PSYCO258 Chapter 11: Nov. 23/28- Chapter 11 (LECTURE & TEXTBOOK)

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO258
• Professor: Weimin Mou

Document Summary

Language- system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Language makes it possible to create new and unique sentences because it has structure that is: hierarchical, consists of a series of small components that can be combined to form larger units, ex. Letters to words to sentences to text: governed by rules. Specify ways that components can be arranged: ex. What is my cat saying is permissible in english, but not in chinese: ex. My cat is saying what is not permissible in english, but is in chinese. People"s need to communicate deaf children invent sign language that is all their own. All humans with normal capacities develop a language and learn to follow its complex rules, even though they"re usually not aware of these rules. Language is universal across cultures (more than 5,000 languages exist)