Psy 360
Language and Cognition
Bridget Subia
Psy 360
Language and Cognition
Language is very complex and the manner at which humans learn language is even more complex. Language is more than just words and with words there are also definitions this paper will explain what language and lexicon is. Language is connected to cognitive functions in so many ways that this is better explained throughout the paper. There are key features in language that is developed during childhood and continues to grow as children get bigger. Language has a structure and processing through four levels. These levels better help humans understand language and communicate to one another. The connections in language processing and cognitive psychology are better understood later on in this paper. First to start off with a better understanding of what language and lexicon is.
When a duck quacks, a dog barks, a horse neighs, and a cow moos everyone knows that they are communicating, these sounds do not however make up language. According to (Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged) language is an “audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs”. Language and communication is structured, to communicate there must be arbitrary, considered generative and dynamic. Animal sounds are audible they are produced by an action of vocal organs but they are not structured. An animal’s noise is composed of a single sound. In addition to the human cognitive functions and language assimilation, is how the brain has a mental dictionary that holds all of symbols of words. According to (Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged) lexicon is “a book containing an alphabetical or other systematic arrangement of the words in a language or of a considerable number of them and their definitions”. Lexicon’s record accumulated spelling and pronunciation; humans also recognize words by evaluating what he or she has
Bridget Subia
Psy 360
Language and Cognition
Language is very complex and the manner at which humans learn language is even more complex. Language is more than just words and with words there are also definitions this paper will explain what language and lexicon is. Language is connected to cognitive functions in so many ways that this is better explained throughout the paper. There are key features in language that is developed during childhood and continues to grow as children get bigger. Language has a structure and processing through four levels. These levels better help humans understand language and communicate to one another. The connections in language processing and cognitive psychology are better understood later on in this paper. First to start off with a better understanding of what language and lexicon is.
When a duck quacks, a dog barks, a horse neighs, and a cow moos everyone knows that they are communicating, these sounds do not however make up language. According to (Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged) language is an “audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs”. Language and communication is structured, to communicate there must be arbitrary, considered generative and dynamic. Animal sounds are audible they are produced by an action of vocal organs but they are not structured. An animal’s noise is composed of a single sound. In addition to the human cognitive functions and language assimilation, is how the brain has a mental dictionary that holds all of symbols of words. According to (Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged) lexicon is “a book containing an alphabetical or other systematic arrangement of the words in a language or of a considerable number of them and their definitions”. Lexicon’s record accumulated spelling and pronunciation; humans also recognize words by evaluating what he or she has
References: CALDWELL-HARRIS, C. (2008). Language research needs an "emotion revolution" and distributed models of the lexicon Chrysikou, E. G., Novick, J. M., Trueswell, J. C., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2011). The Other Side of Cognitive Control: Can a Lack of Cognitive Control Benefit Language and Cognition? Evans, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science Hollich, G. (2006). Combining techniques to reveal emergent effects in infants segmentation, word learning, and grammar [Accessed June 18, 2012]. Willingham, D.T. (2007). Cognitions: The thinking animal (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.