Chapter 1: Introduction Flashcards
deaf sign language
A language used by deaf people in which the lexical and grammatical units are represented by manus, gestures and other body movements.
arbitrariness
The property of linguistic signs whereby there is no intrinsic or necessary relation between the signifier (form) and signified (meaning).
displacement
A design feature of language that refers to the fact that language can be used in reference to things that are not present in the immediate situation by the speaker.
duality or duality of patterning
A design feature of language referring to the simultaneous organization of language on both the level of form and the level of meaning.
icon, iconic sign
A sign in which the form bears some resemblance to the meaning, for example, the manual gesture for ‘two.’
paradigmatic relation
A relation between a linguistic unit and other units that can occur in the same position in a construction, for example, /p/ and /b/ are in paradigmatic opposition in English (though /p/ and /ae/ are not since they can’t occur in the same position in a syllable).
productivity
A design feature of language referring to the ability of speakers to make new meanings by putting together linguistic elements in new ways to form novel expressions.
reflexivity
A design feature of language referring to the property that it can be used to talk about itself.
sign
A fundamental item made up of two inherent components, a form (sometimes called signifier) and a meaning (also called signified).
structuralism
Any approach to linguistics that focuses on the interrelatedness of linguistic units, the ways they form structures and systems of oppositions.
symbol, symbolic sign
A sign in which the association between the form and meaning is not motivated.
syntagmatic relation
A relation between linguistic items that are present in an utterance.
phonetics
The scientific study of speech sounds.
phonology
The sound system of a language, including the inventory of phonemes and their paradigmatic and syntagmatic patterning; also the study of the sound systems of languages.
morphology
The branch of linguistics that studies the structure of words.
syntax
The study of the formation of sentences in a language.
semantics
The study of the linguistic meanings of morphemes, words, phrases, sentences, and grammatical relations. Semantic meaning is encoded in linguistic signs.
pragmatics
The study of meaning that is inferred from what is said rather than encoded.
psycholinguistics
The branch of linguistics concerned with the mental process involved in production and comprehension of speech, and in the acquisition of language.
neurolinguistics
The study of the neurobiology of language. It is concerned with the brain functions underlying speech and the acquisition of language.
language universal
A property that holds of all or most human languages.
historical linguistics
The branch of linguistics that studies how languages change over time.
sociolinguistics
The field that studies language in its social context.
discourse analysis
The study of the structures and regularities in discourse.
conversation analysis
The field of linguistics that studies the structure of conversations, for example, the way turn-taking is organized.
evolutionary linguistics
An area of linguistics concerned with the origins and development of human language.
form
The perceivable aspect of the linguistic sign, for example, the form of a lexical sign is its representation in phonemes.
meaning
The idea that is conveyed by a sentence or utterance, its context.
onomatopoeia
Where the phonetic form of a word is suggestive of the meaning, for example, meow, woof.
alphabetic, alphabetic writing
A system of writing that uses a set of symbols each ideally representing a phonemic segment.
logographic writing system
A system of writing in which each symbol represents a word or morpheme, for example, the system of Chinese characters.
formal grammar, formal linguistics
One of the two major divisions of linguistic theory, the formal approach places focus on language as an algebraic system made up of symbols manipulated according to the rules. Formal theories tend to see meaning as peripheral, and do not normally recognize the linguistic sign as a fundamental unit.
functional grammar, functional linguistics
One of the two major divisions of linguistic theory, the functional approach focuses on language as it is used. Meaning occupied a central place in functional linguistics; in extreme varieties, form is marginalized or even may have no place.
descriptive linguistics
The sort of linguistics that aims to describe the facts of a language as it is actually spoken as distinct from how speakers believe it ought to be spoken.
speech act
The action a speaker accomplishes in using an utterance in a particular context, for example, it’s cold could be used as a request for the hearer to turn on the heater.
