PSYCH211 Lecture Notes - Code-Switching, Processing Fluency, Feral Child
24 Jul 2013
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Document Summary
Infants do not talk for most of their first year. Defined broadly, language is a system that relates sounds or gestures to meaning. Language differs from simple communication in four ways: arbitrary units = symbolic, structured and meaningful, communicate about events distant in time and space, characterized by generativity. Spoken language usually involve five distinct but interrelated elements: phonology. Bound morphemes change the meaning of the word eg. runn(ing: semantics. Study of words and their meanings: grammar. Rules used to describe the structure of a language. Most important element of grammar is syntax. Syntax is rules that specify how words are combined to form sentences: pragmatics. Study of how people use language to communicate effectively. The basic building blocks of language are phonemes, unique sounds that can be joined to create words. Infants can distinguish most of these sounds, as early as 1 month after birth. Early perception of such phonemes has been found to link to future language development.
