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Ling 111 Exam 1
Linguistics
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What are the three lenses we are using to study language | - mind creates language - language shapes society - all language is good language |
| what does it mean that the mind creates language | we're all born with the basic ability to acquire language (even infants can recognize their native language when born) --> part of human nature |
| what does language allow us to do and how does it shape society | it allows us to connect with others and is seen as a cognitive and social science |
| what does the third lense mean | all language is worthy of linguistic study and our use of language can lead to judgment or bias |
| what is language | collection of different varieties of speaking or signing (dialects) |
| what is the mutual intelligibility hypothesis | in general, speakers of varieties that have more linguistic relatedness tend to have a higher degree of mutual intelligibility (able to make sense of what people are saying) |
| what factors influences what makes a speech a variety of language | - social factors esp those having to do with political power and authority - geographical factors - cultural factors |
| what is an counter example to the mutual intelligibility hypothesis | The Chinese languages are not mutually intelligible but thru promotion of a unified writing system calling them one language supports a sense of national identity |
| why is language considered higher on the hierarchy | - languages often associated with groups having greater resources at their disposal to elevate their own way of speaking to language status |
| what are dialects | variety that is related in a systemic way to the standardized variety spoken tho some differences may be present in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar |
| are regional dialects perceived as less prestigious or more than the standardized variety of language | less |
| why is there a social desire to standardize language | in order to maximize mutual intelligibility, create a uniform writing system, have a "educated language", and to make every sound better and the same |
| what does treating standard language as "better" compared to non standardized language cause | can lead to discrimination of languages which can lead to treating some people as better --> might judge people on the way they speak |
| why does a standard form of any language exist | exists to reflect a set of social ideologies and values where certain ways of speaking are assigned more prestige or legitimacy over others |
| what protection is there against linguistic discrimination | Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 |
| what does the Title VII Act do | Makes it illegal to deny employment, promotion, or workplace advantages on the basis of a protected class (race, color, national origin, sex, religion) |
| What happened with the Kahakua v. Friday Case | - employer found him unqualified for a job bc as a bilingual (spoke English and Hawaiian Creole English) he still had a Hawaiian accent - Sued employer under title VII on basis of language traits linked to national origin → lost the case |
| what was involved in the transcription of AAVE study | Motive: to show how unequipped court system is to handle “non-standard” varieties of English - Recruited native speakers of African American English to transcribe AAE sentences - certified court transcribers to transcribe those same sentences |
| what was the findings in the transcription of AAVE study | - Court transcribers alleged to transcribe with 95% accuracy Reporters certified for 95% accuracy on “standard English” can perform at as low as 18% for an unfamiliar dialect |
| what was the finding in the housing discrimination in the Baugh et al, Write & McGowan Reading | Found that when using AAE voice or Chicano English voice he was less likely to get a callback for an apt in a majority white neighborhood than when he used a “standardized” voice |
| What is the key takeaway from the Kahakua v. Friday case | ideologies about what language should be on the radio prevented a qualified, non standard speaking expert from advancing his career |
| what is the takeaway from the Jones & Kalbfield study | Standard language ideology impacts the court system and how accessible a fair trial is for non standard speaking people |
| what is the key takeaway from the Baugh et al., Wright & McGowan study | ideologies about ideal tenants prevent non standard speaking people from certain sectors of the housing market |
| what are prescriptive rules | - traditional grammar teachings - how people should use language according to a preferred standard - ex: don’t begin a sentence with “and” or “but”; Don’t use double negatives in a sentence |
| what are descriptive rules | - describes how language is/works - explains how people actually use language and the patterns speakers follow (how speakers actually speak or write) - ex: English speakers generally place adjectives before nouns |
| what is morphology | knowledge about word formation |
| what is syntax | - know how words combine to form phrases and sentences - allows you to have the ability to construct and use sentences you never heard before and to recognize when a sentence is well formed |
| what is semantics | - be able to interpret meaning of sentences - each sentence has a literal/semantic meaning and a pragmatic/contextual meaning |
| what is pragmatics | - able to use context to interpret meaning |
| what are the two parts of your linguistic knowledge | lexicon (collection of all the words you know) and rules you know about your language (stored in form of a mental grammar) |
| Theories of language acquisition in children | - repetition/imitation --> children pick up patterns and learn them - direct instruction --> caregivers explicitly teach them language - innate --> something inside their brains that is specialized to acquire & use language (idea of universal grammar) |
| what is a pro to repetition/imitation | - Multilingualism: Not all children grow up to speak the same language. They learn to speak the language (and dialect/variety) they are exposed to - Atypical exposure: When no input is given children will not acquire language |
| What are pros to the idea of direct instruction | Pros: - Play a role in some form of second language acquisition - Adults will sometimes notice language errors and explicitly correct it with the children |
| What are cons to the idea of direct instruction | Con: - Adults don’t actually try to teach or correct children’s language much so long as it's understandable and true - Fast mapping: children often persist in making errors in spite of correction |
| what are pros to the idea of there being a innate ability to acquire language | - Explains errors in child acquisition (goed vs. went) - Explains eventual grammatical competence of children and adults - Resolves poverty of the stimulus problem - Explains uniformity of language acquisition across languages and children |
| Children acquire knowledge of their language that goes beyond what they could have learned from the linguistic input they receive (which is “imperfect”, as it is varied and lacks negative evidence). This challenge for language acquisitions is: | Poverty of the stimulus |
| What is overregularization | - when learners apply a regular grammatical rule to an irregular word - ex: goed instead of went, comed instead of came |
| what is phonology | - sounds and signs of a language - study of the rules that dictate the mapping between our mental representation of sounds and their acoustic reality |
| What is phonemics | how speakers of a language understand these sounds ex: how their minds organize them and how they interact with one another |
| what is phonetics | - Physical properties of speech sounds and signs and the anatomical structures used to produce and perceive them - Spoken language: configuration of vocal tract Sign language: configuration of various gestures |
| what are allophones | when two sounds are phonetic realizations of the same phoneme |
| what are segmental speech sounds | discrete units of speech such as consonants and vowels |
| what are suprasegmental sounds | properties that cannot be represented as discrete units but apply to entire syllables of words such as stress, tone, and intonation |
| why is it possible to have a universal phonetic alphabet | bc all natural languages are used by people who have the same basic human anatomy |
| What are the four properties of langauge | productivity, arbitrariness, discreteness, displacement |
| what is productivity | describes how the individual pieces of language combine to form novel messages |
| what is arbitrariness | describes how the meaning of a linguistic sign is not in any way predictable from its form |
| what is discreteness | describes how language is made up of individual small pieces |
| what is displacement | describes how language can be used to communicate about things, actions, and ideas that are not present in space or time when speakers are communicating |
| Why are spelling conventions not used | Need a system that isn’t restricted to the sounds of a specific language, has a one-to-one correspondence between the symbol and the sound its representing, doesn’t presume contrastive distinctions |
| what are the places of articulations | bilabial, labiodental, alveolar, velar |
| where are bilabial sounds made | where the lips come in contact with each other (p, b, m) |
| where are labiodental sounds made | where the upper teeth come in contact with the lower lip (f, v) |
| where are alveolar sounds made | when the tongue blade comes in contact with the alveolar ridge (t, d, s, z, n, l, ɹ) |
| where are velar sounds made | when the back of the tongue comes in contact with the velum (k, g, ŋ) |
| what are manners of articulation | how narrowly constricted the airflow is in the oral and nasal cavities |
| how are stops made | airflow is stopped completely in oral cavity (and released with "plosion" due to pressure built up) |
| how are fricative smade | airflow stopped partially leading to turbulence |
| what are affricates | consonants that begin as stops and releases as a fricative |
| what conforms to sonority hierarchy | more sonorant (i.e., less constricted) consonants are higher on the hierarchy |
| stops, fricatives, and affricates are known as what | obstruents |
| what are obstruents | - sounds that obstruct airflow and are the least resonant of the consonants - produced with an obstruction of the airflow in the oral cavity while the nasal cavity is closed off |
| what are nasals, flaps, and approximants (and vowels) also known as | sonorants |
| what are sonorants | - segments (usually voiced) produced with a relatively open passage for the airflow --> obstruct less airflow and usually more resonant |
| what are voiced sounds and are the vocal cords adducted or abducted | - adducted - When the vocal folds are held together, they vibrate as air from the lungs forces its way thru them - Ex: [z, v, ʒ, ð] |
| what are voiceless sounds and are the vocal cords abducted or adducted | - abducted - When vocal folds are open, the flow of air that comes out from the lungs passes freely thru them Ex: [s, f, ʃ, θ] |
| what are non pulmonic consonants | produced without airflow from the lungs and instead use airstream mechs like the glottalic or velaric airstream |
| what did Labov's (1966) study of NYC department stores conclude | Postvocalic /r/ contains social meaning: its use is stratified by social class and is subject to style-shifting, reflecting speakers' (often subconscious) awareness of its prestige. |
| What were the findings from Labov's (1966) study of NYC department stores | Employees at higher-status store (Saks) used rhotic variant most often, employees at lower-status store (S. Klein) used it least, and employees at middle-status store (Macy's) fell in between |
| what is rhoticity | - The “r” sound is pronounced (or not pronounced) in different ways in different languages or in dialects - Serves as a basis for variation among dialects or languages and for judgement (and complaints) about how people speak |
| what are the articulatory features of vowels | - tongue position (tongue height and advancement) - tenseness (how much muscular effort is required by the tongue) - roundness (shape of lips) |
| how many tense vowels are there in English and what are they | - two - [i], [u] |
| how are vowels formed | by keeping airflow free but changing aspects of the shape of the tongue and lips |
| how are english non low back vowels formed | with lips pursed and protruded |
| what are the differences between tense and lax vowels | Tense: - further from neutral position - longer duration - more front tongue rot Lax - closer to neutral - shorter duration - less front/advanced tongue root |
| What are monphthongs | simple vowels where the tongue remains in a single/static position during the entire duration of their production |
| what are diphthongs | complex vowels where the tongue starts in one position at onset of vowel and end in a different position at off set of vowel production |
| what are examples of diphthongs | bay, boy, buy, bough, beau |
| what are pulmonic consonants | sounds that are formed with air being pushed out of the lungs or into the lungs |
| what are egressive consonats | airstream flows outward from mouth or nose |
| what are ingressive consonats | airstream flows inward thru mouth or nose |
| what are non pulmonic velaric (or lingual) consonants | sounds formed by initiating airflow by action of the tongue |
| non pulmonic velaric consonants are typically voiced or voiceless | voiceless |
| do nasal ejectives and implosives exist and why | no, they are produced by changing pressure of air trapped in the oral cavity (by raising/lowering the glottis). Nasal sounds involve air passing thru the nasal cavity which would prevent a buildup of pressure in the oral cavity |
| what configurations are studied in sign language phonetics | handshape, palm orientation, location, movement, non-manual markers |
| what is studied when looking at the configuration of handshape in sign language | What shape the hands are in - Which fingers are extended? - Are the fingers bent or straight? - What is the position of the thumbs/ - Are the fingers touching? Etc. Changing handshape can change meaning of sign |
| what is studied when looking at the palm orientation in sign language | direction palm is facing |
| what is studied when looking at the location in sign language | - Location of hands located with respect to the signer’s body/face -Signers MUST make eye contact with one another so differences in location matter more the nearer to the face they are |
| what is studied when looking at the movement in sign language | Different ways the hands move when making a sign |
| what is studied when looking at the non manual markers in sign language | What the other articulators (face, head, shoulders, torso, etc.) are doing |
| what are phonemes | - set of speech sounds that are perceived to be variants of the same sound - mental representation we have of a sound |
| what are articulatory phonetics | how sounds are produced by speakers --> Want to know what parts of the mouth are used and in what sorts of configurations |
| what are acoustic phonetics | the acoustic characteristics of sounds |
| what are minimal pairs | - two words differ in meaning and are identical in all but sound - any pair of words that with a change in one sound will result in a change of the word |
| why is phonology language specific | what is considered meaningful or not depends on the language |
| what is constrastive distribution | if replacing one sound with the other in the same phonological environment results in a change in meaning - if they are minimal pairs they are in constrastive distribution |
| if two sounds occur in contrastive distribution then they are allophones of the same or different phonemes | different |
| What is free variation | when two sounds can occur in the same context and there is no semantic effect to it ex: releasing vs. not releasing a word |
| if two sounds occur in free variation then they are allophones of the same or different phoneme | same |
| what is complementary distribution | - given a pair of speech sounds, one is found only in environments where the other is not - allophones in this distribution are predictable --> able to find a rule to describe when a sound would be pronounced in a certain way |
| if two sounds occur in complementary distribution then they are allophones of the same or different phoneme | same |
| How do you determine whether sounds occur in the same or different environments | - Look at environments/contexts that precede and follow the allophone and see if there's a overlap - if there isn't then its different environment |
| What is assimilation | where a sound or gesture becomes more like a neighboring sound or gesture with respect to some phonetic property - ex: 'unbelievable’ --> [ʌn] + [bəlivəbl] → [ʌmbəlivəbl] |
| Structural change processes do what | change the structure of a sound sequence (esp at the level of a syllable) and include epenthesis, elision, metathesis |
| what is epenthesis/insertion | - adding or inserting a sound to a sequence at the same place of articulation - causes a segment that was not originally present at the phonemic level to be added to the phonetic form of a word - ex: voiceless stop insertion in English |
| what is elision/deletion | - deleting or omitting a sound from a sequence (i.e., subtractive structural change) - eliminates sound present at phonetic level - ex: final stops in English (young vs. younger), /h/ deletion |
| what is metathesis | - reordering or moving around sounds in a sequence (i.e., permutative structural change) - changes order of sounds usually making words easier to pronounce and/or understand ex: prescription --> perscription |
| what happens when three consonants occur consecutively | first one changes places with the preceding vowel |
| what do the substitution processes do | systemically replace sounds with each other |
| what are some ways to not delete second consonants | - can add a vowel initial suffix allowing the second consonant to go into a separate syllable (ex: bom[b]ard, lon[g]er) - can make the second consonant in long or running |
| What is fortition/strengthening | - replacing a sound with a stronger/more salient related sound - ex: aspiration in English ‘bat’ [bæt] → [bʰæt] --> voiceless stops/plosives become aspirated when they occur at the beginning of a stressed syllable |
| Lenition/Weakening | - make sounds weaker either by making them shorter or obstructing less air - ex: flapping in English (/t/ or /d/ become [ɾ] between two vowel sounds, or a vowel and a syllabic /ɹ/) |
| What is dissimilation | - causes two close or adjacent sounds to become less similar with respect to some property by changing something in one or both sounds |
| why is g dropping not a true structural change | no /g/ to be deleted in [wɑkɪŋ] to begin with unless we take “walking” to really be [wɑkɪŋg] |
| Why is g dropping no assimilation | since the change from [ŋ] to [n] is not influenced by a related neighboring sound (and it does not even happen with similarly sounding monosyllabic words, such as “thing” or “sing.” |
| Why is g dropping not an example of substitution | - not necessarily a form of lenition/weakening since it is not necessarily easier to say [n] compared to [ŋ] - not harder to say [n] compared to [ŋ], which is why it is not a form of fortition/strengthening either |
| why are structural change, assimilation, and substitution processes phonological processes | They have to do with how certain phonemes (i.e., mental representations of sounds) are pronounced phonetically, through structural change, substitution, or assimilation |
| What is co articulation | the articulatory overlap between sounds that are pronounced together |
| why is co articulation a phonetic process | a phoneme (e.g., /d/) is pronounced in a certain way due to its neighboring sounds, but remains (and is perceived as) that phoneme itself |
| true or false: writing is secondary to speech | false |
| what parts of a communication system is unique to human language | displacement and productivity |
| what techniques are used to study articulatory phonetics | - x ray, video recording, point tracking devices (track locations of small receptors glued onto the lips, tongue and jaw), palatography (observe contact between tongue and roof of mouth) |
| how are acoustic phonetics studied | by analyzing pictures of sounds and using spectrograph |
| how are nasal sounds made | produced by relaxing the velum and lowering it thus opening the nasal passage to the vocal tract |
| how are approximants produced | - involves constriction of the vocal tract --> not narrow enough to block vocal tract or cause turbulence - can be divided into liquids and glides |
| How are liquids formed | formed with slightly more constriction than glides |
| how are glides formed | made with only a slight closure of the articulators and require more movement of the articulators during production |
| what is static palatography | involves painting the tongue black and observing the patterned left by the tongue during pronunciation |
| what is dynamic palatography | use of an artificial hard palate embedded with many small electrodes to allow for observation of how one consonant's place of articulation affects another |
| what does dynamic palatography allow for | Allows for measurement of exactly where, how much, and how long contact occurs between the tongue and the roof of the mouth at any given utterance |
| sign language has what kind of constraint | symmetry constraint --> Motion of each hand must be the same, the direction of the motion may be parallel or anti-parallel |
| Sound substitution in foreign accents | - When pronouncing the words of a foreign language, speakers often replace non native sounds with sounds of their native language - In most cases, speakers will use the most similar sound available in their inventory |
| What is a natural class | group of sounds in a language that share one or more articulatory or auditory properties --> must include all of the sounds that share a particular property or set of properties |
| what are sibiliant | segments that have a high pitched, hissing sound quality |
| what is an implicational law | - type of observation where we expect something to happen based off of the observations made - ex: presence of the less common sound implies that the more common sound will also be used in the language |
| what is true about more and less common sounds in our sound inventory | For each less common sound in the inventory, there tends to be a more common sound in the inventory that is very similar to the less common sound |
| are more or less common sounds going to be lost | less common sounds more often lost due to them being less stable than more common ones |
| when it comes to more and less common sounds, how do children acquire them | - acquire use of more common sounds before less common ones and for those that haven't mastered the complete sound inventory of their native language they will substitute more common sounds when trying to say less common sounds |
| are more common sounds or less common sounds more widely distributed within a language | more common sounds |
| what are the steps in a phonemic analysis | 1. collect list of phonetic environments & look at environments to find natural classes 2. look for complementary gaps in environment 3. state generalization about distribution of each of these sounds 4. determine identity of phonemes & its allophones |
Created by:
rach6774