PSY 3136 Lecture 2: PSY3136 - Lecture 2
6 Feb 2019
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Document Summary
Subjective/arbitrary some words can mean some different things. Productive combine it in infinite ways to have infinite meanings, Language is the systematic and conventional use of sounds (or signs or written symbols) Influences our thoughts/cognition for the purpose of communication or self-expression. Many components: semantics the meaning of language: morphemes: smallest unit of meaning that we can use. Adding an s to a word can change its meaning. Sometimes they may not be small, they may be big words too. Syntax different rules that govern the language. Pragmatics: sociolinguistics part of a group/culture, development of things like conversational skills. Knowing that having a conversation involves taking turns, if someone"s voice ends the sentence higher, they are asking a question. Ex: b" can not be followed by k" in english but another language may allow that. Literacy: different languages have different alphabets, they may have different ways of writing, top to bottom, left to right, right to left.
