Free VCE Year 11 English Language Flashcard Review
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What does it mean to say language is arbitrary?
There is no natural link between a word's form and its meaning; the link is agreed by speakers.
What is a convention in language?
A shared community agreement about meanings and how forms are combined.
Name the six major functions of language covered in this topic.
Referential, expressive, social (phatic), directive, poetic and metalinguistic.
What is the phatic function?
Using language to build and maintain social relationships, such as small talk and greetings.
Define displacement.
The ability to refer to things not present in time or place, including past, future and imaginary events.
Define productivity.
The ability to combine a limited set of elements into unlimited new, understandable utterances.
What is tenor?
The relationship between participants, including closeness and power.
List the four parts of situational context in this topic.
Field, language mode, setting and text type.
What is preparedness?
How planned or spontaneous a text is, for example a scripted speech versus casual talk.
Name the four main subsystems of language.
Morphology, lexicology, syntax and semantics.
Distinguish phonetics from phonology.
Phonetics studies the production of speech sounds; phonology studies how sounds form patterns and contrasts in a language.
Distinguish prosodics from paralinguistics.
Prosodics are voice features such as pitch and stress; paralinguistics are non-verbal signals such as gesture and facial expression.
What happens in canonical babbling?
Infants repeat consonant-vowel syllables such as 'ba-ba' from about 6-9 months.
What is the holophrastic stage?
The one-word stage (12-18 months) where one word carries the meaning of a whole sentence.
What defines the telegraphic stage?
Short utterances with content words but few function words or inflections, e.g. 'Daddy go work'.
Who is associated with universal grammar?
Noam Chomsky.
What is the poverty of the stimulus argument?
Children master complex rules despite hearing incomplete, imperfect input, suggesting innate knowledge.
What does a usage-based theorist emphasise?
Frequency, patterns in the input, social interaction and intention-reading.
What is overextension?
Using a word for too many referents, e.g. 'doggie' for every four-legged animal.
What is L1 transfer?
Influence of features of the first language on the learner's second language.