Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Animal Communication, Noam Chomsky, Arbitrariness

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Terry Biggs

Document Summary

Psycholinguistics: an investigation of language function, models and brain relationships, psycholinguistics may be divided into three broad areas, the function of language, models of language processing, physiological localization of functions in the brain. To answer this, it requires us to determine what language really is. In human communication, all languages have words that serve as symbols for objects and concepts. Words alone, however, are not sufficient to make a language. More important feature common to all human languages is that they posses a system of rules for combining words into sentences. Uses written signs, sounds, and gestures to refer to objects, events, ideas and feelings: language has structure. Rules that govern how symbols can be combined: language is generative. Symbols can be combined in infinite ways: surface structure. The ways symbols are combined within a given language: deep structure. The underlying meaning of the combined symbols: phonemes. The smallest units of sound that are recognized as separate.