Transcript University of Split Danica Škara, PhD e

University of Split
Danica Škara, PhD
e-mail: [email protected]
Office hours: Tuesday, 14:00-15:00h
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS AND COGNITIVE
ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
Week 1:
INTRODUCTION:
DESIGN FEATURES OF
HUMAN LANGUAGE
Language/reality
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Reality>experience>five
senses>conceptualisation>linguistic categorization
Imagery
What are your five senses?
Sight, Hearing, Touch, Taste,
and Smell
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An image conveys a sense
perception , i.e., a visual
picture, a sound, a feeling of
touch, a taste, or an odor
What is Language?
Language, the principal means used by
human beings to communicate with one
another. Language can be spoken or
written .
 “A language is a set (finite or infinite) of
sentences, each finite in length and
constructed out of a finite set of
elements.”
Noam Chomsky (1957)
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A language is a system for encoding and decoding
information.
 Chomsky: Language is a special faculty apart
from other higher faculties, genetically inherited
(innate ability) as a special species-specific
endowement within the species.
 the term refers to the forms of communication
considered peculiar to humankind.
 In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the
human cognitive facility of creating and using
language.
Linguistic-related areas
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Phonetics and phonology are concerned with the study of
speech sounds. Within psycholinguistics, research focuses on
how the brain processes and understands these sounds.
Morphology is the study of word structures, especially the
relationships between related words (such as dog and dogs) and the
formation of words based on rules (such as plural formation).
Syntax is the study of the patterns which dictate how words are
combined together to form sentences.
Semantics deals with the meaning of words and sentences.
Where syntax is concerned with the formal structure of
sentences, semantics deals with the actual meaning of sentences.
Pragmatics is concerned with the role of context in the
interpretation of meaning.
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Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the
study of the psychological and neurobiological factors
that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and
produce language.
Psycholinguistics covers the cognitive processes that
make it possible to generate a grammatical and
meaningful sentence out of vocabulary and
grammatical structures, as well as the processes that
make it possible to understand utterances, words, text,
etc. Developmental psycholinguistics studies children's
ability to learn language.
What is communication?

Any means by which two (or more) individuals
exchange information
Paralinguistic techniques - hand signals, facial
expressions, body language, nods, smiles, winks, etc.
 Non-linguistic communication - that do involve
vocalization
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Grunts, groans, snorts, sighs, whimpers, etc.
Not all produced sounds are intended to convey
messages, so they aren’t communication
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e.g., snoring
Communication
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Any natural human language is a complex sign
system, designated to ensure infinite expressive
capacity.
Each sign is a stable symbolic association
between a meaning and a form.
The Linguistic Sign
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Language is made up of signs, which have little
to do with the referent, the actuasl objects in the
world.
The signs are composed of two parts: the
signifier and the signified (form/content)
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ogden & Richards Triangle
Language as human knowledge
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When we study human language, we are approaching
what some might call the “human essence,” the
distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know,
unique to man.
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Norm Chomsky: Language and Mind
What does knowing a language mean?
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Sound and no sound;
word and non-word;
well-formed sentences and ill-formed sentences
Sense and nonsense
Design Features of Human Language
1. Productivity (creativity)
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Ability to produce and understand a virtually infinite set of
messages.
In all other animal communication systems, the number of
messages is fixed (i.e., is finite).
Design Features of Human
Language
Arbitrariness
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No resemblance between the language signal
and the thing that it represents
“dog”
“pas”
“hund”
“cane”
Design Features of Human Language
MULTI-DIMENSIONALITY - Human language
consists of several levels or dimensions of
knowledge (competences).
1. Phonological knowledge,
2. Lexical knowledge
3. Syntactic knowledge
4. Semantic/conceptual knowledge
Psycholinguistics
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Psycholinguistics, the study of psychological
states and mental activity associated with the use
of language.
Traditional areas of research include language
production, language comprehension, language
acquisition, language disorders, language and
thought, and neurocognition.
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How does the human language processor work?
How is it realized in the brain?
How is linguistic knowledge represented in the
brain?
Where does our capacity for language emerge
from?
Design Features of Human Language
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Universality
Wherever human exists, language exists.
 All languages are equally complex and equally capable of
expressing any idea in the universe.
 Similar grammatical categories are found in all languages,
nouns, verbs, gender, time, etc.
 Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any
racial, geographical, social, or economic heritage, is capable
of learning any language to which he or she is exposed.
The differences we find among languages can’t be due to
biological reasons.
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Universals & specifics
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If all cultures share certain features of social
organization and behaviour it will not be surprising that
all languages have terms referring to kinships,
posession, war, etc.>cultural universals
Other universals may arise from technological
transmission or from common features of the natural
environment (biological, topographical
terms)>technological universals and the universals of
natural environment
Specifics
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Language reflects cultural, social, political
attitudes.
The language of different cultures do not have the
same vocabulary referring to the same referent,
reality, e.g.
red wine > crno vino,
brown bread >crni kruh.
Even within one language speakers have different
options to refer to the same reality:
One or many conceptual systems
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The first question which arises is whether language is a single conceptual
system or whether there are as many conceptual systems as there are
languages?
A universal conceptual framework which is common to all human
languages
Languages differ in the way they classify experience. Languages have a
tendency to impose structure upon the real world by treating some
distintions as crucial, and ignoring others. Sometimes the motivation is
supplied by cultural norms, rather than by external reality.
The nature of human language
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For centuries, scholars and thinkers have tried to
unravel the nature of human language. Here are
some views:
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Philosophers were the first to ponder the roots of
human language.
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau, says that use of words for
communication stems from a desire to express our
emotions.
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Also in the 1700s, J. G. von Herder writes two essays
arguing that human rationality is the basis for
language.
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Pierre Paul Broca, identifies Broca's Area in the
brain's left hemisphere, a region, he says, controls
human grammar and speech. Damage to Broca's Area
impairs the ability to use words and construct
grammatically correct sentences.
Later, Karl Wernicke, a German doctor, discovers
another area related to language in the left
hemisphere. Patients with injuries to Wernicke's Area
speak fluently and grammatically, but make little or no
sense.
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In 1871, Charles Darwin, writes about a human
"instinct for language" in his book, Descent of Man.
He suggests that language evolved from more
primal communication abilities in other animals.
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Noam Chomsky, a linguist, says humans are born
with an innate, or hardwired, knowledge of a universal
grammar. He observes that all languages share certain
rules.
Researchers continue to ask: Is language a uniquely
human skill?
Steven Pinker
He tries to combine the ideas of Noam Chomsky
and Charles Darwin in his book, The Language
Instinct. He offers an explanation for how natural
selection might have shaped the evolution of
human's "innate grammar."