Language Dev exam #1 (chapter 1) Flashcards
What are 3 major dimensions of human communication?
- communication
- language
- speech
When verbal communities rely heavily on reading and writing words to communicate, they are said to be what?
Literate societies
From a linguistic viewpoint, communication is defined as…
A rule based mental system of language code used for understanding and expressing feeling, thoughts and ideas
From a theoretical perspective, communication has been defined as…
A process of sending and receiving messages that serve to transmit information between systems or groups.
What is a code?
A system of rules for arranging arbitrary symbols in a orderly, predicable manner so that others who know the code can interpret the meaning.
It is critical that a code is….
sytematic
What is sytematic?
Makes code predictable, orderly and organized
What is conventional?
Participants (senders and receivers) all follow the same patterns or rules
What is a symbol?
An item used to represent or stand for another object, idea or relationship
What is arbritary?
Symbols that bear no physical resemblance to their referents.
What is onomatopoeia?
Words that sound like the events they represent
What is iconic?
Gestural signs in sign language and pictographic languages appear much like the referent they are said to convey
What is communication competence?
It occurs only when speakers effectively influence their listeners behaviors
Competent communication must meet what 2 requirements?
a) the speakers behavior must relate to the topic or situation
b) the speakers behavior must have a practical effect on the listeners behavior
What is an agenda?
refers to the logical steps towards a desired goal
What 2 broad levels can human communication be broken down into?
- verbal communication
- nonverbal communication
What is verbal communication?
- Involves the use of words as symbols to exchange ideas
- Its also linguistic because it generally involves the use of lang. systems in arranging or ordering the words
What is nonverbal communication?
- It does not rely on the use of words; rather it conveys ideas, thoughts or feelings through other behaviors
Verbal communication can further be subdivided into…
- Oral auditory communication
- Visual-graphic communication
How many different spoken languages are their in the world?
3000
Can verbal communication incl. sign language or written contracts?
Yes
What are some examples of nonverbal communication?
- a wink
- a smile
- a touch
- maintaining or avoiding eye contact
What are nonlinguistic cues?
Non speech behaviors that accompany the speakers words and transmit certain cues through facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, body lang or proxemics
What are proxemics?
the study of the use of proximity, closeness, or interpersonal space in communication
What are the four regions of proximity in communication?
- intimate
- personal
- social
- public
What is speech?
It’s the physical production of sounds to communicate meaning through the neuromuscular control of the structures of the vocal tract.
What is articulation?
It is the production of speech sounds through physical movement of the jaw, tongue, lips and velum to change the size and shape of the vocal tract.
What is the vocal tract?
- larynx
- pharynx
- velum
- tongue
- teeth
- lips
- oral and nasal cavities
What 3 basic components can speech be broken down to?
- articulation
- voice
- fluency/ rhythm
What is phonation?
The production of sound through vibration of the vocal cords in the larynx.
What is resonation?
The process of modifying the vocal tone as it passes through the vocal tract
What is fluency?
It incorporates the rhythm, rate and flow of speech as it is produced.
what is phology?
They study of the sound systems of language
What is the IPA?
It represents all of the identified individual sounds of all the recognized human languages
What is a phone?
It represents an individual production of a speech sound in a word
What is phonemes?
Groups or families of sounds that are related by their acoustic similiarities
What is categorical perception?
Its when the listener tens to group variable productions of a sound together because the subtle acoustic differences are apparently insignificant.
What are allophones?
Phones that exhibit subtle differences, but are heard as belonging to the same category
What is a phoneme?
An abstract family of sounds which are all related by their similar acoustic features
What are distinctive features?
features or characteristics that help distinguish one phoneme from amnother
What is language?
It is a system of arbitrary verbal symbols that speakers put in order according to a conventional code to communicate ideas and feelings or to influence the behavior of others
What is a dialect?
a distinct variation of a major language that is spoken by an identifiable subgroup of those people using that language
What are speakers doing when related to expressive and receptive language?
- encoding
- expression
- production
What is a listener doing when it comes to expressive and receptive language?
- decoding
- reception
- comprehension
What specialized branches of linguistics are there?
- comparative linguistics
- historical linguistics
- descriptive linguistics
- psycholinguistics
- sociolinguistics
- developmental linguistics
what is comparative linguistics?
The study of variations in language that occur from one location to another
What is historical linguisitics?
studies the different and similarities across language from different periods of time
what is descriptive linguistics?
attempts to describe he structure of individual languages
what is psycholinguistics?
attempts to theorize the underlying mental operations used in formulating and processing language
what is sociolinguistics?
attempts to describe language variations based on social and cultrual variables
what is developmental linguistics?
attempts to describe the nature of emerging language in children’s language acquistiion.
Grammatical aspect of language
What is grammar?
It refers to the conventional rules for arranging the symbols of language in sequences that convey the intended meaning
The morphologic aspect of grammar
What is morphology?
It is the study of minimal, meaningful unit of language
Morphologic aspect of grammar
What are morphemes?
They are the minimal, meaningful unit of language. These are the smallest elements of language that carry meaning
A morphine is at least one phoneme, but not all phonemes are morphemes
For example: “I” = One phoneme and one morpheme
“W”= One phoneme, but not a morpheme
Hey morphine is at least one syllable, but not also will both are morphemes
For example: “This”= One syllable and one morpheme;
“Catching” = Two syllables, two morphemes;
“envelope” = Three syllables, one morpheme
A word is at least one morpheme, but not all morphemes are words
For example: “ball”= One word, one morpheme;
“opening”= One word, two morphemes
“ing” = Zero words, one morpheme
What is a free morpheme?
They are units that can stand alone, independent of other units, and still carry meaning
What are bound morphemes?
They are morphemes that must be attached to other (free) morphemes to carry meaning
What are derivational morphemes?
They are defined as morphemes that serves primarily to change the grammatical class of the free morpheme to which they are attached
The thought that a ghost might be there made the house seem ghostly
What is inflectional morpheme?
These are morphemes that alter the meaning of the Freemore seem to which they are attached with out deriving a new grammatical category
Syntactic aspect of grammar
What is syntax?
It is the part of grammar which specifies rules for sequencing were ordering words to form phrases and sentences
What different sentence types are there?
1) Declarative
2) Interrogative
3) Negative
4) Passive
5) Imperative
Sentence types
What is a declarative sentence type?
It makes an affirmative statement
“The man is closing the window”
Sentence types
What is an interrogative sentence type?
It forms a question
“Is the man closing the window?”
Sentence types
What is a negative sentence type?
It contradicts an assertion
“The man is not closing the window”
Sentence types
What is a passive sentence type?
It indicates that the subject of the sentence is being acted on
“The window is being closed by the man”
Sentence types
What is an imperative sentence type?
Omitting the subject of the sentence, imparts a commanding tone.
What different types of grammar are there?
1) Prescriptive grammar
2) Descriptive grammar
3) Intuitive grammar
4) Formal grammar
Types of grammar
What is prescriptive grammar?
It is a set of rules that specifies how a language should be spoken
Types of grammar
What is descriptive grammar?
It refers to the linguistic process of identifying and describing the regularities that occur naturally in a language
Types of grammar
What is intuitive grammar?
It refers to the underlying knowledge speakers demonstrate by using and understanding their native language
Types of grammar
What is formal grammar?
It is the written summary of the hypothetical rules that describe the regularities in a language
What is linguistic competence?
Represents speakers idealized, underlying knowledge of their language
What is linguistic performance?
The actualized production of linguistic units by a speaker, refers to the reality that this idolized knowledge must be applied in actually producing language
What is generative grammar?
It is one that is comprised of a limited number of rules capable of generating an unlimited number of acceptable sentences in the language
What is semantics?
Is the study of meaning. The first dimension of semantics is word meaning
What is vocabulary?
It’s a collection of words learned by individuals
What is lexicon?
It refers to all morphemes, including words and word parts, that a speaker knows
What is semantic features?
It consists of the perceptual and conceptual characteristics that define the meaning contained by a word
What is episodic memory?
It is the “experiential diary” of all the episodes or experiences related to that word’s meaning
What is semantic memory?
The collection of related words and concepts they associated with the word, also develops
What is the second dimension of semantics?
Word relations
What is selection restrictions?
It describes why the Meanines of two words are either capable or incapable of being meaningful combined.
What is an antonym?
Words that share the same features but are opposite in one feature
What are binary antonyms?
They represent polar extremes that have no middle ground
For example live versus dead; you cannot be “kind of dead”
What are gradable antonyms?
They are representing different gradations or points on a continuum
For example: cool versus warm
What are hyponyms?
These are words that contain specific subset of a word known as a superordinate
For example, the word “couch” is a hyponym of the superordinate “furniture”
What is semantic relations?
It describes the role each noun in a sentence has in relation to the verb the sentence
What is pragmatics?
It is the study of language use
What are the three linguistic aspects?
Grammar, semantics, and pragmatics
What is functions In pragmatics?
It consists of those purposes or intentions that are achieved by speakers through the use of language
What are her performatives in pragmatics?
the verb in certain utterances actually constitutes an act.
What are speeches of acts?
All utterances are conceived as performing some act
What are alternations in pragmatics?
Using different words or sentence forms to achieve the same results
What is social context?
It refers to how formal or informal the situation is and the roles assumed by the individual speakers
What is linguistic context?
It’s the information and utterances that have preceded an utterance can affect what is required in the speakers subsequence utterance.
What is a direct speech act?
It achieves its end through an utterance that has only one interpretation
What is indirect speech act?
It implies that there are several possible interpretations
What is discourse in pragmatics?
It refers to an extended verbal exchange on some topic, essentially a conversation
What criteria must an effective conversation meet?
1) . It must include an appropriate quantity of information
2) Of adequate quality or truthfulness
3) Relevant to the established topic
4) Delivered in a manner that is clear and understandable
