PSY 3136 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Phenology, Psycholinguistics, Pragmatics
28 Nov 2016
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Lecture # 1
Jan 15 2016
What is language?
● Text: systematic(grammar) and conventional use of sounds (or signs or written symbols)
for the purpose of communication or self- expression.
● OED(dictionary):the system of spoken(phenology) or written communication used by a
particular country, people, community, etc., typically consisting of words used within a
regular grammatical and syntactic structure
Definition cont.
● Others:
○ concrete act of speaking
○ abstract system underlying the collective totality of the speech/writing behaviour
of a community
○ the biological faculty which enables individual to learn and use their
communication systems
○ a defining feature of human behaviour
○ A city, to the building of which every human being brought a stone.
Some agreement
● Language is
○ 1) Communicative (there to communicate)
○ 2) Arbitrary (there is nothing about language that is concrete, no reason why
something isn’t what it is, goes beyond simple reactions)
○ 3) Structured (must have a ground, like grammar, without there is no
conversation)
○ 4) Multilayered (phenology, semantics, grammar, pragmatics, all together is how
we understand conversations)
○ 5) Productive (language must be infinite, infinite combinations, new words, new
sentences)
○ 6) Evolutionary (must change)
Psycholinguistics
● Approach taken in the course
● Summarized by one word:how (how do you learn language, how does it unfold)
● Discovered through experimental methods and observation.
Parts of Language
● Phonetics and phonology:the constituent sounds of a language(the individual sounds of
language) --solander: profoundly done by 12 months
● Semantics:meanings of words (understand what a cup is)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Text: systematic(grammar) and conventional use of sounds (or signs or written symbols) for the purpose of communication or self- expression. Oed(dictionary):the system of spoken(phenology) or written communication used by a particular country, people, community, etc. , typically consisting of words used within a regular grammatical and syntactic structure. Abstract system underlying the collective totality of the speech/writing behaviour of a community the biological faculty which enables individual to learn and use their communication systems. A city, to the building of which every human being brought a stone. 2) arbitrary (there is nothing about language that is concrete, no reason why something isn"t what it is, goes beyond simple reactions) 3) structured (must have a ground, like grammar, without there is no conversation) 4) multilayered (phenology, semantics, grammar, pragmatics, all together is how we understand conversations) 5) productive (language must be infinite, infinite combinations, new words, new sentences) Summarized by one word:how (how do you learn language, how does it unfold)
