Flashcards on Fundamental Concepts in Linguistics
Fundamental Concepts in Linguistics: A Student's Guide
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Linguistics
12 cards
Card 1
Question: What does 'arbitrariness' mean in language?
Answer: It means there's no natural connection between a word and its meaning (e.g., the sound of the word 'dog' isn't inherently linked to the animal).
Card 2
Question: What does 'cultural transmission' mean in language?
Answer: It means language is learned from other speakers in a society, rather than being biologically inherited; children acquire language through interaction
Card 3
Question: What is the basic idea behind the 'bow-wow theory' of language origin?
Answer: It suggests that language originated from imitating natural sounds in the environment (e.g., animal sounds); this is supported by onomatopoeic words l
Card 4
Question: Why doesn't the bow-wow theory explain the origin of most words?
Answer: Because most words are not imitations of sounds, so the theory cannot account for the origin of the majority of vocabulary.
Card 5
Question: What is deixis, and provide examples of deictic expressions.
Answer: Deixis refers to words whose meaning depends on the context (who is speaking, where, and when). Examples: 'I', 'you', 'here', 'there', 'now', 'then'.
Card 6
Question: What is a 'presupposition' in language?
Answer: Something the speaker assumes to be true before making an utterance; for example, 'John's sister is coming' presupposes that John has a sister.
Card 7
Question: How do direct and indirect speech acts differ? Provide examples.
Answer: A direct speech act's grammatical form matches its intention ('Close the door.' = a command). An indirect speech act's intention is expressed indirect
Card 8
Question: What is a logographic writing system, and give an example.
Answer: A writing system where symbols represent words or morphemes; example: Chinese characters.
Card 9
Question: What is a syllabic writing system, and provide an example.
Answer: A writing system where each symbol represents a syllable; examples: Japanese hiragana and katakana.
Card 10
Question: What is a social dialect?
Answer: A language variation associated with a specific social group, class, occupation, age group, or community; it includes differences in vocabulary, pronu