Module 1: page 11 - 20

• Behaviorism

  • Set of arbitrary symbols
  • Arbitrary
  • Made up
  • Words are associated by symbols
  • But words can’t explain the symbols itself
  • Connection and meanings of the words and symbols is not inherently logical and necessary
  • There’s nothing inherently dog-like with the word dog. It was just learned and accepted within a linguistic society
• Behaviorism

  • Language is a system of habits
  • Learned by repetition and reinforcement
• Behaviorism

  • Focuses on observable behaviors and environmental  factors that shape linguistic developments
• Cognitivism

  • Language is a rule-governed behavior
  • Not simply a learned response of a stimuli
  • Involves an internalization of rules
  • There are underlying rules governing the arrangement and combination of elements
• Cognitivism

  • The speaker-hearer has internalized the rules of the language
  • Perception, memory, and reasoning
  • Highlighting importance of mental processes: memory, attention, and problem solving
• Cognitivism

  • Cognitive science
  • role of mental processes, such as memory, attention, problem-solving, and comprehension, in language learning and use
• There is a universal grammar- universals in language. At a highly abstract level, all languages must share key characteristics

  • Universal grammar - Noam Chomsky
  • Acquiring language is innate to human 
  • There is a universal set of grammatical principles that underlie all human languages
• Universal grammar:

  Humans are born with an inherent ability to grasp these deep structures, enabling them to acquire language to which they are exposed.
• Nativism

  • Language is an innate or inborn capacity of man.

  Man has a LAD (Language Acquisition Device; Chomsky 1965)
• Language Acquisition Device

  • In contrast to theories that emphasize environmental influences or learning mechanisms
  • Suggests that certain aspects of language are hard-wired into the human brain
  • Humans are born with an inherent ability to acquire language - not a learned behavior
  • LAD- proposal
  • System design for acquisition of language
  • Allows humans to effortlessly and rapidly acquire the complex rules and structures
• Nativism

  • Language is species-specific
  • Unique characteristic of human species
  • Other animals may communicate in other ways
  • Defining feature of being human
• Mutual Intelligibility

  • We know that they speak different language when we don’t understand them
• Design Features of Language (Stewart and Vaillette 2001)

  • Pantao ang communication systems kapag may design features
  • Is language only human? 
  • Human language contains these design features
  • What often lacks in animal system
  • MSPCIADDP
• Mode of communication

  • Vocal auditory - human and animal systems
  • Visual - apes - signals
  • Tactiles - bees
  • Chemicals - moths?
• • Semantic function
  • Signals carry meaning
• Pragmatic function

  • Practical purpose 
  • Survival
  • Influencing behaviors
• Cultural transmission

  • Necessity for some aspects of communication systems to be acquired through communicative interactions w/ other users of the system - human language
  • A child raised by Russian parents can learn English if they are exposed to it
  • Other species have innate or genetically programmed signal code → instinctive
  • Bird songs
  • Chimpanzee signals
• Interchangeability

  • One can speak your language as long as u have the same language as them
  • Ability to send and receive messages
  • Can both convey messages through speech
• Arbitrariness

  • Signals not logically connected to their meaning
  • Animal systems do not have this
• Discreteness

  • Constructing smaller messages to smaller distinct parts
  • Animal communication systems lack this property
  • Phonemes → morphemes → words → phrases → words → sentence → text
• Displacement

  • We can talk about things that are not present in immediate space or time
  • Past and future
  • Unicorn
  • Lasa ng matcha na wala naman rn pero alam mo yung lasa ng matcha sa cafe sa labas
  • Delulu lang ganon
  • Lacks in animal system
• Productivity

  • Can produce an output
  • Creativity & open-endedness
  • Create & comprehend endless variety of expressions
  • Infinite variety of messages
• Bow-wow theory (Jespersen 1922)

  • Traced back to imitations of natural sounds
  • Sounds of natural occurrences
  • Dogs barking, birds chirping
• Pooh-pooh theory (Jespersen 1922)

  • Spontaneous exclamations and interjections
  • Emotional expressions or exclamatory sounds as humans’ response to their environment
  • Gradually evolved
• Yo-he-ho theory

  • Collective rhythmic activity
  • Communal work
  • Repetitive sounds produced during group activities
  • Rhythmic chants
  • Coordinating efforts
  • Spontaneous emotional expressions
• The Oral-Gesture Source

  • This theory involves a link between physical gesture and orally produced sounds
  • Link to simultaneous use of physical gestures and oral sounds
  • Early stages of language development communication evolve
  • Use of spoken sounds and physical gestures
  • Oral component may have gained complexity → development of a more sophisticated spoken language
  • Early human communication is a combination of vocalizations and accompanying physical gestures 
  • Oral and gestural
• Dual nature of language:

  • Interactional function: how humans use language to interact with each other, socially or emotionally; how they indicate friendliness, co-operation or hostility, or annoyance, pain, or pleasure
  • Feelings
  • Establishment and maintenance of social relationships
• Dual nature of language:

  • Transactional function: humans use their linguistic abilities to communicate knowledge, skills, and information
  • Task-oriented
  • Practical information
  • Conveying content
  • Educational settings
• Language as a left-hemisphere function
• • The condition marked by severe language dysfunction is termed aphasia.
• • “We speak with the left hemisphere.” (Broca 1861, quoted in Hoff 2014)
  • Spoken or signed
  • right -hemisphere- processing visual spatial information
• Language is a left-hemisphere function comes from individuals with a severed corpus callosum
• Right-hemisphere Contributions to Language
• • Right-hemisphere-lesion patients sometimes produce abnormal intonation contour when they speak, and they may have difficulty recognizing the emotional tone of an utterance
• The Critical Period Hypothesis (Hoff 2014)

  • The notion that a biologically determined period exists during which language acquisition must occur, if it is to occur at all
  • The critical period hypothesis with respect to language acquisition was originally proposed by Lenneberg (1967), who described language acquisition as an “age-limited potential” (p.175) with the relevant age being puberty
• The Genetics of Language Impairment

  • KE Family
  • It appears that the KE family has a mutation that affects the encoding of a particular protein known as FOXP2
  • The unrelated individuals have different genetic stories, but in all cases, the same gene is involved (Fisher, 2006; Tomblin et al,. 2009)
  • The FOXP2 protein affects the formation of neural structures that are important for speech and language
• Design Features of Language

  • Interchangeability
  • Kung kakausap si Washoe ng chimpanzee na hindi alam ang ASL, keri ni Washoe pero yung chimpanzee naur
  • Displacement
  • They have no capability to think of other things that don’t exist 
  • Cultural Transmission
  • No same level of cognitive abilities to pass down language from generations to generations
  • Productivity
  • Animals have the capability to make sounds and produce words with help and guidance, it is still more likely to be heavily reliant to their instructors
  • 90% of Nim’s utterances were dependent to her teacher’s teachings