What is language?? Flashcards
(15 cards)
What is language?
The ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication
What is A language?
An example of a complex system of communication, like English
What is linguistics?
The scientific study of language
What are the design features?
- Mode of communication
- Pragmatic function
- interchangeability
- cultural transmission
- Arbitrariness
- Discreteness
- Displacement
- Productivity
What is mode of communication? Ex?
The means to which the messages are transmitted and received. For most humans, this is by their voice
What is semanticity? Ex?
The property requiring that all signals in a communication system have a meaning, like pizza means a specific type of food to eat
What is pragmatic function? Ex?
The property that every phrase must serve a functional purpose, like asking for more pizza when you want to use your language to get more food
Interchangeability?
The ability for individuals to both be the transmitter and receiver of the message, like communication must go both ways
Cultural Transmission? Ex?
The property that we can only acquire language through the interaction of other users of the same system, like a baby will only learn the language that their parents speaks with
Arbitrariness? Ex?
The property that the form of the word doesn’t literally represent its meaning. Ex, the form of the word “tree” doesn’t actually look like a tree
Discreteness? Ex?
The property of language to have small concrete units of sound that a system of communication can rearrange. For example, /a/ is used In many combination of phonemes
Displacement? Ex?
The property of language to be able to talk about actions and/or ideas that are not present in space or time while speakers are communicating. For example, like being able to refer to events that has happened in the last semester
Productivity? Ex?
The property of language to be able to create novel messages from discrete units, like how on the internet people are able to come up with sentences that has never been “created before”
Prescriptive language? Ex?
The rules that describe what people “should” say, like in academic, professional, and sometimes in social settings. These people would say that “ain’t” isn’t grammatically correct
Descriptive language? Ex?
The rules that describe what people do say, literally just acknowledging whether people would say it or not. For example, dialects are descriptive and dictionaries are descriptive as well
