User:Efesseha

= Short Bio = I am a 4th year psychology major at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I can't really say I know a lot about psycholinguistics, but a friend of mine took PSYO 3190 at Dal as well and found it to be a very fun class, so I'm hoping I find as much interest in it as she did!

= Blog Posts =

Blog 1: Week ending January 17, 2011
The first week of classes was all about getting acquainted with all things language. Various theories were covered, including the Associationist School, which I found myself most interested in. Within this school was the practice of phrenology, a method of studying that brain used the bumps on the human head to determine the localized areas that the brain was once thought to be made up of. Another theory that has always peaked my interests is that proposed by B. F. Skinner. I have always thought that Skinner and his behaviourist models were a bit against the grain. To me, thinking that everything, including language is learned through conditioning is a bit close-minded. This leads me to lean more towards the ideas/criticisms of Noam Chomsky. I find myself strongly interested in Chomsky's nativism theory. Being a Canadian born child of two immigrants, this theory makes the most sense to me. If language was only learned through conditioning, then my ability to speak/ understand the native language of my parents home wouldn't make much sense because there was no conditioning in my childhood that would lead me to learn this other language. This leads me to believe that there is some extraneous factor that helped me learn their language.

Another topic that peaked my interests was that surrounding Kanzi the Bonobo chimp. Kanzi is a chimp, studied by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, who has exhibited extremely impressive linguistic ability. Kanzi was taught through the use of lexigrams, and can hear spoken words and understand what is being said. Being an animal lover, I found my self greatly interested in the idea that an animal could learn a language. I have two pets at home and to think that there is some chance they could learn a language is very cool. All in all, the first week of classes went well. I am pretty optimistic with the level of interest I find myself having for the material in this course!