Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Language Acquisition Device, Language Acquisition, Deep Structure And Surface Structure

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Dr.Mike

Document Summary

Adaptive functions of language: the brain probably achieved its present form some 50 000 years ago. It then took another 47 000 years for humans to be able to communicate: over the course of evolution, humans adopted a more socially oriented lifestyle that helped them survive and reproduce. Language evolved as people began to form larger units, as people wanted to pass on knowledge. Language is often an extremely powerful learning mechanism. Properties of language: the four functions of a language are symbols, structure, meaning and generativity, there is often a fifth property, displacement. Language uses sounds, written characters, or some other system of symbols to represent objects, events, ideas, feelings and actions: the symbols used in any given language are arbitrary. Language also has a rule-governed structure: a language"s grammar, is the set of rules that dictate how symbols can be combined to create meaningful units of communication. I nailed that test could have various meanings.