Module 1 Week 2 Flashcards
Language Files:Chapter 1
Linguistic Competence
pg. 7
What we know when we know a language; the unconscious knowledge that a speaker has about her or his native language.
Linguistic Performance
pg. 7
The observable use of language. The actualization of one’s linguistic competence.
Performance Error
pg. 7
Errors in language production or comprehension, including hesitations and slips of the tongue
Speech Communication Chain
pg. 8-9
The process through which information is communicated, consisting of an information source, transmitter, signal, receiver, and destination.
Speech Communication Chain Steps
pg. 8-9
Step 1: Think of what you want to communicate
Step 2: Pick out words to express the idea
Step 3: Put these words together in a certain order following rules.
Step 4: Figure out how to pronounce these words
Step 5: Send those pronunciations to your vocal anatomy
Step 6: SPEAK- Send the sounds through the air
Step 7: PERCEIVE- Listener hears the sounds
Step 8: DECODE- Listener interprets sounds as language
Step 9: CONNECT- Listener receives communicated idea
Noise
pg. 9
Interference in the communication chain.
Lexicon
pg. 11
A mental repository of linguistic information about words and other lexical expressions, including their form and meaning and their morphological.
Mental Grammar
pg. 11
The mental representation of grammar. The knowledge that a speaker has about the linguistic units and rules of his native language.
Language Variation
pg. 12
The property of languages having different ways to express the same meanings in different contexts
according to factors such as geography, social class, gender, etc.
Descriptive Grammar
pg. 12
Objective description of a speaker’s or a group of speakers’ knowledge of a language (competence) based on their use of the language (performance).
Evidence that writing and language are not the same:
pg. 14
1: Writing must be taught, whereas spoken language is acquired naturally.
2: Writing does not exist everywhere that spoken language does.
3: Neurolinguistic evidence (studies of the brain “in action” during language use) demonstrates that the processing and production of written language written language is overlaid on the spoken language centers in the brain. Spoken language involves several distinct areas of the brain; writing uses these areas and others as well.
4: Writing can be edited before it is shared with others in most cases, while speech is usually much more spontaneous.
Reasons some people believe writing to be superior to speech:
pg. 15
1: Writing can be edited, and so the product of writing is usually more aptly worded and better organized, containing fewer errors, hesitations, pauses, filler words, false starts and incomplete sentences than are found in speech.
2: Writing must be taught and is therefore intimately associated with education and educated speech.
3: Writing is more physically stable than spoken language, which consists of nothing more than sounds waves traveling through the air and is therefore ephemeral and transient, if it is not captured by audio- or video-recording.
Prescriptive Grammar
pg. 16
A set of rules designed to give instructions regarding the socially embedded notion of the “correct” or “proper” way to speak or write.
Prescribe
pg. 16
How you “should” speak or write, according to someone’s idea of what is “good” or “bad”.
Charles Hockett’s nine design features (necessary for a communication system to be considered a language)
pg. 20-26
1: Mode of Communication
2: Semanticity
3: Pragmatic Function
4: Interchangeability
5: Cultural Transmission
6: Arbitrariness
7: Discreteness
8: Displacement
9: Productivity
