- Info
LING115 From Sound to Meaning: Hearing, Speech and Language-OPEN University
 -
|
Open University
SD226_2 12 Hours
Intermediate
|
Course Description
This unit looks at how language is understood,
which includes hearing and how sounds and words are interpreted by the
brain. It takes an interdisciplinary
approach and should be of wide general interest.
By the end of this unit you
should be able to:
- recognise definitions and
applications of each of the terms printed in bold in the text;
- understand and apply basic grammatical terminology;
- describe briefly the different types of sounds used in
speech in both acoustic and articulatory terms;
- outline the key features of human language as compared
to the vocalisations of other species;
- describe
the complex psychological processes involved in decoding even simple
sentences of spoken language;
- describe briefly
how auditory information is converted into brain activity by the human
ear;
- describe different types of language
impairment caused by brain damage, and relate these to the way language
is processed in the intact brain;
- explain the
different sources of evidence used by researchers in trying to
understand how language is processed in the brain;
- describe the probable stages in the decoding of a
sentence of spoken language in the cortex of the brain.
| |
Introduction
 Introduction
Resource- This unit looks at how language is
understood, which includes hearing and how sounds and words are
interpreted by the brain. It takes an interdisciplinary
approach and should be of wide general interest....
|
|
|
| |
1 Overview
- 1 Overview
Resource
- As you walk down the street one
day, you hear a voice from somewhere behind you that seems to be
discussing this unit. It says:
|
|
|
| |
2 The brain's task: the structure of language
- 2.1 Preliminaries Resource
- To talk about how human language
works, we need to establish the meaning of some key terms. The study of
language and languages is called linguistics, and linguistics relates
closely to biological psychology,...
- 2.2 Generativity and duality of
patterning Resource
- Let us now reconsider the sentence
you heard in the imaginary scenario at the beginning of this unit. Here
it is again.
- 2.3 From ear to phoneme: the
phonological problem Resource
- The phonological problem is the
problem of knowing which units (words, calls) are being uttered. The
speech signal is a pattern of sound, and sound consists of patterns of
minute vibrations in the air....
- 2.4 From phoneme to meaning: the
semantic problem Resource
- For a vervet monkey, once an alarm
call has been assigned to the correct phonological class – leopard,
snake or eagle – then the task is straightforward indeed. Each of these
sound patterns is connected...
- 2.5 From phoneme to sentence
structure: the syntactic problem Resource
- In the vervet monkey system, calls
stand by themselves. Thus there is no syntax. Syntax can be thought of
as working like road traffic rules do. It doesn't much matter which side
of the road you drive...
- 2.6 Summary of Section 2 Resource
- Human language is a complex
communication system that allows the generation of infinitely many
different messages by combining the basic sounds (phonemes) into words,
and combining the words into larger...
|
|
|
| |
3 The brain's solution: the machinery of
language
- 3.1 Speech perception Resource
- Now that we have examined the
processes involved in understanding a sentence in some detail, we will
turn to the issue of how the brain achieves the task. We will begin with
the initial capture and analysis...
- 3.2 The anatomy of the language
system Resource
- Perhaps the best-known
generalisation about the language system is that it is represented on
one side of the brain – usually the left – more than the other. Many
lines of evidence support this view. Specific...
- 3.3 Specialisation within language
areas: aphasia Resource
- Aphasia is caused by localised
brain damage, for example due to a stroke or an automobile accident.
General intellectual functioning is not necessarily impaired, as the
person can still perform non-linguistic...
- 3.4 Specialisation within language
areas: brain scanning Resource
- Is there any evidence from the
undamaged brain that the view derived from aphasia is indeed correct?
The most useful methodologies here use either PET or functional MRI
(fMRI) scanning to establish which...
- 3.5 Electrophysiological studies of
language processing Resource
- Brain imaging and aphasic studies
helped us localise the subparts of language processing within the brain.
However, they have shed little light on how processing unfolds in real
time. This is because contemporary...
- 3.6 Summary of Section 3 Resource
- Sound waves received by the ear
are turned into neural activity by a complex mechanism involving the
eardrum, the bones in the middle ear, and the hair cells within the
cochlea. The auditory nerve carries...
|
|
|
| |
4 Conclusions
- 4 Conclusions Resource
- Read back over Section 3. Make two
columns on a piece of paper, one headed ‘finding’ and one headed
‘evidence’. Make a list of key findings we have established about the
processing of language in the brain....
|
|
|
| |
5 Questions and answers
- 5 Questions and answers Resource
- Define each of the following:
grammar, phonology, syntax, semantics, noun, verb, subject, object.
|
|
|
| |
References and Acknowledgements
|
There are currently no items in this folder.
Copyright 2007,
by the Contributing Authors.
Cite/attribute Resource.
administrator. (2010, January 28). LING115 From Sound to Meaning: Hearing, Speech and Language-OPEN University. Retrieved September 04, 2010, from Free University Courses OCW Courses OpenCourseWare Freeversity Foundation Web site: http://www.freeversity.org/liberal-arts-1/linguistics/ling115-from-sound-to-meaning-hearing-speech-and-language-open-university.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License
|
