Psychology 1000 Lecture : Chapter 9 Language and Thinking.docx

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Terry Biggs

Document Summary

Language: consist of system of symbols and rules for combining them in ways to make messages and meanings. Psycholinguistics: scientific study of psychological aspect of language. Human thought and behavior depend a lot on physical structure of brain. Language helped people gather and form social units: made it easier to communicate and live in social groups. Properties of language: symbolic, structured, rule-governed. Grammar: set of rules that tell how symbols are combined to create meaning. Syntax: rules for order of words: convey meaning. Semantics: meaning of words and sentences: generative. Generativity: symbols of language combined to make infinite number of massages that have meaning: displacement. Allow us to communicate about stuff that isn"t physically present. Structure of language: surface structure: symbols that are used and the order, deep structure: underlying meaning of combined symbols, phoneme: smallest unit of sound that can signal a difference in meaning. No meaning by itself but combined to create morphemes: morpheme: combination of phonemes.