PSY100Y5 Chapter 8: Chapter 8 (Language & Thought) - PSY100 Dax Urbszat
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PSY100Y5 Full Course Notes
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A language consists of symbols that convey meaning (and rules for combining those symbols) that can be used to generate messages. Human languages have a hierarchical structure: phonemes: smallest speech unit that can be distinguished perceptually. There are ~100 in total that humans can recognize. Languages tend to use 20-80 phonemes: morphemes: smallest unit of meaning in a language. ~50,000 in english which include root words, prefixes, suffixes. Unfriendly has 3 morphemes (un, friend & ly): semantics: the area of language concerned with understanding the meaning of words & word combinations. Meaning consists of denotation (definition) & connotation (emotional overtones & secondary implications): syntax: system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences. Sentence must have a subject & a verb. Reflexive communication: vocalizes randomly, coos, laughs, cries, vocally plays, discriminates language from non-language sounds. Babbling: responds to speech of others; responses increasingly approximate human speech patterns. First words: uses words, typically to refer to objects.
