Language

• Language


  Uniquely human, even though other species can communicate it is not Language
• Aspects of human language

  • Arbitrary
  • Generative
• Arbitrary


  There is no direct link between a word that represents a concept and the actual concept
• Arbitrary language


  • "Hungry" doesn't actually feel hungry
  • "brown" isn't actually brown
• Generative


  Every single one of us can state, write, or sing something that no one has ever said before
• Language structure


  • Phoneme
  • Morpheme
  • Syntax
  • Pragmatics
• Phoneme


  Smallest unit of sound
• Morpheme


  Smallest unit of meaning in a language
• Morpheme


  • Cats - 2 morphemes
• Syntax


  Structure of language/ arrangement of words within sentences, or their structures
• Pragmatics


  How context contributes to meaning/ social rules of a language
• Preposing


  Ability to rearrange a sentence and have it mean the same thing
• Fundamental products of comprehension and production

  • Speech is continuous
  • A single phoneme will sound different depending on the phonemes around it
• Broca's aphasia


  Understand but can't produce speech

  Damage to frontal areas of brain
• Wernicke's aphasia


  Fluent speech, no comprehension

  Damage to temporal lobe in left hemisphere
• Language in right handed people typically resides in left side of brain
• Anomia: Difficulty naming objects
• Alexia: Visual language impairments that affect the ability to read and write.
• Agraphia: Inability to write
• Alexia without Agraphia: one can write but cannot read/comprehend what they wrote