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Summary Language in Mind, ISBN: 9781605357058 Psychology of Language
English summary for the course Psychology of Language for the Premaster Communication and Information Science
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Psychology of LanguageChapter 1 Science, Language, and the Science of Language
Psycholinguistics: a field that uses experimental methods to study the psychological
machinery that drives language learning, comprehension, and production.
Chapter 2 Origins of Human Language
Language is one of the few things that define us as a human.
Nativist view: the view that not only are humans genetically programmed to have a
general capacity for language, particular aspects of language ability are also
genetically specified this view captures why language is unique to humans
Anti-nativist view: the view that the ability of humans to learn language is not the
result of a genetically programmed ‘language template’ but is an aspect (or by-
product) of our extensive cognitive abilities, including general abilities of learning and
memory.
o Daniel Everett: language is universal because it is a useful tool for solving
certain problems that all humans have (transmitting information to each
other).
Not only humans use language. Animals also use some sort of language or communication to
tell each other things, such as bees with a dance to point out where the nectar is.
Similarities:
o Symbolic representation
o Representing something in the real world
Differences:
o Other rigid parameters: transparent, non-arbitrary way to relate to the world
o Less topics (for animals only food sources and enemies)
o Different structures (humans have more complex structures)
The characteristics of human language (Hockett’s design features):
Vocal auditory channel Language is produced in the vocal tract and transmitted as
sound. Sound is perceived through the auditory channel.
Broadcast transmission Language can be heard from many directions, but it is
and directional reception perceived as coming from one particular location.
Rapid fading The sound produced by speech fades quickly.
Interchangeability A user of a language can send and receive the same message.
Total feedback Senders of a message can hear and internalize the message
they’ve sent.
Specialization The production of the sounds of language serves no purpose
other than to communicate.
Semanticity There are fixed associations between units of language and
aspects of the world.
Arbitrariness The meaningful associations between language and the
world are arbitrary (willekeurig)
, Discreteness The units of language are separate and distinct from one
another rather than being part of a continuous whole.
Displacement Language can be used to communicate about things that are
not present in time and/or space.
Productivity Language can be used to say things that have never been said
before and yet are understandable to the receiver.
Traditional transmission The specific language that’s adopted by the user has to be
learned by exposure to other users of that language; its
precise details are not available through genetic
transmission.
Duality of patterning Many meaningful units (words) are made by the combining
of a small number of elements (sounds) into various
sequences. For example, pat, tap and apt use the same
sound elements combined in different ways to make
different word units. In this way, tens of thousands of words
can be created from several dozen sounds.
Prevarication Language can deliberately be used to make false statements.
Reflexiveness Language can be used to refer to or describe itself.
Learnability Users of one language can learn to use a different language.
Monkeys and apes show only a limited vocal communication.
Present: semanticity and arbitrariness
Absent: displacement, duality of patterning, productivity, learnability, cultural
transmission
o Cultural transmission: how humans learn words, apes are being genetically
wired to make specific sounds that are associated with specific meanings.
We are born with the capacity to learn any language (anti-nativist
view?). But not necessarily. The claim is that there are common
structural ingredients to all human languages, and that it’s these basic
building blocks of language that we’re all born with.
Apes can learn language, but more in terms of interpreting than in producing them
o Environment matters: human environments vs. in the wild
Feature of displacement and productivity
o They can master comprehension skills much more readily than they achieve
the production of language-like units.
o Apes were handling much more complexity in their understanding of
language than in their production.
Nativists: humans have some innate capabilities for language that evolved as adaptations
Evolutionary adaptations are genetically transmitted traits that give their bearers an
advantage – specifically, an adaptive trait helps individuals with that trait to stay alive
long enough to reproduce and/or to have many offspring.
For apes: certain cognitive skills that are required to master language didn’t
necessarily evolve for language.
Skills that support language could fall into two categories:
, o Those that are necessary to get language off the ground but aren’t specific to
language we may share these with our primate relatives, but only humans
use these skills for the purpose of communication.
o Traits that evolved particularly because they make language more powerful
and efficient
Apes and humans differ in many aspects, such as the social one. Some differences could be
the evidence that humans are hardwired for language:
Communication urge:
o A rich communication system is built on a foundation of advanced skills in
social cognition, and that among humans these skills evolved in a super-
accelerated way. Humans have more need to communicate and help each
other, compared to animals (for example, apes).
Skills
o Joint attention: the awareness between two (or more) individuals that they
are both paying attention to the same thing.
The structure of language:
Combining units: combining smaller elements to make larger linguistic units takes
place at two levels
o Level 1: deals with making words from sounds
In principle, we could choose to communicate with each other by
creating completely different sounds as symbols for our intended
meanings this might lead to exhausting of our ability to invent new
sounds for meanings that we still wanted to express.
A trick could be: use a relatively small number of sounds, and
repurpose them by combining them in new and interesting ways
(Hockett’s feature of duality of patterning: a small number of units
that don’t convey meaning on their own can be used to create a large
number of meaningful symbols).
o Level 2: combines meaningful elements to make other, larger meaningful
elements.
To make the meanings clear from the structure, we could add an
element of predictability of meaning: the syntax
Syntax: a set of ‘rules’ about how to combine meaningful units
together in systematic ways so that their meanings can be
transparent.
Structured patterns: languages don’t allow sounds to be combined in just any
sequence whatsoever, there are constraints.
o There is structure inherent at the level of sound as well as syntax, and all of
this has to somehow be learned by new speakers of a language.
o The nativist persuasion has some believe that a child’s acquisition of language
is one of the reasons to suspect that the whole learning process must be
guided by some innate knowledge.
Wired for language
o Humans are (according to Chomsky) prepackaged with knowledge of the
kinds of structures that make up human languages.
, The shape of any given human language is constrained by certain
universal principles or tendencies universal grammar
Universal grammar is an innately understood system of
combining linguistic units that constraints the structural
patterns of all human languages.
There is quite a lot of resistance about innate universal grammar
1. Nativists have underestimated the amount and quality of the
linguistic input that kids are exposed to and, especially, that
they’ve lowballed children’s ability to learn about structure on the
basis of that input this reduces the need to propose some
preexisting knowledge or learning biases.
2. Some of the knowledge that at first seemed to be very language-
specific has been found to have a basis in more general perception
or cognition, applying to non-linguistic information as well.
3. Some of the knowledge that was thought to be language-specific
has been found to be available to other animals, not just humans
makes it less likely that the knowledge has become hardwired
specifically because it is needed for language.
4. Human languages are not as similar to each other as may have
been believed. It becomes harder to make the case that language
similarities arise from a genetically constrained universal grammar.
5. Researchers have become more sophisticated at explaining how
certain common patterns across languages might arise from the
fact that all languages are trying to solve certain communicative
problems.
The evolution of speech
Most human speech sounds are produced by pushing air out of the lungs and
through the vocal folds in our larynx. The vibrations of the vocal folds create vocal
sound. But to make different speech sounds, you need to control the shape of the
mouth, lips, and tongue as the air passes through the vocal tract.
o There are differences between the vocal apparatus of humans and apes.
o The shape of our vocal tract comes at a cost: we cannot swallow and breathe
at the same time, which is something apes can do.
o Non-human primates lack of the ability to learn how to make new vocal
sounds.
The particular vocal instrument that an animal is born with is less
important than the animal’s skills at willfully coaxing a large variety of
sounds from it.
All vocalizations made by humans or other animals are routed through the same
neural pathways.
o Both humans and other primates make vocalizations that come from an
affective pathway – these sounds have to do with states of arousal, emotion,
and motivation
Sounds that are made via this pathway are largely inborn, don’t
require learning, and aren’t especially flexible.
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