Language Learning

Question 1

Semanticity?

Answer 1

to convey meaning that is relatively stable

Question 2

Arbitrariness?

Answer 2

the form of the signal is not inextricable tied to meaning

Question 3

Displacement?

Answer 3

The ability to talk about things not temporally, spatially or emotionally present

Question 4

Productivity?

Answer 4

The infinite capacity to produce and understand meaning from finite units

Question 5

Traditional transmission?

Answer 5

The social learning between generations

Question 6

Interchangability?

Answer 6

The ability of speakers to produce any message that they can understand

Question 7

Met-communication?

Answer 7

The language used to talk about language

Question 8

How do behaviourists think language is learnt?

Answer 8

In the same way as any other behaviour (S-R-C)

Question 9

How does Chomsky’s nativist approach suggest we acquire language?

Answer 9

Predisposed as humans (not animals- in our genes)
Innately
Not explicitly learned

Question 10

WHat are 2 types of languages that dont use a fixed grammatical structure?

Answer 10

Pidgin 
Creole languages (eg. australian kriol)

Question 11

What are the developmental stages of language acquisition?

Answer 11

pre-speech
babbling
one-word utterances
productive speech

Question 12

When is the sensitive period of language learning?

Answer 12

before puberty (before lateralisation)

Question 13

At the age of university how many words do we know?

Answer 13

about 50,000

Question 14

Lexicon?

Answer 14

mental dictionary of words

Question 15

Phonology?

Answer 15

the pronunciation of the word

Question 16

Orthography?

Answer 16

Written form of the word

Question 17

Semantic?

Answer 17

Meaning of the word

Question 18

WHat are the 2 areas of the brain dedicated to language?

Answer 18

Broca’s area

Wernicke’s area

Question 19

WHat is Broca’s area associated with?

Answer 19

Comprehension of meaning

Question 20

What happens when Broca’s area is damaged?

Answer 20

Production aphasia

Question 21

What is Wernicke’s area of the brain responsible for?

Answer 21

fluency

Question 22

What occurs when Wernicke’s area of the brain is damaged?

Answer 22

Comprehension aphasia of conveying meaning

Question 23

Shape bias?

Answer 23

The tendency to generalise the meaning on the basis of shared shapes rather than other properties (colour, texture etc.)

Question 24

Words are recognised better than?

Answer 24

Other syllable combinations

Question 25

Both spoken and written language involve

Answer 25

Interpreting perceptual stimuli in terms of meaning

Question 26

Syntax?

Answer 26

grammar/ rules

Question 27

Prosody?

Answer 27

Rhythm and tone

Question 28

Pragmatics?

Answer 28

Content and social rules

Question 29

What are the 3 differences between written and spoken language?

Answer 29

Word boundaries are either clear (written) or unclear (speech)
Signal remains (written) or is lost (speech)
Prosodic and non verbal cues (speech) or not prosodic and no non-verbal cues (written)- instead punctuation.

Question 30

Brain damage patients with deficient inner speech can identify ________ errors but not _________ errors

Answer 30

semantic

syntactic

Question 31

What is inner speech important for?

Answer 31

Working memory - the ability to order words in a sentence

Question 32

What does the capacity theory suggest?

Answer 32

That individuals with higher working memory have a faster processing time of words.

Question 33

What does working memory correlate to?

Answer 33

Reading comprehension

Verbal intelligence

Question 34

Greater mass of grey matter in the cortex positively correlated with?

Answer 34

Second language proficiency

Question 35

What does the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Linguistic relativity) state?

Answer 35

Language defines and confines our experiences of the world and our thoughts

Question 36

What is Linguistic universalist?

Answer 36

The opposite of linguistic relativist in which all linguistic/cultural manifestations of temporal experiences exhibit clearly the properties and effects of an underlying universal structure of experience