Language  Language  our spoken, written, or gestured works and the way we combine them to communicate meaning  Phoneme  in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Language  Morpheme  in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning  may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)  Grammar  a system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others

Language  Semantics  the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language  also, the study of meaning  Syntax  the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

Receptive Language  By 4 months of age, babies can discriminate speech sounds  They can also read lips: They prefer to look at a face that matches a sound.  They can recognize that ah comes from wide open lips and ee from a mouth with corners pulled back.

Receptive Language  Babies can recognize speech sounds from all the world’s languages Percentage able to discriminate Hindi t’s Hindi- speaking adults 6-8 months 8-10 months months English- speaking adults Infants from English-speaking homes

Productive Language  Babbling Stage  beginning at 3 to 4 months  the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language  One-Word Stage  from about age 1 to 2  the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in single words

Language  Two-Word Stage  beginning about age 2  the stage in speech development during which a child speaks in mostly two-word statements  Telegraphic Speech  early speech stage in which the child speaks like a telegram-–“go car”--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting “auxiliary” words

Language Summary of Language Development Month (approximate) Stage Babbles many speech sounds. Babbling reveals households language. One-word stage. Two-world, telegraphic speech. Language develops rapidly into complete sentences.

Language Development z B. F. Skinner: association (of the sights of things with the sounds of words); imitation (of the words and syntax modeled by others); and reinforcement (with smiles and hugs when the child says something right)

Language Development z Noam Chomsky: Given adequate nurture, language will naturally occur. It just “happens to the child.” We come prewired with a sort of switch box—a language acquisition device.

Brain and Language Development

Nature & Nurture  Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience activates them as it modifies the brain

Language  New language learning gets harder with age Native Percentage correct on grammar test Age at school

Language  The interplay of thought and language

Language  Linguistic Determinism  Hypothesis that language determines the way we think

Thinking in Images  Stroop Color-Word Task (9.3.2)

Animal Thinking and Language  The straight-line part of the dance points in the direction of a nectar source, relative to the sun Direction of nectar source

Animal Thinking and Language  Gestured Communication

Animal Thinking and Language  Is this really language?

Animal Thinking and Language  Is this really language? Alex the Parrot