Language

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

Fun Facts About Language• How many languages exist in the world today? • 6800• How many languages are spoken by more than 1

million people?• 250 (Chinese, Hindi, English, Spanish, Arabic)• How many languages will likely survive the century?• 600• What % of children throughout the world are raised

bilingual?• 66%• What % of U.S. children are raised bilingual?• 6.3%

Language can be…..

We need 3 building blocks for SPOKEN language:

Phonemes• The smallest units of sound

in language– Ex: Bat= b, a, & t (3)– Ex: Chat= ch, a, t (3)

• English has about 40 phonemes

• Sometimes difficult to learn new language

• Let’s Practice– Love– Pitch– Throat– Platypus

Morphemes• The smallest unit of

meaningful sound• Can be a word or part

of a word• Can also be parts of

words like prefixes or suffixes…”s” means plural

How many morphemes does cats have?

Grammar• Grammar: the rules

that enable us to communicate with & understand others

• Semantics: study of meaning-ex: ”ed” at the end of a word means past tense

• Syntax: the rules for combining words into sentences that make sense

Is this the White House or the House White?

Language DevelopmentStages that we learn language…1.Babbling Stage: 4 months,

baby starts making various sounds

2.Holophrastic Stage (one word stage): around 1 year old-begin to use sounds to communicate meaning -“ball” “dog”

3. Telegraphic Speech Stage (two word stage): around 2 yrs- “big doggy” “hit ball”

How do we learn language?

Operant Learning Theory• B.F.Skinner &

Behaviorism • Imitation &

Reinforcement• Kid may imitate a parent

• Ex: your mom says a curse word and your little sister does

• If they are reinforced they keep saying a word• Ex: your little sister says

curse word and your mom laughs

• If they are punished, they stop saying the word• Ex: your mom spanks

your little sister for says the curse word

Noam Chomsky’s Theory(nativist theory)

• We learn language too quickly for it to be only through reinforcement & punishment– Children acquire language more

quickly than other skills

• Language acquisition device– People have a natural

tendency to acquire language– Enables us to turn ideas into

sentences, etc…• Language is a brain function,

not a social phenomenon– Cognitive Psychology

Linguistic Determinism

• Linguistic Determinism: WHORF HYPOTHESIS that language determines how we think– Different languages create different

concepts of reality & worldviews– Ex: Hopi tribe have no past tense to they

cannot think about the past– Ex: Norwegians have many different

words for snow (meaningless to us in southern ca)

Critical Period

• Many researchers believe that childhood is the critical period for learning language

• After age 7, children gradually lose the ability to master any language– “Genie”