Vocab List - 9/6/2020

Question 1

linguistic competence

Answer 1

The measure of how much someone understands the use and speak of a certain language.

Question 2

linguistic performance

Answer 2

The ability to produce and comprehend sentences in a language.

Question 3

performance error

Answer 3

Performance errors are errors made by learners when they are tired or hurried.

Question 4

speech communication chain

Answer 4

The different forms in which a spoken message exists in its progress from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the listener.

Question 5

speech communication chain steps

Answer 5

1. Linguistic level
2. Physiological level
3. Acoustic level
4. Physiological level
5. Linguistic level

Question 6

noise

Answer 6

This is when grammar or technical language is used that the receiver cannot understand, or cannot understand clearly and is normally the failure of the sender to communicate effectively.

Question 7

lexicon

Answer 7

A language’s inventory of lexemes.

Question 8

mental grammar

Answer 8

Generative grammar stored in the brain that allows a speaker to produce language that other speakers can understand

Question 9

language variation

Answer 9

Changes in language due to various influences including, social, geographic, individual and group factors.

Question 10

descriptive grammar

Answer 10

An approach to grammar that is concerned with reporting the usage of native speakers without reference to proposed norms of correctness or advocacy of rules based on such norms. This is most concerned with how you speak.

Question 11

evidence that writing and language are not the same (list 4 reasons)

Answer 11

1. Throughout history, almost everybody could speak but few could write.
2. Writing is a method of language.
3. Writing can be independent of language.
4. Writing doesn’t convey messages in the way that spoken language does.

Question 12

reasons some people believe writing to be superior to speech (list 3 reasons)

Answer 12

reasons some people believe writing to be superior to speech (list 3 reasons)

Question 13

prescriptive grammar

Answer 13

A set of rules about language based on how people think language should be used. In a prescriptive grammar there is right and wrong language and it is focused on how you ought to speak.

Question 14

prescribe

Answer 14

The attempt to establish rules defining preferred or correct use of language

Question 15

Charles Hockett’s nine design features (necessary for a communication system to be considered a language) (list)

Answer 15

1. Mode of Communication
2. Semanticity
3. Pragmatic function
4. Interchangeability
5. Cultural Transmission
6. Arbitrariness
7. Discreteness
8. Displacement
9. Productivity

Question 16

mode of communication

Answer 16

The medium or channel through which communicative intent is expressed.

Question 17

semanticity

Answer 17

A fixed relationship between a signal and a meaning.

Question 18

pragmatic function

Answer 18

The meaning a speaker wishes to convey to the person they are speaking to (the receiver).

Question 19

interchangeability

Answer 19

The speaker can both receive and broadcast the same signal.

Question 20

cultural transmission

Answer 20

The process of learning and teaching, characterised by the transmission of a behaviour from one organism to another by physical demonstration such that between human beings.

Question 21

arbitrariness

Answer 21

There is no necessary connection between the form of the signal and the thing being referred to.

Question 22

linguistic sign

Answer 22

Any unit of language (morpheme, word, phrase, or sentence) used to designate objects or phenomena of reality which are bilateral; they consist of a signifier, made up of speech sounds (more precisely, phonemes), and a signified, created by the linguistic sign’s sense content.

Question 23

convention

Answer 23

A principle or norm that has been adopted by a person or linguistic community about how to use, and therefore what the meaning is, of a specific term.

Question 24

nonarbitrariness

Answer 24

There is a necessary connection between the form of the signal and the thing being referred to.

Question 25

iconic

Answer 25

Iconicity is a relationship of resemblance or similarity between the two aspects of a sign: its form and its meaning.

Question 26

onomatopoeia

Answer 26

The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named.

Question 27

conventionalized

Answer 27

Represented in a traditional or conventional way.

Question 28

sound symbolism

Answer 28

The apparent association between particular sound sequences and particular meanings in speech.

Question 29

discreteness

Answer 29

The idea that linguistic representation can be broken down individually into separate, small and distinct units after which they can be combined with other similar units to create new representations.

Question 30

displacement

Answer 30

A characteristic of language that allows users to talk about things and events other than those occurring in the here and now.

Question 31

productivity

Answer 31

The degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. There is an ability to produce infinite numbers of different messages by combining the elements differently.

Question 32

modality

Answer 32

Linguistic devices that indicate the degree to which an observation is possible, probable, likely, certain, permitted, or prohibited

Question 33

myths about signed languages (list 4)

Answer 33

1. Sign language is universal
2. Sign language only uses your hands
3. American Sign Language is based on English.
4. Sign language was invented by hearing people.

Question 34

differences between codes and languages (list 4)

Answer 34

1. Codes assign letters or numbers as identifiers for language.
2. Language assigns meaning to speech for all to understand whereas codes are meant to be arbitrary.
3. Codes do not represent meaning, they simply either facilitate or obscure the transfer of the meaning.
4. Code allows for signs to be created whereas language assigns meaning to sounds.