Language Files Ch. 1 Flashcards
Linguistic Competence
Interest in the hidden knowledge in language
Linguistic Performance
The way language is produced and comprehended
Performance Error
Mistakes such as being unable to remember a word, mispronouncing something, or jumbling words into a sentence
Speech Communication Chain
Communication system in which the information source and the transmitter send signal to one another
Speech Communication Chain Steps
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
Noise
Interference in the communication chain
Lexicon
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
Mental Grammar
Knowledge of the rules on knows about the language(s) in which one speaks
Language Variation
The details of mental grammar vary among speakers
Descriptive Grammar
Analysis of collections of generalizations in grammar
Evidence that writing and language are not the same
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
Reasons some believe writing to be superior to speech
1) Writing can be edited
2) Writing must be taught
3) Writing is more physically stable
Prescriptive Grammar
The socially embedded notion of the “correct” or “proper” ways to use a language
Prescribe
Mold spoken and written language to some norm
Charles Hockett’s nine design features
1) Mode of communication
2) Semanticity
3) Pragmatic function
4) Interchangeability
5) Cultural transmission
6) Arbitrariness
7) Discreteness
8) Displacement
9) Productivity
Mode of Communication
The means by which messages are transmitted and received
Semanticity
The property requiring that all signals in a communication system have a meaning or a function
Pragmatic Function
The useful purpose of a communication system
Interchangeability
The ability of individuals to both transmit and receive messages
Cultural Transmission
The aspect of language that can be acquired only through communicative interaction with other users of the system
Arbitrariness
The connection between a group of sounds of signs that give a word its form and meaning
Linguistic Sign
The combination between form and meaning
Convention
What gives a group a particular meaning
Nonarbitrariness
The opposite of arbitrariness
Iconic
Where the form represents the meaning directly
Onomatopoeia
Words that are imitative of natural sounds or have meanings that are associated with such sounds of nature
Conventionalized
An inherent and determined connection between the meaning and the form
Sound Symbolism
Certain sounds that occur in words not by virtue of being directly imitative of some sound but simply being evocative of a particular meaning
Discreteness
The property of language that allows us to combine together discrete units in order to create larger communicative units
Displacement
The ability of a language to communicate about things, actions, and ideas that are not present in space or time while speakers are communicating
Productivity
A language’s capacity for novel messages to be built up out of discrete units
Modality
A mode of communication
Myths about sign languages
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
Differences between codes and languages
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
