Cognition & LanguageChapter 7

Part II

William G. Huitt

Last revised: May 2005

The Structure of Language

• Psycholinguistics– The study of how language is acquired, produced,

and used, and how the sounds and symbols of language are translated into meaning

– The structure and rules governing language involve four basic building blocks—phonemes, morphemes, syntax, and semantics

• Phonemes– The smallest units of sound in a spoken language– Letters combined to form sounds are also

phonemes– English uses about 45 phonemes

The Structure of Language

• Morphemes– The smallest units of meaning in language– In almost all cases in the English language, a

morpheme is made of two or more phonemes– Morphemes, singly and in combination, form the

words in a language and provide meaning

• Syntax– The aspect of grammar that specifies the rules for

arranging and combining words to form phrases and sentences

The Structure of Language

• Semantics– The meaning or the study of meaning derived from

morphemes, words, and sentences– Noam Chomsky

• Maintained that the ability to glean a meaningful message from a sentence is stored in a different area of the brain than are the words used to compose the sentence

• He distinguished between the surface structure and the deep structure of a sentence

The Structure of Language

• Semantics– Surface structure

• The literal words of a sentence that are spoken or written

– Deep structure• The underlying meaning of a sentence

The Structure of Language

• Semantics– In some sentences, the surface structure and the

deep structure are the same• The dog ate the bone.• The bone was eaten by the dog.

– Alternatively, a single sentence may have one or more different deep structures

• You would be lucky to have him work for you.

The Structure of Language

• Pragmatics– Indicators of the social meaning of an utterance,

such as intonations and gestures– In English, statements fall in intonation at the end,

while questions rise

Language and The Brain

• Researchers used PET scans to view activity in areas of the brains of Italian and English speakers while they read aloud a list of words and nonwords; no difference was found

• Other researchers found that brain activity in three regions varied according to the speaker’s native language

Language and The Brain

• Brain-imaging studies have identified one area in the lower rear section of the left temporal lobe that plays a major role in processing information about both syntax and semantics

• Two brain areas that are important for processing language– Broca’s area—speech production– Wernicke’s area—language comprehension

Animal Language

• As far as scientists know, humans are the only species to have developed this rich, varied, and complex system of communication

• Most animal species studied by language researchers are limited to motor responses, such as sign language, gestures, using magnetic symbols, or pressing keys on symbol boards

• Research with sea mammals such as whales and dolphins has established that they apparently use complicated systems of grunts, whistles, clicks, and other sounds to communicate within their species

Language and Thinking

• Linguistic relativity hypothesis– The notion that the language a person speaks

largely determines the nature of that person’s thoughts

– Created by Benjamin Whorf

• Eleanor Rosch– Tested whether people whose language contains

many names for colors are better at thinking about and discriminating among colors than people whose language has only a few color names

– Found no significant differences

Bilingualism

• Research suggests that there are both advantages and disadvantages to learning two languages early in life– For school-aged children, the more one knows about one’s

first language, the easier time the individual will have learning another one

– One of the plusses is that, among preschool and school-age children, bilingualism is associated with better meta-linguistic skills

– On the downside, even in adulthood, bilingualism is sometimes associated with decreased efficiency in memory tasks involving words

• In European countries, most students learn English in addition to the languages of the countries bordering their own

Bilingualism

• Kim and others– Suggest that bilinguals who learned a second

language early (younger than age 10 or 11) rely on the same patch of tissue in Broca’s area for both of the languages they speak

– But in those who were older when they learned a second language, two different sections of Broca’s area are active while they are performing language tasks – one section for the native language and another for the second language