Quiz1

1. Phonology
Definition: The study of the systematic organization of sounds in languages.
Example: English has around 40 phonemes. The /f/ sound appears in “fun,” “puffy,” “rough,” and “phone.”

2. Phoneme
Definition: The smallest unit of sound that can distinguish meaning in a language.
Example: /f/ is a phoneme found in “fun.” It differs from /p/ in “pun.” Changing one phoneme can
change the word.

3. Morphology
Definition: The study of how words are formed and their structure.
Example: “Cats” = 2 morphemes: “cat” (animal) + “-s” (plural).

4. Morpheme
Definition: The smallest unit of meaning in a language.
Example: “Unhappiness” = 3 morphemes: “un-” (not) + “happy” + “-ness” (state).

5. Syntax
Definition: The study of how words are arranged to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.
Example:
• Simple sentence: “The professor is tall.”
• Complex sentence: “The professor who teaches us is tall.”

6. Sociolinguistics
Definition: The study of how language is used in society and how social factors influence language.
Example: Studying how language differs based on gender, age, or social class.

7. Neurolinguistics
Definition: The study of how language is represented and processed in the brain.
Example: Researching how brain injuries affect language production or comprehension.
1. Absolute Universal

Definition: A linguistic feature found in every human language.

Example: All languages have nouns and verbs.

2. Non-Absolute Universal

Definition: A linguistic feature found in most, but not all, languages.

Example: In most languages, the subject (S) comes before the object (O) in sentence structure.

3. Implicational Universal

Definition: A feature that is likely to be found if another feature is present.

Example:If a language uses SVO (subject-verb-object) word order, it is likely to have prepositions (e.g., “in the
house” rather than “the house in”).

1. Semanticity

Definition: All signals in a communication system carry meaning.

Example: • The word “pizza” refers to a specific type of food.
• A dog’s bark when it sees a stranger may mean “danger.”

2. Pragmatic Function

Definition: All communication serves a purpose or function (e.g., warning, requesting, informing).
Example: • Saying “Close the window” serves the function of requesting action.
• A bee’s waggle dance serves to inform other bees about food location.

3. Interchangeability

Definition: Individuals can both send and receive messages.

Example: • In human conversation, a speaker can become a listener and vice versa.
• Most animals (like birds) can both make sounds and hear/respond to them.
1. Arbitrary Signs
Definition: The link between a word (sign) and its meaning is not logical or natural—it’s assigned by
convention.
Example:
• The word “wall” doesn’t look or sound like a wall.
• Different languages use totally different sounds for the same concept (e.g., dog in English,
kalb in Arabic).

2. Displacement
Definition: Language allows us to refer to things that are not present—across time, space, or reality.
Example:
• “I went to Dubai last year.”
• “Tomorrow, we’ll visit the museum.”
• Animals usually can’t do this; they react to the present moment.

3. Discreteness
Definition: Language is made up of separate, distinct units (like sounds or words) that can be combined.
Example:
• The word “pool” has three discrete phonemes: /p/ + /u / + /l/.
• You can change one sound to make a new word: “pool” “tool” “fool.”

4. Combinatorial (Productivity)
Definition: We can combine discrete elements (sounds, words) to create infinite new meanings.
Example:
• “The cat sleeps.”
• “The hungry black cat sleeps under the old chair every night.”
• Even if a sentence has never been said before, we can still understand it.

1. Chemocommunication
Definition: Communication through the use of chemicals, such as pheromones.
Examples:
• Ants excrete pheromones to warn others of danger or to mark trails to food sources.
• This form of communication is essential for colony survival.

2. Other Forms of Insect Communication

Includes body language, bioacoustics, and food exchange.
Examples:

• Ants: Use tapping and grabbing with antennae as body language.

• Honeybees: Use the waggle dance to communicate location, quality, and type of food.
• They also use food exchange and bioacoustics (vibrational signals).
Animal Communication

Language skills learned by apes in experiments

• Examples: Apes like Kanzi and Washoe have learned to use symbols or sign
language to communicate basic needs and ideas.

Criticisms of experiments on teaching language to apes

• Apes may be mimicking trainers without true syntactic understanding.
• Their communication lacks complexity and generativity compared to human
language.
• They often do not initiate communication spontaneously.

Language family
• A group of related languages from a common ancestor.
• Example: Indo-European family includes English, Hindi, Persian, etc.

Isolate
• A language with no known relatives.
• Example: Basque

Comparative analysis

• Comparing words and grammar across languages to determine relatedness.

• Example: English day vs. German Tag

Correspondence
• Systematic phonological similarities across languages.
• Example: English apple vs. German Apfel

Coincidence
• Similarity in words between unrelated languages by chance.
• Example: Mbabaram (Australian language) “dog” = “dog”

Lexical borrowing

• When one language adopts a word from another.

• Example: Turkish kitap from Arabic; English coffee from Arabic
Major Language Families & Example Languages

Indo-European

• English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Persian

Sino-Tibetan

• Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Burmese

Afroasiatic

• Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, Hausa

Comparative Analysis & Correspondences

Be able to identify word relationships across languages:

• cold (English) = kalt (German)
• three (English) = drei (German)

Brain & Language

Fluent Aphasia (Wernicke’s Aphasia)
• Speech is fluent but nonsensical; comprehension is impaired.

Non-fluent Aphasia (Broca’s Aphasia)

• Speech is slow and laborious; comprehension mostly preserved.

Anomia
• Difficulty finding words; common in all aphasias.

Functions of Broca’s Area

• Language production and grammar processing.

Functions of Wernicke’s Area

• Language comprehension.
Broca’s Aphasia
• Difficulty speaking; short, grammatically incorrect sentences; better comprehension.

Wernicke’s Aphasia
• Fluent but meaningless speech; poor comprehension.

First Language Acquisition Theories

Innateness Theory
• Language is biologically hardwired.
• Supported by universal grammar (Chomsky) and the critical period hypothesis.

Active Construction Theory

• Children invent grammar rules based on linguistic input; rules are built as they
learn.

Imitation and Reinforcement Theory

• Children mimic adults and are rewarded; doesn’t fully explain rule acquisition.
 HSR 130: Introduction to Language and Communication

Week 6: First Language Acquisition

Study Guide

Key Terms and Ideas:

First Language acquisition :

- It’s a universal process (all children go through the same stages of language development)

⑧
Theories of first language acquisition:
- First 2 years are critical for language learning
- First words are usually said around 10-18 months and phrases before 2 years
- Between 4 and 7 years children begin to tell stories

[Language acquisition:
I the natural process by which humans acquire the language required to
understand and express themselves effectively
-
->
Language is extremely complex (children already know most of the grammar before 5 years )

Innate: innate refers to the idea that humans are born with a biological predisposition for language
learning.
Language acquisition theories: 1ACS

⑪- Innateness Hypothesis: suggests humans are born with the genetic ability to acquire and use
language.
Universal Grammar LAD : it says that human brain contains a mechanism (language
acquisition device LAD) it’s an innate mental grammar that helps humans acquire
language -2 NOAM CHOMSKYI

⑳- Active Construction of a Grammar : Assumes that the ability to develop rules about language is
-

innate.
-

( Children thinks they have discovered a new language pattern, they hypothesize a
rule to account for it. They add the new rule to their growing grammar )

③- Connectionist: Assumes children learn language by creating neural connections in the brain.
-

⑭- Social Interaction: language can only be learned by interaction with adults and other children
n e
Stages of first language acquisition
 L to 6 months-
Prelinguistic (Birth ) : Noises in this stage include crying , whimpering and cooing
the sounds are involuntary responses so it’s NOT A LANGUAGE

⑧
- Pre-linguistic Skills :
 Eye contact
 Pointing
 body language
 turn taking

 Babbling(4 to 6 months): child produces meaningless consonants and vowels

-

-

First Words(12 to 18months):
 start producing their single words
 able to understand more than expressing
 begin learning language at approximately twice as fast as they can produce it
 first stage of morphological


⑳
Two-Word(18-24months): children start using two words sentence
e n

 Telegraphic(24-30months):
 Significant step towards advanced communication
 Children begin to use phrases to make short simple sentences using 3-5 essential
e n

words, such as “daddy go work”

-

- emotions associated with words

 combination of thoughts in one phrase
 Key stage in the beginning of grammar development

o Content morphemes are used for meaning: follow, look , red , eat …
o Function morphemes are begin to include which helps with grammar : when , but near ,
that , them, in

&
 Beyond Telegraphic(+3 years): Known as complex stage

 Vocabulary development
 Complex sentence structure
 Start explain why and how they feel or think
 HSR 130: Introduction to Language and Communication

Week 7: Learning Additional Languages

Study Guide

Key Terms and Ideas:

Second language acquisition (SLA) : a scientific field that study the process of learning and acquisition a
-

second language
-

 Its any language that learnt after the first language

e

CSecond language learning : it’s the process of learning a second language

Krashen’s Acquisition-Learning hypothesis :
-

he says that there are two ways to learn a second language:

-

.D's
⑧Learning: the conscious aspects of the language learning process
&
 Acquisition: the subconscious aspects (similar to the way that children acquire their first
-'s 1

language)

OTHER HYPOTHESES: NIAM-5

- [ I Learners acquire the rules of language in a predictable sequence

Natural order: e

- Input hypothesis: Comprehensible Input can be understood but challenges the learner to infer
- e

meaning just beyond their level of competence

e n

- Affective filter: Learners require an environment where they feel safe to take risks necessary to
learn the language
-
- && A learner’s emotional state will affect their receptiveness to
comprehensible input. I

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-
Monitor hypothesis: learner ‘edits’ or ‘polishes’ acquired language by focusing on learnt forms.

Monolingualism: refers to the ability to speak only one language.

Bilingualism : refers to the ability to speak and understand two languages proficiently.

Multilingualism : is the ability to speak and understand multiple languages, typically three or more.

 Benefits of being bilingual/multilingual : Multi-tasking , problem solving , avoid diseases ,

increase creativity