Neurolinguistics neural and electrochemical bases of lg

Psycholinguistics study of acquisition, storage, comprehension and production of a lg. Questions

it tries to answer How does a particular lg. Affect cognition? How do people
acquire a lg?
Part of the brain in which lg. is situated is called celebral cortex, lg is in the higher part of it, in the
left hemisphere. Left hemisphere is also responsible for analytic reasoning and arithmetics. Right
hemisphere is for processing music, perceiving monoliguistic sounds, pattern recognition and art
recognition.
Lateralization is 'sideness' of the brain.Most people is right-handed but lateralization might be
changed if a part of the brain if damaged due to the accident, but only in young age when new
neural connections can be created.
Ambidexterity is when a person has approximately equal skill with both hands and/or both sides of
the body. True ambidexterity is very rare. Although a small number of people can write competently
with both hands and use both sides of their body well, even these people usually show preference
for one side of their body over the other. However, this preference is not necessarily consistent for
all activities. Some people may for example use their right hand for writihg, and their left hand for
playing racket sports and eating.
Dichotic Listening is a psychological test commonly used to investigate selective attention within
the auditory system. Specifically, it is "used as a behavioral test for hemispheric lateralization of
speech sound perception." During a standard dichotic listening test a participant is presented with
two different auditory stimuli simultaneously (usually speech). The different stimuli are directed
into different ears over headphones. Research Participants were instructed to repeat aloud the words
they heard in one ear while a different message was presented to the other ear. As a result, of
focusing on the words they were supposed to repeat, participants noticed little of the second
language, often not even realizing that at some point it changed from English to German. At the
same time, participants did notice when the voice in the unattended ear changed from a males to a
females, suggesting that the selectivity of consciousness can work to tune in some information.
Scientists:
Pierre Paul Broca (1824 1880) was a French physician, surgeon, anatomist and anthropologist.
He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that has been named
after him. Brocas Area is responsible for articulated language. His work revealed that the brains of
patients suffering from aphasia contained lesions in a particular part of the cortex, in the left frontal
region. This was the first anatomical proof of the localization of brain function, namely the
language. Broca's aphasia is any lg. disorder resulted from brain damage, patieng has trouble with
verbs mostly.
Karl Wernicke (1848 1905) was a German physician, anatomist, psychiatrist and
neuropathologist. Wernicke noticed that not all language deficits were the result of damage to
Broca's area. Rather he found that damage to the left posterior, superior temporal gyrus resulted in
deficits in language comprehension. This region is now referred to as Wernicke's area and the
associated syndrome is known as receptive aphasia. It results in trouble with nouns mostly,
nonsense word production with comparatively fluent speech and good intonation at the same time.
Animal communication
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 we do not know if animal communicates intentionally

animals communicate, to qualify them as talkers they would have to utilize all 10 features of
talk that Hockett designed
no animal system can be proved to have semanticity or to use structure-dependent
operations.
Scientists:
Jean Aitchinson - is a Professor of Language and Communication
In 1987, she identified three stages that occur during a child's acquisition of vocabulary: labelling,
packaging and network building.
1. Labelling: making the link between the sounds of particular words and the objects to which
they refer
2. Packaging: understanding a words range of meaning
3. Network Building: Involves grasping the connections between words: understanding that
some words are opposite in meaning
Charles F. Hockett (1916-2000) American linguist and structuralist, attempted do distinguish
similarities and differences between human lg. and animal communication.
1. Vocal-Auditory Channel - Much of human language is performed using the vocal tract and
auditory channel. Hockett viewed this as an advantage for human ancestors because it
allowed for the ability to participate in other activities while simultaneously communicating
through spoken language. Not unique to humans, nor most important (sign lg., Braille's lg.)
2. Arbitrariness means that human languages uses neutral symbols.
-it is normal for animals to have strong link between the message they are sending and the
signal they use to convey it.
-according to Aitichinson, arbitrariness cannot be regarded as a critical distinction between
human and animal communication.
3. Semanticity, the third suggested test for language ability, is the use of symbols to mean or
refer to object and actions.
-to a human, a CHAIR means: a four-legged thing you can sit on.
-semanticity is exclusively human. Animals may be able to communicate only about a total
situation.
4. Cultural transmission or tradition indicates that human being hand their languages down
from one generation to another.
5. Spontaneous usage indicates that humans initiate speech freely. Speaking is not something
which they do under threat.
-This feature is certainly not restricted to humans, and many animals use their natural
communication systems freely.
6. Turn-taking - we take turns to speak, not an exclusively human characteristic.
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7. Duality or double-articulation language is organized in two layers: the basic sound units
of speech, such as P. I, G are normally meaningless. They only become meaningful when
combined into sequences such as PIG.
8. Displacement (refer to things in the past) - The ability to refer to things far removed in time
and place. It is difficult to decide whether displacement is present in an animals
communication. Definite examples of displacement are hard to find. But it is undoubtedly
found in bee communication.
9. Structure-dependence - humans automatically recognize the patterned nature of language,
and manipulate "structured chunks" (passive voice). As far as we know, animals do not use
structure-dependent operations. No definite example has yet been found.
10.Creativity or openness or productivity - It is unique to humans - the ability to produce and
understand an indefinite number of novel utterances.
Apes that humans led scientisif research on the subject of communication
1. Gua was brought into the Kellogg home at the age of 7 1/2 months, and was brough up with
their son Donald, who was 10 months old at the time. For nine months the Kelloggs raised
the two as "brother and sister", and comprehensively recorded the development of the
chimpanzee and the human child. When around one year old, Gua often tested ahead of
Donald in such tasks as responding to simple commands or using a cup and spoon. Slight
differences in their placement included people recognition. Gua recognized people from
their clothes and their smell while Donald recognized them by their faces. The parting
difference came with language. Donald was about 16 months and Gua was a little over a
year old when they had language testing. Gua could not speak, but Donald could form
words. In 1932, nine months into it, the Kelloggs officially ended the experiment as Donald
began to copy Gua's sounds.
2. Viki was a chimp adopted by Hayes family in 1947, after three years of hard training
learned onlly four words: Papa, Mam, Cut, Up.
3. Nim Chimpsky a chimp named after Noam Chomsky (lg. is endowed in the brain), began
training in 1970 to proove that Chomsky was wrong and an ape can acguire a lg., too. Nim
learned 125 sign words, but his lg. was not structure-dependant, his use of signs was strictly
pragmatic, as a means of obtaining an outcome.
4. Washoe a chimp acguired 350 words of ASL (American Sign Lg.). She was raised with
young children, she was communicated with by ASL only and ASL was used round her. She
learned spontaniously and she was able to combine hundreds of signs she knew into novel
utterances she had never heard before
Conclusions all the apes can cope with arbitrary symbols and semanticity, they show some
displacement features and creativity of speech, but no evidence of structure.
First Language Acquisition
FOXP2 communication and language gene, mutation causes severe speech problems, homologs
found in all mammals for which complete genome data is available, is also the primary gene that
separates Homo sapiens from chimpanzees by the substitution of two amino acids.

Children all over the world acquire a lg. in similar way, going through the same stages and marking
the same errors. Children lg. is rule governed (wug test). It is useless to correct lg. all the time.
Stages:
1. crying 2. cooing 3. babbling 4. one-word utterances
5. two-word utterances
6. questions, negatives 7. complex constructions
8. mature speech

birth
6 weeks
6 months
1 year, mostly known objects and words of action
18 months, rapid growth of voc., telegraphic speech
2 years, fluent grammatical speech
5 years, children ask questions, give commands, report events
10 years

Metalinguistic awareness- develops slowlywhen children begin to read and write, the ability to treat
lg. and words as objects separate from the meaning, allows word games.
Order of acquisition 1. the same pattern all over the world
2. R.Brown found out that children acquired grammar in similar sequence: -ing, -prepositions,
- plural s, - irregular past, - possessive 's, - articles the, - past regular ed, - 3rd person s, -to be.
3. Negatives about 2-3 year olds, first they just add 'no', then use 'any', 'no' before verb and
longer sentences, 'can't' and 'don't', correct negations.
4. Questions order of words: what, where, who, why, how, when. Firstly children just raise
intonation, sometimes adding -wh word, later they add verb at the beginning to declarative
sentences, next they add auxilary verbs and produce correct questions.
Kinds of Bilingualism
children who from birth hear more than one lg. are ' simultaneously bilingual'
children who learned one lg. after another are 'sequentialy bilingual'
children who were cut off their mother tongue and lost it before acquired a new one fully are
'subtractively bilingual'. Usually minority lg. is lost in the 2nd generation after immigration.
Receptive bilinguals are those who have the ability to understand a second language, but do
not speak it
Acc. to Weinreich
coexistent bilingualism two lgs. are kept separate in the brain, probably because they were
learned in different environments
merged bilingualism two lgs. are integrated into one system, probably because they were
used interchangeably
subordinate bilingualism - l2 is based on l1
Theories of learning a lg.
Biological basis of learning a lg.:
'Biological Foundations of Language' by Eric Lenneberg in 1967
lg. is innate, starting using it is not a conscious decision
lg. is not triggered by external events but the surrouning must be sufficiently rich
direct teaching an intense practice have relatively little effect
there's a regular sequence of milestones usually connected with age
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 there is a Critical Period Hypotesis (CPH) there is a specific and limited time for lg.
Acquisition, child has to be exposed to lg. before puberty to develop that skill, UG works
only when triggered at right time. The example are feral children (Genie, Victor), youngsters
with brain damage, development of children with Down's syndrome, also Jim child of deaf
parents who proved that only being exposed to TV is not enough because there is no
interaction or feedback.
1. Behaviorism (connectionism):
- learning is a result of imitation, practice, feedback and success, and habit formation
- children pick up patterns and then generalize them to new contexts
- Classisal conditioning - there is a bond between a stumulus and reponse, near automatic,
involuntary (Pawlov's dog)
STIMULUS RESPONSE
- Operant conditioning developed by Skinner in 1937
STIMULUS RESPONSE REINFORCEMENT (prize or punishment)
HUNGRY BABY CRIES GETS FOOD
- change is relatively permanent as a result of experience
- behaviorists concentrate on visible change
- learning is most effective when broken into a few stimulus-response tasks
B.F.Skinner - Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner
Box.The box had a lever and a food tray, and a hungry rat could get food delivered to the tray
pressing the lever. Skinner observed that when a rat was put in the box, it would wander around,
sniffing and exploring, and would usually press the bar by accident, at which point a food pellet
would drop into the tray. After that happened, the rate of bar pressing would increase dramatically
and remain high until the rat was no longer hungry. He was a firm believer of the idea that human
free will was actually an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that
same action. If the consequences were bad, there was a high chance that the action would not be
repeated; however if the consequences were good, the actions that lead to it would be reinforced. He
called this the principle of reinforcement.

2. Innatism (mentalism):
- 1959 Chomsky
- criticism of behaviorism it is impossible to learn everything by heart only by imitation,
children create new utterance (wug test), they are not constantly corrected
- lg. is human specific
- lg. is innate in human mind, input data trigger the process of lg. acquisition but it is only
possible till the age of puberty (feral children)
- LAD Language Acquisition Device = UG Universal Grammar
- UG is a bluepring that is clear until input and then covered with a lg.
- UG consists of principles (lg. is a structure, a system) and parameters (head first lg. like
English or head last like Japanese)
3. Interactionism:
- against mentalism
- lg. develops by interplay, that is why environment is important (caregivers)
- Lev Vygotsky sociocultural theory (lg. develops from social interaction)
- motherese (caretaker's talk) slow, simple, high pitch, additional clues, gestures,
meaningful words, shor utterances, here-and-not principle, familiar topics, attention getters
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(Hey! Look!), frequent checking of comprehension. Aim of motherese is to teach a lg., to

socialize a child and to aid communication.
4. Cognitivism:
- opposition to behaviorism
- Brunner in 1966- learning is an active process, learner infers principles and tests them,
learning is not sth that happens to us but in us
-pays attention to what happens between Stimulus and Response phase in learner's mind: we
acquire info, transform it and test it.
- basic processes in cognitivism:
sensation first impression
perception interpretation and making sense, pattern recognition, object recognition,
processing and unconcious perception
attention selecting the most important data to remember while ignoring the others
encoding organizing info in the form of schemata (mental framework). Schematas
mean that people do not have to reinterpret the world every time
memory retain and recal info in STM (Short Term Memory, Working Memory) or
LTM (Long Term Memory).
5. Constructivism:
- interested in what a learner does to build and construct knowledge
- cognitive constructionist Jean Piaget, importance of mind in learning
- social constructivism Vygotsky, Badura, interaction between learners, human being in
society
Lev Vygotsky Russian psychologists, founder of holistic theory of human cultural and
biosociological development, known as cultural-historical theory. Vygotsky introduced the notion
of zone of proximal development, an innovative metaphor capable of describing the potential of
human cognitive development. It is a zone in which a child can perform skills with only a little help
of a more experienced person. The zone expands through learning.
Vygotsky studied child development and the significant roles of cultural mediation and
interpersonal communication. He observed how higher mental functions developed through these
interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as
internalization.
Internalization can be understood in one respect as "knowing how". For example, riding a bicycle
or pouring a cup of milk are tools of the society and are initially outside and beyond the child. The
mastery of these skills occurs through the activity of the child within society. A further aspect of
internalization is appropriation, in which the child takes a tool and makes it his own, perhaps using
it in a way unique to himself. Internalizing the use of a pencil allows the child to use it very much
for his own ends rather than drawing exactly what others in society have drawn previously.
Language starts as a tool external to the child used for social interaction. The child guides personal
behavior by using this tool in a kind of self-talk or "thinking out loud." Initially, self-talk is very
much a tool of social interaction. Because speaking has been appropriated and internalized, self-talk
is no longer present around the time the child starts school. Inner speech is not comparable in form
to external speech. External speech is the process of turning thought into words. Inner speech is the
opposite; it is the conversion of speech into inward thought.