Speech/Language – Flashcards
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What are some non-communicative purposes of language?
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Thinking/problem solving, practice and self-regulation
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What is the difference between a symbol and a representation?
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Symbol: something that stands for something else Representation: representation of reality
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What does it mean to say that language is arbitrary?
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Words that stand for concepts that are random.
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What are two examples of phonological rules?
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1) Pt never occurs at the beginning of a word. 2) Ng never occurs at the beginning of a word in English.
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Provide two examples of semantically anomalous sentences
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The orange ducks swims in your underpants. The crazy cloud is filming sounds.
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Provide two examples of a syntactic rule that we all know, but no one ever told us about
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"I picked up the ball." "I picked the ball up." Regardless of whether we put "up" before or after "the ball," the meaning doesn't change. But if we replace "up" with a preposition, you don't have the two choices of putting the preposition before or after "the ball." When describing an action that we are currently doing, we use present progressive tense instead of simple present tense. We say, "I am walking" instead of "I walk."
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What are some examples of biological bases of language?
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Vocal capacity and hemispheric specialization
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What are two views of brain structure and language function?
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highly localized and distributed
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Give an example of aspects of language that support both views.
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Distributed is where you zap the word banana but won't take away the whole concept. Localized is where you zap all of banana
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How might infants use transitional probabilities to learn language?
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Infants use TPs to categorize sounds and are used to learn words and some aspects of grammar
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What are some possible critical ages for language acquisition?
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2, 5, 9, puberty, and 16
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What are two aspects of language are easier for an adult to learn and two aspects of language that are easier for a child to learn?
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adult: vocabulary and pragmatics. child: phonology and morphology.
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What does brain plasticity mean?
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The ability to keep learning regardless of age
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Is belief in a critical period a belief that learning is not possible?
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No, after a certain age/sensitive period the person can still learn but it is harder.
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What does it mean to say an aspect of language is innate?
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It means that the environment plays no role in the development of this aspect of language.
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What are three possible roles of the environment in language learning?
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No role, some role, important role
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What are some examples of cultures that people belong to?
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Family, gender, jobs, religion, nationality
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What are some examples of ethnocentrism?
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South is the best Purple is the prettiest color
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Why is the need to be like other humans (conformity) so important for language learning?
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Conventiality
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What are 4 ways that caregiver interactions influence language development?
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1. Provide speech-language models (motherese) 2. Agent of the culture 3. Attentive to child's contribution 4. Joint reference
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What are the characteristics of motherese with respect to: syntax, semantics, prosody?
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Prosody---higher pitch, slower Semantics---concrete words/concepts Syntax—shorter sentences
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Is motherese necessary for language learning? Why or why not?
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No, kids can learn without it
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What role do the special characteristics of motherese have for language learning?
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Syntax are shorter sentences, speaking in higher pitch, and the sentences will be slower. These aspects are attuned to the child's language level as the parents understanding because the children will be more responsive and the variations of pitch children can tune in to. Not necessary to learn language. How does the kid differentiate between speech directed at them or someone else - pitch, eye contact, and adds a cue
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What are 5 examples of early communicative behaviors?
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Smile, eye gaze, crying, laughing, and gestures
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What does it mean to say a communicative behavior has "perlocutionary force?"
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There is an effect on the environment
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Approximately what age do children exhibit a non-reflexive smile and laughter?
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Six weeks is non-reflexive smile and laughter is 3 months.
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Provide examples of proto-imperatives and proto-declaratives.
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Proto-imperatives: saying [ba] while pointing to ball. Proto-declaratives: saying [ba] to get mom to give them the ball
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What stage are these behaviors associated with?
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Illocutionary Stage
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Define cognition.
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study of human mental processes and their role in thinking, feeling, and behaving.
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What are four components of cognition?
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Sensation, perception, attention, memory
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What is working memory?
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The storage and manipulation of information
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Why is short-term memory and attention not important for first language learning?
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Surrounded by physical content not important that you have to remember because language repetitive.
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What aspect of memory is particularly important for language learning?
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Working memory
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Explain why it's not possible to talk about space and time without metaphors and embodied cognition?
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It is difficult to think of time without thinking of your body
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What are four views of the relationship between language and cognition? Be able to give an example that reflects each view.
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Strong Cognitive View Weak Cognitive View Modularity View Linguistic Determinism
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Strong Cognitive View
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cognition determines language. First words depend on Stage IV object knowledge. C < L
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Weak Cognitive View
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early primacy of cognition, but as children get older language has more of an influence on thought. C < L < C
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Modularity View
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separate modules for UG and cognition (No relationship between language and cognition)
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Linguistic Determinism
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language determines thought
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At what stage does a child come to know the particular purpose/function of an object?
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Stage 5
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What are Piaget's criteria for intentional behavior?
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Have the goal in mind. Given an obstacle that prevents goal attainment, child use a scheme that is different from the one used for the goal. Behavior is creative because new schemes are coordinated together
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At what age do infants show intentional behavior? Give an example
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9 months, pulling blanket to get rubber ducky
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At what stage can an infant imitate speech?
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Stage 5
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What does it mean to say that speech is continuous?
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There are no word boundaries
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Give an example that shows that phonetic segments do not have invariant properties.
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the d or b change with its vowel
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Give two examples of coarticulation.
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Few, Chomsky p in Chomsky occurs going from m to s, can not transition because of the p u in few occurs going from f to w
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At what age are infants capable of discriminating between most speech sounds?
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2 months
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What are three characteristics of infant speech perception? By 2 months of age, infants are capable of discriminating between most speech sounds
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Prefer speech to non-speech Prefer their mothers' voices High amplitude sucking paradigm Conditioned head turning procedure
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Be able to compare/contrast the four theories on the role of the experience in the development of speech perception abilities.
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Universal Theory: At birth infants are capable of discriminating all possible phonetic contrasts. Early experience functions to maintain ability to discriminate contrasts. Absence of contrasts results in "selective" loss of discrimination ability (e.g., Mary, merry, marry). Attunement Theory: At birth infants are capable of discriminating some contrasts—broadly tuned. Early experience functions to align or sharpen partially developed discrimination abilities' Maturational Theory: Discrimination ability develops independently of specific early experiences and unfolds according to predetermined developmental timetable.
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Give an example of how people can have selective loss of discrimination ability
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Mary, merry, marry
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Which theory of the role of experience in the development of speech perception has no support?
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Perceptual Learning Theory
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Speech
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verbal means of communicating or conveying meaning
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Language
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Socially shared code or conventional system for representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols and rule-governed combinations of those symbols
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Communication
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the process people use to exchange information and ideas, needs, and desires. The process is active and involves encoding, transmitting, and decoding the intended message.
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Dialect
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rule-based variations that characterize the language of a particular group. Everyone is a dialectal speaker
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Paralinguistic features
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intonation, stress, rate, fluency (pausing)
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Nonlinguistic cues
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gestures, body posture, facial expression, eye contact, head and body movements, physical distance (proxemics)
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Metalinguistic abilities
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ability to reflect and make judgments about language.
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Syntax
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The rule system that governs how words are combined into larger meaningful units of phrases, clauses, and sentences.
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Semantics
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The system of rules governing the meaning of words and word combinations
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Morphology
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The aspect of language concerned with the internal organization of words. Words consist of one or more smaller units called morphemes. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning. Morphemes can be either free because they can stand independently or bound because they lack such independence. Grammatical inflections are bound morphemes
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Pragmatics
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The system of rules that govern the use of language in context.
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Phonology
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The aspect of language concerned with the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sound patterns
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Phoneme
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Smallest meaningful unit of sound.
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Allophone
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Phonetic variations of phonemes.
