Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Language Acquisition Device, Psycholinguistics, Feral Child

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Dr.Mike

Document Summary

Language is a system of symbols and rules for combing these symbols in ways that generate infinite possible messages. Psycholinguistics the study of psychological aspects of language, such as how people understand and use it. The underlying function of language is to share and convey thoughts, feelings, goals, intentions, etc. Also used as a learning mechanism: properties of language. Language is governed by symbols and structure. Grammar set of rules that dictate how symbols are combined to create meaningful communication. Syntax rules on how words should be in order: can help improve or impede meaning, humor comes with formal thinking. Having the ability to appreciate ambiguous meaning and logical inconsistency: phonological ambiguity confusion of sounds (ex. Knock-knock) jokes: lexical ambiguity confusion or double meaning with words, syntactic ambiguity confusion in structure, semantic ambiguity overall meaning. Language, regardless of culture, share common function such as how to change the tense.