Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

Cog Psych 221 > Chapter 9: Language > Flashcards

Chapter 9: Language Flashcards

1
Q

Language

A

a shared symbolic system for communication, includes spoken, written, and signed language.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Linguistic Universals

A

12 Features and characteristics that are universally true of all human languages

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

12 of Hockett’s linguistic universals

A
  1. Vocal-auditory channel
  2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception
  3. Rapid fading
  4. Interchangeability
  5. Total Feedback
  6. Specialization
  7. Semanticity
  8. Discreetness
  9. Displacement
  10. Productivity
  11. Duality of patterning
  12. Cultural or traditional transmission
  13. Arbitrariness
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Semanticity

A

One of Hockett’s 13 linguistic universals, expressing the fact that the elements of language convey meaning

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Arbitrariness

A

One of the 13 linguistic universal principles; the connections between linguistic units and thew concepts or meanings referred to by those units are arbitrary. (no inherent meaning- we create it)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Onomatopeias

A

Exception to arbitrariness, when a name is based on an inherent sound (hum, buzz, zoom, etc).

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Flexibility

A

The characteristic that enables the meaning of a language symbol to be changed and enables new symbols to be added to the language

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Naming

A

The characteristic that human languages have names or labels for all the objects and concepts encountered by the speakers of the language.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Linguistics

A

study of the structure of language

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Psycholinguistics

A

study how language is learned and used by people

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Skinners view on language acquisition?

A
  • Language is acquired through conditioning
  • Parents reinforce child’s utterances & associate objects with words
  • Grammar is learned through associations between adjacent words
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Chomsky’s view on language acquisition?

A
  • Innate Grammar learning ability
  • human language coded in genes
  • all cultures have a language
  • language development is similar across cultures & deaf children invent sign language
  • Production of novel sentences by children argues against language learned by conditioning
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Linguistic Relativity (Benjamin Whorf 1956)

A
  • The language that is spoken in one’s culture affects how one perceives the world
  • e.g., some argue that Eskimo’s have 40 words for snow-thus see the world differently
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Issue with linguistic relativity hypothesis? (example)

A

The Dani tribe in Papa New Guinea has 2 colour names: mola (bright) and mili (dark)
-when presented a range off colours they were still able to discriminate them on a recognition test

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Categorical perception effect

A
  • Forming categories (e.g., speech sound, colour, or any other categories that group things, events, and people modify people’s perception
  • Categories create a contraction of features within a category and an expansion of features that divide between categories
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Four linguistic intuitions

A
  1. Knowing what is grammatical
  2. Grammatical relations
  3. Sentence relationships
  4. Identity ambiguity
17
Q

‘Left-to-right grammar’

A

How grammar specifies the probability that one word can follow another in the language

18
Q

‘Left-to-right grammar problems’

A
  1. Rules would take way too long to learn
  2. Probability rules not sufficient to explain language
  3. Spoonerisms: ‘slips of tongue’ demonstrated sentences generated as wholes not words at a time
19
Q

Phrase structure grammar

A

a set of ‘rewrite’ rules to breakdown an utterance into its parts

20
Q

Phrase structure grammar strengths

A
  1. Rules define grammaticality
  2. Sentences planned hierarchically, not word by word, so can explain spoonerisms
  3. Can account for grammatical relations between words in sentences
21
Q

Phrase structure problems

A
  1. Cannot account for surface structure ambiguity
  2. Cannot account for sentence relations
  3. does not take meaning into account
22
Q

Chomsky’s Transformational Grammar (2 propositions)

A
  1. A set of transformational rules that specify how to transform sentences based on phase structure rules ( active to passive)
  2. Modified transformational grammar to consist of two levels: Surface structure and deep structure
23
Q

Surface structure

A

the outward appearance of the utterance that can be handled by traditional parsing or phrase structure. (might be ambiguous)

24
Q

Deep structure

A

the underlying form, the meaning of the utterance. Abstract syntactic representation of the sentence being constructed with only bare bones lexical entries.

25
Q

Transformation rules

A

in Chomsky’s transformational grammar, the syntactic rules that transform an idea (deep sentence structure) into its surface structure; for instance, rules that form a passive sentence or a negative sentence.

26
Q

3 relevant variables for consonants

A
  1. Place of articulation
  2. Manner of articulation
  3. Voicing
27
Q

Place of articulation

A

the place in the vocal tract where the disruption of airflow occurs

28
Q

Manner of articulation

A

is how the airflow coming up from the lungs is disrupted.

  • stop consonant: if column of air is completely stopped and then released
  • fricative consonant: only partially blocked
29
Q

Voicing

A

refers to whether the vocal cords begin to vibrate immediately within the obstruction of airflow or whether the vibration is delayed until after the release of air

30
Q

Vowels two dimensions

A
  1. placement in mouth’

2. tongue position in mouth

31
Q

Motor theory of speech perception

A

the idea that people perceive language, at least in part, by comparing the sounds that they re hearing with how they themselves would move their own vocal apparatus to make those sounds

32
Q

3 elements of syntax

A
  1. Word order
  2. Phrase order
  3. Number agreement
33
Q

Phrase structure

A

the underlying structure of a sentence in terms of the groupings of words into meaningful phrases, such as “the young man” “ran quickly”

34
Q

Prosody

A

the up and down pitch of an utterance that can convey emotional meaning/information

35
Q

Polysemy

A

when a word in a language has multiple meanings

36
Q

Case Grammar

A

the meaning of a sentence is determined by analyzing the semantic roles or cases played by different words, such as which word names the overall relationship and which word names the patient or agent of the action.

Cog Psych 221 (12 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions