Transcript c_Language Structure and Development - PV

How much harder would it be to
communicate without language?
Communication Activity
• Need two volunteers from the class
• One will need to leave the class for a minute
• Goal is to communicate a term without the use of
verbal language
How much harder would it be to
communicate without language?
Communication Activity
• Need two volunteers from the class
• One will need to leave the class for a minute
• Goal is to communicate a term without the use of
verbal language
 Cat
 War
 Seduction
 Spectacular
 Global Warming
Building Blocks of Language
Phonemes
• The smallest sound unit
in a language
• to say “bat,” we utter the
phonemes b, a, and t
• to say “that,” we utter the
phonemes th, a, and t
• how many phonemes does
“dolphin” have?
• D, o, l, ph, i, n = 6
• about 40 phonemes in the
English language
• we have trouble pronouncing
phonemes of other languages
Building Blocks of Language
Morphemes
• The smallest unit of meaning in a language
• One morpheme: boy
• Two morphemes: boy-ish
• Three morphemes: boy-ish-ness
• What would be a four morpheme word?
1
Gentle + man + li + ness / Un + desire + able + ity
• How many morphemes are in “bats”?
2
• How many morphemes are in “hunters”?
3
Building Blocks of Language
Grammar
A convention system that enables us to correspond with other people
Semantics
•
The meaning of words, morphemes,
and sentences created by the
grammar system
• Example: adding “-ing” to the
end of a word means it’s
currently happening
• “barking” vs. “barked”
Syntax
•
The order for combing words in a
given grammar system
• Example: all adjectives come
before nouns, so we say “log
cabin” not “cabin log”
• “white house” = English
“casa blanca” = Spanish
Building Blocks of Language
• Language is complexity built out of simplicity
• 40 phonemes can combine to create more
than 100,000 morphemes, which can
combine to produce 616,500 words, which
can combine to create a relative infinite
amount of sentences
• No two speeches or poems are likely to be alike!
• The average high school graduate knows about
60,000 words
• This breaks down into learning:
• 3,500 words per year
• 10 words per day
• A new word approximately every
one and a half waking hours
Stages of Language Development
• Infants first start learning language by reading lips and discerning speech
sounds (ah from wide open lips, ee from a mouth with corners pulled
back). Their ability to understand speech establishes before their ability
to create words.
Babbling Stage
• First occurs around 4 months of age
• The infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the
household language
NOT an imitation of adult speech
Deaf infants will babble audibly
and with hands
• Babbling begins to resemble household
language around 10 months at which
point phoneme sounds outside the
infant’s native tongue disappear
•
•
Stages of Language Development
One-Word Stage
• First occurs around 12 months of age
• The child speaks mostly in single words
• “Doggy” may mean “look at the dog out there!”
Two-Word Stage
• First occurs around 24 months of age
• The child speaks mostly two-word statements
• Characterized by telegraphic speech:
child speaks like a telegram (“bee sting”)
• After this, the child will rapidly begin
formulating sentences
Explaining Language Development
• Noam Chomsky’s theory of
Inborn Universal Grammar
• Believed humans had a “language acquisition device”
(biological predisposition) to develop language (NATURE)
• B.F. Skinner’s theory of
Operant Learning
• Believed humans learn language through operant
conditioning and social learning (NURTURE)
Explaining Language Development
• Whorf’s Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (otherwise known
as linguistic determinism): the idea that language
establishes our cognition = our way of thinking
• The Hopi tribe has no past tense in their language, so Whorf says
they rarely think of the past.
• The Penan people, who live in Borneo, have one word for he, one
word for she, but six words for we in their language. What would
this indicate about their culture and how they think?
• Do the following similar phrases have different connotations?
• “Girls’ night out” vs. “Ladies’ night out”
• “Fireman/woman” vs. “Fire Fighter”
• “Sportsmanship” vs. “Sportspersonship”
• “Stewardess” vs. “Flight Attendant”
• “Housewife” vs. “Homemaker”
• Research shows bilingual children have a more accurate sense of
self  why do you think this?