Language Theories of Early Stages of Language Acquisition: Vocabulary burst is when children’s vocabularies expand at a rapid pace Nativist Theory is the most well-known theory about language acquisition which suggests that we are born with something in our genes that allows us to learn language (Chomsky is associated with this and believed that there was some sort of learning acquisition device present in humans) Aphasia has to do with damage to the left hemisphere that causes problems with language (Wernicke’s or Broca’s) Learning Theory of language acquisition suggests that children learn a language much like they learn to tie their shoes or how to count; through repetition and reinforcement (aren’t born with some innate ability) Interactionist Approach of language acquisition combines the ideas from sociology and biology, stating that children learn language out of a desire to communicate with the world around them, meaning that the environment you grow up in will heavily affect how well and how quickly you learn to talk (if you don’t wanna communicate with those around you, you likely won’t learn to talk as easily) → Vygotsky was a big proponent of this school of thought because he was a big proponent of the importance of social interaction in the development of children Language & the Brain: Aphasia & Split-Brain Patients: Broca’s area helps us actually speak (left hemisphere, frontal lobe) and Wernicke’s area helps us understand language (left hemisphere, temporal lobe) Global aphasia occurs when both broca’s and wernicke’s aphasia are present Arcuate fasciculus is a bundle of nerve fibers connecting wernicke’s and broca’s area Graphia is the inability to write Anomia is the inability to name things Split brain has to do with issues in the corpus callosum leading to a lack of information flow between the two hemispheres Theories of Language & Cognition: Universalism states that thoughts come before language (i.e. your thoughts dictate the language that develops, so those with languages that don’t have certain words, don’t really think about those) Piaget describes that thought (cognitive development) influences language Vgotsky describes that thought and language are independent and are learned at the same time Linguistic Determinisms in the weak version states that language influences thought (makes it easier or more common for us to think in certain ways) while strong version states that language determines thought completely (AKA Whorfian) Extra Notes: Syntax refers to the way words are placed together to form language Lexicon is the entire set of morphemes (smallest significant unit of a meaning of a word) Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound ina language Linguistic Relativity states that there are significant linguistic differences between cultures Transformational grammar refers to the different ways that words can be arranged to convey the same information Lexical access refers to the identifying a word and connecting to its meaning, which has been stored in long-term memory