PSYC 1200 Structure of Language PDF

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PSYC 1200 Psychology 2 The Structure of Language Language: system of symbols and rules that is used for meaningful communication. - A system of communication has to meet certain criteria in order to be considered a language: o A language uses Symbols which are sounds, gestures, or written characters that represent objects, actions, events, and ideas. o Symbols enable people to refer to objects that are in another place or events that occurred at a different time. o A language is Generative, which means that the symbols of a language can be combined to produce an infinite number of messages. The Building Blocks of Language Language is organized hierarchically, from phonemes to morphemes to phrases and sentences that communicate meaning. Phonemes - Phonemes are the smallest distinguishable units in a language. - many consonants, such as t, p, and m, correspond to single phonemes, - other consonants, such as c and g, can correspond to more than one phoneme. - Vowels typically correspond to more than one phoneme. o EX> o corresponds to different phonemes depending on whether it is pronounced as in bone or woman. Some phonemes correspond to combinations of consonants, such as ch, sh, and th. Morphemes - Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in a language. - only a few single letters, such as I and a, are morphemes. - Morphemes are usually whole words or meaningful parts of words, such as prefixes, suffixes, and word stems. o EX>The word “disliked” has three morphemes: “dis,” “lik,” and “ed.” Syntax - Syntax is a system of rules that governs how words can be meaningfully arranged to form phrases and sentences. o EX> One rule of syntax is that an article such as “the” must come before a noun, not after: “Read the book,” not “Read book the.”

Language Development in Children Children develop language in a set sequence of stages, although sometimes particular skills develop at slightly different ages:    

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Three-month-old infants can distinguish between the phonemes from any language. At around six months, infants begin Babbling, or producing sounds that resemble many different languages. At about thirteen months, children begin to produce simple single words. By about twenty-four months, children begin to combine two or three words to make short sentences. o Telegraphic Speech, like telegrams, contains no articles or prepositions. By about age three years, children can usually use tenses and plurals. Metalinguistic Awareness, or the capacity to think about how language is used. Ambiguous Language - Language may sometimes be used correctly but still have an unclear meaning or multiple meanings....