Language Acquisition and Linguistics Quiz

Unit 4: Linguistics

• Linguistics is the scientific study of language.
• Language is a complex cognitive system.
• Studying human language provides insights into the human mind.
• Different disciplines contribute to the study of language:
  • Education
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Anthropology
  • Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Philosophy

The Psychological Approach (Cognitive Psychology)

• Focuses on internal mental operations.
• Mental functioning is viewed as representation and computation.
• Cognitive psychologists study intelligence, learning, attention, pattern recognition, memory, problem-solving, and other aspects of human cognition.

The Neuroscience Approach (Cognitive Neuroscience)

• Aims to explain cognitive processes through underlying brain mechanisms.
• It describes the biological "hardware" and mental "software".
• Neuroscientists explore brain structures and functions in relation to observed behaviors, including language use, problem-solving, and memory.

The Linguistic Approach

• Explores language domain, acquisition, and brain regions underlying language use.
• Linguists hypothesize about the human capacity for language and its implications for understanding the human brain.

The Connection

• Language is a window into the workings of the human mind.
• Linguistic elements (form, words, grammatical patterns) are also units of cognition.

Key to Understanding Human Essence

• Studying human language provides insights into the nature of the human mind.
• Noam Chomsky highlighted that language's unique qualities distinguish humanity.

What is Language?

• Language is more than just communication.
• It's the primary way humans interact, representing shared meaning.
• It involves steps including communication, conversation, collaboration, and co-creation.

Language - Means of Communication - Function; Systematic Code – Form

• Essential language components include sender/receiver, message, and code (systematic rules)
• The code supports communication between sender & receiver, transmitting information and carrying specific meanings.

Linguistics

• The scientific study of language methodology.
• It involves collecting facts, verifying them empirically, analyzing, classifying, formulating hypotheses (accept, reject, modify).
• It's the scientific study of human natural language.

Uniqueness of Human Language

• Linguistic knowledge, acquired subconsciously, encompasses sound-meaning relations, sound systems, words, and sentence structures.
• Speakers have the capacity to produce and understand an unlimited range of sentences.

Universal Properties of Language

• Modularity: Language is a modular system with separate subsystems.
• Constituency & Recursion: Language is structured into constituents, and sentences can contain other sentences.
• Discreteness: The continuous stream of sounds is broken down into discrete units.
• Productivity: It's possible to combine minimal units of meaning to create novel words.
• Arbitrariness: No inherent connection between sound and meaning in most words.
• Reliance on Context: Language is dependent on the context in which it is used.

Recursion

• Recursion: Sentences can contain other sentences within them (hierarchical structure).

Discreteness

• Continuous sounds are broken down into discrete, identifiable units like phonemes.

Productivity

• Words are composed of smaller meaningful units (morphemes).

Arbitrariness

• Arbitrary relations between words and their meanings.
  • Exceptions exist, for instance, onomatopoeia

Reliance on Context

• Understanding words is dependent on the surrounding context, situation, and the speaker/listener.

Variability

• Language varies by speaker, situation, and culture.

Insights

• Our ability to speak, understand, and evaluate grammaticality reveals our implicit understanding of language rules.
• This implicit knowledge reflects a complex cognitive system.

Grammar

• Grammar describes the principles that govern language structure and use, regardless of whether they are explicit or implicit.
• Children absorb complex grammar rules without formal instruction.

Linguistic Competence

• Linguistic competence is the unconscious knowledge of grammar and language rules.
• This includes phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.

Phonology

• Deals with the rules governing the sound system.

Morphology

• Addresses the rules governing word structure.

Syntax

• Explores the rules for sentence structure.

Semantics

• Focuses on sentence meaning.

Rules of Language – Grammar

• Sets of rules enable the creation of sounds, words, and sentences, and also the ability to recognize when rules are violated.

Linguistic Competence (continued)

• Includes the ability to make grammatical judgements, process ambiguity, and paraphrase without conscious awareness.

Experimental Studies – Infants

• Young infants can differentiate speech sounds of various languages.

Experimental Studies – 1-2 month old infants

• The ability to differentiate speech sounds from different languages.
• This ability decreases as they age and are exposed to their native language.

Experimental Studies – 6-month-old infants

• Ability to distinguish sounds in their native language, recognize the boundaries of linguistic categories, and the sounds that constitute their native tongue.

Experimental Studies – Recognizing Sounds

• Infants recognize and discriminate sounds in languages other than native language more effectively than older children and adults.

Developmental Psycholinguistics: Language Acquisition

• Key: How do infants acquire their first language(s)?
• Infants learn underlying language rules before producing utterances.
• Ability to differentiate among speech sounds fades as they develop.
• This ability develops rapidly and often surpasses adults' abilities.

Stages in Language Acquisition

• Language acquisition is a process with identifiable stages across cultures.
  • Each stage has a specific set of characteristics and skills.

Stages in Language Acquisition (From Birth)

• Infants start from the 'universal listener' stage, then progress through cooing, babbling, one-word utterances, two-word utterances, and more advanced stages.

Cooing Stage

• Early in the first year of life, involving the production of recognizable sounds.
• Often accompanied by feelings and needs

Babbling Stage

• Infants produce repetitive sounds that start to resemble words.

Holophrastic Stage

• Single-word utterances representing complete thoughts/meanings.
• Comprehension is greater than production.

Two-Word Stage

• Short phrases that convey meaning.

Telegraphic Stage

• Similar to two-word utterances.

Stages of first-language acquisition

• All human babies acquire at least one language system.
• Babies progress through stages when learning their native language.
• The stages may be similar across cultures.

Stages in First Language Acquisition

• Different stages characterized by distinct milestones and competencies in the progression of language mastery.
• Stages include Cooing, Babbling, One-word utterances, Two-word utterances, and Multi-word utterances.

Bilingualism

• Proficiency in two or more languages.
• Language-mixing is a common feature in the early stages.
• Early childhood bilingual speakers often have proficiency in combining words from both languages.

Second-language acquisition

• It follows the acquisition of the first language, with varying levels of difficulty and speed.
• Success often depends on age, aptitude, and other influences.
• Learning process can be complex due to interference and maturation effects.

Second Language Acquisition

• Success can depend on a variety of relevant factors.
• Differences compared to First Language learning, such as challenges and difficulties with pronunciation.
• Different rules involved in each language, potentially causing difficulties.
• Maturation plays a significant role in how adults and children acquire languages.

Second-language acquisition

• Experiments show that infants are often better-equipped for acquiring new languages than older children or adults.

Hypothesis

• Maturational constraints significantly impact language acquisition.
• Nonlinguistic reasons, including differences in perception and memory, also affect the process.

Summary - First Language : Summary - Bilingualism : Summary - 2nd language

• 1st language learning begins early in life and follows common stages in most children.
• Bilingualism often involves language interference and vocab changes but with bilingual speakers being skilled word combiners.
• Second language acquisition may be affected by factors like age, and may be different from first-language acquisition.

Language Deprivation

• Lack of normal language exposure during development can lead to limitations in vocabulary, ability to form functional sentences, and overall linguistic development.

Language Loss (Attrition)

• Loss or deterioration of language, which can occur for both native and second languages.

Linguistics & Neuroscience

• Investigation of the brain regions and underlying processes related to language usage

Aphasia Revisited

• Examination of how brain damage impacts language comprehension and production.
• Different aphasia types (e.g., Broca's and Wernicke's) and their linguistic manifestations.

Consciousness

• Relationship between language and consciousness, analyzing unconscious rules (linguistic grammar), innate knowledge, and concepts related to philosophy.

Language & Thought Revisited

• Analyzing how innate knowledge, linguistic structures, and learning processes impact one's understanding and experience of the world.
• Investigating how the absence or presence of specific language constructions impacts thought processes.

Linguistics & Artificial Intelligence

• Human language complexity and how it impacts the ability to create intelligent machines that understand human language.
• Analyzing the methods of developing computer programs that handle human language, including machine translation and natural language processing.

Preliminary Insights

• Development of computer technology to perform human tasks and its implications for further progress in artificial-intelligence development

Machine Translation

• Historical overview of machine translation methods to solve communication challenges in between languages.
• Challenges with natural language, considering words, phrases, meanings, and syntax.

Natural Language Processing

• Computer handling natural language.
• Techniques for parsing text/speech, classifying it, and making it useable by computers.

Other Language-Related Tasks

• Computer applications in areas like concordance, speech recognition, synthesis, and related language processing.

Group Project: Week 13 & 14

• Specific topics for research activities.

End of Unit 4

Test your knowledge on language acquisition and the fundamental components of linguistics. Explore topics such as phonology, morphology, syntax, and the stages of language development in children. This quiz delves into how children learn to differentiate sounds and construct sentences effectively.