4- Language Flashcards
Why does language have a fundamental basis in cognitive psychology?
It underpins everything we do and informs everything else
What is linguistics?
The scientific study of language and its structure
What does studying linguistics include?
Grammar, syntax and phonetics
What is psycholinguistics?
The scientific study of the psychological reality of language use
What are the 4 main aspects of studying psycholinguistics?
Language acquisition, use of language, language comprehension, psychological mechanisms used to process and represent language in the mind
What are psycholinguistics concerned with?
Psychomechanisms that underlie language
What is language?
Human systems of communication and personal expressions
What is language built upon?
Symbols or representations
What is the purpose of representations?
Words that ‘stand in’ for the things they are intended to represent
What do representations in language cause us to create?
Internal, mental representations of words
What three key principles characterise human language?
Generativity, recursion and displacement
What does generativity allow?
A speaker to use a small number of words/grammatical structures to compose an infinite number of sentences and new ideas
What can we do with generativity?
Use a small number of words/grammatical structures to compose an infinite number of sentences and new ideas
How does generativity allow every person to uniquely express thoughts in own way?
We can create entirely new ideas from a unique arrangement of words with generativity
How many sentences can we create with generativity?
Infinite
How does generativity influence us conveying the same idea?
We can say the same idea while using different words, just not as well
What does recursion mean?
Any sentences can be extended indefinitely by embedding clauses or phrases within or following it
How can recursion make any sentence go on forever?
It can make any sentence more and more complex
How can we extend any sentence indefinitely in recursion?
By embedding clauses or phrases within or following it
What are the 4 key aspects of language?
Phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
What is phonology?
The study of human sounds- fundamental sounds that make up spoken language
What is a phoneme?
The most basic auditory unit of spoken natural language
Why is phonology critical?
To understand language
What do people who study phonemes do to break language down?
They break phonemes down into the shape your mouth makes/where in your mouth the sound comes from
How do babies learn phonemes?
Really well
Can newborn babies recognise phonemes?
Yes, they can recognise phonemes they’ve heard before vs phonemes in a foreign language
How was it found out that babies can distinguish between phonemes in different languages?
Babies sucked dummies harder when listening to a foreign language
What did investigating babies sucking rates in relation to phonemes suggest?
That babies listen to speech in the womb and are learning about it
Who are best at phonemic discrimination?
Children
Why can infants no longer distinguish between non-native language distinctions by 12 months?
As a function of specific language experience with their own language- a reorganisation of perception
What are semantics?
The meaning of words, phrases and utterances
What two meanings are associated with semantics?
Conceptual meaning and associative meaning
What is the conceptual meaning?
A word’s linguistic function
What is the associative function?
Concepts relating to other words
What are two issues with semantics?
Homonyms and polysemy
What are homonyms?
Semantically ambiguous words where orthographic and phonological information overlap but semantic information does not
Why are homonyms confusing?
They are words that look exactly the same but share no conceptual meaning
What is polysemy?
Semantically ambiguous words that have different but similar functions
How are words with polysemy similar and how are they different?
They have related conceptual meanings but different functions
What are the two ways of studying semantics?
Semantic association task and a lexical decision task
What happens in a semantic association task?
Participants classifies stimuli based on meaning
What is the purpose of a semantic association task?
Detection and classification of semantic relationships between words
What happens in a lexical decision task?
Participants classify whether a string of letters are a word or not
What governs sentence structure?
Syntax
What is syntax?
Rules/principles we consider sentences grammatical by
What would happen without syntax?
People wouldn’t understand what we’re trying to say
How can we study syntax?
By giving people sentences and asking if they make sense
How do people naturally understand grammar?
People have an intuitive sense of grammar
What does syntax govern?
How utterances made
What do language differ in (in syntax)?
Their preferred word order
What kind of language is English?
An SVO language (subject-verb-object)
What are pragmatics
Context within which language is used
What do people use pragmatics to do?
Express meaning
What does pragmatics study?
Meaning in context
What do pragmatics deal with?
Implied meaning as opposed to the lexical meaning expressed
What are two key aspects of pragmatics?
Interpreting what speakers mean, how people make sense of each other
What are pragmatics governed by?
Gricean maxims of pragmatics
What are the Gricean maxims of pragmatics?
Rules for effective cooperative communication where everyone is understood
What do the Gricean maxims of pragmatics state about conversations?
When we enter into conversation, we enter into cooperative agreement
What are the 4 Gricean maxims of pragmatics?
Quality, quantity, relation, manner
What is the maxim of quality?
Contribution to the conversation should be true
What is the maxim of quantity?
Contribution to conversation should be as informative as required- give enough information to be understood, but don’t go on too long
What is the maxim of relation?
Contribution to the conversation should be relevant
What is the maxim of manner?
Contribution to the conversation should be as clear, as brief, and as orderly as you can in what you say, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity
What is the problem with some words?
They can be semantically ambiguous
What are garden path sentences?
Gramatically correct sentences that lead you to incorrect interpretations
