Psychology 2040A/B Chapter 10: Chapter 10.docx

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2040A/B
• Professor: Ian Mac Donald

Document Summary

Language: a small number of individually meaningless symbols (sounds, letters, gestures) that can be combined according to agreed-on rules to produce an infinite number of messages. Communication: the process by which one organism transmits information to and influences another. Vocables: unique patterns of sound that a pre-linguistic infant uses to represent objects, actions, or events. Psycholinguists: those who study the structure and development of children"s language. 5 components of language: phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. Phonology: refers to the basic units of sound, or phonemes, that are used in a language and the rules for combining these sounds. No two languages have precisely the same phonologies, which explains why foreign languages may sound strange to us. Children must learn how to discriminate, produce, and combine the speech-like sounds of their native tongue in order to make sense of the speech they hear and to be understood when they try to speak.