Psychology Exam 3 Study Guide Chapter 9 Language 1 Levels of Analysis in the Study of Language Phonology Phonemes the smallest units of sound that are recognizable as speech rather than as random noise Single or few letters p b ch sh Phonological rules indicate how phonemes can b combined to produce speech sounds Morphology Initial sound ts is acceptable in German but not English Morphemes the smallest meaningful units of language Can be whole words or partial units such as suffixes Dog and s are both morphemes because dog by itself has a different meaning than dogs Morphological rules indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words Content morphemes things and events whole words such as cat dog take Function morphemes serve grammatical functions whole words such as and or but when Syntactic rules indicate how words can be combined to form phrases and A simple syntactic rule is that a sentence must contain at least one noun Syntax sentences and verb Pragmatics Pragmatics the study of how language is used and understood in context Making sense of what people mean when they speak compared to the actual words being spoken and the context 2 Phonology Speech Perception Problems Generally make automated voice recognition more difficult Lack of invariance problem there is no consistent relation between the physical features of the sounds and how sounds are perceived Sources include speaker identity and coarticulation Speaker identity differences across speakers Coarticulation differences due to context the same sound is produced differently depending on what comes before or after Speech segmentation problem there are no reliable physical cues to the boundaries between words 3 Morphology Semantics Arbitrariness of the Sign While words are spoken there are not consistent breaks between words like when they are written There can be flows between words or gaps in the middle of a word Phonemes vs Allophones than as random noise Phoneme the smallest units of sound that are recognizable as speech rather b and p are considered different phonemes because changing between them leads to different meanings Bat and pat are different words Allophone one of a set of possible spoken sounds to produce a single phoneme Considered to be of the same phoneme The two k sounds in Cape Cod are considered allophones of one phoneme because switching them would not change meaning Arbitrariness of the sign refers to the idea that there is no transparent relation between the sound of a word and the concept meaning to which it applies Question of whether language is truly arbitrary There are counterexamples ideas that show there may be some meaning behind the sound Onomatopoeia a word that phonetically resembles the sounds it Bang beep splash describes elements Phonesthesia clusters of words that share both sound and meaning High amount of light and vision words beginning with gl glasses gleam glare glow etc Sound symbolism sounds may actually carry some meaning with them The Kiki vs the Bouba people tend to assign various shapes to the same names English speakers listening to foreign languages often choose the correct meaning for a word when presented with opposite definitions big vs small Morphemes Morphemes the smallest meaningful units of language Can be whole words or partial units Free morphemes morphemes that are entire words by themselves dog cook happy Bound morphemes morphemes that combine to make words dogs is made up of dog and s Morphological rules the rules that govern how morphees can be combined to form words The Wug Test requires kids to find the plural for the word Wug when there are two They are able to define the plural as Wugs which indicates they understand morphological rules very early in development 4 Syntax Characteristics of Syntax Recursion a procedure that an instance of itself For example a noun verb noun sentence can embed more parts of noun verb noun within it Finite number of words allows for an infinity of sentences Syntax exists independent of meaning Noam Chomsky s sentence colorless green ideas sleep furiously has little meaning but shows how it can still be perceived as a well constructed sentence If the words in his sentence are jumbled they are not perceived with cohesive meaning Surface vs Deep Structure Surface structure how a sentence is worded Structurally ambiguous sentences reveal the distinction between surface and deep structure On the program tonight Conan discusses sex with Dr Ruth complaints about NBA referees growing ugly Deep structure the meaning of a sentence The dog eats a juicy bone and a juicy bone is being eaten by the dog have the same deep structure 5 Pragmatics Meaning of Words Pragmatics the study of how language is used and understood in context Making sense of what people actually mean when they speak Locutionary vs Illocutionary Illocutionary acts what the speaker is trying to do with their words Intended indirect meaning Locutionary acts what is actually said Literal meaning based on syntax If you could pass me the guacamole that would be awesome Illocutionary act give me the guacamole Locutionary act a world in which you are capable of moving the guacamole to me would be heavenly 6 Language Development Development of Infant Speech Perception From 0 4 months infants can tell the difference between speech sounds phonemes and they coo in response to speech From 4 6 months they babble consonants From 6 10 months they understand some words and simple requests From 10 12 months they begin to use single words From 12 18 months they have a vocabulary of 30 50 words simple nouns adjectives and action words From 18 24 months two word phrases are ordered according to syntactic rules telegraphic speech their vocabulary consists of 50 200 words and they understand rules From 24 36 months they have a vocabulary of about 1 000 words and produce phrases and incomplete sentences From 36 60 months their vocabulary grows to more than 10 000 words they show mastery of grammatical morphemes ed and function words but and they can form questions and negotiations Children s Speech Perception Concepts Fast mapping the process whereby children map a word onto an underlying concept after only a single exposure Can understand concepts and meanings quickly Over generalization oversimplifying grammar rules and applying them where they are incorrect Often useful for grammar and show an understanding of syntactic and morpheme rules but sometimes rules do not apply and they