Ch 10 - Language

Question 1

language

Answer 1

set of symbols that have meaning and can be communicated through a set of rules

Question 2

language is universal

Answer 2

• all cultures have language
• language development is similar across cultures

Question 3

Chomsky’s theory of language acquisition

Answer 3

• children have a predisposition (tendency) to learn language
• children do not need any kind of formal teaching to learn language

Question 4

critical period of language acquisition

Answer 4

2 years of age

Question 5

universal grammar of language acquisition

Answer 5

the brain is hard wired to learn vocabulary and grammar

Question 6

Skinner’s theory of language acquisition

Answer 6

• babies as ‘empty vessels’, language has to be ‘put in to’
• operant conditioning

Question 7

hierarchy of language

Answer 7

1. sentence
2. phrase
3. word
4. morpheme
5. phoneme

Question 8

sentence

Answer 8

sequence of words

Question 9

phrase

Answer 9

group of words

Question 10

word

Answer 10

smallest free form

Question 11

morpheme

Answer 11

smallest unit of meaning

Question 12

phoneme

Answer 12

smallest unit of sound

Question 13

how does our knowledge affect how we understand language

Answer 13

using prior knowledge to fill in the missing information

Question 14

what did Pollack and Picket study

Answer 14

spliced out words from conversations that are easy to identify in context and hard to do without context

Question 15

how are sequences limited to a language

Answer 15

only some are acceptable in a language

Question 16

what are the different types of information a speaker knows about each word

Answer 16

1. phonology
2. orthography
3. syntax
4. semantics

Question 17

phonology

Answer 17

the sequence of phonemes that make up a word

Question 18

orthography

Answer 18

how the word is spelled

Question 19

syntax

Answer 19

how to combine the word with other words

Question 20

semantics

Answer 20

the meaning of the word

Question 21

referent

Answer 21

refers or is referred to

Question 22

generativity

Answer 22

to create an endless series of new combinations from a small set of units

Question 23

what can syntax tell us

Answer 23

rules that govern the structure of a phrase and how sentences can violate those rules

Question 24

descriptive rules

Answer 24

describing language or rules that characterize the language as it is ordinarily used by fluent speakers

Question 25

prescriptive rules

Answer 25

standards for how language “ought” to be used, the rules against splitting infinitives

Question 26

linguistic universals

Answer 26

shared properties of all natural languages

Question 27

what does it mean to parse a sentence

Answer 27

determining each words syntactic role in a sentence

Question 28

how do syntax and background knowledge affect how we parse a sentence

Answer 28

people tend to seek the simplest interpretation in parsing sentences that can be incorrect, assume that sentences will be in an active-voice

Question 29

what is the extralinguistic context and how does it affect parsing

Answer 29

the physical and social setting in which we encounter sentences

Question 30

prosody

Answer 30

refers to the patterns of pauses and pitch changes that characterize speech production

Question 31

what are the pragmatic of language

Answer 31

rules that govern how people actually see a language

Question 32

what are the two different types of aphasia

Answer 32

1. Broca’s
2. Wernicke’s

Question 33

Brocas aphasia

Answer 33

trouble producing speech and affects the frontal lobe

Question 34

Wernicke’s aphasia

Answer 34

trouble comprehending and located in the left temporal lobe

Question 35

what hemisphere processes the majority of language for most people

Answer 35

left hemisphere

Question 36

what is specific language impairment (SLI)

Answer 36

• someone with normal intelligence
• slow to learn language
• difficulty understanding and producing language throughout their life

Question 37

overregularization error

Answer 37

the overuse of a grammatical rule, such as a past- tense of verbs (ex. “that hurted”

Question 38

explain semantic bootstrapping and how it is used by children in learning a language

Answer 38

a linguistic theory of child language acquisition, that children can acquire the syntax of a language by first learning and recognizing semantic elements and building upon that

Question 39

what is the linguistic relativity hypothesis

Answer 39

“Whorfian hypothesis”
- words we have available to us that influence our thought
- people who speak different languages may perceive the world differently

Question 40

summarize the work of Lera Boroditsky’s lab

Answer 40

to understand how language shapes the way we think

Question 41

what are the six ways she believes language can affect thought

Answer 41

1. Space and time
2. Count (numbers)
3. Color
4. Gramatical gender
5. Ideas

Question 42

what is more flexible way of looking at the relationship between language and thought

Answer 42

• language influences thoughts and memories
• indirect influence
• other factors can cancel out this influence

Question 43

what are the benefits of being bilingual

Answer 43

• children raised in bilingual homes learn both languages as quick as monolingual children learn one language
• tendency to have temporarily smaller vocabularies than monolingual children at an early age

Question 44

what cognitive process seems to underlie most of the benefits of bilingualism

Answer 44

bilinguals exhibit higher activity in five left-hemisphere language

Question 45

what is the criticism of Whorf’s original research

Answer 45

he never showed the connections between a linguistic phenomenon and a mental phenomenon

Question 46

explain what happens when bilingual speakers hear language

Answer 46

bilingual speakers hear sounds differently based on the language they think they are listening to