ANT 112 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Language Acquisition, Arbitrariness
22 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
Semanticity: elements of language have meaning or reference to the world. Arbitrariness: the connection between a linguistic signal and its meaning is not. Discreteness: language is composed of small, separate and reusable bits . Displacement: language can refer to things that are not present in time or space. Productivity: language users can make and understand new messages using old natural or given familiar bits . Learnability: users of one language can learn another language. Sharedness: conventions of learning a new language remain constant. Dynamics: new words and meaning can be created all the time. Combine phonemes (basic), semantics (meaning of words), morphemes (smallest) Sapir-whorff hypothesis: language shapes the way we perceive the world and not vice versa. Hypercognition: cultural importance= several different, nuanced terms (opposite goes for hypo) Language acquisition- not just making someone competent but socializes people into everyday social interaction. Language acquisition: understanding linguistic competence at different development levels.
