LINGUIS 51 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Linguistic System, Speech Segmentation, Animal Communication
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A language is a system of signals, such as voice sounds, gestures or written symbols, that encode or decode information. Human languages are usually referred to as natural language, and the science of studying them is linguistics. They do(cid:374)"t need explicit instruction, the(cid:455) do(cid:374)"t (cid:396)eall(cid:455) pa(cid:455) atte(cid:374)tio(cid:374) to thi(cid:374)gs that do(cid:374)"t i(cid:373)pa(cid:272)t (cid:373)ea(cid:374)i(cid:374)g. I(cid:373)itatio(cid:374) (cid:449)o(cid:374)"t get them to far, useful for learning aspects of language. Like lea(cid:396)(cid:374)i(cid:374)g se(cid:395)ue(cid:374)(cid:272)e of sou(cid:374)ds (cid:862)(cid:272)at(cid:863) (cid:396)efe(cid:396)s to a fu(cid:396)(cid:396)(cid:455), pu(cid:396)(cid:396)i(cid:374)g pet. (cid:1005)(cid:895) most se(cid:374)te(cid:374)(cid:272)es a(cid:396)e (cid:374)o(cid:448)el, a(cid:374)d (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t p(cid:396)odu(cid:272)e full se(cid:374)te(cid:374)(cid:272)es (cid:271)(cid:455) si(cid:373)pl(cid:455) imitating. What are they doing: extracting patterns and making generalizations from the surrounding data (cid:373)ostl(cid:455) just (cid:271)(cid:455) hea(cid:396)i(cid:374)g e(cid:454)a(cid:373)ples of (cid:449)hat"s allo(cid:449)ed i(cid:374) the la(cid:374)guage. a(cid:895) patte(cid:396)(cid:374)s o(cid:396) (cid:862)(cid:396)ules(cid:863) of la(cid:374)guage= g(cid:396)a(cid:373)(cid:373)a(cid:396, grammar rules. Prescriptive: what you have to be taught in school, what is prescribed by some highe(cid:396) (cid:862)autho(cid:396)it(cid:455)(cid:863). You do(cid:374)"t lea(cid:396)(cid:374) this just (cid:271)(cid:455) liste(cid:374)i(cid:374)g to (cid:374)ati(cid:448)e speake(cid:396)s talk.
