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Language—communication system based on words and grammar; spoken, written, or
gestured words and the way they are combined to communicate meaning from person
to person and to transmit civilization’s accumulated knowledge.
- Phonemes—smallest units of sound in spoken language;
- Morphemes—the smallest unit of language that has meaning;
- Grammar—a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand
others; - Syntax—rules that are used to order words into grammatically sensible sentences;
- Semantics—a set of rules we use to derive meaning from morphemes, words, and
sentences; - Babbling—an infant’s spontaneous production of speech sounds; begins around
4 months old; - Holophrase—one-word utterances that convey meaning; characteristic of a 1-year-old;
- Telegraphic speech—meaningful two-word sentences, usually a noun and a verb,
and usually in the correct order uttered by 2-year-olds; - Overgeneralization or overregularization—application of grammatical rules
without making appropriate exceptions (“I goed to the store”); - Behavioral perspective—language is developed by imitating sounds we hear
to create words; - Nativist perspective—idea that the human brain has an innate capacity for acquiring
language (language acquisition device) possibly during a critical periodof time after
birth, and that children are born with a universal sense of grammar (Noam Chomsky); - Social interactivist perspective—babies are biologically equipped for learning
language which may be activated or constrained by experience; - Linguistic relativity hypothesis—our language guides and determines our thinking
(Whorf ). It is more accurate to say that language influences thought.
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