PSYC 2501 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Animal Communication, Language Development, Phoneme
26 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Language
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
12:32 PM
• What is language?
o A system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to
express our feelings, thoughts, and experiences
o What makes human language unique?
• Human language goes beyond a fixed signal that transmits a single
message
▪ Beyond noises animals make
• Composed of arbitrary symbols (sounds, letters, words, etc.) that we can
combine in many different ways
• Much more flexible and productive than other forms of animal
communication
• The structure of human language is
▪ Hierarchical
• Small components can be combined into larger components
• Sounds can be combined to form syllables and words
• Words can be combined to form sentences and phrases
▪ Governed by rules
• There are rules for combine phonemes (sounds of our
language)
• Rules for combining words and phrases to form sentences
(syntax or grammar)
• Productive and flexible
• Has rules
• Language is dynamic
▪ Constantly evolving
• Making up new words
o Universality of language
• What do all languages have in common?
• Language is universal across cultures
▪ All cultures have language
• Language development is similar across cultures
▪ Children generally go through the same stages of language
development
• Begin babbling at 7 months, first word at 1 year, multiword
utterances at about 2 years
• All languages have similar structure
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