9: Language Flashcards
What is phonology?
The basic auditory unit of spoken language
Meaningful sound systems
What is syntax?
How sentences are made such as verb-subject-object
What a native speaker would judge as gramatical
What are semantics?
The meanings of sounds such as what it is and how it’s found in smaller and larger units
What are pragmatics?
Why we say certain things and why we select the replies we do
What are Gricean maxims?
Maxim of quality: Try to make your contribution true
Maxim of quantity: Make your contribution informative
Maxim of relation: Be relevant
What is the maxim of quality?
Try to make your contribution true
What is the maxim of quantity?
Make your contribution informative
What is the phonemic restoration effect?
When there are background sounds, we’re still able to percieve words that are masked because we expect it to be there
How we fill in missing sounds
Is the phonemic restoration effect top-down or bottom-up?
Top-down
What is the McGurk effect?
When a sound and vision contradict each other
We use our visual system when listening to people - looking at their lips and facial muscles
What is the TRACE speech perception model?
Explains the relationships between auditory features and words
Tries to figure our where words and phonemes are
How do we read non-words?
We read non-words such as ‘Zint’ in line with the same rules as our language
When there are no words that are similar, people find them easier to pronouce
What did Chomsky argue about learning language?
We’re born with a predisposition towards the features of langiage which makes it easier to learn
What features of language have been seen in animals?
Vocabulary
Word order
Similar sounds
Routines to describe things (Such as flying patterns)
What aspecs of language are unique to humans?
Large vocabulary size Recursivity Gramatical complexity Sophistication of sequence learning Transmission from one generation to the next Distance from immediate context
