1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. Receptive Language  Babies can recognize speech sounds from all the world’s languages 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Percentage able to discriminate Hindi t’s Hindi- speaking adults 6-8 months 8-10 months 10-12 months English- speaking adults Infants from English-speaking homes

6. 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

7. 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

8. Language Summary of Language Development Month (approximate) Stage 4 10 12 24 24+ Babbles many speech sounds. Babbling reveals households language. One-word stage. Two-world, telegraphic speech. Language develops rapidly into complete sentences.

9. 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)

10. 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.

11. Brain and Language Development

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

14. Language  New language learning gets harder with age 100 90 80 70 60 50 Native3-78-1011-1517-39 Percentage correct on grammar test Age at school

15. Language  The interplay of thought and language

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

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

18. 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

19. Animal Thinking and Language  Gestured Communication

20. Animal Thinking and Language  Is this really language?

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