Printed Page 340

REVIEW Language and Thought

Learning Objectives

Test Yourself by taking a moment to answer each of these Learning Objective Questions (repeated here from within the module). Research suggests that trying to answer these questions on your own will improve your long-term memory of the concepts (McDaniel et al., 2009).

Question

26-1 What are the structural components of a language?
ANSWER: Phonemes are a language's basic units of sound. Morphemes are the elementary units of meaning. Grammar—the system of rules that enables us to communicate—includes semantics (rules for deriving meaning) and syntax (rules for ordering words into sentences). Linguist Noam Chomsky has proposed that all human languages share a universal grammar—the basic building blocks of language—and that humans are born with a predisposition to learn language. We acquire a specific language through learning as our biology and experience interact. B. F. Skinner believed we learn language as we learn other things—by association, imitation, and reinforcement.

Question

26-2 What are the milestones in language development, and how do we acquire language?
ANSWER: Language development's timing varies, but all children follow the same sequence. Receptive language (the ability to understand what is said to or about you) develops before productive language (the ability to produce words). At about 4 months of age, infants babble, making sounds found in languages from all over the world. By about 10 months, their babbling contains only the sounds found in their household language. Around 12 months of age, children begin to speak in single words. This one-word stage evolves into two-word (telegraphic) utterances before their second birthday, after which they begin speaking in full sentences. Childhood is a critical period for learning to speak and/or sign fluently. This is an important consideration for parents of deaf children, who might master oral communication if given a cochlear implant during this critical period.

Question

26-3 What brain areas are involved in language processing and speech?
ANSWER: Aphasia is an impairment of language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage. Two important language- and speech-processing areas are Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that controls language expression, and Wernicke's area, a region in the left temporal lobe that controls language reception. Language processing is spread across other brain areas as well, where different neural networks handle specific linguistic subtasks.

Question

26-4 What do we know about other animals' capacity for language?
ANSWER: A number of chimpanzees and bonobos have (1) learned to communicate with humans by signing or by pushing buttons wired to a computer, (2) developed vocabularies of nearly 400 words, (3) communicated by stringing these words together, (4) taught their skills to younger animals, and (5) demonstrated some understanding of syntax. But only humans communicate in complex sentences. Nevertheless, other animals' impressive abilities to think and communicate challenge humans to consider what this means about the moral rights of other species.

Question

26-5 What is the relationship between thinking and language, and what is the value of thinking in images?
ANSWER: Although Benjamin Lee Whorf's linguistic determinism hypothesis suggested that language determines thought, it is in fact more accurate to say that language influences thought. Different languages embody different ways of thinking, and immersion in bilingual education can enhance thinking. We often think in images when we use implicit (nondeclarative, procedural) memory—our automatic memory system for motor and cognitive skills and classically conditioned associations. Thinking in images can increase our skills when we mentally practice upcoming events.

Terms and Concepts to Remember

Test yourself on these terms.

Question

language (p. 329)
phoneme (p. 330)
morpheme (p. 330)
grammar (p. 330)
babbling stage (p. 331)
one-word stage (p. 332)
two-word stage (p. 332)
telegraphic speech (p. 332)
aphasia (p. 334)
Broca's area (p. 334)
Wernicke's area (p. 334)
linguistic determinism (p. 336)
in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).
controls language reception—a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe.
in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. In a given language, semantics is the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, and syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.
Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.
the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.
in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.
controls language expression—an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.
impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding).
beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.
beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word sentences.
our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.
early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs.

Experience the Testing Effect

Test yourself repeatedly throughout your studies. This will not only help you figure out what you know and don’t know; the testing itself will help you learn and remember the information more effectively thanks to the testing effect.

Question 9.8

1. Children reach the one-word stage of speech development at about

A.
B.
C.
D.

Question 9.9

2. The three basic building blocks of language are , , and .

Question 9.10

3. When young children speak in short phrases using mostly verbs and nouns, this is referred to as .

Question 9.11

4. According to Chomsky, all languages share a(n) .

Question 9.12

5. Most researchers agree that apes can

A.
B.
C.
D.

Use image to create your personalized study plan, which will direct you to the resources that will help you most in image .

[Leave] [Close]