Chapter 12 : Language And Brain
1. neurolinguistics: It is the study of relationship between brain and language. It includes research into how the structure of the brain influences language learning, how and in which parts of the brain language is stored, and how damage to the brain affects the ability to use language.
2. psycholinguistics: the study of language processing. It is concerned with the processes of language acqisition, comprehension and production.
3. brain lateralization: The localization of cognitive and perceptive functions in a particular hemisphere of the brain.
4. dichotic listening: A technique in which stimuli either linguistic or non-linguistic are presented through headphones to the left and right ear to determine the lateralization of cognitive function.
5. right ear advantage: The phenomenon that the right ear shows an advantage for the perception of linguistic signals id known as the right ear advantage.
6. split brain studies: The experiments that investigate the effects of surgically severing the corpus callosum on cognition are called as split brain studies.
7. aphasia: It refers to a number of acquired language disorders due to the cerebral lesions caused by a tumor, an accident and so on.
8. non-fluent aphasia: Damage to parts of the brain in front of the central sulcus is called non-fluent aphasia.
9. fluent aphasia: Damage to parts of the left cortex behind the central sulcus results in a type of aphasia called fluent aphasia.
10. Acquired dyslexia: Damage in and around the angular gyrus of the parietal lobe often causes the impairment of reading and writing ability, which is referred to as acquired dyslexia.
11. phonological dyslexia: it is a type of acquired dyslexia in which the patient seems to have lost the ability to use spelling-to-sound rules.
12. surface dyslexia: it is a type of acquired dyslexia in which the patient seems unable to recognize words as whole but must process all words through a set of spelling-to-sound rules.
13. spoonerism: a slip of tongue in which the position of sounds, syllables, or words is reversed, for example, Let’s have chish and fips instend of Let’s have fish and chips.
14. priming: the process that before the participants make a decision whether the string of letters is a word or not, they are presented with an activated word.
15. frequency effect: Subjects take less time to make judgement on frequently used words than to judge less commonly used words . This phenomenon is called frequency effect.
16. lexical decision: an experiment that let participants judge whether a string of letter is a word or not at a certain time.
17. the priming experiment: An experiment that let subjects judge whether a string of letters is a word or not after showed with a stimulus word, called prime.
18. priming effect: Since the mental representation is activated through the prime, when the target is
presented, response time is shorter that it otherwise would have been. This is called the priming effect. (06F) 19. bottom-up processing: an approach that makes use principally of information which is already present in the data.
20. top-down processing: an approach that makes use of previous knowledge and experience of the readers in analyzing and processing information which is received.
21. garden path sentences: a sentence in which the comprehender assumes a particular meaning of a word or phrase but discovers later that the assumption was incorrect, forcing the comprehender to backtrack and reinterpret the sentence.
22. slip of the tongue: mistakes in speech which provide psycholinguistic evidence for the way we formulate words and phrases.
Chapter 11 : Second Language Acquisition
1. second language acquisition: It refers to the systematic study of how one person acquires a second language subsequent to his native language.
2. target language: The language to be acquired by the second language learner.
3. second language: A second language is a language which is not a native language in a country but which is widely used as a medium of communication and which is usually used alongside another language or languages.
4. foreign language: A foreign language is a language which is taught as a school subject but which is not used as a medium of instruction in schools nor as a language of communication within a country.
5. interlanguage: A type of language produced by second and foreign language learners, who are in the process of learning a language, and this type of language usually contains wrong expressions.
6. fossilization: In second or foreign language learning, there is a process which sometimes occurs in which incorrect linguistic features become a permanent part of the way a person speaks or writes a language. 7. contrastive analysis: a method of analyzing languages for instructional purposes whereby a native language and target language are compared with a view to establishing points of difference likely to cause difficulties for learners.
8. contrastive analysis hypothesis: A hypothesis in second language acquisition. It predicts that where there are similarities between the first and second languages, the learner will acquire second language structure with ease, where there are differences, the learner will have difficulty.
9. positive transfer: It refers to the transfer that occur when both the native language and the target language have the same form, thus making learning easier. (06F)
10. negative transfer: the mistaken transfer of features of one’s native language into a second language. 11. error analysis: the study and analysis of errors made by second and foreign language learners in order to identify causes of errors or common difficulties in language learning.
12. interlingual error: errors, which mainly result from cross-linguistic interference at different levels such as phonological, lexical, grammatical etc.
13. intralingual error: Errors, which mainly result from faulty or partial learning of the target language, independent of the native language. The typical examples are overgeneralization and cross-association. 14. overgeneralization: The use of previously available strategies in new situations, in which they are unacceptable.
15. cross-association: some words are similar in meaning as well as spelling and pronunciation. This internal interference is called cross-association.
16. error: the production of incorrect forms in speech or writing by a non-native speaker of a second language, due to his incomplete knowledge of the rules of that target language.
17. mistake: mistakes, defined as either intentionally or unintentionally deviant forms and self-corrigible, suggest failure in performance.
18. input: language which a learner hears or receives and from which he or she can learn. 19. intake: the input which is actually helpful for the learner.
20. Input Hypothesis: A hypothesis proposed by Krashen , which states that in second language learning, it’s necessary for the learner to understand input language which contains linguistic items that are slightly beyond the learner’s present linguistic competence. Eventually the ability to produce language is said to emerge naturally without being taught directly.
21. acquisition: Acquisition is a process similar to the way children acquire their first language. It is a subconscious process without minute learning of grammatical rules. Learners are hardly aware of their
learning but they are using language to communicate. It is also called implicit learning, informal learning or natural learning.
22. learning: learning is a conscious learning of second language knowledge by learning the rules and talking about the rules.
23. comprehensible input: Input language which contains linguistic items that are slightly beyond the learner’s present linguistic competence. (06F)
24. language aptitude: the natural ability to learn a language, not including intelligence, motivation, interest, etc.
25. motivation: motivation is defined as the learner’s attitudes and affective state or learning drive.
26. instrumental motivation: the motivation that people learn a foreign language for instrumental goals such as passing exams, or furthering a career etc. (06C)
27. integrative motivation: the drive that people learn a foreign language because of the wish to identify with the target culture. (06C/ 05)
28. resultative motivation: the drive that learners learn a second language for external purposes. (06F) 29. intrinsic motivation: the drive that learners learn the second language for enjoyment or pleasure from learning.
30. learning strategies: learning strategies are learners’ conscious goal-oriented and problem-solving based efforts to achieve learning efficiency.
31. cognitive strategies: strategies involved in analyzing, synthesis, and internalizing what has been learned. (07C/ 06F)
32. metacognitive strategies: the techniques in planning, monitoring and evaluating one’s learning.
33. affect/ social strategies: the strategies dealing with the ways learners interact or communicate with other speakers, native or non-native.
Chapter 10: Language Acquisition
1. language acquisition: It refers to the child’s acquisition of his mother tongue, i.e. how the child comes to understand and speak the language of his community.
2. language acquisition device (LAD): A hypothetical innate mechanism every normal human child is believed to be born with, which allow them to acquire language. (03)
3. Universal Grammar: A theory which claims to account for the grammatical competence of every adult no matter what language he or she speaks.
4. motherese: A special speech to children used by adults, which is characterized with slow rate of speed, high pitch, rich intonation, shorter and simpler sentence structures etc.----又叫child directed speech，caretaker talk.(05)
5. Critical Period Hypothesis: The hypothesis that the time span between early childhood and puberty is the critical period for language acquisition, during which children can acquire language without formal instruction successfully and effortlessly. (07C/ 06F/ 04)
6. under-extension: Use a word with less than its usual range of denotation.
7. over-extension: Extension of the meaning of a word beyond its usual domain of application by young children.
8. telegraphic speech: Children’s early multiword speech that contains content words and lacks function words and inflectional morphemes.
9. content word: Words referring to things, quality, state or action, which have lexical meaning used alone. 10. function word: Words with little meaning on their own but show grammatical relationships in and between sentences.
11. taboo: Words known to speakers but avoided in some contexts of speech for reasons of religion, politeness etc. (07C)
12. atypical development: Some acquisition of language may be delayed but follow the same rules of language development due to trauma or injury.
Chapter 9: Language And Culture
1. culture : The total way of life of a person, including the patterns of belief, customs, objects, institutions, techniques, and language that characterizes the life of human community.
2. discourse community : It refers to the common ways that members of some social group use language to meet their needs.
3. acculturation : A process in which changes on the language, culture and system of values of a group happen through interaction with another group with a different language, culture and a system of values. 4. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis : The interdependence of language and thought is now known as Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.
5. linguistic relativity : A belief that the way people view the world is determined wholly or partly by the structure of their native language-----又叫Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. (06C)
6. linguistic determinism: It refers to the idea that the language we use, to some extent, determines the way in which we view and think about the world around us. (06C)
7. denotative meaning: It refers to the literal meaning, which can be found in a dictionary. 8. connotative meaning: The association of a word, apart from its primary meaning. 9. iconic meaning: The image of a word invoked to people. 10. metaphors: A figure of speech, in which no function words like like, as are used. Something is described by stating another thing with which it can be compared.
11. euphemism: a word or phrase that replace a taboo word or is used to avoid reference to certain acts or subjects, e.g. powder room for toilet.
12. cultural overlap:The situation between two societies due to some similarities in the natural environment and psychology of human being
13. cultural diffusion: Through communication, some elements of culture A enter culture B and become part of culture B, thus bringing about cultural diffusion. (05/03)
14. cultural imperialism: The situation of increasing cultural diffusion all over the world.(06C)
英语语言学名词解释
