PSY210H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Patricia K. Kuhl, Dog Park, Speech Perception
Document Summary
Role of input: beyond 1st words. What is language: a system that relates sounds (or gestures) to meaning (p 307) It has arbitrary units and is therefore symbolic. The boy ate the apple vs the apple ate the boy. It shows displacement - one can communicate about events distant in time and space, not just the here and now. All understand we are talking about the past. It is generative (infinite # of messages can be created) Came up w/ sentences you thought has never be said. Although can have 1 or 2 of the above properties, they never have all 4 of the criteria. Can"t change utterance and meaning of their calls. They do have songs that they learn from each other an that they structure and a hierarchy and sounds. See evidence for learning of speech when the fetus is the womb: early perception. Enough for child to have preference for their lang.
