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Chapter 7

Chapter 7. Language, Thought, and Intelligence. Schacter Gilbert Wegner. PSYCHOLOGY. Slides prepared by: Melissa S. Terlecki, Cabrini College. 7.1. Language And Communication: Nothing’s More Personal. PSYCHOLOGY. Schacter Gilbert Wegner. How many languages are there?. A. 75 B. 475

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Chapter 7

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  1. Chapter 7 Language, Thought, and Intelligence Schacter Gilbert Wegner PSYCHOLOGY • Slides prepared by: • Melissa S. Terlecki, Cabrini College

  2. 7.1 Language And Communication: Nothing’s More Personal PSYCHOLOGY Schacter Gilbert Wegner

  3. How many languages are there? • A. 75 • B. 475 • C. 1,075 • D. 6,075

  4. How many languages are there? • A. 75 • B. 475 • C. 1,075 • D. 6,075

  5. 90% of these languages are spoken by less than 100,000 people. • Between 200 and 150 languages are spoken by more than a million people. • There are 357 languages which have less than 50 speakers. • A total of 46 languages have just a single speaker.

  6. How about in the U.S?

  7. How about in the U.S? • There are over 300 languages!

  8. Which country has the most languages? • A. India • B. Papa New Guinea • C. Nigeria • D. Indonesia

  9. Which country has the most languages? • Papa New Guinea – 820 (12%) • Indonesia – 742 (11 %) • Nigeria – 516 (8%) • India – 427 (6 %)

  10. How do languages form? • If two groups of people speaking the same language are separated, in time their languages will change along different paths.

  11. First they develop different accents; • Next, some of the vocabulary will change. When this happens a different dialect is created. • If the dialects continue to diverge there will come a time when they are mutually unintelligible. • When this happens people are speaking different languages.

  12. Example: The Roman Empire • Roman Empire collapses in 4th c. A.D. • Latin was the language of that empire. • Speakers in different parts of Europe became isolated from each other. • Their languages evolved along independent paths to give us the modern languages of Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian.

  13. More Examples: • The Sanskrit spoken in North India changed into the modern languages of of the region: Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali and others. • Ancient Persian has evolved into Farsi, Kurdish and Pashto.

  14. In time, with enough migrations, a single language can evolve into an entire family of languages.

  15. Language Families • Languages are grouped together by common ancestry • There are over 100 language families • 95% of languages are in 10 dominate language families.

  16. Language Families

  17. Language Families Map

  18. Languages in the same branch are sister languages that diverged within the last 1000 to 2000 years (Latin, for example, gave rise to the Latin Branch languages in the Indo-European Family).

  19. Indo-European Family

  20. Languages in the same family, share many common grammatical features and many of the key words, especially older words, show their common origin • English- month • Dutch- maand • German- Monat • Swedish- månad • Welsh- mis • Gaelic- mí • French- mois • Spanish- mes • Portuguese- mês • Italian- mese • Polish- miesiac • Russian- myesyats • Lithuanian- menuo • Albanian- muaj • Greek- minas • Farsi- mâh • Hindi -mahina

  21. Edward Sapir, linguist: • "No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The words in which different cultures live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached".

  22. Language • Language: a system for communicating with others using signals that convey meaning and are combined according to rules of grammar.

  23. 3 Differences in Human Language • The complex structure of human language distinguishes it from simpler signaling systems • Humans use words to refer to intangible things • Use language to name, categorize, and describe things to ourselves when we think

  24. Questions • What do all languages have in common?

  25. Basic Characteristics • Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound that is recognizable as speech rather than as random noise. • Morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit of language. • Grammar: a set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages. • rules of morphology. • rules of syntax.

  26. Context is Important Sign outside a stadium: • “Football coaches not admitted unless booked in advance”

  27. Groucho Marx: ‘I once shot an elephant in my pajamas’ • Case of Derek Bentley

  28. Figure 7.1: Units of Language (p. 199)

  29. Deep Structure Versus Surface Structure • Deep structure: the meaning of a sentence. • Surface structure: how a sentence is worded. Example: ‘The dog chased the cat’ ‘The cat was chased by the dog’

  30. Questions • Is the meaning or wording of a sentence more memorable?

  31. Language Development 1. Children learn language at a rapid rate. • Average 1 year old – 10 words • 10,000 words by 4 years old • 6 or 7 new words a day

  32. Language Development 2. Children make few errors while learning to speak (even their errors follow grammatical rules).

  33. Language Development 3. Children’s passive mastery of language (comprehension) develops faster than their active mastery (production).

  34. Distinguishing Speech Sounds • Infants up to 6 mos. of age can distinguish among all the sounds in all human languages.

  35. Distinguishing Speech Sounds • Infants can distinguish among speech sounds but cannot reliably produce them.

  36. Distinguishing Speech Sounds • Babies must hear their own babbling for speech to continue.

  37. Questions • What language ability do babies have that adults do not?

  38. Grammatical Rules • Fast mapping: the fact that children can map a word onto an underlying concept after only a single exposure. • Telegraphic speech: two-word sentences that emerge around 2 years of age. • As children acquire grammatical rule, they tend to overgeneralize.

  39. Table 7.1: Language Milestones (p. 201)

  40. Questions • Why is it unlikely that children are using imitation to pick up language?

  41. Theories of Language Development • Behaviorist explanations: children acquire language through operant conditioning. • Nativist explanations: language is an innate, biological capacity. • language acquisition device (LAD): a collection of processes that facilitate language learning. • genetic dysphasia: a syndrome characterized by an inability to learn the grammatical structure of language despite having otherwise normal intelligence.

  42. Theories of Language Development • Interactionist explanations: social interactions play a crucial role in language. • deaf children in Nicaragua developed their own sign language.

  43. Deaf Children in Nicaragua (p. 204)

  44. Questions • How does the interactionist theory of language acquisition differ from behaviorist and nativist theories?

  45. The Neurological Specialization That Allows Language to Develop • Broca’s area: responsible for production of sequential patterns in vocal and sign languages (left frontal lobe). • Wernicke’s area: responsible for comprehension of vocal and sign languages (left temporal lobe). • Aphasia: disorder involving the difficulty in producing or comprehending language.

  46. Figure 7.2: Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas (p. 204)

  47. Do Animals Use Language?

  48. Questions • How does language processing change in the brain as the child matures?

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