Question 1

What is language?

Accepted Answer

A flexible system of spoken, written, or signed symbols

Allows us to communicate thoughts and feelings

Question 2

What are phonemes?

Accepted Answer

Basic sound units that make up language

(English uses ~45 phonemes [e.g., p, d, t], out of the 100 used worldwide)

Question 3

What are morphemes?

Accepted Answer

The smallest meaningful units of speech

(simple words, prefixes, suffixes)

Question 4

What is grammar?

Accepted Answer

A system of rules that determines how words can be combined to communicate meaning

Question 5

What is syntax?

Accepted Answer

A set of rules that control the order words can be put in

Question 6

What is semantics?

Accepted Answer

Set of rules that enable us to derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences

Question 7

What is babbling?

Accepted Answer

Stage in child language development where infants produce semi-random phonemes

(babbled phonemes are more than just the ones in the child's language, over time the child loses the ability to make phonemes not in their language)

Question 8

What is a holophrase?

Accepted Answer

A single word phrase that expresses a complete thought

("okay"; babies use holophrases at ~1yrs old)

Question 9

What is telegraphic speech?

Accepted Answer

Simple form of speech with just a verb and a noun

("eat cookie"; used by children ~2yrs old)

Question 10

What is overgeneralization/overregularization, in language acquisition?

Accepted Answer

When a child applies grammatical rules without making exceptions

(a 3yr-old saying "I goed to the store" since -ed makes it past tense)

Question 11

What are Noam Chomsky's thoughts about how our brains acquire language?

Accepted Answer

Our brains are prewired for a "universal grammar" of nouns, subjects, objects, negations, and questions

Question 12

What is a critical period, in language acquisition?

Accepted Answer

A period where children must be exposed to language before adolescence, or they will be unable to learn a language

Question 13

What are B. F. Skinner's thoughts on language acquisition?

Accepted Answer

Babies merely imitate the phonemes around them and are reinforced for doing this

Question 14

Who was Benjamin Whorf?

Accepted Answer

American linguist who proposed that our language guides and determines our thinking

Different languages cause people to view the world differently

Question 15

What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis / the Whorf hypothesis?

Accepted Answer

Hypothesis that suggests the structure of a language influences how its speakers perceive the world

(created by Benjamin Whorf; mostly discredited, and is more likely that our environment determines what words come into our language)

Language, AP Psychology Flashcards