PSY 2105 Study Guide - Final Guide: Language Acquisition Device, Language Acquisition, Moral Realism

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 2105
• Professor: Brenda Baird

Document Summary

Language a system that relates sounds (or gestures) to meaning: has both structure (grammar) and meaning (semantics) Phonology studies the sounds of speech: speech perception requires that an infant be able to discriminate the (cid:271)ou(cid:374)da(cid:396)ies of pho(cid:374)e(cid:373)es i(cid:374) o(cid:396)de(cid:396) to pe(cid:396)(cid:272)ei(cid:448)e diffe(cid:396)e(cid:374)t (cid:449)o(cid:396)ds (cid:894)e. g. (cid:862)(cid:272)a(cid:396)(cid:863) (cid:448)s. (cid:862)(cid:272)o(cid:396)e(cid:863)(cid:895) Infants are able to make difficult phonemic discriminations (the sounds of (cid:862)(cid:396)(cid:863) a(cid:374)d (cid:862)l(cid:863)(cid:895: cochlear implants improve language development in deaf children. Phonemes = smallest speech units: phonemes are sound that are the building blocks of language, 100 possible, english about 40. Infants can hear all possible phonemes: as early as 1 month can distinguish between sound, eventually lose the ability to distinguish unused phonemes (app. Semantics study of words and their meanings. Morphemes = smallest unit of meaning: 50,000 in english, root words, prefixes, suffixes. Grammar/syntax: rules used to describe the structure of a language. Pragmatics: how people use language to communicate effectively (social uses)