Unit 7B: Thinking, Problem Solving , Creativity,

Language
Language
Our spoken, written , or signed words and
the ways we combine them as we think
and communicate
 Human essence: the qualities of the mind
are unique to humans
 Allows us to transmit civilizations
accumulated knowledge across
generations
 Kevin Office Clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFiHaMdP
PZE

Language Structure
Phonemes
 Morphemes
 Grammar

Phonemes
A set of basic sounds
 Within a language, changes in
phonemes produce changes in meaning

 B and T (ex): bat, bet, bit, bite, etc

People who grow up learning one sett of
phonemes usually have difficulty
pronouncing those of another language
 Native English speaker & German
Morphemes

The smallest unit of language that
carries meaning
Grammar
A system of rules in a given language
that enables us to communicate and
understand one another
 Semantics: set of rules we use to derive
meaning from morphemes, words, and
even sentences
 Syntax: order words into sentences

When do we learn language?

Receptive Language (the ability to comprehend
speech)
 By 4 months of age babies can discriminate speech
sounds
 (Even before 4 months, cooing occurs at around 3
to 5 weeks of age-repeat basic vowel sounds
without consonants)
When do we learn language?

Productive Language
 Around 4 months babies enter the babbling
stage
○ Utter a variety of sounds, includes sounds various
languages
○ Video clip: conversational babbling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY
 By 10 months their babbling has changed so
that a trained ear can identify the language of
the household
○ Without exposure to other languages, babies
become deaf to speech sounds outside their
native language
Productive language
Around 12 months children enter the oneword stage
 At About 18 months, children’s word
learning explodes from a word per week to
a word per day
 At about 24 months, enter a two-word
stage

 Utter two-word sentences in telegraphic speech
(want juice)

After 24 months children begin uttering
longer phrases and begin to understand
complex sentences
Explaining Language
Development

Skinner: operate learning
 Can explain language development with
familiar learning principles such as
association, imitation, and reinforcement
 Skinner argued babies learn to talk in many
of the same ways that animals learn to peck
keys and press bars (nature-evolution)
Explaining Language
Development

Chomsky: Inborn Universal Grammar
 Given adequate nurture, language will naturally
occur
 We come prewired with a sort of switch box
(language acquisition device). It switches on and off
for us to understand and produce language
Explaining Language
Development: Nature vs. Nurture
Debate
Skinner’s emphasis on learning helps
explain how infants acquire their
language as they interact with others
 Chomsky’s emphasis on our built-in
readiness to learn grammar rules helps
explain why preschoolers acquire
language so readily and use grammar
so well
 Biology and experience working
together

Statistical Learning and Critical
Periods

Childhood seems to represent a critical (or
sensitive) period for mastering certain aspects
of language
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2XBIkHW954
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXWGnryjEaY


Children who have not been exposed to either
a spoken or written language gradually lose
the ability to master any language
After the window for learning language closes,
learning a second language seems more
difficult
 May master the basic words but never become as
fluent as native speakers/signers
Language influences Thinking
Whorf contended that language determines the
way we think (linguistic determinism), different
language impose different conceptions or reality
 A person may think differently in different
languages
 Many bilinguals repot that hey have different
sense of self, depending on what language they
are using

Language influences thinking
Our words influenced our thinking
 To expand language is to expand the
ability to think
 It pays to increase your word power
 Bilingual children who learn to inhibit
one language while using the other are
also better able to inhibit their attention
to irrelevant information

Thinking in images
Mental practice has become a standard
part of training
 Mental rehearsal can also help you
achieve an academic goal
 Much of info processing occurs outside
of consciousness

Thinking and Language

Thinking affects our language, which
them affects our thought!

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