Language Flashcards
system of communication using sounds or symbols that can express feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences
language
3 Characteristics of language
- Hierarchical
- Rule-based
- Creative/Generative
Characteristic of language in which components are combined to form larger units (letters -> words -> sentences)
Hierarchical
Characteristic of language that states that there are specific ways that components can be arranged
rule-based
The characteristic of language in which language can generate novel content - Generativity or ____________:
creativity
all words a person understands; their entire vocabulary
lexicon
smallest units of language that has meaning or grammatical function
morphemes
Play-er-s
(Action; person doing action; multiple people doing action)
play, er, and s, are all morphemes
shortest segments of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of the word
phonemes (think speech -> sound -> phonological)
Eg: pay vs. pat -> if the y and t change at the end of “pa”, it becomes a completely different word
Discovering psychological process by which humans acquire and process language.
Psycholinguistics
4 aspects/focuses of Psycholinguistics:
CSRA:
- Comprehension
- Speech Production
- Representation
- Acquisition
we automatically fill in missing phonemes based on context; this is known as the _________ (3) (effect)
phonemic restoration effect
Letters are easier to recognize when they are contained in a word, as compared to when they appear alone or in a non-word.
Eg: easier + quicker to identify that the letter “k” is in the word fork than if the letter “k” was in: mjku
This is known as the ________ (2) effect.
word superiority effect
(words are superior to gibberish in where you can most easily find letters in them ig)
Task that involves reading a list of pairs of words and/or non-words and identifying whether or not each pair is made up of real words or not
lexical decision task
Effect within the lexical decision task in which participants respond more rapidly to high-frequency words than low.
word-frequency effect
Context, understanding of meaning, understanding of sound and syntactic rules, and statistical learning all affect the process of breaking down a continuous stream of language into smaller units or: (2)
speech segmentation
process of breaking down a continuous stream of spoken language into smaller units, like words or phrases so the listener can understand it
- eg: “Iwantapples” -> “I want apples”
Speech segmentation
4 factors dictating speech segmentation:
(CUUS)
1. Context
2. Understanding of meaning
3. Understanding of sound and syntactic rules
4. Statistical learning
When the meaning of a word is primed
- eg: people respond to the word “flower” more quickly following the word “rose” (used as a noun/the flower)
lexical priming
The fact that words can have more than one meaning and context can sometimes clear up ambiguity.
lexical ambiguity
Some meanings of words are used more frequently than others
meaning dominance