Topic 1 - Language Acquisition

UALL 2004
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
WEEK 1
General Introduction
1
Information
• Lecturer : Bharathi Mutty
• Department : Languages & Linguistics
• Email : bharathi@utar.edu.my
• Consultation Hours : Thursdays: 9am-1pm (negotiable)
• Preferable Mode of Communication: MT Chat
Credit Hours & Course Requirement
4 credit hours
Lectures : 3 hours per week
Tutorials : 1 hour per week
2
Course Outcomes
This course aims to:
• explain the underlying cognitive and biological
processes that enable speech production and
speech comprehension.
• demonstrate the role of memory in speech
production and speech comprehension.
• illustrate the cognitive processes involved in
acquiring a second language.
• identify different types of bilingulism.
3
Assessment
Method of Assessment Total

A. Research Proposal (35%) 60%
B. Mid-Term (10%)
C. Oral Presentation (15%)
Final Assessment 40%

GRAND TOTAL 100%
4
UALL 2004
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
WEEK 1
Topic 1: Language Acquisition
5
What is language?
• Harley (2001) defined language as “a system of symbols
and rules that enable us to communicate”.
• Symbols are things that stand for other things: words,

either written or spoken, are symbols and rules that
specify how words are ordered to form sentences.
• Although we all have a general idea about language and

its examples, not all are very straight-forward.
• Thus, many psychologists and linguists think that

providing a formal definition of language is a waste of
time.
6
What is language? (Cont.)
Animals communicate too! 7

• We can describe language in a variety of ways:
 sound
 meaning major classification
 grammar
• These types of distinctions are fundamental in

linguistics, and these different aspects of
language have been given special names.
8
Major Levels of Linguistics

9
• Psychologists believe that we store representations of

words in a mental dictionary (lexicon).
• The lexicon must be huge – a reasonable estimate is that an adult
knows about 70 000 words (Nagy & Anderson, 1984).
• It is hypothesized to contain all the information that we

know about a word, including its:-
 sounds (phonology)
 meaning (semantics)
 written appearance (orthography)
 syntactic roles it can adopt.
10
 When we see or hear a word, how do we
access its representation within the lexicon?
 How do we know whether an item is stored in
our lexicon?
What do  How does our brain organise the words that it
psycholinguists stores?
want to find  How does the brain access the storage so
out? quickly and efficiently?
 What causes the tip-of-the-tongue
phenomenon, when a word just won’t come to
mind?
 How do we know how to finish off a sentence
that someone else starts?
11
 Does the brain process the words in the
order in which it hears or sees them, or
does it store up strings of words and then
process them all at once?
What do  Why don’t we take idioms like Raining cats
psycholinguists and dogs literally?
want to find  How do we know when someone has
out?
made a mistake in what they have said?
 What mechanisms operate during speech
production to ensure that all the words
come our right order and with the right
intonation?
 What can the language of brain-damaged
people tell us about how language-
processing occurs?
12
• Psycholinguists are particularly interested in the
processes of lexical access and how things are
represented.
• This shows the stages in human evolution that have

occurred over the last 35 million years. As the physical
form and the brain changed, language also developed.
13
How did language originate?
• In Darwin’s (1871) vision of the

origins of language, early humans
had already developed musical
ability prior to language and were
using it “to charm each other”.
• The capacity for language and symbol manipulation

must have arisen as the brain increased in size and
complexity when Homo sapiens became differentiated
from other species 2 million years ago (Harley, 2001).
16
Language:-
• is a form of communication (exchange information)
• uses meaningful symbols which are arbitrary in nature
(words/signs)
• is intentional (purpose for utterance)
• is rule-governed (phonology, morphology, syntax,
grammar and etc.)
• has syntax (parts which are combined to create
meaning)
• is creative (new ideas and new sentences)
• transcends time and place (things not present or abstract
ideas)
• is learned without training
The
divine
source
The
The
natural
genetic
sound
source
source
Several
theories of
the origin of
language
The tool- The social
making interactio
source n source
The
physical
adaption
source
18
The Divine Source
• In most religions, there appears to be a divine source

who provides humans with language.
• If human infants were allowed to grow up without hearing

any language around them, then they would
spontaneously begin using the original God-given
language.
The Natural Sound Source
• Primitive words could have been imitations of natural

sounds.
• In English, we have splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz,

hiss, screech (onomatopeia) - words that sound similar
to the noices.
• This produced “bow-wow theory” - any theory about the

origin of human language. It suggests that human
language was developed by imitating the natural sounds.
The Social Interaction Source
• The sounds of a person involved in physical effort

especially when the effort involved several people and
the interaction had to be coordinated.(“yo-he-ho theory”).
• A set of hums, grunts, groans and curses developed by

early humans as a form of communication to maintain
social organizations.
• This is known as “yo-he-ho” theory.

The Physical Adaption Source
• The human vocal apparatus has become particularly well

adapted for making speech sounds.
The Tool-making Source
• Outcome of manipulating objects and changing them
using both hands, is evidence of a brain at work.
• Human brain – lateralized (has specific functions in each

of the two hemispheres.)
• Broca’s area – associated with language and was

present in the brains of early humans 2 million years
ago.
The Genetic Source
• Human offsprings are born with a special capacity for
language.
• It is innate, no other creature seems to have it.

(innateness hypothesis).
• This hypothesis would seem to point to something in

human genetics, a crucial mutation.
• This investigation of the origins of language then turns

into a search for the special “language gene” that only
humans possess.
Describing Language
An early attempt to characterise

language was made by the
linguists Charles Hockett who
produced (1963) a list of the
most important design features
of human speech that can be
used to differentiate it from
animal communication.
25
Hockett’s
Design
Features
Illustration By Cate1388 - [1], CC BY-SA 3.0,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=26057645
Hockett’s Design Features
• In 1960s, the linguistic anthropologist Charles Francis Hockett
conducted a pioneering featural study of language.
• In the study, he listed 13 design features that he deemed to be

universal across the world’s languages.
• More importantly, these features distinguished human language

from animal communication.
• While the first 9 features could also match primate communications,

the last 4 were solely reserved for human language.
• Later on, Hockett added another 3 features that he saw as unique to

human language.
Hockett's Design Features
1. Vocal-Auditory Channel
• With the exception of signed languages, natural

language is vocally transmitted by speakers as speech
sounds and auditorily received by listeners as speech
waves.
• Although writing and sign language both utilize the

manual-visual channel, the expression of human
language primarily occurs in the vocal-auditory channel.
Hockett's Design Features (Cont.)
2. Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception
• Language signals (i.e. speech sounds) are emitted as

waveforms, which are projected in all directions
(‘broadcasted into auditory space’), but are perceived by
receiving listeners as emanating from a particular
direction and point of origin (the vocalising speaker).
3. Transitoriness
• Language signals are considered temporal as sound

waves rapidly fade after they are uttered; this
characteristic is also known as rapid fading.
• In other words, this temporal nature of language signals

requires humans to receive and interpret speech sounds
at their time of utterance, since they are not
subsequently recoverable.
4. Interchangeability
• Humans can transmit and receive identical linguistic

signals, and so are able to reproduce any linguistic
message they understand.
• This allows for the interlocutory roles of ‘speaker’ and

‘listener’ to alternate between the conversation’s
participants via turn taking within the context of linguistic
communication.
5. Total Feedback
• Humans have an ability to perceive the linguistic signals

they transmit i.e. they have understanding of what they
are communicating to others.
• This allows them to continuously monitor their actions

and output to ensure they are relaying what they are
trying to express.
6. Specialization
• Language signals are emitted for the sole purpose of

communication, and not any other biological functions
such as eating.
• In other words, language signals are intentional, and not
just a side effect of another behaviour.
• Contrasting example:
 Biological functions which may have a communicative
side effect: such as a panting dog which hangs out its
tongue to cool off (biological), may simultaneously
indicate to its owner that it is feeling hot or thirsty
(communicative).
7. Semanticity
• Specific language signals represent specific meanings;
the associations are ‘relatively fixed’.
• An example is how a single object is represented by
different language signals i.e. words in different
languages.
• In French, the word 'sel' represents a white, crystalline
substance consisting of sodium and chlorine atoms.
• Yet in English, this same substance is represented by
the word 'salt'.
• Likewise, the crying of babies may, depending on
circumstance, convey to its parent that it requires milk,
rest or a change of clothes.
8. Arbitrariness
• There is no intrinsic or logical connection between the

form of specific language signals and the nature of the
specific meanings they represent.
• Instead, the signal and the meaning are linked by either
convention or instinct.
• Contrasting example:
 Conveyance of aggression in crabs – strongly
threatened crabs express their potential intention to fight
by raising their front claw, which is partially iconic given
that crabs use their craw pincers to attack prey and
defend against predators.
9. Discreteness
• Language signals are composed of basic units and are

perceived as distinct and individuated.
• These units may be further classified into distinct

categories.
• These basic units can be put in varying order to

represent different meanings.
• The change in meaning is abrupt, and rarely continuous.

10. Displacement
• Displacement also includes prevarication, which is the

ability to lie or produce utterances which do not
correspond with reality.
• Language signals may be used to convey ideas about

things not physically or temporally present at the time of
the communicative event such as a topic that is linked to
the past or future.
11. Productivity
• Productivity is also called openness or creativity.
• It entails reflexiveness, the ability of language to be used

to talk about language.
• Humans can use language to understand and produce

an indefinite number of novel utterances.
12. Cultural Transmission
• Although humans are born with the innate ability to learn

language, they learn (a) particular linguistic system(s) as
their native language(s) from elders in their community.
• In other words, language is socially transmitted from one

generation to the next, and a child reared in isolation
does not acquire language.
13. Duality of Patterning
• The discrete speech sounds of a language combine to

form discrete morphological units, which do not have
meaning in itself.
• These morphemes have to be further combine to form

meaningful words and sentences.
14. Prevarication
• The capacity of linguistic messages to be false or

meaningless in the logical sense
• This category is derived from the item 10 -

“Displacement”.
15. Reflexiveness
• Language allows its users to communicate about

communication
• Previously, this was entailed under “Productivity”.

16. Learnability
• Speakers of a language can learn a new language.
• This was initially not mentioned under any category.

He introduced the concept
that only humans possess -
‘mental faculty’- which
enables individuals to
construct infinite number of
sentences from a limited set
of rules. This ability of
course is primarily human.
Another view of language
was influenced by the
work of Noam Chomsky.
44
Psycholinguistics: The study of
language processing
• The field of psycholinguistics, or the psychology of
language, is concerned with discovering the
psychological processes that make it possible for
humans to acquire and use language.
• Conventionally, psycholinguistics addresses three major

concerns (Clark & Clark, 1977;Tannenhaus, 1989).
45
3 Major Concerns
The Domains of Psycholinguistic Inquiry

Comprehension Speech Production Acquisition
(How people understand (How people produce (How people acquire
spoken & written language) language)
language)
• Speech perception • Speech errors • Speech errors

• Lexical access • Hesitation • Hesitation
• Sentence processing • Pausal phenomena • Pausal phenomena
• Discourse • Speech disfluencies • Speech disfluencies
The ultimate goal of psycholinguistics is to develop an
integrated account of how competent language
understanding and use occur and how young children
acquire these abilities so rapidly (Gleason & Ratner,
2009, p.4)
47
Acquisition: when I as a child, I spoke as
a child
• Language acquisition (Developmental psycholinguistics)
examines how speech emerges over time and how
children go about constructing the complex structures of
their mother tongue.
• A common mistake of early students of developmental

psycholinguistics was to assume that children had no
language until they uttered their first word.
• Our first efforts at speech are not words but cries

(Scovel, 1998).
48
‘…no language but a cry’
• According to Scovel (1998), crying is not only
communicative, it is also a direct precursor to both
language (human symbolic communication) and speech
(spoken language)
• In a sense, crying is a kind of language without speech,

because the child communicates different types of
discomfort without using normal speech sound.
• First few weeks of a child’s life – crying is an autonomic

response to noxious stimuli, triggered by the autonomic
nervous system as a primary reflex (the crying response
is hard-wired into the child and it’s a spontaneous
reaction) 49
‘…no language but a cry’ (Cont.)
• Crying is iconic – direct and transparent link between the
physical sound and its communicative intent. (e.g. the
hungrier a baby becomes, the louder and longer the
crying)
• First month or two of the child’s development – crying

becomes more differentiated and more symbolic. (The
cries are subtly, indirectly, and almost randomly
associated with its needs)
• Recent studies have suggested that the baby may not

cry to express discomfort or pain, but rather to elicit
attention.
50
Acquisition
• During the first two or three years of development, a child
requires interaction with other language-users in order to
bring the general language capacity into contact with a
particular language such as English.
• A child who does not hear or is not allowed to use language

will learn no language. The particular language a child learns
is not genetically inherited, but is acquired in a particular
language-using environment (Yule, 2010).
• A child must also be physically capable of sending and

receiving sound signals in a language.
• All infants make “cooing” and “babbling” noises during

their first year, but congenitally deaf infants stop after about
six months. 51
Acquisition (Cont.)
Cooing o First few months – capable of producing sequences of
vowel-like sounds. E.g. [i] and [u]
o 4 months – developing ability to bring back of the
tongue into regular contact with the back of the palate
allows the child to create sounds similar to velar
consonants [k] and [g]
Babbling o 6 – 8 months – producing a number of different V and

C, as well as combinations. E.g. ba-ba-ba and ga-ga-ga.
o 9 – 10 months – recognizable intonation patterns to C
and V combination being produced . E.g. ba-ba-da-da –
nasal sounds become more common and syllable
sequence such as ma-ma and da-da are inevitable
repeated by parents as versions of “mama” and “dada”
and repeated back to the child.
52
Acquisition (Cont.)
• Human infants are certainly helped in their language
acquisition by the typical behavior of older children and
adults who provide language samples, or input.
• The characteristically simplified speech style adopted by

someone who spends a lot of time interacting with a
young child is called caregiver speech or motherese or
child directed speech.
53
Acquisition (Cont.)
• According to Yule (2010), speech addresses to young
children has special properties that could heighten its
comprehensibility. Salient features of this type of speech
are as follows:
– The frequent use of questions

– Often using exaggerated intonation
– Extra loudness
– A slower tempo with longer pauses
Acquisition (Cont.)
• In the early stages, this type of speech also incorporates
a lot of forms associated with “babytalk.”
55
Motherese Example
Acquisition (Cont.)
• Some features of baby talk:-
 involves the use of vocabulary and syntax that is

oversimplified and reduced
 modification in vocabulary (e.g. bow-wow, pee-pee,
choo-choo),
 create words that are not used outside of the family, it is
common to add –iy sound (e.g. birdie, doggie, horsie,
kitty),
 syntax plays a less prominent role in baby talk (e.g.
mummy give john banana)
Should baby talk be used?
• Can be answered by looking into two theories:-
 Do children learn by imitation? (The Imitation Theory)
 Do children learn by reinforcement? (The Reinforcement

Theory)
Should baby talk be used? (Cont.)
 The Imitation Theory
• Children merely imitate what they hear.

• Imitation to a certain extent.
• Children are typically unable to imitate structures that
they have not yet learned
• E.g. a child who has not yet acquired the Inversion rule
for wh-questions will imitate sentence a) by producing b)
a) What can you see? (model)
b) What you can see? (child’s imitation)
Should baby talk be used? (Cont.)
 The Reinforcement Theory
• Children learn to produce ‘correct’ sentences because they are

positively reinforced when they say something right and negatively
reinforced when they say something wrong.
• Attempt to correct a child’s language seem to be doomed to failure.
• Children do not know what they are doing wrong and are unable to
make corrections even they are pointed out.
• E.g. Child : Nobody don’t like me.
Mother : No, say “Nobody likes me.”
Child : Nobody don’t like me.
[Exchange is repeated 8 times]
Mother : No, now listen carefully;
say “Nobody likes me.”
Child : Oh! Nobody don’t LIKES me.
The reinforcement theory fails along
with the imitation theory.
• They cannot explain
a) The nonrandom mistakes children make.
b) The speed of which the basic rules of grammar are
required.
c) The ability to learn language without any formal instruction.
d) The regularity of the acquisition process across diverse
language and environment circumstances.
• Between the ages of five and seven, children from diverse

backgrounds reach the same stage of grammar acquisition.
• The child appears to be equipped from birth with the neural
prerequisites for the acquisition and use of human language.
61
The Biological Foundations of
Language Acquisition
A)THE INNATENESS HYPOTHESIS (IH) (CHOMSKY)
Chomsky’s IH is based on the observation of a number of indisputable
facts in relation to language acquisition:
•All children, regardless of IQ level, can acquire language.
•Children acquire language effortlessly, and in a relatively short
period of time.
•Children do not have to be taught formally to acquire language.
•Language is a complex system.
•Children discover the system of the language from a small,
unsystematic amount of data.
•Language acquisition involves very little imitation.
•Language acquisition is an active process, involving mental
computation.
62
The Biological Foundations of
Language Acquisition (Cont.)
• Universal Grammar (or UG), the principles that determine the
class of human language that can be acquired unconsciously
without instruction in the early years of life
 There is a universal structure of
language.
 All languages share certain properties.
 There are probably innate mechanisms
that guide human language learning.
Evidence for this

view
Special abstract Exposure – cultural

The shape of the
Specific areas of mental mechanism transmission and
human mouth and
the brain areas – Language language-using
throat
Acquisition Device environment
(LAD)
63
B)THE CRITICAL AGE HYPOTHESIS (LENNEBERG)
There is a critical age for language acquisition; language acquisition
without special teaching and without the need for special learning.
•During this period language learning proceeds easily, swiftly and
without external intervention
•After this period the acquisition of the grammar is difficult and for some
people never fully achieved
•E.g. wild children – (The case of Genie)
The case of Genie and other isolated

children support the critical age hypothesis
since they were exposed to language after
the proposed critical age and were unable
to acquire much of the syntactic
component of the grammar.
64
Stages in Language Acquisition
Stage Description
1 Vocalization/first sounds
oprelinguistic stage – cooing
ocry, coo, gurgle, suck, blow, spit and other noises are
simply responses to stimuli
oa child is born with a mind that is like a blank slate – the
mind appears to prewired to receive certain kinds of
information
2 Babbling – 6 months
ospeech sound, mainly vowels and consonants (e.g. ma, gi,
pa)
osounds like the speech of the language to which the child
is being exposed –Chinese-exposed, English-exposed
oinfant learns to recognize intonation and then to imitate
65
Stage Description
3 One-word stage ~ 12 – 18 month

oholophrastic ‘single unit’ , ‘single form’ – a single form functioning
as a phrase or sentence
ospeech in which single terms are uttered for everyday objects
such as milk, cookie, cat, cup
ocontent words (kitty, mummy) – meaningful words
osingle words are used to name an object, to request something,
emphasize actions (e.g. hi or bye)
4 Two-word stage ~ 18/20 months

obegin to produce two-word ‘mini-sentences’ – commonly used to
express.
oa variety of combinations – e.g. mummy cat, cat bad, baby chair
ocontent words – based on context
5 Telegraphic stage
oshort in length and with content words
ocharacteristics of a telegram message (e.g. Andrew want ball,
cat drink milk)
odevelop sentence-building capacity
ovocabulary expand rapidly
66
Developing Morphology
• By the time a child is two and a half years old, he/she is going
beyond telegraphic – incorporating inflectional morphemes
(grammatical function of nouns and verbs used). E.g. –ing
form in expressions: cat sitting/mommy reading book
• The next morphological development – marking of regular
plurals with –s form, as in boys/cats – plural marker, often
accompanied by a process of overgeneralization.
• The child overgeneralizes the apparent rule of adding –s to
form plurals. E.g. boyses/footses
Stage 1 Case-by-case learning
Stage 2 Overuse of general rule
Stage 3 Mastery of exceptions to the general rule
The development of affixes
67
Developing Syntax
• The emergence of syntactic rules takes place in an orderly
sequence – children gradually master the rules for sentence
formation in their language. E.g. One child, specifically asked to
repeat what she heard – Mother : the owl who eats candy runs fast
Child : owl eat candy and he run fast
Stage Approx.age Developments
One word stage 1-1.5 yrs Single word utterances; no structure
(Holophrastic)
Two word stage 1.5-2 yrs Early word combination; presence of syntactic
categories unclear
Telegraphic 2-2.5 yrs Emergence of phrase structure, especially head-

complement and subject-VP patterns
Later 2.5 yrs up Emergence of nonlexical categories (Det, Aux)
The development of phrase structure

68
Later Development
Stage Forming questions Forming negatives
1 2 procedures Simple strategy of putting No or Not at
i. Add a Wh-form (where, who) to the the beginning. (E.g. no mitten/not a
beginning of the expression. teddy bear/no fall/no sit there)
(E.g.Where kitty?/Where horse
go?)
ii. Utter the expression with a rise in
intonation towards the end.(E.g.
Doggie?/Sit chair?)
2 More complex expressions can be The additional negative forms don’t and
formed – the rising intonation strategy can’t appear - no and not, are
continues. (E.g. What book name?/Why increasingly used in front of the verb
you smiling? You want eat?/See my rather than at the beginning of the
doggie?) sentence. (E.g He no bite you/That not
touch/I don’t want it/You can’t dance)
3 Movement of the auxiliary – doesn’t The incorporation of other auxiliary forms

automatically spread to all Wh-question such as didn't and won’t – typical Stage
types. (E.g. Can I have a piece?/Will 1 disappear – Stage 2 continue to be
you help me?/What did you do?/Did I used for quite a long time. (E.g. I didn’t
caught it?/How that opened?/Why kitty caught it/She won’t let go/He not taking
can’t stand up?) it/This not ice cream)
V.DEEPA (201801) 69
Developing Semantics
• During the holophrastic stage (one word stage), children use limited
vocabulary to refer to a large number of unrelated objects – this
process is called overextension.
• Overextension is the most common pattern for the child to
overextend the meaning of a word on the basis of similarities of
shape, sound and size.
Word First Referent Subsequent Extension

fly fly specks of dirt, dust, small insects,
crumbs of bread
quack duck all birds and insects, flies, chicken
apple apples balls, tomatoes, cherries, onions
cookies cookies crackers, any desert, bread
kitty cats rabbits, dogs, any small furry
animal
Examples of overextension
70
Speech Comprehension occurs without
Speech Production (The Case of Mute-Hearing
Children)
• Irish writer – brain damaged since birth –
had little control over the muscles of his
body - difficulty in swallowing – cannot utter
recognizable speech sounds – intelligence
was undamaged – hearing was normal; as
a result he learned to understand speech
as a young child – learned to read by using
a stick (letter-by-letter)– produced an entire
book of poems and short stories
Christopher Nolan
71
• Brain damage during birth – never been
able to control her muscles and speech
articulators – hearing was fine – she
has to be strapped to a wheelchair –
uses an elaborate computer device on
her lap for issuing recorded messages
– motivated to study the Philosophy of
Science and Fine Arts at the University
of Melbourne – published a book and
continues to write
Anne McDonald
72
According to Steinberg (2001)…
•Persons who are mute but hearing can develop the
ability to comprehend speech without their being able
to produce speech, so long as their basic intelligence is
intact.
•Mute persons developed a grammar, a mental grammar
based on speech comprehension, that enabled them to
understand the speech to which they were exposed.
o p l e able to
r e s uc hpe
e s t h at they
wa nc d
But ho end the sente f an unlimite
h o
compre mprehension entences,
co ls ,
do, i.e. f grammatica , of ambiguity
ro y
numbe n of synonym
i ti o
recogn
etc.?
73
Speech Comprehension Develops in
Advance of Speech Production
The Huttenlocher study Huttenlocher (1974) studied 4 children, aged 10 to 13
months over 6 month period and found that they were
able to comprehend speech at a level beyond that to
which they had progressed in production – responded
appropriately to ‘baby’s diaper’ and ‘your diaper’, and
‘baby’s bottle’ and ‘your bottle’
The Sachs and Sach and Truswell (1978) found that children who can
Truswell study produce single-word utterance could comprehend
syntactic structures (more than one word). E.g. the
verbs ‘kiss’ and ‘smell’ and the nouns ‘ball’ and ‘truck’
– children did what they were told – Children’s level of
speech comprehension was well in advance of their
level of speech production.
74
The relationship of speech production,
speech comprehension and thought
Speech Comprehension Necessarily Precedes Speech Production
•The basis of all language is MEANING, and without having had the
opportunity to hear and understand words, phrases, and sentences
within meaningful context, children could not begin to produce
language meaningfully.
•We know people who can comprehend speech without being able to
produce it (Nolan), the reverse situation does not exist – 1) a learner
must first hear speech sounds before the knows what sounds to make,
2) a learner must hear the speech sounds in coordination with the
experience of objects, situation, or events before the person can assign
a meaning to the speech sound.
75
Thought as the Basis of Speech Comprehension
•The meanings that underlie speech comprehension are concepts that
are in a person’s mind – speech sound does not provide such
concepts.
•Contents of thought – 1) child’s experience of the environment
(environmental clue) and 2) child’s experience of its own feelings,
emotions, desires and conceptual constructions (thoughts).
•Thought necessary precedes language - without contents of thought,
the child would have noting to assign as the meanings of words and
sentences – we cannot find cases of persons who have language but
no thought.
•Language – allows for the labeling of thoughts in terms of physical
sound so that the thoughts may be communicated to others. As such,
thought provides the basis for speech comprehension, which in turn
provides the basis for speech production.
76
Thank you 

Topic 1 - Language Acquisition

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Topic 1 - Language Acquisition

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UALL 2004

Credit Hours & Course Requirement

Lectures : 3 hours per week

Tutorials : 1 hour per week

Method of Assessment Total

Final Assessment 40%

• Symbols are things that stand for other things: words,

• Although we all have a general idea about language and

• Thus, many psychologists and linguists think that

Animals communicate too! 7

• These types of distinctions are fundamental in

Major Levels of Linguistics

• Psychologists believe that we store representations of

• It is hypothesized to contain all the information that we

• This shows the stages in human evolution that have

• In Darwin’s (1871) vision of the

• The capacity for language and symbol manipulation

• In most religions, there appears to be a divine source

• If human infants were allowed to grow up without hearing

• Primitive words could have been imitations of natural

• In English, we have splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz,

• This produced “bow-wow theory” - any theory about the

• The sounds of a person involved in physical effort

• A set of hums, grunts, groans and curses developed by

• This is known as “yo-he-ho” theory.

• The human vocal apparatus has become particularly well

• Human brain – lateralized (has specific functions in each

• Broca’s area – associated with language and was

• It is innate, no other creature seems to have it.

• This hypothesis would seem to point to something in

• This investigation of the origins of language then turns

An early attempt to characterise

Illustration By Cate1388 - [1], CC BY-SA 3.0,

• In the study, he listed 13 design features that he deemed to be

• More importantly, these features distinguished human language

• While the first 9 features could also match primate communications,

• Later on, Hockett added another 3 features that he saw as unique to

• With the exception of signed languages, natural

• Although writing and sign language both utilize the

• Language signals (i.e. speech sounds) are emitted as

• Language signals are considered temporal as sound

• In other words, this temporal nature of language signals

• Humans can transmit and receive identical linguistic

• This allows for the interlocutory roles of ‘speaker’ and

• Humans have an ability to perceive the linguistic signals

• This allows them to continuously monitor their actions

• Language signals are emitted for the sole purpose of

• There is no intrinsic or logical connection between the

• Language signals are composed of basic units and are

• These units may be further classified into distinct

• These basic units can be put in varying order to

• The change in meaning is abrupt, and rarely continuous.

• Displacement also includes prevarication, which is the

• Language signals may be used to convey ideas about

• Productivity is also called openness or creativity.

• It entails reflexiveness, the ability of language to be used

• Humans can use language to understand and produce

• Although humans are born with the innate ability to learn

• In other words, language is socially transmitted from one

• The discrete speech sounds of a language combine to

• These morphemes have to be further combine to form

• The capacity of linguistic messages to be false or

• This category is derived from the item 10 -