LING 1000 Midterm Review

Language is

creative and constrained

5 core levels of language structure

phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics

Phonetics

the articulation and perception of speech sounds

Phonology

the patterning of speech sounds

Morphology

the formation of words

Syntax

the formation of sentences or phrases

Semantics

the interpretation of words and sentences

5 linguistic facts of life

1. All languages are equal in terms of linguistic potential

2. Variation is intrinsic to all languages at every level

3. Everyone speaks a dialect, everyone has an accent

4. All living languages change over time

5. Children know the rules of their native language at an early age

Dimensions of society

1. Individual-level social characteristics

2. Social interaction

3. Speech communities

4. Social institutions

Language acquisition

the process during which the child uses input from their surroundings to figure out how the switches are set for their specific language

Language acquisition device

innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with present experience

Critical period

before puberty

Non-compositional meaning

the meaning of a complex expression CANNOT be determined by simply adding up the meanings of its individual parts (ex. idioms)

Compositional meaning

the meaning of a complex expression CANNOT be determined by simply adding up the meanings of its individual parts

Variation

the ways a language changes across different speakers, social groups, regions, and contexts

IPA

International phonetic alphabet

Sound House

The blueprints for a language’s phonetics and phonology that a native speaker acquires in childhood

Theory of Mind

knowing that all individual people have individual and distinct thoughts

Descriptivism

how people actually use language

Prescriptivism

how people should use language

Prescriptive grammar rules

1. Designed by people

2. Change over time as people change their minds and logic

3. Illogical and arbitary

Standard language ideology

there is one standard way of speaking, and people should speak that way because it’s better

‘Schema of negatives’

Describing a standard language in terms of what it is not

Standard American English ‘Schema of negatives’

free from accent, mispronunciations, misplacing of stress, and misinflictions of a sentence

Linguistic repertoire

the collection of linguistic features that each individual has at their disposal at any given moment, to be employed as needed for different social, interactional, and personal reasons

Register or style shifting

The idea that all people have a linguistic toolbox and can choose at any moment which "tool" to use when you are talking with someone

Positive face wants

acknowledgement of personal characteristics

Negative face wants

desire to be unimpeded

Face

the positive social value a person claims by virtue of the way they present themselves

Speech community

a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language

Linguists’ first job

Show that AAE is just as systematic and rule-governed as any other variety of English

Home language

the language spoken most frequently in a person's household

Heritage speakers

newer generations of spanish speakers after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Diglossia

A sociolinguistic situation in which two or more languages have different social value, one of them being of higher prestige than the others

Autism is characterized by

social communication differences, sensory processing differences, repetitive behaviors, and cognitive processing differences

Immediate echolalia

repeating what was said right before

Delayed echolalia

repeating lines or scripts previously heard (from movies, podcasts)

Double empathy problem

Autistic individuals might share differences that make it easier to empathize and communicate with other autistic people, but harder to empathize with neurotypical people

Neurodiversity

the idea that neurological differences like autism are part of normal human variation

Poverty of the Stimulus

the language children are exposed to is too limited, ambiguous, and flawed to account for the complex grammatical competence they ultimately develop

All languages change and everyone has an accent

Why is it unlikely to near impossible to arrive at one global language?

Social and institutional reinforcement

Socially constructed grammar rules require

Having ordinary thoughts and talking about your experiences in ordinary ways

People in a society have shared ideas of what is ordinary behavior and work this out in interaction by

True

Anyone can only belong to one community of practice at a time T/F

1. Community pressures within AAE-speaking communities to speak AAE and display a Black identity 2. Larger societal pressures to conform to *SAE norms in order to 'get ahead'

AAE speakers may feel pressure to speak both *SAE and AAE for all of the following reasons

False

Spanish speakers in the U.S. are overwhelmingly of immigrant descent T/F

The border shifting and many Mexican Spanish speakers becoming incorporated into the U.S.

The Mexican American War led to

use of english in institutional contexts and negative social perceptions of Spanish as a “home language”

Spanish language loss came about from the following

False

Spanglish is a maladaptive form of language that stems from the loss of Spanish and the acquisition of English T/F

The lower prestige speaker is expected to adjust the way that they speak to match the linguistic features of the higher prestige speaker

Disglossia creates a sort of language hierarchy based on prestige, the outcome of this process is

A feeling that one is not Spanish enough and not American enough

The Standard Language Ideology has this impact on Spanish speakers in the U.S.

True

Emma told us neurotypicals could read autistic literature, watch autistic made media, read autistic scholarship and listen to autistic voices to understand their autistic counterparts better T/F

1. The medical perspective focusing on ways to fix a deaf person's ability to hear 2. Their hearing family members may not be able to access resources for learning ASL

Deaf children may struggle with ASL for the following reasons

1. These individuals often experience their communication differences as gains rather than deficits

2. These individuals deal with conflicting desires to have pride in their communities while also assimilating to broader societal pressures around communication

3. These individuals use a language variation that is stigmatized and indexically linked to intelligence, competence, etc

What do the speech communities covered so far have in common