Study Questions and Exercises

1. Language Acquisition: Discuss the following questions: 
1. How do children learn language? Support your argument with specific examples. What are the major stages of language acquisition? 
2. What do errors such as "I goed to the store" reveal about children's understanding of language? 
3. Explain the "innateness hypothesis." What evidence supports this hypothesis? 
4. What is "universal grammar"? What evidence do we have that it exists? 
2. Dyslexia: Read this article about dyslexia.  Be sure to visit and read several of the links within the article. What is dyslexia? How are experts trying to help dyslexics learn to read?
3. Brain Physiology and Language: Discuss the following questions: 
1. How are cognitive functions organized in the human brain? How do we know? 
2. What do patterns in speech errors reveal about the way the human brain processes language? 
3. Consider the following scenario: In shopping for an electrician to do some wiring in your home, you talk to two. One articulately explains the work that needs to be done, while the other fumbles for words and misspells "Thursday" on the estimate he writes for you. Would you make a decision based on this information? Use what you have learned about localization to come up with a response to each one. Would you have reacted differently before you studied localization? 
4. Language Processing: Listen to the following sentence and try to transcribe it as I speak: "The manager of the plants say they will remain open only if there is sufficient demand for the products they manufacture." Compare your transcriptions with the original and with one another's transcriptions. What do your errors reveal about the process of understanding speech and perhaps about your own idiolect? 
5. Language Between the Sexes: Using what you have learned from the article by Deborah Tannen, write a dialogue for each of the following scenarios: 
1. A woman feels that she received an unfair grade from her female teacher, and she discusses the matter with her boyfriend. 
2. After the argument that ensues in the above scenario, the boyfriend discusses this new problem with his male roommate. 
3. The boyfriend discusses his girlfriend's grade with her teacher. 
4. The teacher becomes upset about her conversation with the boyfriend and discusses the matter with her female colleague. 
6. Idiolects: What linguistic features did Donald Foster use to identify the author of Primary Colors? Do you agree with Foster's conclusion? Now read these passages. Two were written by the same person. Which ones are they? Defend your answer by referring to patterns in lexicon and syntax. Try to identify this author further. Is the writer male or female? What is his or her race? When did he or she live? Again, defend your answer. This author is well-known. Try to name him or her. 
7. Check the Grammar Checker : Bring a disk containing a paper your have written. Run the grammar checker on the paper and make note of the changes that it suggests. Try to determine how this computer program analyzes language. Is it ever wrong? If so, explain the reason for the mistake. 

Bibliography

• Crystal, David. "Learning About English." The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 424-435.

Terms

• cortex 
• corpus callosum 
• localization 
• phrenology 
• lateralization 
• Paul Broca 
• aphasia 
• Broca's area 
• Wernicke's area 
• anomia 
• Specific Language Impairment 
• overgeneralization 
• innateness hypothesis 
• Universal Grammar 
• critical-age hypothesis 
• spelling pronunciation 
• dyslexia