Lesson 7: Language Morpheme

Language is the use of an organized means of The smallest unit of meaning within a particular
combining words in order to communicate with language. Two forms of morpheme are root words
those around us. and affixes.
- Content morphemes: The words that convey the
A system of communication using sounds or bulk of the meaning of the language.
symbols that enable us to express our feelings, - Function morphemes: Add detail and nuance to
thoughts, ideas, and experiences the meaning of the content morphemes.
- Lexicon: The entire set of morphemes in a given
Psycholinguistics language or in a given person`s linguistic repertoire.
Psychological study of language which goal is to
discover the psychological processes by which Syntax
humans acquire and process language. Refers to the way in which we put words together to
form sentences. It plays a major role in our
Four areas of Study to an understanding of understanding of language. The systematic way in
psycholinguistics which words can be combined and sequenced to
1. Linguistics: Study of language structure and make meaningful phrases and sentences (Carroll,
change 1986).
2. Neurolinguistics: Study of the relationships 2 Parts of Sentence
among the brain, cognition and language - Noun Phrase: contain at least one noun (often the
3. Sociolinguistics: Study of the relationships subject of the sentence) and includes all the relevant
between social behavior and language descriptors of the noun.
(Carroll, 1986) - Verb Phrase: (predicate) contain at least one verb
4. Computational linguistics: Study of and whatever the verbs act on
language via computational methods
(Coleman, Gasser & Lewis 2003)

Properties of Language
1. Communicative
2. Arbitrarily symbolic
3. Regularly structured
4. Structured at multiple levels
5. Generative and Productive
6. Dynamic

Basic Component of Words

Phoneme
The shortest segment of speech that, if Perceiving Spoken Phonemes and Words, and
changed, changes the meaning of the word. When Written Letters
you say words, you produce sounds called
phonemes. They are indicated by phonetic symbols Speech: Perceiving Phonemes
that are set off with slashes The powerful effect of context on perception is
illustrated by the demonstration that a phoneme that
is part of a sentence can be heard even if the sound
of the phoneme is covered up by an extraneous noise.

Speech: Perceiving Words

One of the challenges posed by the problem of
perceiving words is that not everyone says words in
the same way. People talk with different accents and
at different speeds, and most important, people
often take a relaxed approach to pronouncing words Noam Chomsky (1957)
when they are speaking naturally Suggested that to understand syntax, we must
observe not only the interrelationships among
Categorical Perception phrases within sentences.
- one phenomenon in speech in which listeners
perceive continuously varying speech sounds as
distinct categories.
- this phenomenon can be seen in the perception of
the consonant-vowel combination ba, da and ga.

The Motor Theory of Speech Perception

- According to the motor theory, we use the Reading
movements of the speaker`s vocal tract to perceive Dyslexia: difficulty in deciphering, reading and
what he says. comprehending text –can suffer greatly in a society
- Attempts to explain these processes in relation to that puts a high premium on fluent reading.
the processes involved in speech production.
- Phonological awareness which refers to
Understanding Meaning: Semantics awareness of the sound structure of spoken
Denotation: Is the strict definition of a word. language.
Connotation: Is a word`s emotional overtones, -Phonological reading which entails reading words
pre-suppositions, and other non-explicit meanings. in isolation. Teachers sometimes call this skill “word
decoding”
Producing Language: Conversations
-Phonological coding which involved in
Semantic Coordination: When two people are
remembering strings of phonemes that are
talking about a topic, each persons brings his or her
sometimes confusing.
own knowledge to the conversation. Such
-Lexical access refers to one`s ability to retrieve
conversations go more smoothly when the
phonemes from long-term memory
participants bring shared knowledge.
Understanding Conversations and Essays:
2 Kinds of Information (Haviland & Clark, 1974)
Discourse
Given Information: information that the listener
Discourse: involves units of language larger than
already knows.
individual sentences – in conversations, lectures,
New information: information that the listener is
stories, essays and even textbooks (Di Eugenio,
hearing for the first time
2003).
Producing Language: Conversations
Semantic Encoding: Is the process by which we
Syntactic Coordination: When two people
translate sensory information into a meaningful
exchange statements in a conversation, it is
representation.
common for them to use similar grammatical
constructions.
Differences among Languages
Syntactic Priming
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- it is important because it can lead people to
coordinate the grammatical form of their statements
during a conversation.
- A phenomenon in which hearing a statement with a
particular syntactic construction increases the
chances that a sentence will be produced with the
same construction
 Slips of the Tounge (Fromkin & Rodman, 1988)
Linguistic Relativity - In anticipation
- Refers to the assertion that speakers of different - In preservation
languages have differing cognitive systems and that - In substitution
these different cognitive systems influence the ways - In reversal
in which people think about the world.
- In spoonerisms
- It is that language may not determine thought, but
- In malatropism
that language certainly may influence thought.
- Insertions of sounds
“Eskimo words for snow” Whorf (1940s)
“We have the same world for falling snow, snow on The Brain and Sign Language
the ground, snow packed hard like ice, slushy snow, Aphasia: An impairment of language functioning
wind driven flying snow- whatever the situation may caused by damaged to the brain.
be. To an Eskimo, this all inclusive world would be
almost unthinkable; he would say that falling snow, Types of Aphasia:
and so on, are sensuously and operationally Wernicke’s Aphasia: Fluent speech that often
different, different things to contend with; he uses doesn't make sense; difficulty understanding
different words for them and for other kinds of snow”. language.
-7 words for snow (what about sleet, slush, hail, Broca’s Aphasia: Slow, effortful speech; good
blizzard, etc.) understanding but hard to form sentences.
Global Aphasia: Severe difficulty with both speaking
Bilingual and understanding language.
Additive Bilingualism: A second language is Anomic Aphasia: Fluent speech but struggles to
acquired in addition to a relatively well-developed find the right words, especially nouns and verbs.
first language.
Subtractive Bilingualism: Elements of a second Autism
language replace elements of the first language. - Is a developmental disorder characterized by
abnormalities in social behavior, language, and
cognition. (Heinrichs et al., 2009; Pierce &
Courchesne, 2003)
- Children show abnormalities in many areas of the
brain, including the frontal and parietal lobes, as well
as the cerebellum, brainstem, corpus callosum,
basal ganglia, amygdala and hippocampus.
- Children with autism usually are identified by
around 14 months of age, when they fail to show
normal patterns of interactions.
- When they interact with someone, they are more
likely to view their lips than their eyes. About half of
children with autism fail to develop functional
Single-system Hypothesis: Suggest that two speech
languages are represented in just one system or
brain region.
Dual-system Hypothesis: Suggest that two
languages are represented somehow in separate
system of the mind