Psychology of Language
Chapter 1
Science, Language, and the Science of Language
Isaac Amsimov → ‘The Relativity of Wrong’.
Short- answer tests are useless as a measure of the student’s understanding of a subject.
Right and wrong are relative terms.
‘How do you know’ is more important than knowing the right answer.
Psycholinguistics: a field that uses experimental methods to study the psychological
machinery that drives:
• Language learning
• Language comprehension
• Language production
1. Theoretical linguistics: provide detailed descriptions and analyses of the structure of
language.
- patterns found in languages
- examining intricate constraints
- come up with generalizations
2. Computational linguists: write and implement computer programs to explore the data
structure of human language.
- useful for uncovering patterns in enormous amounts of data
3. Neurolinguists + cognitive neuroscientists: study the brain
4. Biolinguists: look into the biological makeup
- Why are we the only species that uses language to communicate?
- Genetic variation
5. Language typologists: collecting data samples from many different modern languages.
→ Discover deep similarities among many languages.
Hystorical linguists: reconstructing extinct ancestors and establishing the connections
and relationships among existing languages.
→ Predict trends/ directions in which languages are most likely going to change.
Psycholinguistics: study of the psychological factors involved in the perception, production
and acquisition of language.
, Chapter 2
Origins of Human Language
Language is one of the few things about us that appears to be a true defining feature of what it
means to be human.
Yes, language is uniquely human No, language isn’t uniquely human
Yes, humans are Humans (and humans only) are Humans and (some?) animals are
hardwired for language genetically predisposed to acquire genetically predisposed to acquire
(it’s in the genetics) and use language. and use language.
= Nativism
No, humans are not Humans (and humans only) have Humans and (some?) animals have
hardwired for language the cognitive and physical the cognitive and physical abilities
abilities to acquire and use to communicate.
language. These abilities are not
unique to language.
1. Nativist view = The view that not only human are genetically programmed to have a
general capacity for language. Particular aspects of language ability are also genetically
specified → a genetically driven instinct.
→ We are born with language and learn more about grammar etc. later.
2. Anti-nativist view = The view that the ability of humans to learn language is not the result
of genetically programmed ‘language template’, but is an aspect of our extensive cognitive
abilities, including general abilities of learning and memory → our brain is a super computer.
Hockett: shares an anti-nativist overview of characteristics all human languages share.
Language = a tool for solving certain problems that all humans have and to transmit
information to each other.
2.1 Why Us?
Language of bees → performing a dance, to show a specific path to a good source of flower
nectar. What do they communicate?
1. The direction in which the nectar source is located
2. The distance to the source
3. The quality of the source
It’s a symbolic representation → they’re drawing a map while shaking their bodies.
Honeybee communicative behavior shows that a complex behaviour capable of transmitting
information about the real world can be encoded in the genes and innately specified through
an evolutionary process.
,Primate vocalizations → Humans learn words through the process of cultural transmission,
but velvets learn by being genetically wired to make specific sounds that are associated with
specific meanings.
• Vervets lack Hockett’s feature of displacement, duality of patterning, productivity.
Vervets don’t seem to have the capacity to learn to make various alarm calls.
• Chimpanzee’s fail to follow pointing cues. They often understand the intentions and
goals, but they can’t understand that pointing involves an intention to communicate.
• Human cognitive skills and motivational drives are refined, either specifically for the
purpose of communication, or more generally to support complex social coordination.
• Toddlers and chimpanzees are about even with each other, in understanding the
physical world. But when it comes to the social test, the toddlers left the other
primates in the dust. → apes don’t seem to be inclined to communicate with other apes
for the purpose of helping the others to achieve a goal, but toddlers almost feel
compelled to it.
• Humans are inclined to share information with one another, whereas other primates
seem not to have discovered the benefits of doing so.
Why? → they’re simply less motivated to engage in complex social behavior than we
humans are.
Evolutionary adaptation → a genetically transmitted trait (trekje) that gives its bearers an
advantage. Specifically, it helps those with the trait to stay alive long enough to reproduce
and/ or to have many offspring.
Differences between apes and humans
• What linguistic ability we attribute to primates is often in the eye of the beholder.
• Universal acquisition in children; variable acquisition in apes.
• Children tend to innovate and try out things quite a bit, they learn patterns that occur
in language. Apes copy.
• Children babble; Apes don’t
• As utterances (uitlatingen) grow longer:
- Children: grammar becomes more complex
- Apes: signs are repeated
• Humans apply grammatical rules consistently
Apes apply grammatical rules inconsistently
• Humans use words to comment and express intentions; Apes use signs as a tool to get
things.
• Apes interrupt far more than humans.
Some critical notes on animal studies
• Because you show some behavior, that doesn’t mean you know how or why you
behave like that. Behavior isn’t equal to knowledge.
• Because you observe someone that doesn’t show some behavior, it doesn’t mean they
don’t know. Absence of behavior isn’t equal of absence of knowledge.
, The fact that people don’t show certain behavior, doesn’t mean they don’t know how
it works.
• More and more evidence of human-like non-language behavior in animals, so humans
may not be so special after all.
Hockett’s design features → a set of characteristics proposed by linguist Charles Hockett to
be universally shared by all human languages. Some, but not all, of the features are also found
in various animal communication systems.
Productivity → using the symbols they know in new combinations to communicate ideas for
which they don’t already have symbols.
