LANGUAGE AND
THOUGHT
NOTES
,Language
Definition
Language is a system for communicating with others
o Using signals that convey meaning
o And combining with the rules of grammar
Allows individuals to
o Exchange information about the world
o Coordinate group action
o Form strong social bonds
Human Language
Complex structure
Use language to
o Name
o Categorize
o Describe things
Can even use words to refer to intangible things
o Democracy
Influences how knowledge is organized in our brains
Human language is a relatively recent evolutionary phenomenon
o Emerged as a spoken system no more than 1 to 3 million years ago
o Emerged as a written system as little as 6,000 years ago
Approximately 4,000 human languages
o Linguists have grouped into about 50 language families
Adaptive Functions
Evolved as people gathered to form larger social units
Made it easier for humans to adapt to environmental demand
Allows us to share
Thoughts
Feelings
Needs
Ideas
Powerful learning mechanism
Passing on of knowledge & wisdom
,Properties / Qualities of language
Consists of symbols
o Symbols convey meaning
o Rules for combining those symbols
o Can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages and
meanings
List of properties
o Symbolic
Arbitrary
o Semantic
Meaning
o Structured / rule-governed
o Generative
o Permits displacement
Grammar
All languages have grammar
Set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to
produce meaningful messages
o Rules of morphology
o Rules of syntax
,Hierarchical structure of language
Sounds
Phonetics/phonemes
Smallest speech units
100 possible
o English = 44
Only roughly correspond with written alphabet
Important source of variety amongst world’s languages
Some phonemes absent from some languages
Example
o ‘psycho’ = 6 letters but 4 sounds
Phonological Rules
Every language has phonological rules that
o Indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce speech
sounds
o Specify whether speech sounds form words of that language
Infants are born with the ability to distinguish among phonemes
o Learning rules for combining them occurs automatically
As long as infants hear language spoken around them
Words
Morphemes
Consist of multiple phonemes
Smallest unit of meaning
50 000 in English
o Root words
o Prefixes
o Suffixes
Examples
o ‘ism’
o ‘ant’
Morphological rules
Indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words
Examples
o Noun + atic = Adjective
Systematic
o Un + Adjective = Adjective
Unhappy
o Adjective + al = Adjective
Egotistical, Fantastical
o Noun + al = Adjective
Autumnal, National
o Adjective + ly = Adverb
Happily, Hopefully
,Sentences
Syntax
A system of rules for arranging words into phrases and sentences
o Different rules for different languages
Venetian blind vs. Blind Venetian
Example of syntax rules
Semantics
Meaning of words and word combinations
Relationship between language & what it represents
Structure of Language
Surface vs. deep structure
Surface structure
o ambiguous
o “Please make me a jam sandwich”
Deep structure
o real meaning
o I would like a jam sandwich made from bread and jam
Different surface structures with same deep structure
Same surface structure with different deep structure
o The police must stop drinking after midnight
o Flying planes can be dangerous
Need to transform deep structure into a surface structure that others can
understand
, Language Processing
Bottom-Up Processing
Individual elements of a stimulus are analysed
o Then combined to form a unified perception
More like the structuralist approach
o Piece together data until a bigger picture is found
Applied to language
Decode the different parts of language
o Sounds and letters of a language into words
o Clauses into sentences
o Sentences into…
Then interpret mthe meaning
o Using our knowledge of grammatical, syntactic and lexical rules
Analyse to isolate phonemes, word boundaries
o And relate these things to the mental lexicon.
o Can happen only piece by piece
No forward projection, no prediction.
Top-Down Processing
Sensory information is interpreted in light of existing knowledge
o Concepts
o Ideas
o Expectations
Knowledge or expectations are used to guide processing
o Mental set
Example
o Pragmatics
Applied to language
We predict, anticipate, and infer meaning using
o prior knowledge
o previousexperience
o Background knowledge
Begin interpretation of a sentence spontaneously and automatically based
on what information is available to us
o Do not have to wait until we have analyzed all the phonemes in a
sentence in order to understand it
THOUGHT
NOTES
,Language
Definition
Language is a system for communicating with others
o Using signals that convey meaning
o And combining with the rules of grammar
Allows individuals to
o Exchange information about the world
o Coordinate group action
o Form strong social bonds
Human Language
Complex structure
Use language to
o Name
o Categorize
o Describe things
Can even use words to refer to intangible things
o Democracy
Influences how knowledge is organized in our brains
Human language is a relatively recent evolutionary phenomenon
o Emerged as a spoken system no more than 1 to 3 million years ago
o Emerged as a written system as little as 6,000 years ago
Approximately 4,000 human languages
o Linguists have grouped into about 50 language families
Adaptive Functions
Evolved as people gathered to form larger social units
Made it easier for humans to adapt to environmental demand
Allows us to share
Thoughts
Feelings
Needs
Ideas
Powerful learning mechanism
Passing on of knowledge & wisdom
,Properties / Qualities of language
Consists of symbols
o Symbols convey meaning
o Rules for combining those symbols
o Can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages and
meanings
List of properties
o Symbolic
Arbitrary
o Semantic
Meaning
o Structured / rule-governed
o Generative
o Permits displacement
Grammar
All languages have grammar
Set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to
produce meaningful messages
o Rules of morphology
o Rules of syntax
,Hierarchical structure of language
Sounds
Phonetics/phonemes
Smallest speech units
100 possible
o English = 44
Only roughly correspond with written alphabet
Important source of variety amongst world’s languages
Some phonemes absent from some languages
Example
o ‘psycho’ = 6 letters but 4 sounds
Phonological Rules
Every language has phonological rules that
o Indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce speech
sounds
o Specify whether speech sounds form words of that language
Infants are born with the ability to distinguish among phonemes
o Learning rules for combining them occurs automatically
As long as infants hear language spoken around them
Words
Morphemes
Consist of multiple phonemes
Smallest unit of meaning
50 000 in English
o Root words
o Prefixes
o Suffixes
Examples
o ‘ism’
o ‘ant’
Morphological rules
Indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words
Examples
o Noun + atic = Adjective
Systematic
o Un + Adjective = Adjective
Unhappy
o Adjective + al = Adjective
Egotistical, Fantastical
o Noun + al = Adjective
Autumnal, National
o Adjective + ly = Adverb
Happily, Hopefully
,Sentences
Syntax
A system of rules for arranging words into phrases and sentences
o Different rules for different languages
Venetian blind vs. Blind Venetian
Example of syntax rules
Semantics
Meaning of words and word combinations
Relationship between language & what it represents
Structure of Language
Surface vs. deep structure
Surface structure
o ambiguous
o “Please make me a jam sandwich”
Deep structure
o real meaning
o I would like a jam sandwich made from bread and jam
Different surface structures with same deep structure
Same surface structure with different deep structure
o The police must stop drinking after midnight
o Flying planes can be dangerous
Need to transform deep structure into a surface structure that others can
understand
, Language Processing
Bottom-Up Processing
Individual elements of a stimulus are analysed
o Then combined to form a unified perception
More like the structuralist approach
o Piece together data until a bigger picture is found
Applied to language
Decode the different parts of language
o Sounds and letters of a language into words
o Clauses into sentences
o Sentences into…
Then interpret mthe meaning
o Using our knowledge of grammatical, syntactic and lexical rules
Analyse to isolate phonemes, word boundaries
o And relate these things to the mental lexicon.
o Can happen only piece by piece
No forward projection, no prediction.
Top-Down Processing
Sensory information is interpreted in light of existing knowledge
o Concepts
o Ideas
o Expectations
Knowledge or expectations are used to guide processing
o Mental set
Example
o Pragmatics
Applied to language
We predict, anticipate, and infer meaning using
o prior knowledge
o previousexperience
o Background knowledge
Begin interpretation of a sentence spontaneously and automatically based
on what information is available to us
o Do not have to wait until we have analyzed all the phonemes in a
sentence in order to understand it
