Week 1: Knowledge and Processing

Question 1

COMPETENCE vs Performance

Answer 1

An individual’s knowledge of their language

Phonological, lexical, syntactic, semantic

Question 2

Competence vs PERFORMANCE

Answer 2

An individual’s use of their language

Question 3

Stages of language production

Answer 3

Conceptualisation
Lexical selection
Morphological encoding
Phonological encoding
Phonetic encoding
Articulation

Question 4

Two models of language production

Answer 4

Levelt: WEAVER++ (feed-forward)

Dell: interactive activation (feedback)

Question 5

Three features of comprehension

Answer 5

Coarticulation: we don’t produce sounds neatly one after the other

Perceptual constancy: hearing different phonemes as the same unless isolated

Duplex perception: hearing the same sound as speech or other noise in each ear

Question 6

Two approaches to language acquisition

Answer 6

Nativist

Usage-based

Question 7

Motor theory of speech perception

Answer 7

Gestures rather than sounds are fundamental speech units

We actually comprehend the motor action of the other person, not the sound

Question 8

Jackendorf’s (2002) architecture of the language faculty

Answer 8

Key components:

• Structures: phonological, syntactic, conceptual
• Processors: phonological, syntactic, conceptual
• Working memory
• Interfaces: to auditory system, vocalisation, vision, and action

Question 9

Incrementality

Answer 9

We understand and produce language incrementally i.e. what happens 200ms after first recognising speech is relevant

Question 10

Local vs Global Ambiguity

Answer 10

“That man said something”

Local: which of those two men over there is he talking about?

Global: what man?

Question 11

Lemma vs Lexeme

Answer 11

Lemma: somewhat abstract, conceptual ‘thingness’ of a word
Lexeme: Lemma + its actual phonemes

With ‘tip of the tongue’, you know the lemma, but not the lexeme