9.
Language
Language = the use of an organized means of
combining words in order to communicate
Makes it possible to think about things and processes
people currently cannot see, hear, feel, touch, or smell
Communication = exchange of thoughts and feelings
(verbal or nonverbal)
Psycholinguistics = psychology of our language as it
interacts with the human mind
Considers production and comprehension of language
Linguistics = the study of language structure and
change
Neurolinguistics =the study of the relationship
among the brain, cognition, and language
Sociolinguistics = the study of the relationship
between social behavior and language
Computational linguistics = the study of language
via computational methods
Referent = the thing or concept in the real world that
a word refers to
Principle of conventionality: meanings of words are
determined by conventions
Principle of contrast: different words have different
meanings
 Regularly structured
 Structured at multiple levels (sounds, meaning
units, words, and phrases)
The Basic Components of Words
Phone = the smallest unit of speech, a single vocal
sound
Phoneme = the smallest unit of speech sound that
can be used to distinguish one utterance in a given
language from another
Phonemics = the study of the particular phonemes
Phonetics = the study of how to produce or combine
speech sounds or to represent them with written
symbols
Morpheme = the smallest unit of meaning within a
particular language
Content morphemes = the words that convey the
bulk of the meaning of a language
Function morphemes add detail and nuance to the
meaning of the content morphemes or help the
content morphemes to fit the grammatical context
Lexicon = entire set of morphemes in a given
language or in a given person’s linguistic repertoire
The Basic Components of Sentences
Syntax = the systematic way in which words can be
combined and sequenced to form meaningful phrases
and sentences
A sentence comprises at least two parts: a noun
phrase and a verb phrase
Understanding the Meaning of Words, Sentences,
and Larger Text Units
Semantics = the study of meaning in a language
Coarticulation = simultaneous pronunciation of
more than one sound (Result of the anticipation of the
next word)
Speech segmentation = the process of trying to
separate the continuous sound stream into distinct
words
The View of Speech Perception as Ordinary
Template-matching or feature-detection processes
(1) Speech sounds are analyzed into their components
(2) Components are analyzed for patterns and
matched to a prototype or template
Require decision-making processes above and
beyond feature detection or template matching
cognitive and contextual factors influence perception
of speech (e.g. phonemic restauration effect)
Phonetic refinement theory
 Start with the analysis of auditory sensations and
shift to higher-level processing
 Identification of words on the basis of successively
paring down the possibilities for matches between
each of the phonemes and the words already known
 The initial sound that establishes the set of possible
words people have heard need to be the first phoneme
alone
 TRACE model
 Speech perception begins with three levels of
feature detection
o Acoustic features o Phonemes o Words
Speech perception is highly interactive  lower
levels affect higher levels and vice versa
Phonemic restauration effect = integration of what is
known with what is heard when perceiving speech
 Similar to the visual phenomenon of closure
 Gestalt principles: symmetry proximity, similarity
Categorical Perception = discontinuous categories
of speech sounds
Perception of speech sounds is experienced
categorically
People are better able to discriminate between two
different categories than within categories
People with reading disabilities: vice versa
The Motor Theory of Speech Perception =
Movements of the speakers’ vocal tract are used to
perceive what is said
 Motor parts of the cortex are involved in the
production and perception of speech
 McGurk effect = perceptual phenomenon that
demonstrates an interaction between hearing and
vision
in speech perception, illusion occurs when the
auditory component of one sound is paired with the
visual component of another sound, leading to the
perception of a third sound
Understanding Meaning: Semantic
 Denotation = strict dictionary definition of a word
 Connotation = a word’s emotional overtones,
presuppositions, and other non-explicit meanings
 Denotation and connotation together form the
meaning of a word
 Being able to comprehend the conceptual
meanings of words is important
 When retrieving the meaning of words, people
may rely on their perceptual features and the function
Understanding Sentences: Syntax
 Grammar = the study of language in terms of
noticing regular patterns (patterns relate to the
functions and relationships of words in a sentence)
 Prescriptive grammar: describes the “correct” ways
in which to structure the use of written and spoken
language
 Descriptive language: describes the structures,
functions, and relationships of words in language
Syntactical Priming = People tend to use syntactical
structures and read faster sentences that parallel the
structures of sentences they have just heard
Sentence priming = independent of its grammatical
correctness, a sentence is rated more grammatically
correct when a sentence with the same structure was
presented before
Speech Errors = When speech errors occur they do so
in grammatical correctness (nouns are switched for
nouns, verbs for verbs, propositions for propositions,
etc.)
Analyzing Sentences: Phrase-Structure Grammar
 Humans seem to have a mental mechanism for
classifying words according to syntactical categories
which is separate from the meaning of words
(1) Parsing: when composing sentences, people
seem to analyze and divide them into functional
components
(2) People assign appropriate categories to each
component
(3) Syntax rules are used to construct grammatical
sequences of the parsed components
 Sentences are organized in hierarchical structures
of embedded phrases
A New Approach to Syntax: Transformational
Grammar
Relationship among different phrase structures that
involve transformations of elements within the
sentences (Chomsky, 1957)
Transformational grammar involves transformational
rules (Chomsky, 1957)
Rules guide the ways in which an underlying
proposition can be arranged into a sentence
 Deep structure = underlying syntactical structure
that links various phrase structures through
various transformation rules
 Surface structure = any of the various phrase
structures that may result from such transformations
Relationships between Syntactical and Lexical
Structures
 Each lexical item contains syntactical information,
which indicates
The syntactical category of the items (noun, verb…)
The appropriate syntactical contexts in which the
particular morpheme may be used (pronouns as
subjects, direct objects…)
 Any idiosyncratic information about the syntactical
uses of the morpheme (treatment of irregular
verbs…) By making the mental lexicon more
complex, the syntax is made simpler
Critics: too much focus on syntax, too less on
meaning
 Thematic roles = ways in which items can be used
in the context of communication
 Agent = “doer” of any action
 Patient = direct recipient of the action
 Beneficiary = indirect recipient of the action
 Instrument = means by which the action is
implemented
 Location = place where the action occurs
 Source = where the action originated
 Goal = where the action is going
Reading
When Reading Is a Problem – Dyslexia
Dyslexia = the difficulty in deciphering, reading, and
comprehending text
 Impaired processes:
 Phonological awareness = sound structure of
spoken language
 Phonological reading = reading words in isolation
 Phonological coding = remembering strings of
phonemes that are sometimes confusing
 Lexical access = ability to retrieve phonemes from
long-term memory
 Kinds of dyslexia
 Developmental dyslexia: difficulty learning the
rules that relate letters to sound
 Acquired dyslexia (brain injury)
Perceptual Issues in Reading
 Two basic kinds of processes
 Lexical processes: used to identify letters and
words; activate relevant information in memory about
these words
 Comprehension processes: used to make sense of
the text as a whole
Lexical Processes in Reading
Fixations and Reading Speed
 When reading the eyes move in saccades as they
fixate on successive clumps of text
 Longer on longer words, unfamiliar words, and the
last word in a sentence (“sentence wrap-up time”)
 Readers fixate up to about 80% of the content
words in a text
 Extraction of useful information from a perceptual
window of characters about four characters to the left
of a fixation point and about 14 or 15 characters to
the right of it
 Saccadic movements leap an average of about 7-9
characters between successive fixations
Lexical Access = the identification of a word that
allows people to gain access to the meaning of the
word from memory
Interactive process: combines information of
different kinds (features of letters, the letters
themselves the words comprising the letters…)
Interactive-activation model (McClelland,
Rumelhart)
 Activation of lexical elements occurs at multiple
levels: feature level, letter level, word level
 Activity at each level is interactive
 Information at each level is represented separately
in memory
 Information passes from one level to another
bidirectionally
 Bottom-up and top-down processes
 Word-superiority effect: letters are read more
easily when they are embedded in words than when
they are presented either in isolation or with letters
that do not form words (Reicher-Wheeler effect)
 Sentence-superiority effect: people take about
twice as long to read unrelated words as to read
words in a sentence
 Context effects occur on a conscious and
preconscious level
Intelligence and Lexical-Access Speed
 Lexical-access speed = the speed with which
people can retrieve information about words stored in
long-term memory
Understanding Conversations and Essay:
Discourse
 Discourse involves units of language larger than
individual sentences
 Understanding discourse: knowledge of discourse
structure and a greater context (physical, social,
cultural…)
Comprehending Known Words: Retrieving Word
Meaning from Memory
Semantic encoding = the process by which people
translate sensory information into a meaningful
representation (representation is based on understand
of the meanings of words)
 People with larger vocabularies are able to access
lexical information more rapidly than those with
smaller vocabularies
Comprehending Unknown Words: Deriving Word
Meanings from Context
 Most of the vocabulary is learned indirectly
through context information
 High-verbal people perform a deeper analysis of
the possibilities for a new word’s meaning; they used
a well-formulated strategy for figuring out word
meanings
 Low-verbal people seem to have no clear strategy
Comprehending Ideas: Propositional Representations
 People extract the fundamental idea from groups of
words and store them in a simplified representational
form in working memory (Kintsch)
 Representational form: propositions
 Propositions that are thematically central to the
understanding of a text (=macro propositions) will
remain in working memory longer than propositions
that are irrelevant to the theme
 Thematic structure = macrostructure
Comprehending Text Based on Context and Point
of View
 Varying the retrieval situations or cues can cause
different details to be remembered
Representing the Text in Mental Models
 Creation of a mental representation that contains
the main elements of a text
 Elements are simpler and more concrete than the
text itself
 To form mental models one must make at least
tentative inferences about what is meant
 Passages of text that lead to a single mental model
are easier to comprehend than are passages that may
lead to multiple mental models
 Bridging inference = an inference a reader/
listener makes when a sentence seems not to follow
directly from the sentence preceding it
10. Language in Context
Language and Thought
Differences among Languages
 Different order of subject, verb, object
 Different ranges of grammatical inflections
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
 Linguistic = assertion that speakers of different
languages have differing cognitive systems and that
these different cognitive systems influence the ways
in which people think about the world
 Language may not determine thought but just
influence it (facilitates it)
 Language affects perception
 Language affects encoding, storage and retrieval
Linguistic Relativity or Linguistic Universals?
 Linguistic universals = characteristic patterns
across all languages of various cultures
Colors = A systematic pattern seems universally to
govern color naming across languages
 All languages take their basic color terms from a
set of 11 color names: black, white, red, yellow,
green, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, gray
 When only some of the color names are used, the
naming falls into a hierarchy of five levels
 Black-white  Yellow, green, blue  Purple, pink,
orange, gray
 Red  Brown
 Color names can have an impact on perception and
cognition
Verbs and Grammatical Gender
 To be (Spanish vs. English)
 Put in/ put on – tight fit/ loose fit (English vs.
Korean)
 Gender of objects (German vs. Spanish)
Concepts = When fluent in more than one language,
thought in influences according to which language is
spoken or being read in at the moment
 Language and thought interact with each other
throughout the life span
Bilingualism and Dialects
Bilingualism – An Advantage or Disadvantage?
Factors That Influence Second Language Acquisition
 There do not appear to be critical periods for
second-language acquisitions
 Age and proficiency in a language are negatively
correlated
 The kinds of learning experiences that facilitate
second-language acquisition should match the
context
and uses for the second language once it is acquired
Bilingualism: One System or Two?
 Single system hypothesis: two languages are
represented in just one system or brain region
 Dual-system hypothesis: two languages are
represented somehow in separate systems of the mind
 Individuals who suffered from brain injury:
recovery of one or both languages seem contingent
on age
of acquisition of the second language and on pre-
incident language proficiency
 Some aspects of two languages may be represented
singly, other aspects may be represented separately
Language Mixtures and Change
 Prolonged contact between people of two different
language groups  sharing of the same vocabulary
 pidgin = language that has no native speakers
 Pidgin can develop into a distinct linguistic form:
own grammar  becomes a creole
 Modern creoles may resemble an evolutionarily
early form of language (=protolanguage)
 Dialect = regional variety of a language
distinguished by features such as vocabulary, syntax,
and pronunciation
 Linguicism = a stereotype based on dialect Comparison view: highlights importance of
comparison
Neuroscience and Bilingualism
Anomaly view: emphasizes the dissimilarity
 Learning a second language  increase of gray
matter in the left inferior parietal cortex  positively Domain-interaction view: integrates aspects of
comparison and anomaly view
correlated with proficiency
Another view: metaphors are an non-literal form of
 Negative correlation between age of acquisition class-inclusion statements
and density in the left inferior parietal cortex
Language in a Social Context
Slips of the Tongue
 Pragmatics = the study of how people use
Inadvertent linguistic error may occur at any level of language
linguistic analysis
 Use of language changes in response to contextual
Indicate that that language of thought differs cues
somewhat from the language through which thought
is expressed  Proxemics = the study of interpersonal distance or
proximity
 Anticipation = usage of an element before it is
appropriate in the sentence Interpersonal space is important in all kinds of
interactions
 Perseveration = usage of language that was
appropriate earlier 10.2.1 Speech Acts, Direct Speech Acts

 Substitution = one element is substituted by  Speech acts: address the question of what you can
another accomplish with speech

 Reversal/ transposition = switch of two elements  Five basic categories based on the purpose of the
acts (Searles’s taxonomy: Table 10.1)
 Spoonerisms = reversal of initial sounds of two
words Classifies almost any statement that might be made

 Malapropism = one word is replaced by another Shows different kinds of things speech can
that is similar in sound but different in meaning accomplish

 Insertions or deletion/ blending of sounds Shows the close relationship between language
structure and language function
Metaphorical Language
Indirect Speech Acts: Types
 Juxtapose two nouns in a way that positively
asserts their similarities, while not disconfirming Four basic ways
their dissimilarities
 Asking of making statements about abilities
 Four key elements: items being compared ways in
which the items are related  Stating a desire

tenor: topic of the metaphor  Stating a future action

vehicle: way in which the tenor is described in terms  Citing reasons

ground: set of the similarities between tenor and  Often anticipate what potential obstacles the
vehicle respondent might pose

tension: set of dissimilarities  Indirect requests that ask permission are judged to
be the most polite
 Indirect requests that speak to an obligation are
judged as the most impolite
Pinker’s Theory of Indirect Speech
Communication is always a mixture of cooperation
and conflict
Indirect speech gives the speaker the chance to voice
an ambiguous request that the listener can accept or
decline without reaction adversely to it
 Indirect speech can serve three purposes
 Plausible deniability
 Relationship negotiation
 Language as a digital medium of indirect as well as
direct communication
Characteristics of Successful Conversations
 Conversations thrive on the basis of a cooperative
principle: people seek to communicate in ways that
make it easy for our listener to understand what they
mean
Successful conversations follow four maxims/
conversational postulattes (Grice, 1967)
Quantity
Quality
Relation
Manner
Gender and Language
 Males: political views, sources of personal pride,
what they like about the other person, object
properties, impersonal topics
 Females: feelings toward parents, friends, fears;
disclose more about themselves, psychological and
social processes
 Differences in conversational style largely center
on differing understandings of the goals of
communication
 Males: world as a hierarchical social order in
which the purpose of communication is to negotiate
for the upper hand, to preserve independence, and to
avoid failure
 Females: seek to establish a connection between
the two participants, to give support and confirmation
to others, to reach consensus through communication
Do Animals Have Language?
 Chimpanzees = Able to use sign language
Not as structures and organized as human language
Not spontaneously acquired
The gorilla Koko = Can use about 1000 signs
Can communicate effectively with humans,
expressing desires and thoughts, Evidence suggests
he is able to understand and use humor
 Seems to be able to use language in a novel way
(combining signs in new ways, forming entirely to
signs)
 The parrot Alex = Could produce over 200 words
Could express a variety of complex concepts
(present, absent, zero-like concept)
 Evidence suggests he was capable of novel
combinations of words to form new ways of
expressing concepts
Aphasia
 Aphasia = impairment of language functioning
caused by damage to the brain
Wernicke’s Aphasia =Caused by damage to
Wernicke’s area
Notable impairment in the understanding of spoken
words and sentences
 Involves the production of sentences that have the
basic structure of language spoken but make no sense
Broca’s Aphasia = Caused by damage to Broca’s
area
Production of agrammatical speech at the same time
that verbal comprehension ability is largely preserved
Global Aphasia = Combination of highly impaired
comprehension and production of speech
Caused by lesions to Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas
Anomic Aphasia = Involves difficulties in naming
objects or in retrieving words (Sometimes specific
categories of things cannot be recalled)

Autism = a developmental disorder characterized by

abnormalities in social behavior, language, and
cognition