Chp 9.1: Language

Question 1

mental representations

Answer 1

cognitive representations of the world, including images, ideas, concepts, and principles, that are the foundations of thinking and problem solving

Question 2

language

Answer 2

a system of symbols and rules for combining them that can produce an almost infinite number of possible messages and meanings

Question 3

psycholinguistics

Answer 3

the scientific study of the psychological aspects of language, such as how people understand, produce, and acquire language

Question 4

grammar

Answer 4

provides structure by stating a set of rules for how the symbols can be combined for message and meaning

Question 5

syntax

Answer 5

(part of grammar), rules pertaining to the order of words

Question 6

semantics

Answer 6

the meaning associated with words and sentences

Question 7

generativity

Answer 7

a characteristic of symbols of language that can be combined to generate an infinite number of messages that have novel meaning

Question 8

displacement

Answer 8

the capacity of language to represent objects and conditions that are not physically present, enable communication of both abstract and concepts.

Question 9

surface structure

Answer 9

a linguistic term for the words and organization of a spoken or written sentence; two sentences with different surface structure may still mean the same thing

Question 10

deep structure

Answer 10

a linguistic term that refers to the underlying meaning of a spoken or written sentence; the meanings that make up deep structure are stored as concepts and rules in long-term memory

Question 11

phoneme

Answer 11

the smallest unit of sound in a language; these are the vowel and consonant sounds that are recognized in any given language; English has 44 phonemes,
Eg. Th, a, t

Question 12

morpheme

Answer 12

the smallest unit of meaning in a given language; English morphemes include whole words, prefixes, and suffixes; there are over 100 000 English morphemes eg. Dog, pre-, -ed, -ous, s(plural)

Question 13

discourse

Answer 13

the sixth level of the hierarchical structure of language in which sentences are combined into paragraphs, articles, books, conversations, and so forth

Question 14

bottom-up processing

Answer 14

perceptual processing that begins with the analysis of individual elements of the stimulus and works up to the brain’s integration of them into a unified perception

Question 15

top-down processing

Answer 15

perceptual processing in which existing knowledge, concepts, ideas, or expectations are applied to make sense of incoming stimulation

Question 16

`speech segmentation

Answer 16

perceiving where each word within a spoken sentence begins and ends

Question 17

pragmatics

Answer 17

in language learning, a knowledge of the practical aspects of using language
(Eg. Talking slower to children/ less complex= more effective to children)

Question 18

aphasia

Answer 18

• damage to one or both Broca’s or Wernicke’s areas= impairment in speech production and/or comprehension

Question 19

Broca’s aphasia

Answer 19

• may be able to understand speech, but may only be able to produce short phrases

Question 20

Wernicke’s aphasia

Answer 20

• may speak in long, complete sentences that are not meaningful and add unnecessary or made-up words

Question 21

Nature (biology) (Language Development)

Answer 21

• Infants can distinguish sounds and organize speech consistent with their native language without formal training, and with limited thinking abilities

Question 22

Nurture (environment) (Language Development)

Answer 22

• Language is learned through imitation and reinforcement

Question 23

language acquisition device (LAD)

Answer 23

according to Noam Chomsky, an innate biological mechanism that contains the general grammatical rules common to all languages

Question 24

language acquisition support system (LASS)

Answer 24

according to Jerome Bruner, the factors in the social environment that facilitate the learning of a language

Question 25

linguistic relativity hypothesis

Answer 25

the idea, suggested by Benjamin Whorf, “language not only influences but also determines what we are capable of thinking”
(most psycholinguists don’t agree, language most likely influence how people think but does not detemine)

Question 26

Describe key properties of language. (5)

Answer 26

five properties that are essential to any language

• symbols,
• structure
• meaning
• generativity
• displacement (extra property)