PSYC 221 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Vocal Tract, Vocal Folds, Linguistic Universal

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 221
• Professor: Thomas Spalek

Document Summary

Linguistics the discipline that studies language as a formal system. Psycholinguistics the study of language from the perspective of psychology; the study of language as it is used and learned by people. Language the expression or communication of thoughts and feelings by means of sounds, and combinations of such sounds, to which meaning is attributed: a shared (by culture) symbolic system for communication. Linguistic universals features and characteristics that are universall true of all human languages. Semanticity the fact that the elements of language convey meaning (hockett) Arbitrary there is no inherent connection between the units (sounds, words) used in language and the meanings referred to by those units: knowledge of language must involve leaning and remembering the arbitrary connections. Naming the characteristics that human languages have names or labels for all the objects and concepts encountered by the speakers of the language. Displacement the fact that language permits us to talk about times other than the immediate present (hockett)