Chapter 1 Flashcards
the person to whom an utterance is addressed (i.e. the person one is speaking to); sometimes referred to as “the hearer”
addressee
the field that considers how linguistics can be applied to situations in the world; includes language teaching, computational linguistics, forensic linguistics, language documentation, speech pathology, and speech and hearing sciences
applied linguistics
a person that speaks two different languages or a society where primarily two languages are spoken; contrasts with monolingual and multilingual
bilingual
the study of how language is related to how humans learn and process information
cognitive linguistics
the study of language and computers; includes speech recognition (computers recognizing human speech) and speech synthesis (computers producing speech)
computational linguistics
database containing collected recordings of spoken or written language
corpus: (pl. corpora)
a methodology for linguistic analysis which examines statistically significant patterns over very large sets of discourse data with the help of computers
corpus linguistics
an approach to language that describes how people actually use language without evaluating language use as either “right” or “wrong”
descriptive
the situation in which speakers of adjacent language varieties can understand each other, but speakers of geographically separated varieties cannot
dialect continuum
a stretch of language larger than a phrase or sentence, such as a narrative or conversation; the study of spontaneous speech in its natural context
discourse
based on observable or experimental data
empirical
the process by which young children come to know and use the language(s) of their caregivers
first language acquisition
the examination of linguistic evidence in legal proceedings
forensic linguistics
the morphology and syntax of a language, also known as morphosyntax
grammar
the study of how languages change over time, how languages are related, and how they have descended from a language spoken in the past; includes the study of language contact
historical linguistics
a mode of communication used by humans, usually spoken but also written or signed; distinguished from a dialect by mutual intelligibility: speakers of two separate languages are unable to understand each other
language
the study of how language is learned; includes first language acquisition (the study of how children learn their native language) and second language acquisition (the study of how speakers learn a language that is not their native tongue)
language acquisition
the field that examines the neurological basis of language
language and the brain
language innovation that spreads throughout a speech community to become a regular feature of the language
language change
efforts to keep a language alive within a speech community through finding ways to promote its use; often includes the development of materials to be used in education, as well as activities leading to language documentation
language conservation
the situation in which speakers of two or more distinct languages interact with each other, leading to changes in one or more of the languages
language contact
the loss of a language that occurs when the last speaker of the language dies
language death
a record of a language and how it is used by the speech community; typically involves the creation of an analyzed archive of recordings of authentic speech and frequently the production of a dictionary and grammar
language documentation
efforts on the part of communities whose languages have been entirely lost or significantly reduced to increase the number of speakers and domains of use
language revitalization
the passing on of a language from one generation to the next
language transmission
the study of the kinds of meanings associated with individual expressions, including morphemes, lexemes, and idioms
lexical semantics
a person who examines the structures of languages and the principles underlying those structures; one who practices linguistics
linguist
the process of recognizing and analyzing systematic patterns in languages
linguistic analysis
the scientific study of language
linguistics
a linguist who studies the classifications of languages based on structure and looks for relationships between structural types
linguistic typologist
the study of the internal structure of words and the principles underlying such structuring
morphology
the morphology and syntax of a language and their interaction; also known as grammar
morphosyntax
the ability of speakers of two or more language varieties to understand each other (a possible criterion for distinguishing language from dialect)
mutual intelligibility
the study of the nervous system; for linguistics, the primary neurological domain of relevance is the brain
neurology
unbiased; independent of preconceptions or evaluative judgments
objective
the physical properties of sounds in language and the study of those properties
phonetics
the systematic patterns of sounds in language and the study of those patterns
phonology
a person who speaks many languages
polyglot
the study of how context shapes our use and interpretation of linguistic expressions; the competence to draw from context plausible inferences, whichpreposition complement linguistic meanings
pragmatics
an approach to language that sets out rules for “proper” grammar and classifies the use of particular linguistic features as “right” or “wrong”; contrasts with descriptive
prescriptive
the study of how meanings of individual elements combine in clauses and sentences
propositional semantics
the study of the processes by which people (children and adults) learn any language in addition to their first language
second language acquisition (SLA)
the study of how linguistic forms make sense (have meaning); the relation between morphosyntactic forms and their coded semantic content
semantics
the study of the interactional, social, and cultural uses and meanings of language
sociocultural linguistics (sociolinguistics)
the study of the anatomy and physiology of hearing and communication, including development of speech and language
speech and hearing sciences
a group of people who share a common language or dialect and cultural practices
speech community
the study and treatment of speech disorders
speech pathology
a prestige variety of a language that is implicitly or explicitly recognized as being the norm within a nation, often deliberately engineered and given legal status, and usually taught in schools and used in print and broadcast media
standard (language)
the set of grammatical structures that allow for the combination of words into phrases and sentences the study of such structures and the principles underlying them
syntax
the study of how the world’s languages are similar and different; includes classification of languages based on structure as well as positing relationships between structural types
typology and universals
