Normal Language Development Flashcards
What is language?
Language is the comprehension and/or use of a spoken, written, other communication symbol system.
Language is a code whereby ideas about the world are expressed through a conventional system of arbitrary signals for communication.
Language is used to communicate
- Prime means of intentional communication
- Speech is the most common
- Language takes into account environmental factors
- Allows flexibility with communication
According to Lahey, language expresses ideas. How?
- Language expresses the individual’s beliefs and desires
- Perception plays a big role
Language is a code. What is a code?
- A code is means of representing one thing by another
- Language is a means of representation
- Many things can represent an object, event or relationship
There are two things happening in relation to language as a code. It is encoding and decoding. What is encoding?
This is the act of recalling and combining the unit of the code to represent information in a message.
Ex. Arranging words in a sentence to communicate
What is decoding?
The act of recognising and segmenting the unit of a code to extract information from a message
The code is a _________ (following specific rules at word and sentence level)
The code is a system, because language is systematic. It follows specific rules at word and sentence level.
The code is a _________ (shared knowledge)
Convention. The speakers in a language community agree on such matters.
Social reasons > logical/empirical. So language is shared knowledge.
What are the components of language?
Content, form, use
What is language content? Compared to topics it is?
- Linguistic expression of what we have in mind.
- Comes from our memories and experiences
- Consists of topics but broader than topics
- Categorizes them into general meanings
- General, depersonalized, independent of particular context. General (e.g., food items). Changes with development.
Example: Mommy’s coat. What is the content?
Possession
Example: Eating ramen
Action
Topic: Red ball
Attribution
What are the primary categories of content?
Object knowledge, relationship between objects, relationship between events
What is object knowledge? What are its 2 subdivisions?
- Information about an object.
- Particular objects (proper nouns) (e.g., Alea)
- Classes of objects (common nouns) (e.g., SLP, mice,)
What subdivisions and their content categories are under object relations?
- Reflexive- relationship with itself
- Existence, non-existence, recurrence (e.g., more cookie) - Intraclass- how are they different from one another
- Quantity, attribution (e.g., red dog, blue dog) - Interclass- objects from diff classes which are related to each other. Two different things are linked by something
- Action, possession (e.g., mommy coat–they have a possessive relationship with each other)
What content categories are under event relations? What is event relations?
- Describe how two events interact with each other.
- This could be because two events of the cause and effect relationship, or pertain the mood of the speaker towards the event, etc.,
- Time/Temporal, causality, state, epistemic
What is the language form?
The shape or sound of the units, and combination in a message
What are the three broad categories under language form?
Phonology, morphology, syntax
What is phonology?
The shape or sound of the units and combination in a message
What are the two main areas under phonology?
Segmental features
Suprasegmental features
What is a segmental feature?
Phonemes, syllable (e.g., /p/ - phoneme, /ba/ - syllable)
What are suprasegmental features?
Intonation, stress, pause
What is morphology? What are morphemes?
- It is the study of the internal structure of words and parts
- Morpheme is the smallest segment of speech that carries meaning
What are morphological units?
Words.
They are content words (e.g., building blocks in a sentence such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.,) and function words (e.g., articles, auxiliary verbs)
What are grammatical inflections
Modulates meaning of a word according to time (played), number (boxes) relation (Mama’s)
What is syntax?
Syntax is an arrangement of words according to the meaning relations between them.
There are syntactic relations. What are they?
- Linear structure (e.g., more ball) - two or more words are combined but the lexical meaning of the words are the same, whether together or not.
- Hierarchical structure (e.g., mommy hugged the baby) - If you were to switch them around, they would have a different meaning (e.g., baby hugged the mommy–the baby becomes the agent while the ‘mommy’ is the affected person.)
What is language use? Also known as?
Also known as pragmatics.
Use of language for different goals/functions
Use of information from the context to determine what we say in order to achieve goals
Use of interaction between persons to initiate maintain and terminate conversations
What are the 2 main functions of language use?
- Personal (Intrapersonal) - Very self directed (e.g., commenting on objects–that’s kind of nice)
- Interpersonal (Social) - Involving someone else to use language (e.g., requesting object)
This helps us decide which form of message to serve as function of message
Context–speech occurs in a context
Within this context, that’s when we practice our social conversation skills, so our social conversation skills is our ability to?
Initiate, maintain, and terminate conversation
Changes depending on status relations between speaker and hearer
What is the non-contingent in use of language?
A new topic that is not related to what has been said. A form of message not influence by what is said–open a conversation, change topics
What is contingent?
Repeat and add more information
What is speech act theory?
A subfield of pragmatic that studies how words are used not only to present information but also to carry out actions
What are the kinds of speech acts?
Locutionary act
Illocutionary act
Perlocutionary act
What is a locutionary act?
- Production of a meaningful linguistic expression
- Act of saying something that makes sense
- Follows rules of language and grammar
Example: Answering a question, asking a question, making a statement
What is an illocutionary act?
- Intended to be performed by speaker whether or subtle way or in a less subtle way
Key word: Intention
What is a perlocutionary act?
- Has an effect on the speaker
Key word is the effect. Bring consequences or effects on the object (e.g., Oh no, I fell, a baby crying–the effect is us rushing to the baby to help him/her)
What is the overlap between the three areas refers to our knowledge of language?
- Integration of CFU aka Language Competence
- Can be conceived as a plan
- To know language is to have a plan, to use the plan when we act (e.g., speak and interpret messages)
Language competence is a plan