing and profciency due to
underdeveloped vocabulary ⇒ smaller vocab for each language
➔ May be reasoned that increased overall vocab from 2 languages allow for increased number of
memory traces ⇒ both languages may be used as associations for memory retrieval
➔ Significant advantages in episodic and semantic memory in bilinguals
◆ By handling two languages and its rules, they are better able to organise info, keeping them

separate when necessary and ensuring that cross-over does not occur
◆ Increased flexibility: able to select or access both languages based on demand

Sample Questions

Intro to Language

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Theories of Language Development

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