CHP 9 - Language Flashcards
What are the four basic structures of language?
1) Form (Phonology and Orthography)
2) Meaning (Semantics)
3) Syntax (Grammar)
4) Use (Pragmatics)
What are the basic sounds of language?
(There are 46 of them in English)
Phonemes
What are consonants?
Speech sounds that are produced by the obstructing of airflow
Consonants differ on three dimensions, what are they?
1) Place of articulation
2) Manner of articulation
3) When vocal cords begin to vibrate
All sound produced goes through the ___________.
Larynx
What is phonemic competence?
Knowledge of the rules of permissible English sound combination
– how words are supposed to sound
For example: barg sounds like a word when it is not
What is Orthographical awareness?
knowledge of the rules of permissible English letter combinations in producing a word
For example: ASKL – we know this is not a word because the way it is written
Orthographical awareness is correlated with _______ ability
Reading
The smallest units of language that have meaning are known as?
Morphemes
Which type of morpheme are the following…
car
happy
the
Free morphemes - words operate on their own
Which type of morpheme are the following …
un-
-s
-itis
Bound morphemes - Relies on other words
Same set of sentences can convey a statement or questions, this is an example of?
Prosody
The arrangement of words to show their relationship to one another is which element of language?
Syntax
Explain syntactic ambiguity
one sentence can be interpreted different ways
Sarcasm is an example of which element of language?
Pragmatics
A field of linguistics concerned with what a speaker implies
Pragmatics
Aspects of language “above and beyond” the words
Pragmatics
Which element of language explains the structure of conversation?
Pragmatics
Damage to the Broca’s area would result in?
Problems with speech production
Where is Broca’s area located in the brain?
(Hemisphere & Lobe)
Left frontal cortex
Where is Wernicke’s area located in the brain?
Left posterior temporal lobe
Individuals with Wernicke’s aphasia would have difficulty with?
Speech Comprehension
Phonemes and words do not have gaps between them
Coarticulation
What is Coarticulation?
The overlapping of articulatory movement in speech production, which affects the pronunciation of individual sounds
T/F: Identifying of specific sounds such as (pa and ba) is an all or nothing process
True
Spanish speakers have a harder time pronouncing or distinguishing which specific sound?
S
Rank the groups from best performed to least from the Miller and Isard (1963) study – regarding signal to noise ratio
Grammatical sentence > Anomalous sentence > Ungrammatical sentence
If we are unable to determine what someone said, what process do we use to help decipher the spoken signal?
Top down or bottom up
Top down process (conceptually driven)
T/F: Embodiment occurs when lip reading
True (mirror neurons become active)
What areas of the cortex are responsible for the production of sound?
Broca’s area & Motor cortex
T/F: We remember letters better when presented as a word
True
What is the word superiority effect?
We see words holistically and not by each letter –
ability to recall a letter better when presented as part of a word
Mental Lexicon refers to our?
Vocabulary knowledge
What is lexical priming?
Exposure to prime word facilitates associated words
For example:
Prime: Dog ——> Cat (Semantic)
Prime: Cup ——-> Cupid (Orthography)
T/F: Regarding the lexical priming test, there is a faster response when the prime word is an abstract word, and the target is a concrete word
False
In Swinney’s (1979) study regarding semantic priming lexical access, why did the target word SPY have no effect when presented on a delay?
Individuals are more concentrated on the second sentence which does not have an association with the word SPY
T/F: Reading time increases when exposed to an unfamiliar word
True
T/F: Reading time increases when the word has unusual spelling patterns
True
T/F: The following are factors that decrease reading time
Crystallized intelligence
Supportive Context
Negation
Appropriate title (schema)
False ; Negation increases reading time – all others decrease
What are the DEPENDENT variables in eye tracking studied?
Fixation, Gaze Duration, Regressions
T/F: Good readers are faster because they are using quantitative processes
False ; initially they use quantitative (first word) but then start to use qualitative for the remainder of the passage
Which type of reader has the most regressions?
Poor Readers
Good readers tend to skip which of words?
Function words such as articles and prepositions
Raynor, White, Johnson & Liversedge (2006) study focused on the ability to read despite transposition of letters.
What is the order of best performed group to least?
Internal transposition > Ending transposition > Beginning transposition >
Why is perceptual span important when it comes to reading?
1) Facilitates lexical access, 2) Allows reader to learn where the boundaries of words are
3) Know which words can be probably skipped
4) Eliminates other words from consideration based on length
Speedreading stated that ____________ _______ and ____________ are not important.
Parafoveal vision and regressions
T/F: Presenting words in ISOLATION and preventing regression will disrupt reading comprehension
True
T/F: Working memory allows readers to remember which person is the subject
True
What was the conclusion of Kaschak and Rinck (2004) study regarding embodied cognition?
People have greater difficulty understanding sentences that describe two actions that occurred simultaneously and that required the same body part
Which theory explains the following, successful dialogue requires transmission of information during a dialogue, can be facilitated if both parties adopt similar language attributes when communicating.
Alignment Theory
What are the three types of speech errors one can produce?
1) Sound error
2) Morpheme Error
3) Word Error
T/F: A Fetus is able to process language
True
T/F: A month after birth, babies are able to distinguish different phonemes for all languages in the world
True
At what age are children able to point to object and pictures when names and understand some requests or questions?
1-2 yrs
At what age are children able to answer who what, and where questions?
By 3yrs old
T/F: Days after birth, babies are able to distinguish between different languages
True
At what age are babies able to recognize names of familiar objects, foods, and body parts?
6-12 months
Who argued that language is innate and biologically pre-programmed?
Noam Chomsky
T/F: Children pick up on linguistic rules at a very rapid rate
True
What are the three cues infants use to help them learn language?
1) Perceptual salience: proximity of occurrence
2) Social: eye gaze
3) Linguistic salience: motherese
How does motherese help babies learn language more easilty?
Elongates and intonates phonemes
Which of Hockett’s features of language is responsible for allowing us to talk about things that are not here in the present – future things or out of sight?
Displacement
Which of Hockett’s features of language takes into account that the size of the word does not correlate to the size of the object?
Arbitrariness
Which of Hockett’s features of language explains how we learn new things?
Traditional Transmission
Who designed a set of features that characterize human language and set us apart from animal communication?
Hockett
Which of Hockett’s features of language explains the ability to create never-ever heard before utterances that others can understand?
Productivity
Nim Chimpsky was only able to repeat utterances that he learned and did not ask questions, therefore he lacked which feature of human language?
Productivity – the ability to create new sentences without ever hearing them before
Which of Hockett’s features of language explains how one speaker communicates and an individual is able to receive said information?
Vocal-Auditory Channel
Based on what was discussed in class, bees dancing and showing others the location of food source shows that they have which feature of language?
Displacement – ability to talk about things that are not currently present
Nim Chimpsky was not ablet to string together more than __________ utterances
Three
T/F: Nim Chimpsky did not lack syntactic structure
False
Nim Chimpsky language ability was no better than a ___-_____ year old child.
3-4 year old
Nim Chimpsky only had utterances in the here and now , therefore which feature of human language did he lack?
Displacement
