ICW - H9

28 flashcards · Other · by Jaro Lubberding

  1. Linguistics

    The study of language.

  2. Communication

    the production, transmission, and comprehension of information in a language between individuals.

  3. Arbitrary

    The property by which there need be no relationship between linguistic symbols and their referents. Any symbol could be used to stand for any concept.

  4. Structured

    A property of language in which rules specify how symbols can be combined.

  5. Generative

    The property of language whereby symbolic elements can be combined to create a large number of meanings.

  6. Dynamic

    The characteristic of languages to constantly change as new words are added and grammatical rules altered.

  7. Phoneme

    The smallest unit of sound in a language.

  8. Morphemes

    Units of spoken language that have meaning.

  9. Phonology

    The rules governing the sound system of a language.

  10. Morphology

    The rules governing the word structure of a language.

  11. Semantics

    The rules for deriving meaning in a language.

  12. Grammar

    The collection of all the rules governing the language.

  13. Linguistic relativity hypothesis

    Also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The strong version states that thought and language are so similar that it may be impossible to express the thoughts of one language in another. The weak version denies this but admits that the language a person speaks influences the way he or she thinks.

  14. Lexigrams

    Geometric patterns that can be used to create a language system.

  15. Displacement

    The ability of language to refer to something that is removed in space or time.

  16. Cooing stage

    The earliest period in language development, when infants exercise their vocal cords and mouths prior to articulation.

  17. Babbling stage

    A stage in language development where infants produce many sounds occuring in the languages of the world.

  18. One-word stage

    A stage in language development where words are first used in a symbolic and semantic fashion.

  19. Two-word stage

    A stage in language development in which children first produce two-word utterances.

  20. Domain-specific mechanisms

    Those that are tuned to perform special operations on only a certain type of information.

  21. Domain-general mechanisms

    Those that can operate on any type of information.

  22. Statistical learning

    The ability for humans and animals to extract statistical regularities from the environment in order to learn. In language acquisition, babies are able to learn very quickly which sounds go together to form words based on the frequency with which those sounds go together.

  23. Critical period

    A period of development during which linguistic experience is crucial for future language use. If a child is not exposed to language during this time, he or she may never acquire it or may suffer severe language impairments.

  24. Phrase structure

    The hierarchical organization of a sentence; represented using a tree diagram that shows the relationships between words.

  25. Phrase structure grammar

    The grammar that governs the use of phrase structures.

  26. Transformational grammar

    A set of rules for modifying a sentence into a closely related one.

  27. Surface structure

    The organization of a sentence in the form that it is expressed; how a sentence would be heard if it were spoken or read if it were written.

  28. Deep structure

    The underlying meaning of a sentence that remains constant, regardless of the specific form in which it is expressed.