Language Files Ch. 1

Question 1

Linguistic Competence

Answer 1

Interest in the hidden knowledge in language

Question 2

Linguistic Performance

Answer 2

The way language is produced and comprehended

Question 3

Performance Error

Answer 3

Mistakes such as being unable to remember a word, mispronouncing something, or jumbling words into a sentence

Question 4

Speech Communication Chain

Answer 4

Communication system in which the information source and the transmitter send signal to one another

Question 5

Speech Communication Chain Steps

Answer 5

1) Think of what to communicate
2) Pick words to express the idea
3) Put words together in certain order following rules
4) Speak
5) send pronunciations to vocal anatomy
6) Figure out how to pronounce words
7) Perceive
8) Decode
9) Connect

Question 6

Noise

Answer 6

Interference in the communication chain

Question 7

Lexicon

Answer 7

The collection of words one knows including the functions they serve, what they refer to, how they are pronounced, and how they are related to other words

Question 8

Mental Grammar

Answer 8

Knowledge of the rules on knows about the language(s) in which one speaks

Question 9

Language Variation

Answer 9

The details of mental grammar vary among speakers

Question 10

Descriptive Grammar

Answer 10

Analysis of collections of generalizations in grammar

Question 11

Evidence that writing and language are not the same

Answer 11

1) Writing must be taught; spoken language is acquired naturally
2) Writing can be edited; speech is spontaneous
3) Writing does not exist everywhere that spoken language does
4) Spoken language involves several distinct areas of the brain; writing uses these areas and others

Question 12

Reasons some believe writing to be superior to speech

Answer 12

1) Writing can be edited
2) Writing must be taught
3) Writing is more physically stable

Question 13

Prescriptive Grammar

Answer 13

The socially embedded notion of the “correct” or “proper” ways to use a language

Question 14

Prescribe

Answer 14

Mold spoken and written language to some norm

Question 15

Charles Hockett’s nine design features

Answer 15

1) Mode of communication
2) Semanticity
3) Pragmatic function
4) Interchangeability
5) Cultural transmission
6) Arbitrariness
7) Discreteness
8) Displacement
9) Productivity

Question 16

Mode of Communication

Answer 16

The means by which messages are transmitted and received

Question 17

Semanticity

Answer 17

The property requiring that all signals in a communication system have a meaning or a function

Question 18

Pragmatic Function

Answer 18

The useful purpose of a communication system

Question 19

Interchangeability

Answer 19

The ability of individuals to both transmit and receive messages

Question 20

Cultural Transmission

Answer 20

The aspect of language that can be acquired only through communicative interaction with other users of the system

Question 21

Arbitrariness

Answer 21

The connection between a group of sounds of signs that give a word its form and meaning

Question 22

Linguistic Sign

Answer 22

The combination between form and meaning

Question 23

Convention

Answer 23

What gives a group a particular meaning

Question 24

Nonarbitrariness

Answer 24

The opposite of arbitrariness

Question 25

Iconic

Answer 25

Where the form represents the meaning directly

Question 26

Onomatopoeia

Answer 26

Words that are imitative of natural sounds or have meanings that are associated with such sounds of nature

Question 27

Conventionalized

Answer 27

An inherent and determined connection between the meaning and the form

Question 28

Sound Symbolism

Answer 28

Certain sounds that occur in words not by virtue of being directly imitative of some sound but simply being evocative of a particular meaning

Question 29

Discreteness

Answer 29

The property of language that allows us to combine together discrete units in order to create larger communicative units

Question 30

Displacement

Answer 30

The ability of a language to communicate about things, actions, and ideas that are not present in space or time while speakers are communicating

Question 31

Productivity

Answer 31

A language’s capacity for novel messages to be built up out of discrete units

Question 32

Modality

Answer 32

A mode of communication

Question 33

Myths about sign languages

Answer 33

1) Sign languages derive from spoken languages, rather than being in their own right
2) Sign languages don’t consist of words at all but rather involve signers using their hands to draw pictures or to act
3) Sign languages do not have an internal structure
4) There is only one signed language that is used by deaf speakers all over the world

Question 34

Differences between codes and languages

Answer 34

1) A code is an artificially constructed system for representing a natural language; it has no structure of its own and borrows the structure of the natural language it represents
2) Codes never have native speakers; languages do have native speakers
3) because manual codes are based on native language, they do not share many propoerties of language
4) The rate of transmission of information is different between manual code and natural language