W1: key concepts and foundations of language

Question 1

What is communication?

Answer 1

The transmission of information from one source to another

Question 2

What is language?

Answer 2

A system of symbols that convey meaning because of shared rules

Question 3

Not all communicative acts constitute…

Answer 3

Language

Communication is a much broader theme and language is just a part of it

Question 4

What is the focus of linguistics?

Answer 4

The structure of language

Question 5

Linguistics is ……. rather than ……

Answer 5

Descriptive rather than prescriptive (involves really looking at language and describing it - it is not telling people what to do)

Question 6

What do linguists try to do?

Answer 6

Try to describe language

Try to account for what people say and find acceptable

Question 7

What is the focus of psycholinguistics?

Answer 7

The psychological processes by which people acquire and use language (either as children learning to speak or an adult learning a new language)

Question 8

What do neurolinguistics focus on?

Answer 8

How language is represented in the brain and what happens if something goes wrong (e.g. head injury)

Question 9

What are the ultimate goals of everyone involved in studying language? And why have we not attained these goals yet?

Answer 9

To develop an integrated account of how language users produce and understand language AND how children develop these abilities so rapidly

We haven’t reached this goal because language is so complex and research techniques are sometimes inadequate

Question 10

What are phonemes?

Answer 10

They are the smallest units of sound

Question 11

What are phonetics?

Answer 11

Speech sounds and how they are articulated

Question 12

What are phonotactics?

Answer 12

The rules for combining sounds within a language

- They are not taught but we all know them

Question 13

What is prosody?

Answer 13

Patterns of intonation and stress (contours of a sentence)

- they can help to explain exactly what you mean

Question 14

What are morphemes?

Answer 14

They are the smallest units of meaning

Question 15

What is morphology?

Answer 15

The study of how words are built up from morphemes

Question 16

What are free morphemes?

Answer 16

They can stand alone and make sense
green + house
thumb + print

Question 17

What are bound morphemes?

Answer 17

They cannot stand alone like free morphemes, but they still add meaning
noodle + s
walk + ing

Question 18

What are semantics?

Answer 18

The literal meaning of words

Question 19

Word meanings are stored in our…

Answer 19

Mental lexicon

Question 20

Content words vs. function words?

Answer 20

Content words hold meaning

Function words help the sentence along

Question 21

What is syntax?

Answer 21

Rules for combining words into sentences

Question 22

What are pragmatics?

Answer 22

What you really mean..
Word choice/interpretation according to the situation

Guides the choice of language in context such as being polite
‘It’s a bit chilly in here vs. close the door’

Question 23

What is a language register?

Answer 23

The appropriate level of written or spoken language for a given situation

Question 24

What is discourse?

Answer 24

Verbal or written interaction longer than a single utterance

Question 25

What is discourse success?

Answer 25

Hearer/readers full interpretation of speaker/writer's intent

Question 26

What is metalinguistic awareness?

Answer 26

The ability to think about language - we can all speak/understand English but may not always understand why certain things sound right/wrong/different

Question 27

Languages change over time. What kinds of changes may occur?

Answer 27

Loss of old words Inclusion of new words Borrowing words from other languages (algebra, chai, pasta) Giving new meanings to old words (cool, sick) Inventing new words (hangry, zoodle)

Question 28

What are the modalities of language?

Answer 28

Spoken language Written language Signed language

Question 29

Which of Hockett's design features seem to be unique to humans? (4)

Answer 29

1. Arbitrariness: neutral symbols that don't resemble what they stand for 2. Displacement: the system can refer to things remote in time and space 3. Reflectiveness: we can communicate about the communication system itself 4. Openness/creativity/productivity: the ability to invent new messages (putting words together in new ways)

Question 30

Animal communication is dependent on..

Answer 30

Context and/or stimulus A reason to communicate that is external to them Whereas, humans will talk for the sake of it

Question 31

The vocalisations of animals occur under what conditions?

Answer 31

Narrowly specified conditions whereas humans will vocalise under any condition

Question 32

Explain the language of vervet monkeys?

Answer 32

They can produce 36 distinct vocal sounds - the choice of sound is generally determined by circumstances such as being lost of different types of danger No creativity - don't use sounds in creative or new ways

Question 33

Explain language used by birds

Answer 33

Birds typically give off an alarm cry when they see a predator (not telling of specific predators like monkeys do as they have a more limited vocal tract) This cry may continue after a predator is gone Is this displacement or continued fear??

Question 34

Alex the African grey parrot?

Answer 34

Knew about 80 words - could understand and produce short word sequences Knew few verbs or function words and couldnt relate objects to verbs

Question 35

Dolphins Phoenix and Akeakamai?

Answer 35

They learnt visual cues to language but their syntactic abilities were very limites No attempt to produce language

Question 36

Attempts to teach language to apes?

Answer 36

More successful than other animals Early research: tried to teach human speech to apes reared as/with human children. This was mostly met with failure due to physiological differences in articulary apparatus

Question 37

Instead of teaching human speech to apes, what else can be taught?

Answer 37

- Sign language - Button-pressing - Token manipulation All more ape friendly

Question 38

Explain the abilities of Washoe the female chimp

Answer 38

She was taught to use modified sign language with constant human tutoring Learnt 150-200 signs in 6 years (takes a human 6 months for the same learning) Showed semanticity, limited displacement, apparent creativity but no fixed word order

Question 39

Explain the abilities of Sarah the female chimp

Answer 39

She lived in a cage and had a strict regime - taught to manipulate plastic tokens Each token symbolised a word (red square = banana) she understood >100 symbols Clear semanticity No creativity or conversation

Question 40

Explain the abilities of the bonobo names Kanzi

Answer 40

Learned incidentally Produced some well-ordered, meaningful combinations Understood novel situations as well as a 3 year old child 90% of his utterances were requests (when humans use language we use it to share information but he used it to get what he wanted) Best case of language-like abilities in apes

Question 41

At best, animals can learn a..

Answer 41

Protolanguage