Week One Flashcards
Communication
the transmission of information from one source to another
Language
A system of symbols that convey meaning because of shared rules
Linguistics
Structure of language
Descriptive rather than prescriptive
Linguists try to :
Describe language
Account for what people say and find acceptable
Focus of Psychology of Language:
the study of the psychological processes by which people acquire and use language
Psych of language addresses:
Comprehension
Production
Acquisition
Ultimate goals of psycholinguistics
To develop an integrated account of:
how users of language produce/understand language
children acquire these abilities so quickly
Why haven’t these goals been met?
Language is a complex system
Research techniques are sometimes inadequate
Phonemes
smallest unit of sound
Phonetics
speech sounds and how they are articulated
Phonology
how sounds are used and categorised within a language
Phonotactics
The rules for combining sounds within a language
Intonation
the rise and fall of the voice in speaking
e.g. she spoke English with a German intonation
Prosody
patterns of intonation and stress
In English, prosody can distinguish grammatical contrasts
Morphemes
smallest units of meaning
Morphology
the study of how words are built up from morphemes
Free morphemes
can stand alone
Bound morphemes
cannot stand alone but still add meaning
e.g. -ing
Semantics
word meanings in our mental lexicon
Function words
have ambiguous meaning
prepositions, articles, pronouns
Content words
carry the most meaning
e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs
Syntax
rules for combining words into sentences
understand all words in a sentence as well as what they mean when combined
Pragmatics
language in real world context
What does pragmatics include?
word choice/interpretation according to the situation
guides use of language in context, such as in politeness systems
What is register in pragmatics?
appropriate level of written or spoken language for a given situation
Discourse
verbal or written interaction longer than a single utterance
unit of language longer than a single sentence
Listener/reader of discourse
must go beyond understanding single words and phrases
must evaluate discourse in terms of particular context and prior knowledge
Metalinguistics
thinking about language
how many languages are still spoken?
2,700 to 10,000
Inclusion of new words includes
borrowing from other languages
giving new meanings to old words
inventing new words
modalities of language
spoken language: part of being human; all cultures
written language: relatively recent; some cultures; differs in nature of representation
signed language : some cultures
Where did language come from?
natural selection
changing skull shape allowed articulatory apparatus to develop
Vocal-auditory channel
communication occurs by producer speaking and receiver hearing
broadcast transmission and directional reception
signal travels out in space but localised by listener
rapid fading
signal rapidly disappears
interchangeability
speakers can receive and transmit message
complete feedback
speakers can access their productions
discreteness
vocabulary is made of discrete units
tradition
can be both taught and learned
duality of patterning
meaningless basic units gain meaning when combined into sequences
specialisation
energy of signal is irrelevant to meaning
semanticity
signals have meaning: relate to features of the world
learnability
the speaker of one language can learn another
prevarication
language provides the ability to lie and deceive
arbitrariness
neutral symbols that don’t resemble what they stand for
displacement
the system can refer to things remote in time and space
reflectiveness
we can communicate about the communication system itself
openness/creativity/productivity
the ability to invent new messages
What is animal communication dependent on?
context and/or stimulus
vocalisations occupe under very specific conditions
What species communicate?
bees
birds
dolphins
whales
non - human primates
how many distinct vocal sounds can vervet monkeys produce?
36
generally determined by circumstances
Birds language
alarm cry when they see a predator
questions to if this is displacement or continued fear
How do bees produce language?
In the form of various dances
What is the action of a round dance?
turning in circles
What is the message of a round dance?
nectar is close to the hive
What is the action of a waggle dance?
tail wiggles side to side
What is the message of a waggle dance?
nectar is far from the hive
Is language species specific?
no animal appears to include all the design features of human language in its own form of language
how many words could Alex (African grey parrot) produce?
80
how could chimps be taught to produce language?
sign language
button pressing
token manipulation
