Language - Answers a rule-based human system for expressing meaning identity culture and thought
Arbitrariness - Answers the relationship between form and meaning is conventional not natural
Infinite creativity - Answers humans can create and understand unlimited new sentences
Discreteness - Answers language is made of separate units that combine systematically
Displacement - Answers language can refer to things outside the immediate time and place
Shared linguistic knowledge - Answers shared knowledge of sounds words syntax and meaning in a
language
Lexicon - Answers a person's mental storehouse of words and word knowledge
Phonetics - Answers the study of speech sounds
Phonology - Answers the study of sound patterns and pronunciation rules in a language
Morphology - Answers the study of word formation
Syntax - Answers the study of phrase and sentence formation
Semantics - Answers the study of meaning
Descriptive grammar - Answers grammar that describes how speakers actually use language
Prescriptive grammar - Answers grammar that tells speakers how they should use language
Teaching grammar - Answers grammar explained for learning another language or dialect
No "primitive" languages - Answers all human languages are complex structured and rule-based
Ferdinand de Saussure - Answers associated with the linguistic sign and the arbitrary link between
sound-image and concept
Linguistic sign - Answers the connection between a concept and a sound-image
Human language - Answers language marked by grammar creativity discreteness and displacement
Mental grammar - Answers the internal grammar speakers use to produce and understand language
Language Acquisition Device (LAD) - Answers a proposed innate human mechanism for acquiring
language
Animal communication - Answers communication systems that lack the full creativity and structure of
human language
Stimulus-response communication - Answers communication based on learned or instinctive
reactions
Cook: language as representation - Answers language as a way humans represent identity and the
world
Cook: language as an abstract external entity - Answers language as an object that can be studied
outside one speaker
Cook: language as actual or potential sentences - Answers language as a set of possible well-formed
expressions
Cook: language as community possession - Answers language as something shared by a speech
community
Cook: language as knowledge in the mind - Answers language as mental knowledge held by individual
speakers
Cook: language as action/mediation - Answers language as a tool humans use to carry out actions
Function words - Answers grammatical words that carry structure more than descriptive meaning
Vivian Cook - Answers associated with multiple definitions of language and L2 learning as more than
simple grammar study
Mediation - Answers language as a tool that helps humans carry out actions and thought
Neurolinguistics - Answers the study of language in relation to the brain
Localization - Answers specific cognitive functions are associated with specific brain areas
Lateralization - Answers language functions are centered more strongly in one hemisphere usually
the left
Contralateral control - Answers each brain hemisphere mainly controls the opposite side of the body
Broca's area - Answers brain area associated with speech production and grammatical structure
Wernicke's area - Answers brain area associated with language comprehension and word meaning
Aphasia - Answers language impairment caused by brain damage
Broca's aphasia - Answers labored agrammatical speech with difficulty forming sentences
Wernicke's aphasia - Answers fluent but semantically incoherent speech
Linguistic competence - Answers what a speaker knows about language
Linguistic performance - Answers what a speaker actually does with language
, Neuroplasticity - Answers the brain's ability to reorganize and adapt
Behaviorism - Answers language is learned through stimulus response imitation and reinforcement
Universal Grammar (UG) - Answers humans possess an innate language faculty or grammar
constraints
Noam Chomsky - Answers associated with Universal Grammar and the Language Acquisition Device
B.F. Skinner - Answers associated with behaviorism and language as learned behavior
Competence vs. performance - Answers knowledge of language versus actual use of language
Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) - Answers language acquisition is biologically easiest during an early
developmental window
Critical period - Answers the period from birth to puberty when language learning is most biologically
supported
Critical period for lateralization - Answers early period often birth to age 3-5 when language functions
lateralize
Cerebral dominance - Answers strong specialization of one hemisphere for certain functions
Left-hemisphere dominance - Answers language is mainly processed in the left hemisphere for most
speakers
Right-hemisphere dominance - Answers language functions are unusually centered in the right
hemisphere
Experiential deprivation - Answers lack of normal language or environmental exposure during
development
Dichotic listening test - Answers a test using different sounds in each ear to study hemispheric
dominance
Genie case - Answers case used to study deprivation critical periods and late first-language
acquisition
Fromkin et al. - Answers associated with the Genie study and evidence about deprivation
lateralization and the critical period
Linguistic comprehension - Answers ability to understand language
Speech production - Answers ability to produce spoken language
Phonological development - Answers development of correct speech-sound production and
perception
UG debate - Answers debate over whether language acquisition depends mainly on innate grammar
or broader learning mechanisms
Innateness - Answers the claim that key parts of language capacity are biologically given
Environmental input - Answers linguistic and social exposure that supports acquisition
Individual differences - Answers learner-specific traits that affect language development
Poverty of the stimulus - Answers argument that input alone is too limited to explain full language
acquisition
Negative evidence - Answers information about what is not grammatical or not allowed
Language universals - Answers features or patterns proposed to exist across human languages
Adele Goldberg / Constructionist view - Answers language learning can be explained through patterns
usage and general cognition
Dąbrowska - Answers critiques strong UG claims and emphasizes input culture cognition and
individual differences
Language faculty (FL) - Answers the specialized human capacity underlying language
Minimalist Program (MP) - Answers Chomsky's later UG model focused on simpler computational
operations
Recursive computational system - Answers a system that repeatedly combines elements to create
complex structure
Recursivity - Answers the ability to embed or combine structures repeatedly
Sequential processing - Answers processing language step by step in linear order
Deep structure - Answers underlying abstract structure of a sentence
Surface structure - Answers the visible or spoken form of a sentence
Mendívil-Giró - Answers defends revised UG and argues UG is often misinterpreted
Minimalist UG - Answers UG as a basic computational capacity rather than a list of surface language
rules
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis - Answers the claim that language and thought are related
Linguistic determinism - Answers strong version: language determines thought