Unit 1: Task 1 – Introduction to main terms

Tutor: Mangely Londoño

Estudiante: Karen Sofía Ramírez Hernández

Grupo: 20

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD

Escuela de Ciencias de la Educación

Licenciatura en lenguas extranjeras con énfasis en inglés

Curso: Introduction to Linguistics

Bogotá D.C
1. Answers from Step 2

-What is not language? Include the concepts of grammar, written language and

thought.

There are three things that they are not language. The written language is not

language because as Darwin said, children have no instinctive tendency to write and

they have to learn it through schooling. On the other hand, it is not language either

the grammar, because in short words, there are many types rules of language but

many of them make no sense whatsoever. Finally, thought is not language because

may the types of thinking go on even without language.

-What is language?

Language are many things, but I could say and based on the video that language has

always been very useful since our ancestors, so it has undoubtedly served for the

exchange of information, thoughts, feelings, ideas and even knowledge. Language

led us to transformation as human.

-What concept is developed with the famous Noam Chomsky’s phrase “Colorless

green ideas sleep furiously”?

The sentence manages to demonstrate the distinction between syntax and semantics,

a sentence that follows the rules of English syntax and uses English words in ways

that don’t violate any formal rules of English, however, the sentence doesn’t mean

anything and it doesn´t make sense. Which concludes that the sentence was

grammatically correct but semantically meaningless.

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

with a specific accent?

This is because the people carry over the rules of phonology of their first language

and apply it to their second language. People have trouble with sounds that don’t

exist in the language that they first learned as a young child.

-Despite the great advances of computational linguistics, what have been some

typical linguistic difficulties for computers to process human language?

First, understand correctly what is being spoken, and is known as a phenomenon

sometimes called “co-articulation”, and this is because each vowel and consonant

comes out very differently, making it difficult for the computer to clearly

understand each word. On the other hand, a problem called absence of segmentation

and word boundaries, this is because a computer not equipped with all human

abilities and our common sense.

2. Questions and answers from Step 3

-What allows us to explain the rules?

Mainly the rules allow the open-ended creativity of language. Also, rules allow for

expression of unfamiliar meaning and finally they allow the production of vast

numbers of combinations.
 -What did chomsky's mean through his argument “the poverty of the input”?

Chomsky’s wanted to explain the reason why children are born with universal

grammar, and this is because the child has a lot of knowledge of the way that

language works already built in. It’s like the children were born with it.

-Chomsky has influenced the science of language but he has also received criticism

from other scientists, what are those criticisms?

Chomsky was criticized because he hasn’t really shown principles of universal

grammar that are specific to language, it is not known for sure that universal

grammar is language specific. The other reason is because he only studied a small

number of languages, he didn't show that universal grammar is really universal and

the last reason, he hasn’t proven that there has to be specific knowledge how

grammar works in order for the child to learn grammar.

3. Screenshot of participation in forum

 References

[Big Think]. (2012, October 6). Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding

the Brain [Video File]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE