Chapter 9: Linguistic Approach Flashcards
What is Linguistics?
Linguistics is the study of language
What are the five characteristics of language according to Clark and Clark?
Language is Communicative, Arbitrary (has symbolic elements) Structured (has set of rules), Generative (has several meanings) and Dynamic (constantly changes)
What are the two most important elements of spoken language?
Phoneme and Morpheme
What is a Phoneme?
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in the sound system of a language
What are Morphemes?
Morphemes are the smallest units of spoken language that have meaning (e.g the “s” in apples is a morpheme as it indicates the plural form of an apple)
What does Grammar consist of?
- Phonology (rules that govern the sound system)
- Morphology (rules that govern word structure)
- Syntax (rules that govern the arrangement of words in sentences)
- Semantics (rules that have to do with word meaning)
What is the difference between Prescriptive and Descriptive grammar?
Prescriptive grammar is an established formal set of rules while Descriptive grammar refers to underlying rules that researchers infer from the way people use language
What is the Cooing stage of language development?
It is the production of a wide variety of sounds. It’s the earliest stage of language development that infants first adopt.
What is the Babbling stage of language development?
It is the production of sound units rather than fully pronounced words. (for example: mama) The intonations of these utterances will slowly begin matching to those of the actual language the child is learning.
What is the One-Word stage of language development?
One word utterances. Might not be accurate but they are used in a symbolic and semantic fashion. (for example “unky” instead of “uncle”)
What is the Two-Word stage of language development?
Words are arranged in a sentence-like structure and indicate the emergence of rudimentary syntactical skills. (for example “want toy”)
What is implicit speech?
It’s equivalent to imagery, but occupies the mind’s “ear”. When we think, it feels like we can hear ourselves talk
What is linguistic relativity hypothesis proposed by Sapir and Whorf?
Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis supports:
a) the language a person speaks influences the way that he/she thinks (weak version)
b) language and thought are so similar that it is impossible to express the thoughts generated in one language in another language (strong version)
What is surface structure in Grammar?
Surface structure is the organization of the sentence in the form that is expressed
What is deep structure?
Deep structure is the underlying meaning of a sentence and remains constant of the specific form in which it is expressed
What is universal grammar?
The common elements that languages have in a fundamental level (we can think of it as a collection of innate language rules)
What is the Maximal Onset Principle?
Consonants usually precede vowels
What is nonfluent aphasia or Broca’s aphasia?
A language deficit caused by brain damage in which faculty of comprehension is intact but production of speech is inadequate (agrammatic)
What is Broca’s brain area believed to be responsible for?
Language production capacity
What is Wernicke’s aphasia?
A language deficit caused by brain damage (in Wernicke’s area) in which patients produce rapid fluent speech that has little meaningful content
What is conduction aphasia?
A language deficit caused by brain damage (in Arculate Fasciculus) in which patients cannot repeat words or phrases they just heard
What are the four stages of natural language understanding?
- Speech Recognition
- Syntactic Analysis
- Semantic Analysis
- Pragmatic Analysis
Why is phoneme-to-word assignment difficult for computers?
Because word boundaries are indistinctive and there is wide phoneme variability
What does communication refer to?
Production, transmission, and comprehension
of information.
What may be the problem in award - language learning in animals?
Animals may fail to demonstrate the arbitrariness aspect of language (a symbol can be anything and still stand for its referent)
What is displacement in language?
The aspect of language in which users refer to something that is removed in space or time
What does intonation refer to?
The rises and falls in pitch and changes in other acoustic properties of one’s speech
What is transformational grammar proposed by Chomsky’s?
A grammar that allows us to transform one sentence into another (for example a positive one to a negative one)
What is the limitation of phrase-structure?
Although it is useful for understanding the organization of sentences it doesn’t tell us how to rearrange a sentence to express new meanings
How can ease and rapidity in language be explained according to Bloom?
Some rules of language are innate and get further developed and adapted later on
What can be the results of damage to angular gyrus?
Alexia (inability to read) and Agraphia (inability to write)
What is the activation path for listening and speaking?
Primary Auditory Cortex (language sound) –>
Wernicke’s area (understanding, reply) –>
Broca’s area (information converted to motor code) –>
Primary Motor Cortex (muscle movement commands)
What is the activation path for reading and writing?
Primary Visual Cortex (printed words input) –>
Angular Gyrus (information converted to auditory code)
Wernicke’s area –> Arcuate Fasciculus –>
Broca’s area –> Primary Motor Cortex
What is coarticulation?
Ability to pronounce a given phoneme variably; in ways that depends on which phonemes precede it and which come after it
What are Pragmatics?
Social rules that underlie language use as well as strategies used by speakers to make themselves clear
What are five different types of spoken statements according to Searle?
- Assertives (beliefs)
- Directives (instructions)
- Commissives (commit to a later action)
- Expressives (psychological states of the speaker)
- Declaratives (action utterances)
