Language+3

This will be our final Wiki centered on Language as a way of knowing.

You will need a quiet place to watch this video for an hour. It is a fantastic overview of Language given by psychologist Paul Bloom at Yale University. Consider this your first Ivy League class! :-))) He raises some interesting ideas about pidgins (no, those are not the birds), abstract thought, and the complex nature of linguistic features in all languages as they relate to human beings and thought development. Keep in mind that this is Language through a scientific perspective, so right away there are some ideas and biases that you shouldn't be afraid to challenge. For example, Bloom says that to speak of language in too broad of terms, we prevent ourselves from being able to make specific hypothesis and studies about it. That is, if we consider language to be everything, then it becomes nothing. Is Bloom's perspective too dismissive? Is he ignoring other ideas about language that do not have to do with science?

Watch the video found at the link below, then write a brief (5-10) sentences in which you respond to Bloom's ideas. Feel free to apply the ideas found in the lecture to real world situations or respond to Bloom's examples. It would be great to start seeing you all posting ideas about real-world issues (economic crisis, famine in Somalia, War on Terror, etc.) as they relate to Language. Use the wiki as a way of jump starting new ideas for future TOK presentations and essays--the Wiki is your friend! :)

@http://academicearth.org/lectures/how-do-we-communicate-language

Bryant D. In this video, Bloom states that language is a natural characteristic that all humans share. Although very different, every civilization has its own form of language in which they use to communicate and understand each other. Since it is natural for humans to do this and there are people all over the world, there are a varitey of languages. As humans grow they learn to communicate in some way in order to survive, which is why it is much easier for a child to become familiar with a new language. As children, they quikly learn whatever they are exposed to, hense they learn a language. With that being said, it is self evident that language dirives directly from people as children.

Brenda S: This video provides a deeper understanding of language and the way it can be preceived.Bloom portrays a great ability to make such complex ideas into something more simple and comprehensable.Therefore, I find it exteremely helpful when it comes to understanding language and its basics. His examples also make one reflect on how much language can be misleading and cause serious misinterpretations of ideas/objects. The fact that Bloom presented about how infants begin to develop and distinguish is extremely astonishing. With all the evidence and real world examples that Bloom provided his credibility in inevitable. In addition, i've come to agrre with Bloom and his position on language.

Jane G: Younger children binge more in learning languages, and as we grow older it is harder to learn another language because we are used to speaking our own language with its phonetics and morphology. It makes me wish classes that offer teaching a new language should be provided to us earlier than high school in the least because I am finding it harder to learn Spanish than my brother when he was middle school. In the Philippines, a child starts speaking English fluently in the fifth grade.One of the confusing topics that Bloom brings up is the fact that we do not learn or know how to speak English, but rather we … the way we came to speak language is similar to growing limbs. I believe he is suggesting that language is one of the necessities we need to function efficiently. (Not sure if I listened to that part correctly !!). I also would like to acknowledge Bloom's use of the song "Get Crunk" as an example of censorship of words. At a first impression I would have thought that Bloom would have a bias on his views of obscene words, being that he's a parent, though it is agreeable that replacing crude language with "cleaner" phrases doesn't really affect how offensive it is.

Miguel L: I found this video to be very intriguing. Bloom goes in great depth of language and uses examples that are easy to understand. There are many words/phrases that can easily be misinterpreted as talked about in the example of the two brothers (one being mentally ill) and the officer. This shows how the phrase "let him have it" can be interpreted in two ways. Another example can be when someone says "thats sick!" If you just saw this phrase by itself, you might think it has a negative connotation "bad, horrible, etc." However, if you were at a Monster Jam, and you saw a monster truck jump over ten cars, and the person next to you yells "that's sick!" you can infer that person meant "awesome, spectacular, etc." It is also interesting that we can understand some sentences that we've never heard of and make sense of it because of previous knowledge and the context. Its amazing how babies learn to differ languages by only listening to the rhythm when they're only a few months old and how infants learn an average of 9 words per day! The way that Bloom connects language to songs that we've heard of is brilliant because it shows his understanding of his audience.

Fernando G: I found Bloom's teaching on this to be very interesting! All of the ideas he said, I have to agree on. What Bloom said on syntax reminded me that some languages do not have the same structure, in our case we commonly use noun-verb-noun. Some other languages have different structure, for example, between English and Spanish. Normally in english, an adjective comes before the noun. In spanish, the adjective comes after the noun. For example, in english we would say something like "black shirt." In spanish, we would say "camisa negra" (I love that song, by Juanes >^^<). The part when he was talking about how babies develop language through out the years also reminded me that they basically speak these words from what they have heard from their parents or their surroundings.

Xiomara G: This really is an interesting concept to confront. I love the fact that Bloom uses perception, like sight and sound, to explain generalizations of language even further. Also that he is focusing on the literal meaning of language like English, Spanish and specific languages as such. Although i did not really agree when he said that every "normal" human has language because the definition of normal, I believe is undermining many people. However, it really is amazing how many words humans actually know! Even more astonishing how many words one knows if they are bilingual. Also, his reference to a child only helps me in further understading what he is trying to say. It is also amazing to me how people, as well as babies especially, can differentiate between what their language actually is, and what it is not. Furthermore, Bloom states an amazing sentiment that I must agree with.

Aaron C: What i found most interesting about the lecture was the idea that there are unlimited amount of ways to combine words into sentences. At First I did not really grasp that concept until Bloom connected it with the concept of DNA's ability to make infinite number of genetic makeups from set number of DNA-Bases. Language has limited number of words(morphology) in order to create unlimited amount of sentences.In addition from the ability to make infinite sentences brain also has the capacity to understand sentences and phrases effortlessly without every hearing them before.Another thing that I discovered and agreed after testing was blooms idea that when we know a language we insert pauses between words however in reality they are not there. The other thing that goes along with that is that if you do not know the language it just sounds like different random sounds without pauses. I observe this from Ms. Eddy when she speaks German in class because to me it sound like she is screaming gibberish very fast however to someone that speaks German they can distinguish word and understand effortlessly.

Jesus O: Interesting lecture, I found it rather amusing and it raised questions. I don't find Blooms perspective dismissive, I find it rather true. For example if an individual tries to speak to another individual, with a basic knowledge of language, of language from a scientific perspective and they start throwing in a wide range of terms, then that other individual is kept from being able to make specific hypothesis and studies about it; because he cant understand. Something else I caught from this lesson is that language is made up of phonology (sounds), morphology (words) and syntax (structure of words or rules to make words into phrases), and that language is fundamental for our childhood and our further life in a commute society. For example there has been children that have been raised by the wild, feral children, and its been discovered that they have had a hard time communicating and expressing feelings because they didn’t have exposure to language during childhood, where the fundamental development of knowledge occurs. Another thing I learned from this lecture is that language is worked from the subconscious; we are able to identify and structure word without thinking much about it. Language is just a thing of human nature.

Jason M.: This video was very interesting, I learned many new things about langauge such as how how language is created, how people learn language. one fact that intrigued me was the fact that babies have an easier way to learn language than adults thought they have a less understanding of language. And why they learn language better than adults is that since when the are born they dont know language instead they differ them by the rythmn of the sound, such as the example from Bloom where he explains that people tend to learn french much better and easier then russian because of the sounds. I was also interested when he said that when you know a language your brain knows when the pause is at and when you do not know that language you will just hear continuos blabbering, I think that i can connect to this since when I first started learning english i could not tell the difference in anything people said.

Melissa M: In the video with Bloom lecturing about language he describes how the word language itself is an abstract concept since certain people consider any type of communication a language. The idea of phonetics and how young children perceive these sounds and are able to distinguish languages is astonishing, since there are so many factors that contribute to the basic foundation of any language. Language as a tool used for communication as human beings we yearn for it to such an extent that we will even create our own if we are never exposed to an established formal language. Towards the end of lecture were he spoke of immigrants that come the the United States and learn English as a second language reminded me of many of my family members that came from Mexico and the ones who speak with an accent and those that do not. It is also interesting how although the mind of a young child is not as complex nor sophisticated as that of an adult can intake a language understand it and speak it more fluently than adults.

Francisco M: The lecture by Bloom has really interesting ideas about the theories of how babies learn language, and how people who are younger learn languages easier. I can say that this is true, when I was younger I used to go to school in Mexico but I had an english class compared to my sister who was not exposed to english in school at a young age. We moved to the U.S. and we could see that my sister would struggle more in learning english than me. Like Bloom explained, it does not matter how smart someone is what matters is the exposure, or context. Bloom also talk about the need for people to develop a language that it is an instinct but i think that language is built because of the need of communication. Without language, i could not explain this feeling to anyone.

Vazquez S: This is an incredibly interesting video. It is amazing how Bloom takes complicated subjects, like english and explains it in such simple ways that even 11th graders can understand. His ideas are very conclusive and vivid that relate with everything around us. It makes me notice how in English class we don't really learn how to talk English. Instead we are presented with new knowledge and we decipher it by ourselves. His example of the brothers robbing a bank takes me to wars the US have fought. Through simple connotation of words, a brother killed a cop. Now in Afghanistan, when not all soldiers know the language, they can easily misinterpret a civilian's words and like the brother kill as well.

Daniela G.- I found this podcast very interesting and helpful. I want to be a linguist, so listening to this really opened my mind to theories of linguistics. His use of syntax was easy to understand, but it does not lower his credibility. The simplicity of the topics he mentions make the situations relatable and understandable. He brings up topics that one would not necessarily think of out of the blue. Arbitrary naming was a foreign concept to me, and now I know that it is an ambiguous way to refer to an object and every language uses it. I definitely suggest that every student listen to this, whether they are interested in language and knowledge or not.

Joselyn G: Ms. Eddy :o ! My computer doesn't allow access to download the flash player! It doesn't let me view the video.

Olivia M: This lecture was interesting to listen to because it brought to my attention how inevitable language is. I like how Bloom speaks of how even a child who has no fundamental language starts to develop their own. Particularly when he says,"language allows us to produce a virtual infinity of sentences," it brings forth the boundaries of language, which are nonexistent. He goes on to point out that there are countless sentences that have never been said before in just the English language alone, yet we have the ability to deconstruct everything we hear within a fraction of a second to interpret it. Just that point ability alone is what makes our world so complex. It is our human nature to deconstruct what we hear and see, and language is the bridge between taking those sights and sounds and making sense of them.