Vocabulary and Terminology 1 Flashcards
linguistic competence
What we know when we know a language; the unconscious knowledge that a speaker has about her or his native language.
linguistic performance
The observable use of language.
performance error
Errors in language production or comprehension, including hesitations and slips of the tongue.
speech communication chain
The process through which information is communicated, consisting of an information source, transmitter, signal, receiver, and destination.
speech communication chain steps
- Think what you want to communicate.
- Pick out words to express the idea.
- Put these words together in a certain order following rules.
- Figure out how to pronounce these words.
- Send those pronunciations to your vocal anatomy.
- Speak: Send the sound through the air.
- Perceive: Listener hears those sounds.
- Decode: Listener interprets sounds as language.
- Connect: Listener receives communicated idea.
noise
Interference in the communication chain.
lexicon
A mental repository of linguistic information about words and other lexical expressions, including their form and meaning and their morphological and syntactic properties. As part of a descriptive, not mental, grammar, the lexicon is a representation of the mental lexicon, consisting of lexical entries that capture the relevant properties of lexical expressions (e.g., their form and syntactic category).
mental grammar
The mental representation of grammar. The knowledge that a speaker has about the linguistic units and rules of his native language.
language variation
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
Objective description of a speaker’s or group of speaker’s knowledge of a language (competence) based on their use of the language (performance).
evidence that writing and language are not the same
Speech is a more basic form of writing. For example, writing must be taught. It does not exist everywhere and can be edited. Writing is more physically stable, and tends to last because of its physical medium and can be preserved for a very long time. Archaeological evidence indicates that writing is a later historical development than spoken language, and was only developed approximately 6,000 years ago in Sumer (modern day Iraq).
reasons some people believe writing to be superior to speech
Some people believe that the product of writing is usually more aptly worded and better organized. Writing must be taught and therefore is intimately associated with education and educated speech. Writing is also more physically stable than spoken language, as spoken language is simply sound waves traveling through air and therefore more transient. Writing appears in a physical form and is subject to last much longer.
prescriptive grammar
A set of rules designed to give instructions regarding the socially embedded notion of the “correct” or “proper” way to speak or write.
prescribe
Instruction on how one should write or speak, according to someone else’s idea of what is “good” or “bad”.
mode of communication
Means through which a message is transmitted for any given communication system.
semanticity
Property of having signals that covey a meaning, shared by all communication systems.
pragmatic function
The useful purpose of any given communication system.
interchangeability
The property of a communication system by which all individuals have the ability to both transmit and review messages (as opposed to systems where some individuals can only send messages and others can only receive messages).
cultural transmission
Property of a communication system referring to the fact that at least some aspects of it are learned through interaction with other users of the system.
arbitrariness
In relation to language, refers to the fact that a word’s
linguistic sign
The combination of linguistic form and meaning.
convention
Something that is established, commonly agreed upon, or operating in a certain way according to to common practice. When an arbitrary relationship of a linguistic sign and its meaning is conventionalized, the linguistic sign bears a constant relationship only because people consistently use that linguistic sign to convey that meaning.
nonarbitrariness
Direct correspondence between the physical properties of a form and the meaning that the form refers to.
iconic
Relationship between form and meaning such that the form of a word bears a resemblance to its meaning.
