User:Ju wen Ou

Ju Wen Ou is an undergraduate student at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is currently in her third year of Psychology major degree.

Blog 1: January 10-14, 2011
The lectures of this week were mostly about introduction and history of psycholinguistic, and the connection between brain areas and language. At the beginning of this week, we looked at Kanzi’s (the Bonobo chimp) case in language effect on animal. I am really impress how Kanzi can understand a complex sentence and finish the action of it. Human is one kind of animal, if we use language to communicate with other then how about other animal communicate with their own species. A common skill for them to communicate is gooming, human lost this ability and use language instead. When Dr. Newman mentions the question about “can we think without language”, I start to think about how about the animal, how do they think without language? If chimp have an ability to learn language, is that possible for other kinds of animal to learn and understand language or Kanzi’s case is just an outlier. There still need a lot of research and finding need to be done. Hopefully I will learn more about this in this class.

A little difference between myself and the students in the course is that my first language is not English. The place that I came from have a different culture, language, and people. I really understand that different languages can have many differences in between, such as colour (e.g., only have two words to discribe colour in Heider culture)that we discuss in the lecture. It is really hard for single language speaker to understand that one word in a language might become hard to explain or transfer into other language. If there are blocks among different languages, is that possible to understand the meaning of it or explain it to others?

Blog 2: January 17-21, 2011
The lectures in this week were about different types of language disorder, analysis of scientific literature, and speech perception. We discussed many types of language disorders from speech, reading, and naming. I was really surprise about the genders differences finding which showed genders do not have differences in lateralization. We had been told that women are better language and men are better in math. Even the finding suggested that there is no lateralization difference between genders, but in life behaviour women are better in speech than men. In this lectures we get to learn more about dysfunction in language and the symptoms of each disorder. After this lecture, I start to think about a question of the people with language disorder, even they do not have normal function in speech or producing language, but would they be able to understand other’s language? Such as global type aphasias which they are poor in spontaneous speech, poor in speech comprehension, reading, etc. Most of the symptoms were about their production of language, is that possible for people have language dysfunction have difficulty in understand others but still able to produce some language by themselves?

The second lecture of this week was about scientific literature. After this lecture, I just realise that I had use the wrong way to read a scientific literature. I tried to read a scientific paper after this lecture; I did save more time than I normally did to understand the paper and knowing the main point of it. This tip will help me in my future literature review.

The last lecture of this week was about speech perception. I am really interesting in learning sign language, so this lecture help me to understand more about sign language. I was really impressing that sign language totally different system with speech language but people still able to use sign language to have conversation with each other. I just have a question about if different country have different type of sign language then how can people from different countries communicate with their own sign language?

Blog 3: January 24-28, 2011
This week’s lectures were about speech perception and learning to read. I learned about a really special example in perceptual effect which is the McGurk Effect. The McGurk effect occurs when the visual and auditory of a speech phoneme do not match up. This effect lead us to see the brain functioning of receive the speech phoneme might be disrupted by missing one sensory system. When the speech phoneme is confusing by the sensory system in our brain, our brain usually will pick the sound between known as the example in class: the sound in both cover mouth movement and non-cover mouth movement are the same, mouth is making Ga Ga and without see the mouth movement we hear Ba Ba, but because our brain get confuse so we get the sound between Ga and Ba which is DA (the sound that we think we hear).

The last lecture in this week was about learning to read. My first language is not English, but I never realize that there is difference among different language in reading. After this lecture, I start to think about how did I learn to read English and Chinese. When I first learn to read Chinese I was using some pronunciation symbol which help me to present the sound of the word which I think is similar with learning to read English. The difference is when I remember the sound of the word in Chinese I do not use the pronunciation symbol, instate I will remember the sound of the word. In English, even I need to remember the sound of the word; I can still pronounce most of the word by looking at the English word itself without remembers the sound of it.

Blog 4: February 31, 2011
We only had one lecture this week because of the storm day. The lecture of this week was about morpheme. Morpheme is the smallest unit of a word which has semantic meaning, grammatical structure, and different pronunciations. During class, we talked about difference of morpheme in different type of languages, such as Chinese and English. In Chinese, each morpheme has separate word meaning, but in English, some words need more than one morpheme to form its meaning. This explains a situation which in some languages only needs one or two words to translate a sentence from another language. We also looked at the American Sign Language (ASL). I started to reflect on the following questions in different countries’ sign language; if each language has its own grammar and structure then how would that sign language differ, will the people using a different system of sign language be able to communicate with an ASL user? The professor discussed the rules in language and he presented the class with the example of Stanner’s study (1979). This study used regular and irregular English past tense, and Stanner found that people have faster responding time when the English past tense is regular than the irregular. Stanner’s research was conducted with participants whose first language was English, but I am wondering what if this study was conducted with people whom English was their second language. Some language does not have the same type of grammar as English, such as Chinese. Chinese does not have regular and irregular past tense, so for the Chinese speaker who learns English as their second language, might have different responding time with English speaker. As Chinese is my first language, when I learned the English past tense system, I had to memorize both the regular and irregular past tense words, which is kind of different with English speaker when they learn the English past tense system.

Blog 5: February 7-11, 2011
This week’s lectures were about words recognition and syntax. At the beginning of the week, we looked at the question “what do you know when you know a word?” Each word has different meaning, context, pronunciation, and grammar structure in different culture or situation. But how do we know it is a word? A word might only use in specific culture or situation, such as LOL that for the people do not use internet will not understand what this mean. If this is a case then how do we translate the meaning when the word only exists in specific culture? According to de Saussure (1916), a signifier is represent signs and symbols which refers to sounds pattern of particular things. Each signifier is possible have more than one meaning which refer to Alfred Korzybski’s theory (1879-1950). Korzybski mentioned that “the map is not the territory, the word is not the thing defined” which showed in sign language. If people learn sign language before some sign language will not make sense because it might look very different with the actual action. If this is a case then how does sign language user communicate with normal speaker and to different sign language system user?

Blog 6: Feb 14-18, 2011
The topic that we discussed last week is something I find interesting. The topic was about sentence parsing and individual differences. We discussed many theories and examples such as how language can be understood in very different ways which depends on the way that it was used. We looked at an example sentence that has two type of meaning, which depends on how we look at the sentence. It is really interesting to see how our brain works on this. This type of sentence also happens in different languages such as Mandarin. If different types of language have similar type of sentence parsing, is it possible this will also happen in sign language? Sentences will also become hard to understand or confusing when the verb or noun is not being used right. This happen in most languages that if you do not pick a right word in a sentence, it will become very confusing to others. Such as, “Lily sings the guitar”, which the verb in this sentence does not fit well for the noun. We also discussed syntax in the brain and individual differences. We looked at many different studies which provide the brain area for syntax processing. Most studies showed that Broca’s area and working memory (reading span) is the main part for syntax processing. If individual differences in syntactic complexity are dependent on the size of working memory then this made me wonder about how this relates to blind readers. Do the blind readers use the same area to read and apply syntactic processing?

Blog 7: March 2-4, 2011
The topic that we discussed last week was about the relationship between language and music. Language is very similar to music in many ways. Music has an effect on emotion. This makes me wonder whether exposure to soft music during pregnancy will decrease the chance that infants will become depressed when they get older. we looked at the case in which humans are sensitive to music during their infancy. This makes me wonder whether music will increase infants' ability to learn a language? If this is possible will it also be possible to use music to help adults who have problems with language such as speaking problems or help them improve their language skills by singing or listen music. I watched a movie about an individual who has a stammer. One of the treatments he received was to present his speech by sing it out and when he sang, he did not have the stammering problem. Because language and music share many similar features, will it be possible to help adults who have speaking problems improve their language skills by using music?

Blog 8: March 7-11, 2011
The topic that we discussed last week was about writing. Writing can be very different with speaking and reading. We looked at many different type of writing. The evolution of writing was start from picture writing and pictographs. Some pictographs writing can still see in much language such as Chinese and Japanese. We also looked at sound-based writing (Rebus writing). This is different with the pictographs writing in Chinese. In Chinese, most words were created by the shape of the meaning such as turtle (龜) that was created base on the shape of it. In sound-based writing was base on the sound of the word, such as “I” will present in a picture of “eye” because the sound is similar to “I”. We also looked at the way to makes a good writer. Understanding how to makes a good writer helps us to find out the way to improve our writing skill. We also look at the language which has different way in writing of the same word. In Japanese, there are two type of writing of the same word (Kanji and Kana), the brain active differently between two type of writing. In Chinese, we also have different type of writing of the same word (difficult way and easy way), this make me wondering will it be the same with Japanese that difficult way have stronger active than easy way?

Blog 9: March 14-18, 2011
The topic that we discussed was about the development of language. I was very surprise the development of language skill appear is happen much earlier than what I thought it was. It is kind of hard to think back to when I first learn my native language, but I still have some memory of learning my second language. I remember that I always had hard time to remember the rules for my second language. Many previous studies showed that babies are sensitive to native language sound even when they have not born yet. One of the theory is that increase exposure of the language will increase ability of language rule learn by children. If this true I start to wondering if expose autistic children to their native language more, is that possible to increase the chance that they will develop language?

Blog 10: March 21-25, 2011
The topic that we discussed was about bilingualism. I am really interesting about this topic because I am also bilingualism. I never use to call myself bilingualism because I always think to be a bilingualism you have to use well of your second language as your first language such as speaking, reading, and writing. Even I know can do all of that by using my second language, but I never think my second language is not good enough to call myself a bilingualism. After this class, I truly understand the real definition of bilingualism. By learning bilingualism and to understand the development of bilingualism on children help me to learn more about myself. I get to see the benefit and disadvantage of being bilingualism. It is interesting to see the children with bilingualism, because their brain can turn so quickly to understand a totally different language in a same time. It is hard to think back to myself, but it will be easier to see on other people. There are always arguments about the benefit and disadvantage about being bilingualism, such as delay of first word in children. If this will be true, I just wondering will this relate to grammar or rule mistake in later life. I always have hard time to use grammar well in my writing, is that possible because my brain have a conflict of two different type of grammar?

We had a guest speaker on the last lecture of this week, her topic was about aphasia. I had learn this name before and I understand what is that mean, but I never get to look at the really case. It is really interesting to see the difference between fluent and non-fluent aphasia. The video of the patient help me to learn more about each type and their difficulties. It was great to hear that the patient in the video got better after the treatment. I start to wonder is that possible for them to get most of the skill back or they can only heal in some level

Blog 11: March 28 to April 1, 2011
Last week’s lectures were focusing on the debate between the For group and the Against group. It was interested to watch the debates. In the debates, I saw many different thought and information within two groups. The debates helped me to think more deeply on the topic. One of the debate topics from last week was Ebonics. In this debate, both groups presented their points of view very effectively, however the against group provided stronger and more advertences on their point than the for group. It was really interested to see this topic (Ebonics). I start to compare this topic to my native language. There are many types of speaking ways in Chinese such as: Cantonese, Sichuan dialect, Mandarin, and etc. Most of the Chinese speakers use the same type of write system (either in harder written way or easier written way). My native language is Mandarin and I also have a section native language (Taiwanese). Even most of the Chinese speakers use the same write system, but the speaking ways can be very different in accent or using words. By looking at Ebonics’ topic, I start to wondering is this topic similar to our language? In my country, we have specific class for learning the second native language (Taiwanese). I start to wonder if this will work in my country, will it be possible for school in American to add Ebonics as an electrical class for students. Even Ebonics was first created from English, but it has become an identical language.