Chapter 1

Question 1

linguistic competence

Answer 1

The unconscious knowledge that a speaker has about her native language.

Question 2

Linguistic performance

Answer 2

The observable use of language. The performance of one’s linguistic competence.

Question 3

Performance error

Answer 3

Errors in language production or comprehension. Including hesitations, unable to remember a word, and slips of the tongue.

Question 4

Speech communication Chain Steps

Answer 4

Think what you want to communicate.
Pick out words to express your idea.
Put the words together in a certain order, per language rules.
Figure out pronunciation
Send pronunciations to vocal anatomy
Speak!
Listener hears the sounds and perceives them.
Listener decodes/interprets sounds as language
Connection is made, listener receives communicated idea.

Question 5

Noise

Answer 5

Interference in the communication chain

Question 6

Lexicon

Answer 6

the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge, all the words they know.
“the size of the English lexicon”

Question 7

Mental Grammar

Answer 7

Rules you know about your language. A pattern that you follow that occurs in your language.

Question 8

Language Variation

Answer 8

Languages having different ways to express the same meaning in different contexts according to geography, social class, gender, etc

Question 9

Descriptive Grammar

Answer 9

Rules someone has deduced based on observing speakers’ linguistic performance.

Question 10

Evidence that writing and Language are not the same. (4 reasons)

Answer 10

1. Writing must be taught, whereas spoken language is acquired naturally.
2. Writing does not exist everywhere spoken language does.
3. Writing uses more areas of the brain than spoken language.
4. Writing can be edited before it is share while speech is usually much more spontaneous.

Question 11

Reasons some people believe writing to be superior to speech (3 reasons)

Answer 11

1. Writing can be edited, and therefore is usually more perfected than than speech.
2. Writing must be taught and is therefore associated with education, and the educated.
3. Writing appears physically more stable than spoken language which consists of nothing more than sound waves. Writing lasts (on paper).

Question 12

mode of communication

Answer 12

Part of Hockett’s design features for a language: Means by which messages are transmitted

Question 13

semanticity

Answer 13

Part of Hockett’s design features for a language: All signals in a language convey a meaning or have a function, example Pizza-in the English language we all picture the same food.

Question 14

Charles Hockett’s nine design features (necessary for a communication system to be considered a language) (list)

Answer 14

Mode of Communication
Semanticity
Pragmatic Function
Interchangeability
Cultural Transmission
Arbitrariness
Discreteness
Displacement
Productivity

Question 15

interchangeability

Answer 15

Part of Hockett’s design features for a language:ability of individuals to both transmit and receive messages

Question 16

cultural transmission

Answer 16

Part of Hockett’s design features for a language: aspects of the language that we can only acquire culturally, interacting with others that use the same language, we learn it, even if not hereditary.

Question 17

arbitrariness

Answer 17

A word represents a group of sounds or signs. The word “Pit” (means the inside of a peach) not a yellow table cloth.

Question 18

linguistic sign

Answer 18

combination of linguistic form and meaning

Question 19

sound symbolism

Answer 19

When certain sounds are evocative of a particular meaning. Ex: bang, fizz

Question 20

arbitrariness

Answer 20

Part of Hockett’s design features for a language: Generally recognized that words of a language represents a connection between a group of sounds or signs, which give the word its form and a meaning. Inner core of a peach is arbitrary (pit) it can mean different things.

Question 21

linguistic sign

Answer 21

combination of linguistic form and meaning. The word “Pit” (means the inside of a peach) not a yellow table cloth.

Question 22

convention

Answer 22

Certain group of sounds goes with a particular meaning.

Question 23

nonarbitrariness

Answer 23

Opposite of arbitrariness. Word only has one meaning?

Question 24

iconic

Answer 24

Form represents the meaning directly (picture like).

Question 25

onomatopoeia

Answer 25

Words that are imitative of natural sounds or have meanings that are associated with such sounds of nature. Meaning is very strongly suggested by the sound of the word itself.

Question 26

conventionalized

Answer 26

creating a natural noise into a form/word, that is culturally accepted. Form is different in other languages for same sound…Ex rooster sound

Question 27

sound symbolism

Answer 27

When certain sounds are evocative of a particular meaning. [i] sound in words symbolize small. Teeny, wee, Ex: fizz

Question 28

discreteness

Answer 28

Part of Hockett’s design features for a language: Allows us to combine together discrete units (sounds/letters) in order to create larger communicative units: words, phrases or sentences.

Question 29

displacement

Answer 29

Part of Hockett’s design features for a language: ability of a language to communicate about things, actions and ideas that are not present in space or time while speakers are communicating. Or talking about things that don’t exist: unicorns, fictional characters.

Question 30

productivity

Answer 30

Part of Hockett’s design features for a language: The capacity for novel messages to be built of discrete units to be produced and understood…sentences, whether they make sense or not we understand them.

Question 31

modality

Answer 31

The mode in which a message is transmitted for a communication system. Tells us how language is produced and how it is received.

Question 32

myths about signed languages (list 4)

Answer 32

1. Signed languages derive from spoken languages rather than being languages in their own right. That signing is code for the original spoken language. It is not.
2. Signed languages don’t consist of words, only pictures that signers make with their hands.
3. Words in signed language are completely iconic.
4. There is only one signed language used by deaf speakers all over the world. Signed languages are “arbitrary” there are many.

Question 33

differences between codes and languages (list 4)

Answer 33

1. Code is an artificially constructed system for representing a natural language.
2. Code has no structure of its own languages have structure.
3. Language borrows it’s structure from the natural language it represents they are distinct from each other and from spoken languages.
4. Codes never have native speakers because they are artificial systems. Signed languages are learned natively.

Question 34

Speech Communication Chain

Answer 34

The process of communicating an idea from your mind to the mind of someone else. One person is a transmitter sending information to a receiver/destination.