Chapter 1 - The Nature of Communication

Question 1

Communication

Answer 1

Behavior that affects the behavior of others by the transmission of information.

Question 2

Code

Answer 2

A complex pattern of associations of the units of a communication system. In language, those units could be sound units; meaningful units, such as words; or meaningful units that are larger than words, such as phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Question 3

Encode

Answer 3

To put a message in a code

Question 4

Grammar

Answer 4

System (pattern) of elements (such as words) and of the rules of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics inherent in a language. The term also refers to the study of those elements and rules.

Question 5

Decode

Answer 5

To react to it in a way that reflects the reason that the sender encoded it

Question 6

Phonological system

Answer 6

The grammar (pattern) of sounds of that language

Question 7

Lexicon

Answer 7

A mental dictionary, the vocabulary that one has stored in the brain

Question 8

Morphological rules

Answer 8

The rules used to construct words from their component parts

Question 9

Syntax

Answer 9

The set of rules a person uses to form units of language larger than words. The term also refers to the study of those rules.

Question 10

Semantics

Answer 10

The study of meaning

Question 11

Linguistic competence

Answer 11

The (mostly) subconscious knowledge of language that allows a speaker to create a potentially infinite number of messages.

Question 12

Productivity

Answer 12

The ability to produce messages that one has never produced before and to understand messages that one has never heard or seen before.

Question 13

Linguistic performance

Answer 13

The application of linguistic competence to actually producing an utterance

Question 14

Delivery system of language

Answer 14

The way in which knowledge of language (linguistic competence) is used to send a message. The three basic ways of delivering a message linguistically are speech, writing, and sign language.

Question 15

Verbal

Answer 15

Language: speech, writing, or sign language

Question 16

Nonverbal

Answer 16

Any communication that is not conveyed through speech, writing, or sign language

Question 17

Synchrony

Answer 17

The connection and relationship between two or more things that occur at the same time

Question 18

Culture shock

Answer 18

The disorientation and anxiety that occur when social expectation are not met

Question 19

Ethnocentrism

Answer 19

Judging other cultures by the standard of your culture; it is also the belief that your culture is superior to other cultures

Question 20

Pheromone

Answer 20

A chemical that is secreted by one individual and acts from a distance on another individual to alter that individual’s behavior.

Question 21

Redundancy

Answer 21

When the same message (or elements of a message) is encoded in different ways and is simultaneously sent to the receiver of the message.

Question 22

Sound spectrograph

Answer 22

An instrument used to analyze sound by producing a visual record of the time duration of the sound, its frequency (number of occurrences within a specific unit of time), and its amplitude (degree of loudness).

Question 23

Calls

Answer 23

Usually relatively short vocal signals that might communicate a variety of messages. A variety of other species might respond to the calls of a given species.

Question 24

Songs

Answer 24

Longer and more complex sequences of sound that, in birds, are usually associated with attracting a mate. Songs are species specific.

Question 25

Openness

Answer 25

The ability to add new words, phrases, or other meaningful units to a language.

Question 26

Discrete signal

Answer 26

One that does not blend with other signals.

Question 27

Arbitrary

Answer 27

In relationship to language, means that features of language, such as words, have no direct relationship to their meaning.

Question 28

Stimulus-bound

Answer 28

Behavior is one that occurs only as a result of a specific environment trigger (occurrence).

Question 29

Displacement

Answer 29

The ability to communicate about things at times other than the present and to communicate about things not directly in front of the sender and/or receiver.

Question 30

Prevarication

Answer 30

In the linguistic sense, refers to the ability to communicate about things that are not verifiable, things for which there is no proof.

Question 31

Hominin

Answer 31

Refers to modern humans and to the ancestors of modern humans that go back in time more than six million years.

Question 32

Recursion

Answer 32

The process whereby any linguistic units can be made longer by embedding another unit in it.

Question 33

The Clever Hans effect

Answer 33

The name given to the fact that a nonhuman's or human's behavior might be influenced or directed by subtle and often unintentional cues of others. In terms of experimentation, these cues might reflect a researcher's expectations of what the results of the experiment should be.

Question 34

Broca's area of the brain

Answer 34

The area of the brain that controls the larynx, lips, tongue, and other areas of the digestive and respiratory systems involved with oral and facial fine motor skills in the production of speech.

Question 35

Wernicke's area of the brain

Answer 35

One of the areas of the brain that is involved with the comprehension of speech and the selection of lexical items.

Question 36

Broca's aphasia

Answer 36

A condition caused by damage to Broca's area of the brain and is characterized by problems in the production of speech and loss of some grammatical understanding of language.

Question 37

Wernicke's aphasia

Answer 37

Caused by damage to Wernicke's area of the brain, is characterized by speech that includes lexical errors and nonsense words.

Question 38

Theory of mind

Answer 38

Refers to the ability to characterize and predict the mental states of others.

Question 39

The looking glass self

Answer 39

The human characteristic of building a concept of self though interpreting the perceptions we believe that others have of us and their behavioral reactions toward us.