"Introduction to Psychology" Notes (5) —— Language

Lecture 6: Language

Basic facts about language:

• Man has an instinctive tendency to speak.
• Every normal human has language which is part of human nature.
• Languages all share some deep and intricate universals. Every language in the world can talk about abstract things.
• Any adequate theory of language has to allow for both the commonalities and the differences across languages.
• All languages are creative and this means:
  

1. Our capacity for language is unbounded and free.
2. Language allows us to produce a virtual infinity of sentences.

• Language has structures going from the bottom to the top.

All languages consist of:

• Phonology (语音体系): the system of sounds or signs;
• Morphology(词法、词态学): the system of words or morphemes, basic units of meaning;
• Syntax(语法): rules and principles that put together words and phrases into meaningful utterances.
• Recursion: a mechanism that use of finite vocabulary to produce a virtual infinity of sentences.

Nature v.s Nuture:

• Both nature and nurture are at work in the development of language, through learning and as growth.
• Only human beings have the language acquisition device which makes it possible for infants and children acquiring language to know what the deep structure or the meaning is of language.
• Social interaction really is at the basis of language development in children.
• Language is not learned abstractly. It is learned by embedded language in context so that the intention of the speakers can be decoded.

Language development timeline regulates the maturing of the brain and certain muscles in the mouth and throat that are needed for communication:

1. Stage 1: acquiring language by crying.
2. Stage 2: babbling of syllable-like sounds.
3. Stage 3: one-word stage.
• The earliest words are part of a behavioral ritual
• The next set of words are those that express relationships of various kinds (between objects and actions, between objects etc).
• And finally come words that are meant to affect events,
4. Stage 4: two-word stage. to express a number of common functions: locating and naming things, demanding and desiring things, describing actions and situations, questioning, modifying, and qualifying.
5. Stage 5: the telegraphic stage, can form simple sentences, mostly of nouns and verbs.