INTRODUCTIONS TO MAIN TERMS

Tutor/a: Henry lenis

Estudiante: lida xiemena bolaños anacona

Código: 1004269505

Grupo: 518017_62

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD

Escuela Ciencias de la Educación

Licenciatura en lenguas extranjeras con enfasis en ingles

Introduction to linguistics

Pitalito- Huila

Febrero 2019
 ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP

1. Watch the video “Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain” By Steven

Pinker found in the Course Contents, UNIT 1, in the Knowledge Environment.

2. Once you have understood and internalized the contents, answer the following five

questions:

 When people wants to define Language, it is common that they easily

confuse it with other concepts such as grammar, written language or

thought; in the video, Professor Pinker talks about it, please, explain in your

words, how or why Language is not exactly those other things.

Language is not grammar, neither written language nor thought, because a very simple

example is that a child is not born speaking and then communicates through sounds or

signs. Do not confuse language with proper grammar. Linguistics distinguishes between

descriptive grammar (the rules that catheterize how people live) and prescriptive.

(Minute 4: 13 to minute 12:35)

  In a very concise form and according to the video, say what language is?

English.

 According to the video, please explain what concept is developed with the famous

Noan Chomsky’s phrase “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”.

The point is that it doesn't make much sense since any English speaker can interpret it well,

but for a native Spanish it is difficult.

It is a set that can be perceived as a well-formed English sentence, the language in general

has a long distance dependency, this means that it becomes a prose since the sentences can

be difficult to understand if you have too many long distance dependencies because it could

not be pressed in the short term.

This means that a sentence is grammatically correct, with a logical form, but semantically

meaningless.

(Minute 17: 16 to minute 20:12)

 What is the basic explanation for the fact that a person speaks a foreign language

with a specific accent?

If you carry the rules of phonology in your first language and when you apply it in your

second language, we have a word, which we call an accent. When a language user

deliberately manipulates phonology rules, that is, when they don't just talk to convey

content, they pay attention to the phonological structures they are using, we call it poetry

and rhetoric.

(Minute 32: 07 to minute 39: 15)

 Despite computational linguistics have had great advances, what have been some

typical linguistic difficulties to computers process human language?

Although the dictation systems have improved and improved, but they still have a way to

go, it is said that there are two main contributors. One of them is the fact that each false,

each vowel or consonant actually comes out very differently depending on what comes

before and what I came after.

Every word we speak forms a difference in the shape of the resonant cavity in our mouth

that produces a different waveform and unless it is specified that a computer is programmed

to take that variability, we are generally not aware of how incorrect the language in

Effortlessly and unconsciously we derive the desired meaning of a sentence, but a computer

is not equipped with all our common sense and human abilities, and following the words

and rules is often surprised by all the different possibilities.

(Minute 39: 14 to minute 49: 00)

 3. Create three more questions and give their respective answers also based on the

video.

 The information has to be based on the video, if you want to go in depth in your

answers you must include references.

 The language can be divided into?

Words, rules (syntax, morphology, phonology), Interfaces.

(Minute 12:35 to minute 13:39)

 Why do linguists insist that language should be composed of structural

phrases?

Because it allows us to express unknown meanings, in addition to the way the sentence

structure rules work, it produces a large number of possible combinations. The rules allow

the production of a large number of combinations.

In addition, the amount of different thoughts that we can express through the combination,

the power of grammar is not only enormous, but, in a technical sense, it is infinite.
(Minute 20: 13 to minute 24:08)

 Why can't children memorize sentences?

Why knowledge of language is not a long list of memorized sentences, but somehow they

must extract or summarize the rules involved in assembling fusion sentences of what they

hear coming out of their father's mouth when they were little.

(Minute 24: 09 to minute 24: 46)

 What is the evidence that children are born with a universal grammar?

All human beings naturally acquire any language because they have a universal grammar.

This capacity, innate and specifically human and independent of the other capacities,

manifests itself in the form of universal knowledge about the common properties of all

languages and the specific characteristics of each one. Speakers access the content of

universal grammar through the activation of the language acquisition device.

(Minute 27: 15 to minute 30: 30)

 BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES.

Steven pinker (6 octubre 2012) Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain | Big

Think YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE