Chapter 10 - Language comprehension Flashcards
Syntax
The set of rules concerning word order to create well-formed sentences
Grammar
The set of rules governing the structure of a language (especially syntax and inflections)
Inflections
Grammatical changes to nouns or verbs (e.g., adding s to a noun to indicate plural; adding ed to a verb to indicate past tense).
Parsing
Analysing the syntactical or grammatical structure of sentences
Morphology
The study of words and how they are formed from morphemes.
Verb bias
An imbalance in the frequency with which a verb is associated with different syntactic structures.
Pragmatics
The study of the ways language is used and understood in the real world including a consideration of its intended meaning; in general, the impact of contextual factors on meaning.
Figurative language
Language that is not intended to be taken literally; examples include metaphor, irony and idiom.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
A disorder involving difficulties in social interaction and communication and repetitive patterns of behaviour and thinking.
Central coherence
The ability to make use of all the information when interpreting an utterance or situation.
Asperger Syndrome
An ASD involving problems with social communication in spite of at least average intelligence and no delays in language development.
Metaphor interference effect
The finding that it takes longer to judge whether metaphorical sentences are literally true or false than control sentences.
Common ground
Shared knowledge and beliefs possessed by a speaker and a listener; its use facilitates communication.
Egocentric heuristic
A strategy used by listeners in which they interpret what they hear based on their own knowledge rather than knowledge shared with the speaker.
Discourse
A language that is a minimum of several sentences in length; it includes written text and connected speech.
Logical inferences
Inferences that follow necessarily from the meanings of word (e.g., a bachelor is a man who is unmarried).
Bridging inferences
Inferences or conclusions drawn to increase coherence between the current and preceding part of a text; also known as backward inferences.
Elaborative inferences
Inferences based on our knowledge of the world that involve adding details to a text that is being read (or speech being listened to).
Predictive inferences
Expectations concerning what will happen next (e.g., a new event) when reading text or listening to someone.
Mental model
An internal representation of some possible situation or event in the world having the same structure as that situation or event.
Anaphor
A word or phrase that refers back to a previous word or phrase (e.g., a pronoun may refer back to a given individual mentioned earlier).
Rationalisation
In Bartlett’s theory, errors in story recall that conform to the rememberer’s cultural expectations.
Proposition
A statement making an assertion or denial which can be true or false.
