Foundations of Linguistics

Question 1

What is linguistics?

Answer 1

The science of language

Question 2

What is the scientific method?

Answer 2

Developing and testing hypotheses

Question 3

What does language do?

Answer 3

Distinguishes humans from animals

Question 4

What does it mean to know a language?

Answer 4

To speak and be understood by others who know that language

Question 5

What are most native speakers not aware of?

Answer 5

Their underlying knowledge of language

Question 6

What do native speakers of a language know? (2)

Answer 6

1. the language’s sound system

2. how sound correlates to meaning

Question 7

What is arbitrary in terms of language?

Answer 7

The connection between meaning and sound

Question 8

What is an exception to the arbitrariness of language?

Answer 8

Onomatopoeia

Question 9

What part of language means you can combine words and phrases into never-before-heard sentence? Who coined this phrase?

Answer 9

Creative aspect. Noam Chomsky

Question 10

What are Hockett’s 7 characteristics of language?

Answer 10

Duality of pattern; productivity; arbitrariness; interchangeability; specialisation; displacement & cultural transition

Question 11

What is duality of pattern?

Answer 11

The ability to create meaningful words from non-meaningful sounds

Question 12

What is productivity?

Answer 12

The ability to create new speech

Question 13

What is interchangeability?

Answer 13

The ability to give and receive linguistic signals

Question 14

What is cultural transition?

Answer 14

The ability to teach and be taught language

Question 15

What is an example of animal communication that displays displacement?

Answer 15

The bee ‘waggle dance’

Question 16

What is the language faculty?

Answer 16

The ability to learn language

Question 17

What is one theory of why only humans have the language faculty?

Answer 17

Evolution

Question 18

Who suggested natural selection has modified a once basic language faculty into a unique one?

Answer 18

Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch

Question 19

What did Jackendoff suggest (in terms of the link between evolution and the language faculty?)

Answer 19

That those who have a developed language faculty have an adaptive advantage over those who don’t

Question 20

Why is animal communication not considered language?

Answer 20

It does not possess all of the descriptors of human language.

Question 21

What is one language descriptor that Prairie Dog language possesses?

Answer 21

Arbitrariness

Question 22

What is one language descriptor that Prairie Dog language does not posses?

Answer 22

Displacement

Question 23

What is I-language?

Answer 23

The language system within an individual’s brain

Question 24

What does sui-generis mean?

Answer 24

One of its kind

Question 25

What do descriptive linguistics look at and why are they criticised by Chomsky?

Answer 25

They look at how language is used, but fail to take into account the underlying rules and UG that humans have

Question 26

What kind of system is I-language?

Answer 26

A computational system

Question 27

What kind of science did Isac & Reiss suggest linguistics could be?

Answer 27

A cognitive science

Question 28

Define intensional.

Answer 28

providing a formula/description that characterises the members of the set

Question 29

Define extensional.

Answer 29

listing all the members in a set

Question 30

Give an example of a grammatical rule in English that (most) natives are not aware of

Answer 30

The subjunctive

Question 31

What does Saussure claim that words are?

Answer 31

Signs

Question 32

What two things does the 'sign' contain according to Saussure?

Answer 32

The signifier (sounds/images) and the signified (concepts/meanings)

Question 33

How does Saussure divide language?

Answer 33

langue and parole

Question 34

Define langue.

Answer 34

the internal system of language

Question 35

Define parole.

Answer 35

the oral communication of language

Question 36

How does Chomsky divide language?

Answer 36

I-language and e-language

Question 37

What are performance and competence?

Answer 37

Chomsky: performance = the actual utterance; competence = understanding language (innate). Poor performance does not mean poor competence!