Psych/Ling 347 Reading List

Readings for Psych/Ling 347 Autumn 2008

Note: This page will change throughout the quarter; please keep checking it!

9/24 Introduction to Psychology of Language

Pinker, Chapter 1

Definition of instinct from Wikipedia

Language and National Identities (Georgia)

Language and National Identities (French Academy)

9/26 Origins of human language; language change

Pinker, Chapter8, pp 248-264

Halliday, M. A. K. (1989). Spoken and Written Language. New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 1: Development of speech (pp. 1-11).

Blater, M. (2001). First gene linked to speech identified. Science, 294, #5540.

Blater, M. (2002). “Speech gene” tied to modern humans. Science, 297, #5584.

New Addition: Lucy visits Seattle (nice explanation of who she is and her significance)

9/29 Origins of writing

Halliday, M. A. K. (1989). Spoken and Written Language. New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 2: Writing Systems (pp. 12-28).

Is Google making us stupid?   Click here for extra credit assignment based on this article

Useful sites for additional information:

Omniglot.com – a great site!

            http://www.omniglot.com/writing/definition.htm

Wikipedia: Writing systems

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system

10/1 Physics and physiology of speech

Pinker, Chapter 6, pp. 153-165

Sundberg, J. (1991). The acoustics of the singing voice. In W. Wang (Ed.), The emergence of language: Development and evolution. New York: W. H. Freeman. (pp. 104-116).

10/06 Phonetics and phonology

Pinker, Chapter 6, pp. 165-178

Yule, G. (1996). The study of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 5-6.

10/08 Speech perception

Pinker, Chapter 6, pp. 178-189

Identifying dialects across the USA

10/10 Speech production

Dell, G. (1995). Speaking and misspeaking. In An Invitation to Cognitive Science: Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

New York Times article: "Traffic jams in brain networks may result in verbal stumbles"

Click here for extra credit assignment involving speech errors

10/13 Words: morphemes and morphology

Pinker, Chapter 5

Field, J. (2003). Psycholinguistics: A research book for students. (Section A, “Words”, pp. 10-21). London: Routledge.

10/15 Word processing

Pinker, Chapter 9, pp 209-210

10/17 Word processing

10/20 EXAM 1

10/22 Sentences: syntax

Pinker, Chapter 4

Yule, G. (1996). The study of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 7-10.

10/24 Sentence processing

Pinker, Chapter 7

10/27 Sentence processing

Pinker, Chapter 7

10/29 Semantics and discourse

Yule, G (1996) -- Semantics, Chapter 11

10/31 Language development

Pinker, Chapter 9

Saffran, J. R. (2003) Statistical language learning. Current Directions in Psychological Research.

Extra Credit Assignment #3

11/3 Language development

Pinker, Chapter 9

11/5 Language and Brain: language disorders

Pinker, Chapter 10, 302-330

Ashcraft, M. (1993). A personal case history of transient anomia. Brain and Language, 44, 47-57.

Kolb, B., & Whishaw, I.Q. (1996). Disorders of Language. In Fundamentals of Neuropsychology, pp.405-412. New York: Freeman.

11/7 Language and Brain: language disorders

11/10 Language and Brain: language disorders

11/12 EXAM 2

11/14 Animal communication

NY Times article: "Chimp talk debate: Is it really language?"

Vervet Monkey alarm calls: cool audiovisual stuff

            http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/media/vervetcalls.html

Honey bees and the bee dance

            http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/ic/dance/dance.html

White-crowned sparrow “sequence learning” experiment by Gary Rose:

            University of Utah Text report: http://www.utah.edu/unews/releases/04/dec/birdsong.html

            NPR Audio Report: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4209322

Extra-credit Assignment #4

11/17 Animal communication

11/19 Language and gesture

Gesturing while speaking

Homesign: A gestural language invented by deaf children

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/05/deaf.html

Video of Nicuraguan sign language (4 minnutes)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/2/quicktime/l_072_04.html

11/21 Origins revisited

Pinker, Chapter 10, pp 330-339

Bickerton, D. (1991). Creole language. In W. Wang (Ed.), The emergence of language: Development and evolution. New York: W. H. Freeman (pp. 59-69).

NY Times article: “Deaf children’s ad hoc language evolves and instructs”