PSYC3331 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Allophone, Pragmatics, Phoneme
We as adult human beings process language. We interact with language both in terms of
comprehending it and producing it, both in the visual and in the auditory modalities. But HOW.
There is more to language than learning vocabulary. Words combine together in a particular way to
convey a particular meaning. This is syntax = grammar.
Grammar/syntax = the particular way in which words combine together to convey a particular
meaning
Proposed we have learnt a whole lot of sentences that we can produce at the appropriate time
-
Language is nothing special, but is a form of behaviour that humans simply learn in the same way
that pigeons learn to peck a key, or parrots are taught to talk
-
BF Skinner (behaviourist) (1950s):
They can only say what they've heard and often in the wrong context
-
Just mimicking
-
e.g. Pepperberg's work with Alex the grey parrot
-
Humans can create and understand a huge number of utterances
-
But there is a big difference between human language behaviour and parrot's talking:
Creativeness of language and the ability to cope with novelty
-
How can we produce entirely new sentences that others immediately understand?
-
Proposes that the ability of humans to learn language is innate (and is special to humans)
-
The language we learn will have specific structures that need to be specifically learnt, but
underlying this are language universals
-
Universals = things that are common to all languages and that are compatible with the innate
mechanism that humans have evolved
-
Noam Chomsky in his influential review of Skinner's book:
A major argument in favour of language being innate is that no other animals have language. Animals
certainly are able to communicate, but is this really the same as using language? Is it more equivalent to
our human yelps and cries?
Snake
-
chutter
Eagle
-
rrraup
Lion
-
chirp
Semanticity:
Signals consistently mean something relevant to the world, but perhaps true for
certain animals as well. e.g., vervet monkeys make a different noise depending on the type of
predator it encounters
-
"zig" "zog" creatures, smaller mouth opening for former, larger for latter
Arbitrariness:
While the signal is used to represent a meaning is consistent from occasion to
occasion, it is arbitrary in the sense that it is not a direct representation of meaning (except for
onomatopoeia and sound symbolism)
-
Ability to handle novelty:
one can create and understand new messages. This is probably the
most important feature in language (as highlighted by Chomsky)
-
Language is characterised by several features of which the most important are:
Maybe language is unique to humans simply because animals have never been given the opportunity to
learn language as humans have.
Introduction
Sunday, 17 June 2018 3:57 PM
Lecture 1 Page 1
Document Summary
We interact with language both in terms of comprehending it and producing it, both in the visual and in the auditory modalities. There is more to language than learning vocabulary. Words combine together in a particular way to convey a particular meaning. Grammar/syntax = the particular way in which words combine together to convey a particular meaning. Proposed we have learnt a whole lot of sentences that we can produce at the appropriate time. Language is nothing special, but is a form of behaviour that humans simply learn in the same way that pigeons learn to peck a key, or parrots are taught to talk. But there is a big difference between human language behaviour and parrot"s talking: They can only say what they"ve heard and often in the wrong context. Just mimicking e. g. pepperberg"s work with alex the grey parrot. Humans can create and understand a huge number of utterances. Noam chomsky in his influential review of skinner"s book:
