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LING 001 - Exam 3
Linguistics
84
Language - English
Undergraduate 1
12/10/2010

Additional Language - English Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
alphabetic writing
Definition
a standardized set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which roughly represents a phoneme in a spoken language
Term
amelioration
Definition
type of semantic change — the introduction of positive connotations or removal of negative ones for a word or expression.
Term
analogies
Definition
the process by which words or phrases are created or re-formed according to existing patterns in the language, as when shoon was re-formed as shoes, when -ize is added to nouns like winter to form verbs, or when a child says foots for feet
Term
areal features
Definition
any typological feature shared by languages within the same geographical area as a consequence of linguistic (and other cultural) diffusion
-Shared properties due to long term language contact
Term
borrowings
Definition
the importation of foreign words into the english language
Term
calques
Definition
a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word translation
ex) "flea market" is a phrase calque that literally translates the French "marché aux puces" ("fleas' market")
Term
change from below
Definition
semantic change not driven by social factors.
--change from above: introduced by the dominant (not highest) social class as a prestige form
Term
cluster reduction
Definition
the simplification of consonant clusters in certain environments or over time
ex) in AAVE "friend" rhymes with "ben"
Term
cognitive metaphor
Definition
refers to the understanding of one idea in terms of another
ex) "prices are rising" = cost in terms of directionality
Term
comparative method
Definition
a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages
Term
consonantal writing
Definition
only consonants, not vowels
Term
contact language
Definition
any language which is created through contact between two or more existing languages.[1] This may occur when people who share no native language need to communicate (can be a type of lingua franca: business language)
Term
covert prestige
Definition
the language which is most commonly used in low class communities - this is not the language with the most obvious prestige, but it is the most desirable in these areas.
Term
creoles
Definition
a stable language that has originated from a pidgin language that has been nativized (that is, acquired by children)
Term
critical discourse analysis
Definition
an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice and focuses on the ways social and political domination are reproduced by text and talk.
Term
dead metaphor
Definition
a metaphor in which the comparison has less importance than the common usage. they can be understood without knowing their earlier connotation
Term
dialect
Definition
variety of a language
Term
discourse
Definition
can be observed in multimodal/multimedia forms of communication including the use of spoken, written and signed language in contexts spanning from oral history to instant message conversations to textbooks
Term
discourse analysis
Definition
a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken, signed language use
Term
domain
Definition
situation in which language interaction occurs (written, conversation, etc)
Term
endangered
Definition
a language which has lost all NATIVE speakers
Term
extension
Definition
salt = salary (when a specific term is broadened to more meanings)
Term
extinct
Definition
a language which no one (not even non-native speakers) use
Term
family trees
Definition
a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family
Term
figures of speech
Definition
use of a word that diverges from its usual meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words
Term
flouting maxims
Definition
sarcasm or irony - to flout a maxim intentionally or unconsciously and thereby convey a different meaning than what is literally spoken
Term
folk linguistics
Definition
applied to the amateur study of linguistics
Term
genetic features
Definition
features of a language which can be proven to stem from the proto-language
Term
Great vowel shift
Definition
a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in the south of England between 1450 and 1750
Term
Grice’s Maxims
Definition
cooperative principle
-Quality, Quantity, Relevance and Manner
Term
h-dropping
Definition
dropping the h at the being of words like "human" and "hold" in many English dialects
Term
hieroglyphs
Definition
character of any logographic or partly logographic writing system
Term
high rising terminal
Definition
upspeak
Term
idiolect
Definition
variety of language unique to an individual speaker
Term
isogloss
Definition
the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature
Term
language change
Definition
the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of language vary over time.
-Language changes because of diversification and separation
-Constant
But not always perceptible
Pervasive
Happens throughout the language system
Systematic
Follows patterns
Term
language shift
Definition
progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language.
Term
language shift reversal
Definition
the goal of language revitalization is often to recover the spoken use of the language
Term
lexical variation
Definition
pop vs. soda - marks the speaker as a resident of a certain area
Term
lexicon
Definition
a language's vocabulary, including its words and expressions
Term
Linear B
Definition
a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries
Term
lingua franca
Definition
a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.
Term
linguicide
Definition
a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety
Term
linguistic purism
Definition
the definition of one variety of a language as being purer than other varieties, often in reference to a perceived decline from an ideal past or an unwanted similarity with other languages
Term
linguistic reconstruction
Definition
practice of establishing the features of the unattested ancestor (proto-language) of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction. Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language to make inferences about an earlier stage of that language. Comparative reconstruction, usually referred to just as reconstruction, establishes features of the ancestor of two or more related languages by means of the comparative method.
Term
linguistic relatives
Definition
members of the same language family (indo-european languages use "th" or some variation in the beginning of the word for "three")
Term
linguistic universals
Definition
a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially true for all of them . For example, All languages have nouns and verbs, or If a language is spoken, it has consonants and vowels.
Term
logograms/graphs
Definition
is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit of language)
Term
male vs. female speech
Definition
It’s more about power structure and social expectation.
-vulgarity, women talk more, women use more standard forms
Term
markedness
Definition
waiter vs. waitress (might provide inherent bais and sexism in language)
Term
matched guise
Definition
uses recorded voices speaking first in one dialect or language, then in another. Listeners do not know that the speech samples are from the same person, but judge the two guises of the same speaker as two separate speakers
-used to determine popular perception and possible bias
Term
metaphor (2 meanings)
Definition
semantic change based on similarity, i.e. a similarity in form or function between the original concept named by a word and the target concept named by this word
mouse: small, gray rodent → small, gray, mouse-shaped computer device
Term
metathesised sounds
Definition
foliage → **foilage
cavalry → **calvary
Term
metonymy
Definition
a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. For instance, "London", as the capital of the United Kingdom, can be used as a metonym (an instance of metonymy) for the British government
Term
monogenesis
Definition
the view that human languages all go back to a single common ancestor.
Term
moribund
Definition
a language at the "point of death"
Term
nativization
Definition
the process whereby a language gains native speakers.
Term
Nostratic
Definition
a proposed language family (sometimes called a macrofamily or a superfamily) that includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia which would have existed before the specific proto-languages of those families
Term
pejoration
Definition
The process by which the meaning of a word becomes negative or less elevated over a period of time, as silly, which formerly meant "deserving sympathy, helpless or simple," has come to mean "showing a lack of good sense, frivolous."
Term
pictograms/graphs
Definition
an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object.
-the basis of cuneiform and heiroglyphs
Term
pidgins
Definition
a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the country in which they reside (but where there is no common language between the groups)
Term
polygenesis
Definition
the view that human languages evolved as several lineages independent of one another
Term
power structures
Definition
language assimilation and change is often based on the power structure
Term
pragmatics
Definition
a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning
Term
prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar
Definition
prescriptive: how someone SHOULD talk
descriptive: how someone DOES talk
Term
prestige
Definition
overt: what society marks as the most important or most correct
covert: what your group expects
Term
prosody
Definition
the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of a speaker; whether an utterance is a statement, a question, or a command; whether the speaker is being ironic or sarcastic; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of language that may not be encoded by grammar or choice of vocabulary.
Term
Proto-Indo-European
Definition
the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The existence of such a language has been accepted by linguists for over a century, and reconstruction is far advanced and quite detailed.
Term
proto-language
Definition
the tree model of historical linguistics is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family.
Term
rebus
Definition
also refers to the use of a pictogram to represent a syllabic sound. This adapts pictograms into phonograms.
Term
reductions
Definition
Accent reduction, modifying one's foreign accent towards that of a native speaker
Vowel reduction, any change in vowel quality perceived as "weakening"
Term
register
Definition
variety of language adapted to a particular social, cultural (etc) purpose
Term
rosetta stone
Definition
Discovered in 1799 in Egypt, the Rosetta Stone is a large trilingual tablet with a text in Greek and two in Egyptian, one in hieroglyphics.
Champollian in 1824 finally deciphered the hieroglyphs
Term
semantic shift
Definition
describes the evolution of word usage — usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage
-"gay"
Term
Shibboleth
Definition
a specific word or pronunciation in a particular dialect or accent which marks someone as being different
Term
sociolinguistics
Definition
the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society.
Term
sound symbolism
Definition
a branch of linguistics and refers to the idea that vocal sounds have meaning. In particular, sound symbolism is the idea that phonemes carry meaning in and of themselves.
Term
Sprachbund
Definition
a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related. Where genetic affiliations are unclear, the Sprachbund characteristics might give a false appearance of relatedness. Areal features are common features of a group of languages in a Sprachbund.
Term
substratum
Definition
a language A occupies a given territory and another language B arrives in the same territory (brought, for example, with migrations of population). Language B then begins to supplant language A: the speakers of language A abandon their own language in favour of B, generally because they believe that it is in their best (e.g. economic, political, cultural, social) interests to do so. During the language shift, however, the receding language A still influences language B (for example, through the transfer of loanwords, place names, or grammatical patterns from A to B).
Term
superstratum
Definition
When one language succeeds another, the former is termed the superstratum and the latter the substratum
Term
syllabic writing
Definition
a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words
Term
syllable
Definition
a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds
Term
synecdoche
Definition
Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing
Term
turn-taking
Definition
In conversation, the roles of speaker and listener change constantly. The person who speaks first becomes a listener as soon as the person addressed takes his or her turn in the conversation by beginning to speak.
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