4- Language

Question 1

Why does language have a fundamental basis in cognitive psychology?

Answer 1

It underpins everything we do and informs everything else

Question 2

What is linguistics?

Answer 2

The scientific study of language and its structure

Question 3

What does studying linguistics include?

Answer 3

Grammar, syntax and phonetics

Question 4

What is psycholinguistics?

Answer 4

The scientific study of the psychological reality of language use

Question 5

What are the 4 main aspects of studying psycholinguistics?

Answer 5

Language acquisition, use of language, language comprehension, psychological mechanisms used to process and represent language in the mind

Question 6

What are psycholinguistics concerned with?

Answer 6

Psychomechanisms that underlie language

Question 7

What is language?

Answer 7

Human systems of communication and personal expressions

Question 8

What is language built upon?

Answer 8

Symbols or representations

Question 9

What is the purpose of representations?

Answer 9

Words that ‘stand in’ for the things they are intended to represent

Question 10

What do representations in language cause us to create?

Answer 10

Internal, mental representations of words

Question 11

What three key principles characterise human language?

Answer 11

Generativity, recursion and displacement

Question 12

What does generativity allow?

Answer 12

A speaker to use a small number of words/grammatical structures to compose an infinite number of sentences and new ideas

Question 13

What can we do with generativity?

Answer 13

Use a small number of words/grammatical structures to compose an infinite number of sentences and new ideas

Question 14

How does generativity allow every person to uniquely express thoughts in own way?

Answer 14

We can create entirely new ideas from a unique arrangement of words with generativity

Question 15

How many sentences can we create with generativity?

Answer 15

Infinite

Question 16

How does generativity influence us conveying the same idea?

Answer 16

We can say the same idea while using different words, just not as well

Question 17

What does recursion mean?

Answer 17

Any sentences can be extended indefinitely by embedding clauses or phrases within or following it

Question 18

How can recursion make any sentence go on forever?

Answer 18

It can make any sentence more and more complex

Question 18

How can we extend any sentence indefinitely in recursion?

Answer 18

By embedding clauses or phrases within or following it

Question 19

What are the 4 key aspects of language?

Answer 19

Phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics

Question 20

What is phonology?

Answer 20

The study of human sounds- fundamental sounds that make up spoken language

Question 21

What is a phoneme?

Answer 21

The most basic auditory unit of spoken natural language

Question 22

Why is phonology critical?

Answer 22

To understand language

Question 23

What do people who study phonemes do to break language down?

Answer 23

They break phonemes down into the shape your mouth makes/where in your mouth the sound comes from

Question 24

How do babies learn phonemes?

Answer 24

Really well

Question 25

Can newborn babies recognise phonemes?

Answer 25

Yes, they can recognise phonemes they've heard before vs phonemes in a foreign language

Question 26

How was it found out that babies can distinguish between phonemes in different languages?

Answer 26

Babies sucked dummies harder when listening to a foreign language

Question 27

What did investigating babies sucking rates in relation to phonemes suggest?

Answer 27

That babies listen to speech in the womb and are learning about it

Question 28

Who are best at phonemic discrimination?

Answer 28

Children

Question 29

Why can infants no longer distinguish between non-native language distinctions by 12 months?

Answer 29

As a function of specific language experience with their own language- a reorganisation of perception

Question 30

What are semantics?

Answer 30

The meaning of words, phrases and utterances

Question 31

What two meanings are associated with semantics?

Answer 31

Conceptual meaning and associative meaning

Question 32

What is the conceptual meaning?

Answer 32

A word's linguistic function

Question 33

What is the associative function?

Answer 33

Concepts relating to other words

Question 34

What are two issues with semantics?

Answer 34

Homonyms and polysemy

Question 35

What are homonyms?

Answer 35

Semantically ambiguous words where orthographic and phonological information overlap but semantic information does not

Question 36

Why are homonyms confusing?

Answer 36

They are words that look exactly the same but share no conceptual meaning

Question 37

What is polysemy?

Answer 37

Semantically ambiguous words that have different but similar functions

Question 38

How are words with polysemy similar and how are they different?

Answer 38

They have related conceptual meanings but different functions

Question 39

What are the two ways of studying semantics?

Answer 39

Semantic association task and a lexical decision task

Question 40

What happens in a semantic association task?

Answer 40

Participants classifies stimuli based on meaning

Question 41

What is the purpose of a semantic association task?

Answer 41

Detection and classification of semantic relationships between words

Question 42

What happens in a lexical decision task?

Answer 42

Participants classify whether a string of letters are a word or not

Question 43

What governs sentence structure?

Answer 43

Syntax

Question 44

What is syntax?

Answer 44

Rules/principles we consider sentences grammatical by

Question 45

What would happen without syntax?

Answer 45

People wouldn't understand what we're trying to say

Question 46

How can we study syntax?

Answer 46

By giving people sentences and asking if they make sense

Question 47

How do people naturally understand grammar?

Answer 47

People have an intuitive sense of grammar

Question 48

What does syntax govern?

Answer 48

How utterances made

Question 49

What do language differ in (in syntax)?

Answer 49

Their preferred word order

Question 50

What kind of language is English?

Answer 50

An SVO language (subject-verb-object)

Question 51

What are pragmatics

Answer 51

Context within which language is used

Question 52

What do people use pragmatics to do?

Answer 52

Express meaning

Question 53

What does pragmatics study?

Answer 53

Meaning in context

Question 54

What do pragmatics deal with?

Answer 54

Implied meaning as opposed to the lexical meaning expressed

Question 55

What are two key aspects of pragmatics?

Answer 55

Interpreting what speakers mean, how people make sense of each other

Question 56

What are pragmatics governed by?

Answer 56

Gricean maxims of pragmatics

Question 57

What are the Gricean maxims of pragmatics?

Answer 57

Rules for effective cooperative communication where everyone is understood

Question 58

What do the Gricean maxims of pragmatics state about conversations?

Answer 58

When we enter into conversation, we enter into cooperative agreement

Question 59

What are the 4 Gricean maxims of pragmatics?

Answer 59

Quality, quantity, relation, manner

Question 60

What is the maxim of quality?

Answer 60

Contribution to the conversation should be true

Question 61

What is the maxim of quantity?

Answer 61

Contribution to conversation should be as informative as required- give enough information to be understood, but don't go on too long

Question 62

What is the maxim of relation?

Answer 62

Contribution to the conversation should be relevant

Question 63

What is the maxim of manner?

Answer 63

Contribution to the conversation should be as clear, as brief, and as orderly as you can in what you say, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity

Question 64

What is the problem with some words?

Answer 64

They can be semantically ambiguous

Question 65

What are garden path sentences?

Answer 65

Gramatically correct sentences that lead you to incorrect interpretations