Midterm 3 Flashcards
Syntax
hierarchical arrangement of grammar phrases in a sentence
Verbal behavior
how children acquire language: through adult modeling and reinforcement (operant conditioning - ABC)
surface structure
what is seen or heard
deep structure
-underlying representation (phrase structure rules and lexical terms)
-the relationships among the phrases sometimes matches the surface structure, sometimes not
structural ambiguity
-when the sentence has different interpretations
-same surface structure, different deep structure
Examples:
I shot the elephant in my pajamas = I shot an elephant while wearing my pajamas
I shot the elephant in my pajamas = I shot an elephant who was wearing my pajamas
main (independent) clauses
-contains a subject and verb and can stand alone as a complete idea
Examples:
- The students were perplexed.
- The students read the chapter.
- The students were perplexed, so they read the chapter.
subordinate (dependent) clauses
-cannot stand by themselves, incomplete without main clause
Examples: The students, (who were perplexed), decided to read the chapter. (After they read the chapter), the students felt better.
adverbial clauses
-start with a conjunction (e.g. after, when, because, although)
-function like adverbs that modify the verb of the main clause
Example:
(After they read the chapter), the students felt better
relative clauses
-a dependent clause that starts with a relative pronoun (who, which, that, etc).
-typically functioning as adjectives
Example:
The students, (who were perplexed), decided to read the chapter.
complementizer clauses
-a subordinate clause often introduced by “that” or as set of wh- words (what, when, whether)
Examples:
The students thought (that the professor was a little off her rocker.)
syntactic movement
-transformational rules to convert the deep structure into a surface structure (a sentence that is ready to be spoken)
Example:
The teacher broke the projector → The projector was broken by the teacher.
(difference is the two nouns are flipped.)
discourse
- Language beyond the unit of a sentence
- Connected speech or writing that is longer than a sentence (paragraphs, passages, etc)
- When spoken = someone’s story or conversational turn
coherence
- The ability to be successfully interpreted and understood
- being logical and consistent
- Achieved through cohesive ties, inference, logical ordering of information
cohesion
- Ideas logically flow from one to the other
- Links that we use when we connect an element to another element in the text (usually between sentences)
Examples:
Anaphora (David got into the car. He drove home.)
Ellipses (Have you been skiing? — Yes I have [been skiing])
4 gricean maxims
quantity, quality, relation, manner
quantity maxim
SUFFICIENT INFO - not too little, not too much
making sure you give enough information without going overboard or without giving too little detail
quality maxim
RIGHT INFO - don’t say things you don’t have evidence for.
high quality statements, accuracy, making sure what you’re saying is actually true
- not many people violate this maxim (example: “that’s the biggest sandwich in the world” – prob not.)
OR when you mistake something as fact & someone calls you out
relation maxim
your contributions should be relevant to the situation/conversation
manner maxim
being clear, brief, and orderly
deixis
words in our language that can’t be interpreted without context.
deictic expressions
person (me, those idiots), spatial (here, there), temporal (tomorrow, next year)
reference
The act of mentioning and alluding to identify something
anaphora and cataphora
anaphora is referring back to a noun using a pronoun
cataphora is using a pronoun first before noun for dramatic effect
presupposition
- What a speaker or a writer assumes the listener or reader knows.
- When we make an inference we presuppose information
Example: “We saw Shakespeare in London.” Background knowledge: Shakespeare wrote plays, he lived in the 1600s
Inference: They saw a play by Shakespeare being performed in London
Presupposition: They were in London.
direct speech acts
The literal meaning of the sentence conveys the intended meaning
indirect speech acts
The implication of the sentence. The ways in which people ask others to do things—but in indirect ways.
Example: You left the door open
Standard American English (SAE)
- the way texts/articles are written
- not how we use the language colloquially (no one really speaks SAE)
- it’s not the language of ALL Americans– not very inclusive
dialect
-variations in a language
-features of grammar, vocab, and pronunciation
-particular to a region or social group
pidgins
-when groups of people who don’t have a common language come in contact, they create a contact language called pidgins
- structurally simple communication systems that arise when people who share no common language come into constant contact
- A “contact” language that developed for practical purposes, such as trading, by people who did not speak each other’s languages
- “first generation” of contact between two groups
creoles
-when pidgins become the official language of a community
When pidgins develop beyond the contact language and become the first language of a community
Example language: Hawai’ian
“second/third generation” of contact between groups with grammar rules included
sources of an ideolect
Personal dialect, social biases involved… influenced by the grammar and vocab you hear from your parents, from the community around you (geographical influence), etc…
overt prestige
changing the speech style in terms of what is perceived to be of high social status (upward mobility)
change in direction of a form that is more frequent in those perceived to have higher social status
covert prestige
speech style to sound like the group they want to be recognized with (group solidarity)
formal speech style
When we pay careful attention to how we’re speaking. Sometimes called careful style.
informal speech style
When we pay less attention to how we are speaking, also called casual style
(Line between speech styles is how well we know the person we’re talking to)
register
-the speech style that we used depending on the context (e.g. talking in church - situational, talking to lawyers - occupational)
Conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific context
- How you put the words together
- Usually use a different register when you talk to older people (grandparents), than you use with siblings/friends
jargon
- Specialized technical vocab (typically nouns) associated with a specific area of work or interest
- Used among professionals within a field
slang
- Terms that are used instead of everyday words by certain speakers… colloquial speech
- Usually used by members of a group as part of group identity, usually younger speakers
- Subject to change
