Chapter 1 - Language, Languages and Linguistics

Question 1

Speech community

Answer 1

A group of people who share a common language or dialect and cultural practices

Question 2

Language change

Answer 2

An far spreading innovation in language

Question 3

Language contact

Answer 3

When a language undergoes adaption because of influence of another language

Question 4

Phonology

Answer 4

Sound system of a language (rules like vowels being shorter before k - “lock/log”)

Question 5

Phonetics

Answer 5

Physical properties of sounds in a language and study of those sounds

Question 6

Morphology

Answer 6

Patterns which involve word structure; the study of the internal structure of words and principles underlying it

Question 7

Syntax

Answer 7

Grammatical structures that allow combination of words into phrases and sentences; the study of these structures

Question 8

Grammar

Answer 8

Morphosyntax

Question 9

Dialect continuum

Answer 9

Speakers of adjacent language varieties can understand one another but speakers of geographically separated varieties cannot

Question 10

Mutual intelligibility

Answer 10

Determines if speakers of language varieties can understand each other

Question 11

Standard language

Answer 11

Taught by schools and used in print and broadcast media to help with uniformity

Question 12

Endangered language

Answer 12

At risk of ceasing to be spoken in absence of conscious effort to keep them alive in a speech community

Question 13

Language transmission

Answer 13

Passing a language from one generation to the next

Question 14

Language documentation

Answer 14

Creation of extensive record of a language and its community

Question 15

Language conservation

Answer 15

Promotion of use of a language in a specific speech community

Question 16

Language revitalization.

Answer 16

Undertaken by speech communities where a language is endangered or dead.

Question 17

Empirical

Answer 17

Based on observable data

Question 18

Objective

Answer 18

Unbiased and uninfluenced by prejudgment

Question 19

Linguist

Answer 19

Person who examines structures and principles underlying languages

Question 20

Polyglot

Answer 20

One who speaks many languages

Question 21

Corpus

Answer 21

Database containing collected recordings of spoken or written languages

Question 22

Prescriptive approach to language

Answer 22

This approach teaches people the “proper way to speak or write” even though the “rules” imposed are arbitrary

Question 23

Descriptive approach to language

Answer 23

Describes how people actually use language

Question 24

Semantics

Answer 24

Meaning in language

Question 25

Lexical semantics

Answer 25

Study of words

Question 26

Propositional semantics

Answer 26

The study of how meanings combine in clauses and sentences

Question 27

Discourse

Answer 27

Looking at how speakers use linguistic structures in larger stretches of speech

Question 28

Corpus linguistics

Answer 28

Looking at statistically significant patterns over very large sets, or corpora, of discourse data

Question 29

Pragmatics

Answer 29

The role of broader context in interpreting linguistic form and meaning

Question 30

Sociocultural linguistics

Answer 30

Context of speech that comes from embedding culture of society in its speakers

Question 31

Historical linguistics

Answer 31

How languages change over time

Question 32

Cognitive linguistics

Answer 32

How language is instantiated by our broader cognitive processes

Question 33

Language acquisition

Answer 33

First - how language is learned by children | Second - by adults

Question 34

Computational linguistics

Answer 34

A field at the intersection of linguistics and computer science that deals with the statistical or rule based modeling of natural language

Question 35

Typology and universals

Answer 35

How worlds languages are similar and different

Question 36

Linguistics

Answer 36

The scientific study of language