psy290 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Noam Chomsky, Age 13, Kanzi
18 Sep 2017
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Week 06 language library research - oct 15 2013. Unit 1: introduction to language: to classify a form of communication as language, several important criteria must be met! Language is a sophisticated form of communication unique to our species characterized by the use of symbolism, arbitrary, associations, productivity and rule use. Regular: language is regular, it is governed by rules and grammar. A sentence can be reorganized and still retain its meaning because a system of rules details how each word fits with the ones around it. Symbolic: words and gestures are used as representations of specific concepts This allows for communication of abstract and hypothetical concepts as well as ideas, things, etc that are not present. Arbitrary: lack of resemblance between words and their meaning. This is why various languages exist - the same concept is represented by different words in different languages as a result of this arbitrary nature of language.
