The Road Not Taken TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Hotel California On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim I had to stop for the night There she stood in the doorway; I heard the mission bell And I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be hell Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say... Welcome to the Hotel California Such a lovely place Such a lovely face Plenty of room at the Hotel California Any time of year, you can find it here Her mind is tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget …

Language “The jewel in the crown of cognition” –Pinker “The human essence”- Chomsky A system of symbols and rules for combining these symbols, arranged according to the rules of grammar, in ways that can generate an infinite number of possible messages and meaning. – the dictionary –Language allows for one person to communicate with another and for one generation to communicate with another generation. Only humans have produced literature, music, mathematics, and science, for example.

Language Language is not just a system of communication. Other animals and birds have that. True language is characterized by properties such as semanticity, infinite creativity, and displacement. –Semanticity: the “meaning” of sounds or signs that includes actions, objects, relational concepts (over, around) and abstract ideas. –Infinite Creativity: the capacity to combine words into original sentences that are produced by the individual, not just imitated. To do this, the individual must understand syntax: the order of words according to grammar rules. –Displacement: the ability to communicate information about events and objects from another time and place, not just the here and now or what’s right in front of you. Displacement allows for the transmission of complex knowledge from generation to generation and from this morning to tonight.

Basic Concepts of Language Phonology: study of the basic sounds in language –Phoneme: a basic sound There are more phonemes than letters. Ex. The “o” in gone and the “o” in go are different phonemes –Morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in a single word Ex. “cat” is one unit of meaning, but adding another morpheme “s” makes the word “cats” Syntax: the word order of a language, based on that language’s rules of grammar Semantics: the meanings of words. Ex: “rock” has the same morphemes, the same phonemes, but has several meanings “don’t rock the boat,” “A rock sank the boat” –Surface structure of language- the superficial, obvious, literal construction of a sentence. –Deep structure– the deep or underlying meaning of a sentence. –Surface structures can be essentially identical, but with very different deep structures. Ex: The chicken is ready for dinner. (Time for dinner!) The lion is ready for dinner. (Time for whom to eat?!)

Language Development Research suggests that human children develop language in an invariant sequence of steps: 1.Prelinguistic vocalizations– crying, cooing, and babbling 1.This is the same for babies all over the world. Sounds turn into a particular language when reinforced by parents. 2.Overextension– applying one word to other things that seem similar, but for which the child has not developed a vocabulary 1.A 4-legged, fur covered animal with ears is a “dog,” so when he sees a horse, he says “dog” 3.Overregularization– learning a set of rules but then wrongly applying them beyond what they’re meant for 1.Child learns to recite the ‘teen’ numbers: thir-teen, four- teen…nine-teen, ten-teen (oops!) 4.Holophrase– used by young children and are single words used to express complex meanings 1.Ex: “milk!” can mean, “I want some milk” and “bye!” can mean “I want to go with you…”

Theories of Language Development Social-Cognitive Perspective (aka Behavioral Perspective): Parents (environment) serve as models for language and selectivity reinforce particular sounds (vocabulary) and syntax (order) that have meaning in their language. –Cognitive views on language development hold that children become developmentally ready according to their cognitive development (Piaget). In other words, children are motivated to acquire language when the thinking abilities (cognitive functions) have developed and require that they have a means to express what they’re thinking

Theories of Language Development Nativist Views of Language Development: innate or inborn factors cause children to attend to and acquire language in certain universal ways. –Dr. Noam Chomsky: Psycholinguistic Theory: An inborn tendency to acquire language which, when combined with the interaction of the environment which serves as the precipitating stimulus, will allow us to develop language Research supports this view “LAD” Language Acquisition Device: the inborn apparatus in the nervous system (brain) that when activated, allows for the development of language in humans –Dr. Lenneberg: “sensitive period” the period of time from about months and continuing until the onset of puberty in which the plasticity of the brain allows for ease in language development. After this period, language acquisition becomes more difficult Why on earth do we avoid teaching foreign languages in preschool?!

Theories of Language Development Nativist Views Of Language Development Continued: –Dr. Benjamin Whorf: Linguistic-Relativity Hypothesis- says that language itself structures the way in which we see the world The categories and relations we use to understand and perceive the world derive from our language, not the other way around. The way we think is because of our language –Ex: Most English-speaking people are limited in how they can even ‘think’ about snow (slush, hard-pack, powdery, wet, melting, etc.) however, the Inuit people of Alaska have over 100 words for the different types of snow. Middle Eastern people have over 250 words for camel. Philippinos have over 92 words for rice.

Bilingualism The majority of people around the world speak at least two languages. –In the U.S. many of us do not speak more than one language because our country is so big, and we have little “need” for it– except along the borders of Mexico (Spanish) and Canada (French) –In Europe, by the time a person has crossed the space of Texas, they could have travelled through several different countries, with several different languages. –32 million people in the U.S. (and growing fast) speak English as a second language –Bilingualism has its benefits: it promotes multi-culturalism and develops respect for others’ differences from ourselves