language Paper
Language Paper
Miquavian Tate
PSY/360
October 9, 2014
Anne Watts
Language Paper Language is an important mechanism used in most individual’s everyday life. It helps define their culture, their backgrounds, who they are and where their place in the world is. Most of us don’t put a lot of thought into what mental processes work together to allow an individual to express his thoughts and ideas through language, but it is impossible to analyze the language development process without factoring in the important role that cognition plays in that event. This essay intends to present different hypothesis that try to explain how cognition and language are related, and how deeply connected they must be in order to allow the proper functioning and interaction of individuals in society. As thinkers try to understand if people that come from different backgrounds and speak different languages also think differently, or if there is a point of development that an individual has to reach of development from cognition required to acquire the language skills needed. The debate between psychologist about the relationship between language and cognition is one that is certain to be continues for ages to come (Harris, n.d.) . Language can be defined as the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication. This system allows individuals to express and communicate thoughts and feelings by using speech sounds and written symbols. The scientific study of language is linguistics. There are four key features of language, which are phonemes, words, sentences and text. Phonemes-phonetics can be considered the most important key feature of languages, because this aspect is what makes each language different from one another. Phonemes are sounds usually indicated by slash symbols, and these sounds cannot be broken into smaller sounds. Phonetics studies the physical properties of those speech sounds, and what they mean. Words, the second key feature in
Miquavian Tate
PSY/360
October 9, 2014
Anne Watts
Language Paper Language is an important mechanism used in most individual’s everyday life. It helps define their culture, their backgrounds, who they are and where their place in the world is. Most of us don’t put a lot of thought into what mental processes work together to allow an individual to express his thoughts and ideas through language, but it is impossible to analyze the language development process without factoring in the important role that cognition plays in that event. This essay intends to present different hypothesis that try to explain how cognition and language are related, and how deeply connected they must be in order to allow the proper functioning and interaction of individuals in society. As thinkers try to understand if people that come from different backgrounds and speak different languages also think differently, or if there is a point of development that an individual has to reach of development from cognition required to acquire the language skills needed. The debate between psychologist about the relationship between language and cognition is one that is certain to be continues for ages to come (Harris, n.d.) . Language can be defined as the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication. This system allows individuals to express and communicate thoughts and feelings by using speech sounds and written symbols. The scientific study of language is linguistics. There are four key features of language, which are phonemes, words, sentences and text. Phonemes-phonetics can be considered the most important key feature of languages, because this aspect is what makes each language different from one another. Phonemes are sounds usually indicated by slash symbols, and these sounds cannot be broken into smaller sounds. Phonetics studies the physical properties of those speech sounds, and what they mean. Words, the second key feature in
References: Carruthers, P. (2012). Language in cognition. Retrieved from http://faculty.philosophy.umd.edu/pcarruthers/Language%20in%20cognition.pdf Harris, C. L. (n.d.). Language and cognition. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/psych/charris/papers/Encyclopedia.pdf Leonid Perlovsky, “Language and Cognition Interaction Neural Mechanisms,” Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, vol. 2011, Article ID 454587, 13 pages, 2011.