Chapter 11 Language Flashcards
Language
A system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
Hierarchical nature of language
The idea that language consists of series of small components that can be combined to form larger units. For example, words can be combined to create phrases, which in turn can create sentences, which themselves can become components of a story.
Rule-based nature of language
The idea that there are rules in language that specify the permissible ways for arranging words and phrases.
Psycholinguistic
The field concerned with the psychological study of language
The four major concerns of psycholinguistic
- Comprehension, 2. Representation 3. Speech production. 4. Acquisition.
Lexicon
A person’s knowledge of what words mean, how they sound, and how they are used in relation to other words.
Semantic
The meaning of words and sentences.
Lexical semantics
The meaning of words
Word frequency
The relative usage of words in a particular language. For example, in English, home has higher word frequency then hike.
Word frequency effect
The phenomenon of faster reading time for high-frequency words than for low frequency words.
Lexical decision task
The task is to decide as quickly as possible wether strings of letters are words or nonwords.
Speech segmentation
The perception of individual words even though there are often no pauses between words.
Our ability to hear spoken words
1frequency, 2 context of words 3 knowledge of statistical regularities 4 knowledge of word meaning
Lexical ambiguity
When a word can have more than one meaning. For example, but can mean an insect, device m, annoy, etc
Lexical priming
Priming that involves the meaning of words m. For example, rose would prime flower, because their meanings are related.
Meaning dominance
Some meaning of words occur more frequently than others.
Biased dominance
When a word has more than one meaning, and one meaning is more likely.
Balanced dominance
When a word has more than one meaning and all meanings are equally likely.
Syntax
The rules for combining words into sentences. Distinguishing from semantic.
Parsing
The mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases. The way a sentence is parsed determines its meaning.
Garden path sentence
A sentence in which the meaning that seems to be applied at the beginning of the sentence turns out to be incorrect, based on information that is presented later in the sentence.
Temporary ambiguity
A situation in which the meaning of a sentence, based on its initial words, is ambiguous because a number of meanings are possible.
Garden path modal of parsing
A modal of parsing that emphasizes syntactic principles as a major determinant of parsing. Lynn Frazier (1979, 1987)
Heuristics
A “tule of thumb” that provides a best-guess solution to a problem.
Constraint-based approach to o parsing
An approach to parsing that proposes that semantic, syntax m, and other factors operate simultaneously to determine parsing.
Object-related construction
A sentence construction in which the subject of the main clause is the object in the embedded clause, as in this sentence .
Visual word paradigm
In experiments on language processing, determining how subjects are processing information in a scene as they respond to specific instructions related to the scene.
Subjective-relative construction
A sentence construction in which the subject of the main clause is also the subject in the embedded clause.
Object-related construction.
A sentence construction in which the subject of the main clause is the object in the embedded clause.
Inference
In language, the process by which readers create information that is not explicitly stated in the text.
Narrative
A story that progresses from one event to another.
Coherence
The representation of a text or story in a readers mind so that information in one part of the text or story is related to information in another part.
Anaphoric inference
An inference that connects an object or person in one sentence to an object or person in another sentence.
Instrumental inference
An inference about tools or methods that occurs while text or listening to speech.
Causal inference
An inference that results in the conclusion that events described in one clause or sentence were caused by events that occurred in a previous clause or sentence.
Situation model
A mental representation of what a text is about.
Common ground
Knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions shared between two speakers.
Referential communication task
A task in which two people are exchanging information in a conversation, when this information involves reference-identifying something by naming or describing it.
Entrainment
Synchronization between partners in a conversation. This can include gestures speaking rate, body position, pronunciation, and grammatical structure.
Syntactic coordination
Process by which people use similar grammatical constructions when having a conversation.
Syntactic priming
Hearing a statement with a particular syntactic construction increases the chances that a statement that follows will be produced with the same construction.
Theory of mind
The ability to understand what others think, feel or believe.
Turn taking
Knowing when it’s appropriate to enter a conversation.
Prosody
The pattern of intonation and rhythm in spoken language.
Tonic
The key of a musical composition. The tonic note is the first note of a scale in a particular key.
Return to the tonic
In musical compositions, coming back to the tonic note that was at the beginning of the composition.
Congenital amusia
A condition, present at birth, in which people have problems with music perception, including tasks such as discrimination between simple Melodie’s or recognizing common tunes.
