LANGUAGE STRUCTURES

     1.  (a) What does it mean to say that language is a structured enterprise?  (b) In what sense do you know (most of) the rules and principles of English?
     2.  (a) What is phonology?  (b) What are phonetic segments?  (c) How are sounds and letters related?  (d) What are the two main types of phonetic segments?  (e) How are vowels formed?  How are consonants formed?  (f) What are the primary ways in which consonants are distinguished in English? Give an example of how consonants are distinguished in other languages.  (g) What do phonological rules govern?  (h) What are some examples of phonological rules?
     3.  (a) What is morphology?  (b) What is a morpheme?  (c) How are words and morphemes related?  (d) Is a morpheme the same as a syllable? (e) What is a free morpheme?  What is a bound morpheme? (f) What do morphological rules govern?  (g) What are some examples of morphological rules?  What is a prefix? a suffix? an infix?
     4.  (a) What is syntax?  (b) What are some indications that sentences have structure?  (c) What are the two levels of sentence structure?  (d) What is a proposition?  (e) What is a syntactic category (provide examples)?   (f) What do phrase structure rules govern (provide examples)? (g) What do transformational rules govern (provide an example)?


LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

     1.  (a) What is the hypothesis of linguistic relativity (the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis)?  (b) Is the hypothesis accurate?
     2.  (a) Is color naming arbitrary?  (b) What is a basic color term?  What are the four criteria for a term's being a basic color term?  (c) How many basic color terms are there?  Do all languages contain the same number of basic color terms?  (d) If a language does not have all 11 basic color terms, will its basic color terms be a random selection from the set of 11 or will they reflect some underlying pattern?  Describe the pattern that underlies the basic color terms in different languages (that is, the order in which basic color terms enter a language).
     3.  (a) What is a focal color?  (b) If you give people who speak different languages an array of color chips and ask them to pick out the best red, what happens?  (c) What evidence is there that focal colors are perceptually the most salient for people all over the world?  (d) Is a given focal color salient to people whose language does not have a basic color term for that color?  (e) Why are focal colors salient?  (f) How do the research findings regarding color naming bear on the hypothesis of linguistic relativity?
    4.  (a) What does it mean to say that people have an hierarchically organized set of categories that they use to organize objects?  What are the two characteristics of an hierarchically organized category system?  (b) What is folk biology?  (c) What is distinctive about level 3 in folk-biological category systems?
    5.  (a) What is the basic level in a category system?  That is, what are the two criteria that distinguish the basic level from other levels in a category system?  (b) Why is identifying objects by the basic level category an efficient naming procedure?  (c) What evidence indicates that basic level categories are fundamental to human categorization?  (d) Why are people with expertise in a given area likely to have a different basic level in their category schemes than persons who are not experts?  (e) How do the research findings regarding human categorization bear on the hypothesis of linguistic relativity?
    6.  (a) Identify the spatial dimensions to which all languages make reference.  (b) Are these dimensions arbitrary?  Do all languages make reference to the same dimensions?  Why do languages make reference to the dimensions that they do?  (c) Identify the parallels between dimension naming and color naming.
    7.  (a) Explain how variations in vocabulary size illustrate the effect of thought on language.  (b) How is expertise related to vocabulary variation?
    8.  How do the research findings regarding spatial terms and vocabulary variation bear on the hypothesis of linguistic relativity?
    9.  (a) Illustrate the influence of language on thought in the domain of memory.  How does this relate to the hypothesis of linguistic relativity?  (b) Illustrate the influence of language on thought in the domain of problem solving.  How does this relate to the hypothesis of linguistic relativity?  (c) Illustrate the influence of language on thought in the domain of number learning.  How does this relate to the hypothesis of linguistic relativity?
    10.  (a) Overall, is the relationship of language and thought best described as a matter of language completely determining thought, of thought completely determining language, or as a matter of mutual influence?  (b) What evidence points to such a conclusion?  Describe research evidence (drawn from material discussed in class--color names, category names, spatial terms, vocabulary variation, memory, problem solving, number learning) that supports that conclusion.
 

MEANING

     1.  (a) What is semantics?  (b) What is synonymy?  What is ambiguity?
     2.  (a) What is the extension explanation of meaning?  (b) What is the extension of a linguistic expression?  (c) Explain why the extension explanation might be plausible.  (d) Identify three problems with (arguments against) the extension explanation; be able to explain each.
     3.  (a) What is the image explanation of meaning?  (b) Explain why this explanation might be plausible.  (c) Identify four problems with (arguments against) the image explanation; be able to explain each.
     4.  (a) What is the concept explanation of meaning?  (b) Explain why this explanation might be plausible.  (c) Identify, and be able to explain, the central problem with this explanation.
     5.  (a) What is the intention explanation of meaning?  (b) Explain why this explanation might be plausible.  (c) Identify two problems with (arguments against) the intention explanation; be able to explain each.
     6.  What is the overall conclusion (about meaning) to be derived from an examination of these explanations and their respective shortcomings?


LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

     1.  (a) Is phonological perception largely innate, or largely learned (acquired through experience)?  (b) Are infants innately sensitive to differences in consonant voicing? in the place of consonant articulation? in the manner of consonant articulation? in vowels? (c) Are the innate aspects of phonological perception specific to the human species?
     2.  (a) Describe (and give examples of) three common errors in children's phonological production. What is the most common form of assimilation error?  (b) Why is it unlikely that children's phonological production errors can be explained by children's inability to hear the relevant differences among sounds?  (c) Why is it unlikely that children's phonological production errors can be explained by children's inability to produce the necessary sounds?  (d) What does explain children's phonological production errors?
     3.  (a) In learning morphology, do children simply learn individual words, or do they learn morphological rules?  (b) What evidence suggests that children actively construct morphological rules?
     4.  How do children's misunderstandings of sentences display their emerging grasp of syntactic principles?
     5.  (a) In acquiring language, do all children move through the stages of language acquisition at the same speed?  (b) Do all children move through the stages in the same order?
     6.  (a) What is the babbling stage of language acquisition?  (b) When children babble, do they produce only the speech sounds appearing in the language being spoken around the child?  (c) Why do children babble (that is, what's the point of babbling)?  (d) What evidence supports that explanation of babbling?
     7.  (a) What is the one-word stage?  (b) What does the child label at this stage?  (c) What is holophrastic speech? (d) When the one-word stage begins, do children stop babbling?
     8.  (a) What is the two-word stage?  (b) Is the order of words at the two-word stage random?
     9.  (a) What is the complex multiword stage?  (b) What is telegraphic speech?  (c) Within the complex multiword stage, where does telegraphic speech occur (early in the stage, or later)?


NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR AND COMMUNICATION

     1.  (a) Define paralanguage.  (b) Provide examples of different kinds of paralanguage.
     2.  (a) Define body motion (kinesic behavior).  (b) Identify (define and provide examples of) each of four types of body motion:  emblems, illustrators, regulators, and affect displays.
     3.  (a) Explain and provide examples of appearance.  (b) How is it different from body motion?
     4.  Explain and provide examples of proxemics.
     5.  Do the various types of nonverbal behavior (paralanguage, body motion, appearance, proxemics) operate independently of each other?
     6.  (a) Identify five functions of nonverbal behavior.  (b) For each, describe (and give examples of) how nonverbal behavior accomplishes that function.
     7.  (a) Identify five ways nonverbal behavior can be related to verbal behavior.  (b) Provide an example for each of the five relationships.
 
 
SPEECH ACTS

     1.  (a) Are all linguistic expressions descriptions, and so either true or false?  (b) Explain how speaking involves action.  (c) Provide examples that illustrate how speaking might involve linguistic expressions that are neither true nor false, but that involve action.
     2.  (a) What is the action referred to by the term "utterance"?  (b) What is the action referred to by the term "speech act"?  (c) What is the action referred to by the term "effect"?  (d) What are some examples of effects?  (e) Describe the rule of thumb that distinguishes speech acts and effects; illustrate the application of that rule of thumb.
     3.  (a) Is there a one-to-one correspondence between utterances and speech acts?  (b) Can the same speech act be performed using different utterances?  (c) What is a direct speech act?  (d) What is an indirect speech act?  (e) Provide examples of each.  (f) Can the same utterance be used to perform different speech acts?  How?  Give examples.  (g) Explain how understanding an utterance is different from understanding the speech act performed by that utterance.
     4.  (a) What provides the basis for our understanding of speech acts?  (b) What is a constitutive rule?  Provide examples.  (c) What is a regulative rule?  Provide examples.  (d) Explain how speech acts are defined by constitutive rules.
 

INFERENCE AND COMMUNICATION

     1.  (a) What is an inference guide?  (b) How do inference guides aid listeners and speakers?  (c) What is the cooperative principle?
     2.  (a) What is the maxim of quantity?  (b) Provide an example of how failure to adhere to the maxim of quantity can impair communication.
     3.  (a) What is the maxim of quality?  (b) Provide an example of how failure to adhere to the maxim of quality can impair communication.  (c) Does the maxim of quality mean that everybody is always truthful?  (d) How does lying rely upon the maxim of quality?
     4.  (a) What is the maxim of relation?  (b) Provide an example of how failure to adhere to the maxim of relation can impair communication.
     5.  (a) What is the maxim of manner?  (b) Provide an example of how failure to adhere to the maxim of manner can impair communication.
     6.  (a) What is an implicature?  (b) Provide an example of an implicature in which the speaker does not violate any maxim.  (c) Provide an example of an implicature in which the speaker violates a maxim but adheres to the cooperative principle (provide such an example for each maxim:  quantity, quality, relation, manner).
     7.  Explain how the cooperative principle and the maxims represent an implicit agreement between speakers and listeners.
     8.  (a) What is the link between constitutive rules and indirect speech acts?  (b) What are the constitutive rules for a request?  (c) Identify (and give examples of) the four general ways of making an indirect request; show how each makes reference to the constitutive rules for requests.  (d) Why can utterances that perform indirect speech acts be heard as performing those indirect speech acts?
     9.  (a) What is world knowledge?  (b) Explain how world knowledge can serve as an inference guide in communication.
 

PERSPECTIVE-TAKING

     1.  (a) What is perspective-taking?  (b) What is reciprocal perspective-taking?  (c) Explain how reciprocal perspective-taking involves embedded perspectives.
     2.  (a) Describe the general direction of movement in the development of perspective-taking.  (b) What is an egocentric outlook?  (c) What is a perspectival outlook?
     3.  (a) How does the development of visual perspective-taking in children demonstrate egocentric-to-perspectival development?  (b) How does the development of children's understanding of reciprocal perspective-taking illustrate egocentric-to-perspectival development?  (c) Do all adults have perfectly developed perspective-taking skills?
     4.  (a) What is listener adaptation in messages?  (b) How does listener adaptation implicitly reflect perspective-taking?
     5.  (a) Explain how children as young as four years old can display listener adaptation in sentence construction.  (b) How does such adaptation reflect the speaker's perspective-taking?
     6.  (a) What is comforting communication?  (b) Identify (and provide examples of) the three general levels of listener adaptation in comforting communication.  (c) Do children display increasing levels of listener adaptation in their comforting messages as they grow older?  (d) Within a given age group, is there significant variation from person to person (individual differences) in listener adaptation of comforting messages?
 

CONCEPTS OF COMMUNICATION

     1.  (a) What is the code view of communication?  (b) How does the code view see communication as a matter of "encoding" and "decoding" messages?
     2.  (a) What is the conduit metaphor?  (b) How is the code view of communication reflected in the conduit metaphor?  (c) Give examples of how our everyday ways of talking about communication employ the conduit metaphor.
     3.  (a) Identify two ways in which the code view of communication reflects misconceptions of communication?  (b) Why is it misleading to conceive of communication as primarily about expressing ideas (thoughts, feelings, etc.)?  (c) What is a better alternative way of conceiving of communication?
     4.  (a) Explain why it is misleading to think that communication can be reduced to (explained in terms of) language alone.  (b) What non-linguistic considerations other than nonverbal behavior illustrate this point?
 


MATERIAL COVERED ONLY IN DISCUSSION SECTION (not at the review session)

Language structures:
    1.  (a) Identify and give examples of content words and function words. (b) What is an inflection?
    2.  (a) Identify and provide examples of three ways of combining propositions.  What does it mean to say that combining propositions is a recursive process?  (b) Identify and provide examples of two ways of condensing sentences.

Language acquisition:
     1.  (a) What is the imitation explanation of language acquisition?  (b) What research evidence bears on the adequacy of this explanation, and what does such evidence show?
     2.  (a) What is the reinforcement explanation of language acquisition?  (b) What research evidence bears on the adequacy of this explanation, and what does such evidence show?
     3.  (a) What is the rule-formation explanation of language acquisition?  (b) What research evidence bears on the adequacy of this explanation, and what does such evidence show?

Nonverbal behavior and communication:
     1.  (a) Are there cross-cultural commonalities (universals) in nonverbal behavior?  (b) Identify several different such commonalities.  (c) Explain how these underlying universals might be expressed through cultural filters.
 
Speech acts:
     1.  How are the constitutive rules for the speech act of promising (making a promise) different from the rules for threatening (making a threat)?
     2.  (a) Identify the five speech act families.  (b) For each, provide a definition of the family and examples of speech acts falling within that family.

Perspective-taking:
     1.  (a) Identify (and provide examples of) the four general levels of listener adaptation in persuasive communication.  (b) Do children display increasing levels of listener adaptation in their persuasive messages as they grow older?  (c) Within a given age group, is there significant variation from person to person (individual differences) in listener adaptation of persuasive messages?