Cognitive Psych Chapter 9-12

Language is described as....

a system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate

Language is also used to express...

emotions, social interaction, recording facts or connecting with others

Phonology

The study of how sounds are organized (ex: bat vs pat"

Phonetics

the study of how sounds are physically produced (ex: how letters sound)

Pragmatics

the study of language given context and social cues (ex: phrase that has 2 diff meanings)

Morphology

the study of words and word formation (ex: adding "s" for plural)

Syntax

the study of word order (ex: grammatical rules, grammar structure)

Semantics

the study of meaning (ex: dog is interpreted not just as an animal, but related concepts such as barking or loyal"

Grammar

system of rules dictating how to combine units

Productivity

create new utterances/ messages (ex: acronym, using existing understanding of language to create new phrases)

Displacement

Communicating about things that are remote in time and space (ex: "i went to the beach last summer'

In what ways does language differ (3 ways)

meaning in changes in pitch, use of passive voice, whether nouns have grammatical gender

Orthography

Sounds, meaning, written appearance (ex: receive vs recieve .. letter pattern for spelling)

What did Noam Chomsky define language as.... (1960s)

an innate, biologically rooted human faculty rather than a learned behavior

Transformational Rules allow us to convert underlying, deep structure into...

the surface structure of a sentence (actual words spoken/ written)

Whorf Theory

Language emphasizes different aspects of reality which influence the way speakers think about the world

linguistic determinism

does language affect perception beyond experience

Discreteness

Built from small, distinct units that are separate from each other but can be recombined

Productivity

create and understand new messages

Phonemes

smallest unit of language that changes meaning of words (ex: bat vs pat)

Morphemes

smallest unit of language that carries meaning (ex: cat and cat (S)

Syntax