NEW LING 2100H Syntax & Language Variations Exam 5 Flashcards

Mi-Ran Kim Intro Honors Linguistics UGA

Idiolect

The language that an individual speaks, it may change based on situation (style shifting)

Linguistic Criterion: Dialects are part of the same language if…

Mutual Intelligibility (Mandarin+Cantonese are exceptions)
Socio-Political Criterion (has to be considered same language by speakers)
This is complicated by dialect continuums.

Speech Styles

Style Shifting- automatically shifting the formality or other way of you are speaking depending on your situation

Hypercorrection

“Kim and I” Political leaders have used SAE incorrect pronoun usage but we will often think it’s correct. “Act of producing nonstandard forms through false analogy.” Even non-standard usages may be considered correct if used by prestige group

Overt Prestige

The prestige of speaking the “correct” dialect

Covert Prestige

The prestige of belonging to a group that speaks the same dialect, even when it might not belong to the prestigious “Standard”

Isogloss

the lines on a map that note differences in language use or pronunciation. When several of them are closely aligned (Bundle of Isoglosses), it can indicate there are different dialects

US Case Study in Variation

Immigrant groups settled in different areas (I.E. Scotts in Appalachia), as their language usages mixed and solidified, immigrants adapted the use. When westward migration happened, these mixes created more and less distinct variations (this is why the east coast has more dialects than the west coast)

Northern Cities Shift

[a - ae - ɛ - ʌ - ɔ]

Southern Shift

[aɪ] → [aː]

[ɛ] → [ɛɪ]

[aʊ] → [æʊ]

[ɛ] → [ɪ] before nasal consonants ('pen')

Emblematic Language

ex: Chicano english dialect. Spanish is symbolic of heritage/culture

Sense

mental image

Reference

specific example in real life (referent= specific example)

complementary antonymy

One or other, never both, sometimes neither

gradable antonymy

extreme points of a continuum (wet/dry)

reverses (antonyms)

one undoes other (grow/shrink)

converses (antonyms)

one must have reference for other to have reference (send/recieve)

Pure intersection

green sweater (objective, there are green things that are not sweaters)

Relative intersection

relative to non-adjective of the same noun (good coffee, big whale)

non-intersection

possible thief (needs proposition to be defined, but truth conditions are unknown)

anti-intersection

fake diamond (defined by being not of the noun category.)

innateness hypothesis

humans are genetically predisposed to find patterns in language and universals

universal grammar

subject of debate where the line is, but some things that all human languages have (like nouns)

critical period

The period of time in which someone must learn a language, otherwise they may never gain native competence (there are some exceptions and the period is hard to define, before puberty?)

active construction of a grammar

children invent rules themselves based on patterns analyzed from the language(s) spoken around them. They follow their own consistent rules

connectionist theory

posits that neural connections are formed with words to build mental images (‘bottle’ = [b], milk, act of drinking, etc.) that vary in strength depending on input frequency. Statistical inference based on data input

social interaction theory

through social interactions, prompt adults for the input they need. Dynamic system

child-directed speech (baby talk)

speech to infants
simple+emphasized. crucial early on, varies depending on culture. Higher, more emphasizedd+repetitive

holophrastic stage

single words in isolation representing a complete thought

telegraphic stage

2 word combos in:

agent+action (dad throw)
action+object (throw ball)
action+location (throw pond)
entity+location (ball pond)
possessor and possession (dad ball)
entity+attribute (ball red)
demonstrative+entity (this ball)

overgeneralization

overgeneralizing a grammatical rule (‘manses’ instead of ‘men’ upon learning plural [əz])

complexive concepts

associating a word with a child’s specific experiences (oo= anything rock band related)

overextension

‘doggy’ is anything furry

code-switching

word/structure elements from different languages. can differentiate languages before 4 months old.

“Tengo glitter en mi face”

Spanglish example:
1. only know certain words in English (glitter)
2. people spoken to know both languages
3. avoid difficult-to-pronounce words

fossilization

forms don’t change (accent)

positive transfer

know how language works already