PSYC 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Connectionism, Heritage Language, Acculturation

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Jill Bee Rich

Document Summary

Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge, and is closely linked to language (thinking) A language consists of symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining these symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. Language is symbolic, in that the words symbolize the ideas or objects that they represent. Can be used to call up images from the past (i. e. lamp that broke yesterday), and is flexible (lamp can refer to large number of possibilities) Language is semantic, meaningful, in that the words have definite meanings. Word meanings have no built-in relationship with the look or sound of the words. This is why the word pen is said many different ways in many different languages. Because of the arbitrary nature of words, there is no issue with not associating an object with characteristics of a word. Language is generative, limited number of symbols can generate unlimited number of meanings.