Psychology Midterm 2: Language

Gardner & Gardner
- taught chimps sign language
- chimps make signs to receive reward--> chimps do not develop language
- chimp acquire limited vocab w/great difficulty
5 properties of language
- 1. communicative
- 2. arbitrarily symbolic: we are the classifiers
- 3. structured at multiple levels
- structure: vowels
- levels: letter--> word--> sentence
- 4. produces novel utterances- combining words in weird way--> symbolic
- 5. dynamic- new words are added
phonemes

single speech sounds
experience influences language

ex. clicks in African language
morphemes
- smallest unit that is meaningful
- words, prefixes, suffixes, "s"
syntax

sentence organization
semantics

sentence meaning
discourse
- beyond sentences
- paragraphs, conversation
Whorfian hypothesis
- language determines thought
- culture produces language--> culture (not world) determines thought/reality
Whorfian evidence
- 1. more Eskimo words for snow
- 2. depth of color perception
- 3. euphemism- word that has offensive connotation
argument against Whorfian
- 1. Eskimo's don't have more words for snow
- 2. color perception similar across cultures
- 3. words can be ambiguous
- conclusion: thought determines language ability

Author

kwatanabe20

330089

Card Set

Psychology Midterm 2: Language

Description

Intro to Pyschology

Updated

2017-04-03T21:01:58Z

Show Answers