PSYCH 1X03 Lecture Notes - Foreign Accent Syndrome, Frontal Lobe, Language Production
Document Summary
Section one: what sets language apart from other forms of. Language is symbolic: to communicate using language, a user must understand that various language stimuli represent different meanings and concepts. Words are not necessarily concrete examples of the concept but rather, represent the concept as a whole. This allows for communication of abstract and hypothetical concepts as well as ideas, things, etc that are not present. Language involves arbitrary associations: one consequence of the symbolic nature of language is that words we use for concepts are arbitrarily assigned. Language is productive: language is designed to use a small number of components to produce and understand a wide range of symbols. For example language has a limited set of rules that can be used to combine a limited set of symbols in infinite ways. Language is regular: each combination must follow a defined set of rules in order to make sense.
