Chapter 11; Language

Question 1

Semanticity

Answer 1

Language signals ”mean” something

Question 2

Duality of Patterning

Answer 2

words are made of smaller meaningless units that are put together to mean something

Question 3

Displacement

Answer 3

Language can be used to talk about things that aren’t
present (in space and/or time)

Question 4

Productivity

Answer 4

Can be used to say something that has never been said before.

Question 5

Cultural Transmission

Answer 5

Language is taught

Question 6

Phoneme

Answer 6

The smallest unit of distinct sound in a
language

Question 7

Perceptual Tuning

Answer 7

Some pairs of sounds get “lumped” together in one language but treated as different phonemes in another.

Question 8

Sound Symbolism

Answer 8

Agreement that some sounds are better fits for certain meanings

Question 9

What is one explanation for sound symbolism

Answer 9

an evolved association between high pitches and small things

Question 10

Mental lexicon

Answer 10

our internal storehouse of the words in our vocabulary

Question 11

Word Frequency Effect

Answer 11

Faster to process high-frequency words

Question 12

Concreteness Effect:

Answer 12

Faster to process concrete vs. abstract words

Question 13

Embodied Effects

Answer 13

Faster to process words that involve the human body

Question 14

Challenges in word processing

Answer 14

-Variable pronunciation
-Finding word boundaries in constant speech stream
-Word forms can have multiple meanings

Question 15

Variable Pronunciation

Answer 15

Words can be pronounced differently based on the words around them

Question 16

Speech Segmentation

Answer 16

Spoken language doesn’t have breaks between words

Question 17

Transitional Probabilities

Answer 17

The statistical patterns of how often a pair of syllables go together within a word vs. between a pair of words, in a language

Question 18

Lexical Ambiguity

Answer 18

Words can have more than one meaning.

Question 19

Balanced Dominance

Answer 19

Different meanings are equally frequent

Question 20

Biased Dominance

Answer 20

One meaning is more frequent than the others

Question 21

Syntax

Answer 21

The structure of sentences convey meaning.

Question 22

Parsing

Answer 22

grouping words into phrases

Question 23

Garden path sentences

Answer 23

lead the reader into an interpretation that ends up being incorrect. They have to then go back and correct their interpretation.

Question 24

heuristics

Answer 24

rules of thumb; mental shortcuts that let us make
decisions quickly; not always correct

Question 25

Principle of late closure

Answer 25

when encountering a new
word, a person assumes it is added to the current phrase

Question 26

Constraint-Based Approach to Parsing

Answer 26

Various other factors play a role in how a sentence is
parsed, providing “constraints” on possible
interpretations.
-word meaning and context can influence parsing

Question 27

situation model

Answer 27

a simulation of the perceptual and motor features of the story

Question 28

Motion

Answer 28

Passage describes object moving
towards or away from character.
Participants then see object moving
towards or away from them. Again,
have to verify if it matches the story
Faster to respond if the stimulus
movement matched the one
described in the passage

Question 29

Clarity

Answer 29

Describe character viewing
object clearly (e.g., clear
goggles), or through something
unclear (e.g., foggy goggles)
Faster to verify clear picture
after clear situation; degraded
picture after unclear situation

Question 30

Given-New Contract

Answer 30

Speakers should construct sentences so that they include given
information (information a person already knows) and new
information (information the listener is hearing for the first time

Question 31

Common Ground

Answer 31

Taking the knowledge and beliefs among conversational
partners into account

Question 32

Entrainment

Answer 32

Synchronization between speaker

Question 33

Multimodal

Answer 33

Language use in the real world involves a variety of cues
beyond words themselves that help with acquisition,
processing and production.

Question 34

Gestures

Answer 34

Co-speech gestures can help process language

Question 35

Prosody

Answer 35

Acoustic features that accompany speech
(e.g., intonation, rhythm).
These can also be used to convey meaning