Linguistics Definitions Flashcards
Language Definition
A cognitive human communication system consisting of verbal/non-verbal communication
Linguistics Definition
The scientific study of human language and its structure
Developmental Language
Focuses on how individual language is acquired
Psycholinguistics
The investigation of the psychological processes that go into language use, including language acquisition, comprehension and production
Neurolinguistics
The study of neural mechanisms in the human brain that controls the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language
Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound in a language system that carries meaning.
Semantics
The meaning of different words and how they correlate to other words via the mapping of an idea onto a linguistic unit e.g., big and small have opposite meanings
Lexicon
A dictionary collection of words that have specified rules e.g., meaning, pronunciation, spelling, meaning
Morphology
The study of the internal construction of words
Morpheme
The smallest grammatical unit of speech e.g. un-break-able
Syntax
The arrangement system in which words are combined to produce phrases, phrases are combined to produce clauses, and clauses are combined to produce sentences
Pragmatics
The study of how context contributes to meaning in a sentence
Grammatical sentence
A sentence where the grammatical function is dependent on grammatical structural organisation
Sentence
The arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses
Neologism
New words entering a language e.g. retweet
