Week 2 - Vocab/Terms

Question 1

linguistic competence

Answer 1

a speaker’s subconscious, intuitive knowledge of the rules of their language.

Question 2

linguistic performance

Answer 2

an individual’s use of a language, i.e. what a speaker actually says, including hesitations, false starts, and errors

Question 3

performance error

Answer 3

It is used to describe both the production, sometimes called parole, as well as the comprehension of language. Performance is defined in opposition to “competence”; the latter describes the mental knowledge that a speaker or listener has of language.
…
Slips of the tongue.

Question 4

speech communication chain

Answer 4

The Speech Chain is a simple model of spoken communication that highlights the transformation of an intention in the mind of the speaker to an understanding of that intention in the mind of the listener through processes that involve the Grammatical Code, the Phonological Code, articulation, sound, hearing and perception.

Question 5

speech communication chain steps

Answer 5

1. Speaker decides what to say, 2. The message is put into word form, 3. The brain triggers the speech mechanism, 4. Sound waves are created, 5. The listener’s hearing mechanisms receive the sound waves, 6. The listeners brain transforms, analyzes, and interprets the message.

Question 6

noise

Answer 6

Linguistic noise is the variation among users of language. This can take place through shifts in spelling, grammar, or other aspects of language. Essentially, this is grammatical language that the hearer cannot understand—this can even happen with people who speak the same language.

Question 7

lexicon

Answer 7

word choice; the complete set of meaningful units in a language

Question 8

mental grammar

Answer 8

Mental grammar is the generative grammar stored in the brain that allows a speaker to produce language that other speakers can understand. It is also known as competence grammar and linguistic competence.

Question 9

language variation

Answer 9

Dialect within the same language. Example: Pidgin and creole

Question 10

Descriptive grammar

Answer 10

Descriptive grammars lay out the grammatical elements and rules of a language as it is actually used.

Question 11

evidence that writing and language are not the same (list 4 reasons)

Answer 11

1. Writing is permanent and usually cannot be changed, language and oral histories shift.
2. Written language is more complex than spoken language,
3. Writing does not receive immediate feedback, whereas speaking requires back and forth communication.
4. Writers can make use of punctuation, headings, layout, colours and other graphical effects in their written texts. Such things are not available in speech.

Question 12

reasons some people believe writing to be superior to speech (list 3 reasons)

Answer 12

1. Writing can be edited.
   2.writing is physically stable.
   3.Writing is very specific and must be taught.

Question 13

prescriptive grammar

Answer 13

a set of norms or rules governing how a language should or should not be used rather than describing the ways in which a language is actually used

Question 14

prescribe

Answer 14

is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language

Question 15

Charles Hockett’s nine design features (necessary for a communication system to be considered a language) (list)

Answer 15

duality, productivity, arbitrariness, interchangeability, specialisation, displacement and cultural transmission

Question 16

mode of communication

Answer 16

Verbal, non-verbal, written, and visual

Question 17

semanticity

Answer 17

Meaning of words

Question 18

pragmatic function

Answer 18

use of words within an overall context

Question 19

interchangeability

Answer 19

the idea that humans can give and receive identical linguistic signals; humans are not limited in the types of messages they can say/hear.

Question 20

cultural transmission

Answer 20

the process through which cultural elements, in the form of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behavioral scripts, are passed onto and taught to individuals and groups

Question 21

arbitrariness

Answer 21

the absence of any natural or necessary connection between a word’s meaning and its sound or form

Question 22

linguistic sign

Answer 22

A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and a sound pattern

Question 23

convention

Answer 23

Our linguistic conventions are linguistic rules that govern, in various different ways, our usage of sentences, words, clauses

Question 24

non-arbitrariness

Answer 24

the converse of arbitrariness, a relation between form and meaning such that aspects of a word’s meaning or grammatical function can be predicted from aspects of its form.

Question 25

iconic

Answer 25

a relationship of resemblance or similarity between the two aspects of a sign: its form and its meaning.

Question 26

onomatopoeia

Answer 26

the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named. example: “kaboom”

Question 27

conventionalized

Answer 27

Conventionalized utterance types function as implicit and explicit norms

Question 28

sound symbolism

Answer 28

the non-arbitrary mappings that exist between phonetic properties of speech sounds and their meaning.

Question 29

discreteness

Answer 29

Discreteness means that the boundary between linguistic symbols is clear. Since the linguistic symbols are discrete, the chain of linguistic symbols can be segmented part by part until the smallest linguistic symbols are assigned.

Question 30

displacement

Answer 30

displacement is the capability of language to communicate about things that are not immediately present (spatially or temporally); i.e., things that are either not here or are not here now.

Question 31

productivity

Answer 31

productivity is the degree to which speakers of a language use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation.

Question 32

modality

Answer 32

a category of linguistic meaning having to do with the expression of possibility and necessity.

Answer 33

Myth 1: Sign language is universal. …
Myth 2: The Deaf can understand your spoken language by lip reading. …
Myth 3: If you’re talking to a Deaf person, speak slowly so they can understand you.
Myth 4: It’s effective to write notes back and forth to communicate with the Deaf.

Question 34

differences between codes and languages (list 4)

Answer 34

1. Coding is a computer programming language that helps to communicate with a computer.
2. Computers do not understand human languages.
   3.Coding allows humans to communicate with the computer.
3. Code instructs the computer which tasks to be performed and what things to do