Animals and human language

Question 1

Communicative signals

Answer 1

Behavior used intentionally to provide information

Question 2

Glossolalia

Answer 2

Also know as “speaking in tongues,” the production of sounds and syllables in a stream of speed that seems to have no communicative purpose

Question 3

Informative signals

Answer 3

Behavior that provides information, usually unintentionally

Question 4

Reflexivity

Answer 4

A special property of human language that allows language to be used to think and talk about language itself

Question 5

Arbitrariness

Answer 5

A property of language describing the fact that there is no natural connection between a linguistic form and its meaning

Question 6

Displacement

Answer 6

A property of language that allows users to talks about tings and events not present in the immediate environment

Question 7

Productivity

Answer 7

A property of language that allows users to create new expressions, also called “creativity” or “open-endedness

Question 8

Cultural transmission

Answer 8

The process whereby knowledge of a language is passed from one generation to the next

Question 9

Fixed reference

Answer 9

A property of a communication system whereby each signal is fixed as relating to one particular object or occasion

Question 10

Duality

Answer 10

A property of language whereby linguistic forms have two simultaneous levels of sound production and meaning, also called “double-articulation”

Question 11

Recursion

Answer 11

The repeated application of a rule in generating structures