Psychology2016

Cognition: Thinking, Intelligence, and Language 299

SYNTAX Syntax is a system of rules for combining words and phrases to form gram-
matically correct sentences. Syntax is quite important, as just a simple mix-up can cause
sentences to be completely misunderstood. For example, “John kidnapped the boy” has
a different meaning from “John, the kidnapped boy,” although all four words are the
same (Lasnik, 1990). Another example of the importance of syntax can be found in the
lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a monastery: “You are welcome to visit the cem-
etery where famous composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.”
So if people want to watch famous composers, artists, and writers being buried, they
should not go to this monastery on Thursday.

SEMANTICS Semantics are rules for determining the meaning of words and sen-
tences. Sentences, for example, can have the same semantic meaning while having dif-
ferent syntax: “Johnny hit the ball” and “the ball was hit by Johnny.”

PRAGMATICS The pragmatics of language has to do with the practical aspects of com-
municating with others, or the social “niceties” of language. Simply put, pragmatics
involves knowing things like how to take turns in a conversation, the use of gestures
to emphasize a point or indicate a need for more information, and the different ways in
which one speaks to different people (Yule, 1996). For example, adults speak to small
children differently than they do to other adults by using simpler words. Both adults
and children use higher-pitched voices and many repeated phrases when talking to
infants; such child-directed speech plays an important role in the development of
language in children. Part of the pragmatics of language includes knowing just what
rhythm and emphasis to use when communicating with others, called intonation. When
speaking to infants, adults and children are changing the inflection when they use the
higher pitch and stress certain words differently than others. Some languages, such
as Japanese, are highly sensitive to intonation, meaning that changing the stress or
pitch of certain words or syllables of a particular word can change its meaning entirely
(Beckman & Pierrehumbert, 1986). For example, the Japanese name Yoshiko should be
pronounced with the accent or stress on the first syllable: YO-she-koh. This pronuncia-
tion of the name means “woman-child.” But if the stress is placed on the second sylla-
ble (yo-SHE-ko), the name means “woman who urinates.”

Development of Language

7.12 Explain how language develops.

The development of language is a very important milestone in the cognitive development
of a child because language allows children to think in words rather than just images, to
ask questions, to communicate their needs and wants to others, and to form concepts
(L. Bloom, 1974; P. Bloom, 2000).
Language development in infancy is influenced by the language they hear, a style of
speaking known as child-directed speech (the way adults and older children talk to infants
and very young children, with higher-pitched, repetitious, sing-song speech patterns).
Infants and toddlers attend more closely to this kind of speech, which creates a learning
opportunity in the dialogue between caregiver and infant (Dominey & Dodane, 2004;
Fernald, 1984, 1992; Küntay & Slobin, 2002). Other researchers are looking at the infant’s
use of gestures and signs (Behne et al., 2005; Lizskowski et al., 2006; Moll & Tomasello,
2007; Tomasello et al., 2007). Infants also seem to understand far more than they can pro-
duce, a phenomenon known as the receptive-productive lag (Stevenson et al., 1988). They
may be able to only produce one or two words, but they understand much longer sen-
tences from their parents and others.
There are several stages of language development that all children experience, no
matter what culture they live in or what language they will learn to speak (Brown, 1973),
as shown in Table 7.4.

Pragmatics involves the practical aspects

of communicating. This young mother is

talking and then pausing for the infant’s

response. In this way, the infant is learning

about taking turns, an important aspect

of language development. What kinds of

games do adults play with infants that also

aid the development of language?

pragmatics

aspects of language involving the

practical ways of communicating

with others, or the social “niceties”

of language.

semantics

the rules for determining the meaning

of words and sentences.

syntax

the system of rules for combining

words and phrases to form grammati-

cally correct sentences.