Language

Language

1. Language: a collection of symbolsgoverned by rules and used to convey messages between individuals.

   • Dialect: A version of the same language that includes substantially different words and meanings.
   • Denotative Meanings: Formally recognized definitions for words, as in those found in a dictionary.
     • Connotative Meanings: Informal, implied interpretations for words and phrases that reflect the people, culture, emotions, and situations involved.

2. Phonological Rules: Linguistic tules governing how sounds are combined to form words.

   • Syntactic Rules: Rules that govern the ways in which symbols can be arranged as opposed to the meanings of those symbols.
     • I talk a lot over social media using syntactic rules.
   • Semantic Rules: Rules that govern the meaning of language as opposed to its structure.
     • Pragmatic Rules: Rules that govern how people use language in everyday interaction.
       • Reappropriation: The process by which members of a marginalized group reram the meaning of a term that has been historically used in a deragatory way.
     • Lingustic Relativism: The notion that language influences the way we experience the world.
   • Convergance: Accomodating one's speaking style to another person, usually a person who is desirable or has higher status.
     • Divergance: A lingustic strategy in which speakers emphasize differences between their communicatuve style and that of others to create distance.
       • Abstraction Ladder: a range of more to less abstract terms describing an event or object.
     • Linguistic Intergroup Bias: the tendency to label people and behaviors in terms that reflect their in-group or out-group status.
       • Equivocal Words: Words that have more than one dictionary definition.
         • At work, I encounter a lot of diffent people, and there have definitely been miscommunicatins because of these words
         • Abstract Language: language that lacks specificity or does not refer to observable behavior or other sensory data.
           • Behavioral Description: an account that refers only to observable phenomena.
       • Relative Words: Words that gain their meaning by comparison.
         • Slang: Language used by a group of people whose members belong to a similar coculture or other group.
           • Jargon: Specialized vocabulary used as a kind of shorthand by people with common backgrounds and experience.

3. Factual Statement: a statement that can be verified as being true or false.

   • Opinion Statement: a statement based on the speaker's beliefs.
     • Interferential Statement: a conclusion arrived at from an interpretation of evidence.