Psychology 3228 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Vocal Tract, Kanzi, Linguistic Determinism

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3228
• Professor: Caroline Strang

Document Summary

Referential semantic information seen in: honeybees, vervet monkeys. Combinational syntax seen in: chick a dee calls. Other species can be taught aspects of language: washoe, nim chimsky, kanzi, koko, alex the parrot. But no species shows spontaneous development of even the most rudimentary of languages. Language does not mean thought: thinking can occur in the absence of language, there is little support for the sapir-whorf hypothesis or linguistic determinism. Criteria for language: arbitrary symbols, semanticity, cultural transmission, spontaneous usage, turn taking, duality of meaning, displacement, structure dependence, creativity. Combinational power of grammar: semantic reference occurs in many other species, humans only know about 45,000-100,000 words. There is a language instinct for: learning phonemes, learning words, learning grammar. Language has a sensitive phase early in development: feral children, confined children and isolated deaf children show this. Language develops automatically, bot through instruction: children are prepared to learn language.