Linguistics and Language Essay Example for Free

linguistics and Language EssayLanguage Comprehension Language Production Language Acquisition Psycholinguistics is a branch of cognitive science What go forthing be covered in this class? How do we produce and recognize speech? How do we perceive words, letters, and sentences? How do we learn and recall information from texts? How can we improve texts to make them easier to determine? How does the brain function to process verbiage? What are the causes and effects of reading disabilities?Is in that respect language in other species? Central themes in psycholinguistics 1)What fellowship of language is needed for us to use language? Tacit (implicit) jazzledge vs. Explicit knowledge tacit knowledge of how to perform something, just now not aware of full rules explicit knowledge of the processes of mechanisms in performing that thing 2)What cognitive processes are complicated in the ordinary use of language? How do we understand a lecture, read a book, hold a convers ation? Cognitive processes perception, memory, thinking, learning some(prenominal) definitions of basic components of language Semantics The regard asing of words and sentencesSyntax The grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence or phrase Phonology The gravid pattern of language Pragmatics How language is used in a social context Examples from psycholinguistics Parsing garden path sentences The novice accepted the deal before he had a chance to check his finances, which put him in a state of conflict when he realized he had a straight flush. 1) The defendant examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable 2) The evidence examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable The process of parsing is the process of reservation decisions The effect of prior knowledge on comprehensionThe procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities, that is the next step otherwise you are pretty wellhead set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not wait important, but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life.It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell. After the procedure is completed, one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more, and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life. Bransford amp Johnson, 1973 Recall No context 2. 8 idea units out of a maximum of 18 Context afterwards 2. 7 idea units Context before 5. 8 idea units Child language development How many word s do you know?Hint Dictionary has about 450,000 entries Test high school graduates How many words do they know? About 45,000 english words About 60,000 including names and foreign words The average six year old knows about 13,000 words. Learning about 10 words per day since age 1. (One every 90 minutes) How much do we have to teach children to learn language? Do you have to teach a child to walk? Is it the same way of learning a language? My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them I eated my dinner A brief history of psycholinguistics Wilhem Wundt (early 1900s) kindle in mental processes of language productionSentence as the primary unit of language Speech production is the transformation of complete thought processes into sequentially organized speech segments. Behaviorism (1920s-1950s) Rejected the focus on mental processes Measurement ground on objective behavior (primarily in lab animals) How does cognise (reward and punishment) shape behavior? B. F. Skinner Ch ildren learn language through shaping (correction of speech errors) Associative fibril theory A sentence consists of a chain of associations between individual words in the sentence Whats wrong with the behaviorist approach?Noam Chomsky (1950s present) 1) Colorless green ideas ease furiously 2) Furiously sleep ideas green colorless. 3)George picked up the baby 4)George picked the baby up. Almost every sentence uttered is a new combination of words The Poverty of stimulus line of reasoning There is not enough information in the language samples given to children to account for the richnes and complexity of childrens language The pattern of development is not based on parental speech but oninnatelanguage knowledge Linguistic Diversity vs. Linguistic Universals Linguistic diversity There appears to be a lot of diversity among languagesEven within languages there is diversity When are two languages different? We speak the same language if we can understand each other Exceptions Norw egian and Swedish Cantonese and Mandarin Dialects within languages The myth of pure language How/why do languages change? Why does there seem to be a correct English? Members of the dominant (most powerful) sub-culture tend to speak one dialect and may punish those who do not Linguistic superpatriotism Belief that ones own language/dialect is the best of all possible languages Black English Vernacular (BEV) Study by William Labov Interviewed Afro-American street youthYou know, like some people say if youre good an sh*t, your temper goin theaven . . . n if you bad, your spirit goin to hell. Well, bullsh*t Your spirit goin to hell anyway, good or bad. Why? Why? Ill tell you why. Cause, you see, doesn nobody really know that its a God, yknow, cause I mean I have seen black gods, white gods, all color gods, and come int nobody know its really a God. An when they be sayin if you good, you goin theaven, thas bullsh*t, cause you aint goin to no heaven, cause it aint no heaven for you to go to. Place holders There vs. It in the linking verbCopula Is, Was optional Negatives You aint goin to no heaven BEV just as linguistically complex as Standard American English We dont see/understand the complexity in other languages Moral All languages seem to permit as wide range of expressions as others Linguistic Universals What is in common with all languages? Sentences are built from words based on the same physiological processes All languages have words All reality have ways of making sounds. Languages tend to use a small set of phonemic sounds Phoneme The minimal unit of sound that contributes to meaning How many phonemes in a language?English 40 phonemes Range Polynesian 11 to Khoisan 141 Discreteness Messages in human language (e. g. speech sounds) are made up of units of which there is a discrete (limited) number Arbitrariness The relationship between meaningful elements in language and their denotation is independent of any physical semblance between the t wo. Words do not have to look or sound like what they describe Openness New linguistic messages are created freely and easily Languages are not constrained in a way so that there are a limited number of messages that can be created.