Providing insight into the topic of language. Covers definition, diversity, hypothesis, studies on color perception, studies on focal colors, bilingualism, and restricted and elaborated code learning.
LANGUAGE
- Do other animals use language?
o Bee dance
Defining language
- Koko & Penny Patterson
- Washoe & The Gardners
- Sarah & Premack
- Language versus communication
- A system of signs used to communicate a message
- Defining language: sign object relation (‘tchoo tchoo’
= train)
- Duality of construction
Flexibility
- Range of functions and ideas communicated
- Linguistic productivity
Language diversity
- Approx. 6000 languages in the world
o Different characteristics
o Only about 300 have secure future
- Language vs. dialect
o Mutual intelligibility
o Boundaries determined by many factors (cultural, social, political, religious)
Types of language
- Human speech
- Written language
- Sign language
- NVC
Prosody
- Volume, timing, frequency
Pragmatics
- Using language in a social context, meaning in context of discourse
Language cognitive processing
- Production
, o 3 levels of processes involved: conceptualisation, formulation, articulation
- Perception
o Complex automatic process
o Stream of sound to be analysed
o Basic acoustic unit size: syllable
Difficulties, complex, non-invariance, segmentation problem
o Breaks down into
Word recognition, sentence processing, discourse
Cross-modal (sensory) integration
- McGurk effect: auditory illusion, the accurate perception of information involves
more than one sensory system
Word recognition: effects of context
- Interaction of bottom up and top down processes (the phoneme restoration effect (|
Warren & Warren, 1970)
- It was found that the *eel was on the axle
- It was found that the *eel was on the shoe (heel)
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
- Edward Sapir, 1966; Benjamin Lee Whorf, 1956
- Whorf compared Hopi Indian language to Standard European Language
o Different description of time
o Concluded that Hopi perceive time differently
- Related to Inuit Eskimos 20+ words for snow
- Says that the way people perceive and organise the world is dependent on the
categories of language
- Linguistic relativity
o Linguistic determinism (strong relationship) = language determines our
perception of the world
o Linguistic relativism (weak relationship) = language biases our perception of
the world
Colour perception
- Sapir-Whorf: colour labels will determine colour recognition
- Brown & Lennenberg, 1954
o Colour naming by many cultures
o Found that most agreed upon colours were recognised fastest
o Stereotypes
o Sensation
- Berlin & Kay, 1969
o 329 colour chips
o 20+ language speakers
o Boundary identification
o Selection of name exemplar
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