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LANGUAGE
VERBAL AND NONVERBAL
LANGUAGE
Human interaction and communication involve both
verbal and nonverbal language.
Verbal language is what is being spoken. Language
is primarily oral.
Nonverbal language is communication in ways other
than spoken words such as: facial expressions, hand
movements, eye contact, the manner in which one sits,
or how close someone stands to you. Any aspect of a
one’s presence that conveys ideas or information
without being spoken is nonverbal communication. Non
verbal communication is often used in conjunction with
oral language.

Every language ,including primitive languages and sign languages, has
Grammar: rules to form sentences.
• Prescriptive Grammar: the appropriateness of sentences
• Descriptive Grammar: how people actually speak.
• Universal Grammar: principles of language that are shared by
every human language.
Onomatopoeic Words
The relationship between an object and its word is arbitrary (selected at
random).
Some words seem to represent what they sound. Such words are
called onomatopoeic words.
Onomatopoeic words are language specific. Different languages,
such as Japanese and Chinese, use different words to refer to the
same sound. Onomatopoeic words describe a sound or action
directly.
Boo-hoo
Choo-choo
Bow-wow
Chow-chow
Language is creative in that words can be used to create an infinite
number of sentences.
We can produce and understand sentences that we have never heard
before.
Every human infant is born with the capacity to acquire a language.
What is the difference between ORAL and SIGN
languages?
• Oral languages are spoken and heard, i.e. oral communication.
• Sign languages use gestures/signs and sight, i.e. visual
communication.
• Sign languages have a different system of communication from oral
languages but conform to the universal grammar: things that are
common to all human languages.
• Sign languages are not derived from oral languages.
Linguistics is a scientific study of Language
• Language is a means of communication - linguistic communication
• Communication involves at least two persons. Linguistic
communication involves social interaction.
Sociolinguistics
• the study of the social aspect of language.
• Language is used to express ideas, concepts, etc. These are things
that are processed in our mind. Psychology is the study of the mind.
Psycholinguistics
• The study of the psychological aspect of language: the
relationship between language and the mind.
• It includes:
– First Language Acquisition: how children acquire their
first language.
– Second Language Acquisition: how children/adults
acquire a second language.
– Language Processing: how language is used to code
and decode ideas, concepts, etc. How we produce
and understand language.
• The mind is presumably in our brains. Language is
processed in our brains.
Neurolinguistics
• Neurophysiologic research on the basis of language is possibly the
oldest field in cognitive neuroscience.
• Broca and Wernicke were credited with the first great breakthroughs
in the understanding of the brain with their studies of language
disorders. Specifically, it appeared that the Broca’s area was
responsible for grammar and the Wernicke’s for making semantic
sense. We now know that these two areas of the brain play a role in
language use and that particular areas of the brain fulfill narrow
linguistic functions.
• The study of the function of the brain in language processing.
• Computers have been used by many disciplines for research.
Computational Linguistics
 the study of language using computers.
 Computational linguistics is a sub-field of a larger study of Artificial
Intelligence.
 Computational Linguistics deals with natural language processing,
speech recognition, and speech synthesis.
Descriptive Linguistics
• Describe the form and functions of language
• Language is a system; it has a structure. Any structure consists of
components ordered linearly (precedence relations) and
hierarchically (dominance relations).
• The components of language are arranged from the smallest to the
largest.
Function of Language
• Semantics: literal meaning.
• Pragmatics: intended meaning or how sentences are used.
Forms of Language
• Articulator Phonetics: the study of how speech sounds are
articulated
• Acoustic Phonetics: the study of the 'physics" of speech sounds.
• Phonology: the study of the systems of speech sounds.
– Phonemes: the smallest acoustic units of language. There are
over 200 possible phonemes in every language. Between 40 and
46 phoneme dialects are used by the English language.
However, other languages range from 14 to 140 phonemes.
– Spoken speech can be followed as fast as 30 phonemes per
second or 400 words per minute.
Forms of Language
• Morphology: the study of the form and structure of morphemes.
– Morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit of language.
• i.e., prefixes and suffixes like un-, dis-, -ness, or –ful
• Lexicon: a list of morphemes known by any one person.
• Syntax: the structure of sentences.
– Words put together into a sentence that give the sentence
meaning
STUTTERING AND OTHER SPEAKING
DIFFICULTIES
Stuttering & other speaking difficulties like so many
other human behavioral disorders, represent a poorlyunderstood mix of psychological, social, neurological,
and linguistic factors.
Why English Is Difficult To
Learn…………
We take English for granted. English was invented by people, not
computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race. Take a
look at some of the following paradoxes:
• The farm was used to produce produce.
• He could lead if he would get the lead out.
• The buck does funny things when the does are present.
• After a number of injections my jaw got number.
• The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
• A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
• To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
• There is no egg in eggplant. There is no ham in hamburger. You fill
in a form by filling it out. Your house burns up as it burns down.
Language Acquisition
The following web sight is a source for an in-depth look at language
acquisition by Steven Pinker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Pa
pers/Py104/pinker.langacq.html