THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
     •Humans are the only animals with complex verbal 
      language
     •What do you need to know in order to understand 
      language?
     THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
     • Example: “My boyfriend and I are flying to his mother’s 
      next week.”
      • Distinct sounds
      • Each word has a specific meaning
      • Different tenses
      • Implicit meanings 
      • Order of the words
     THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
     • This is linguistic knowledge
      • Most of this knowledge is unconscious and learned at a young 
       age during enculturation
      • It is intuitive and understood (most times) immediately
      • Words are arbitrary 
      • Words are combinations of discrete and recombinable sounds
      • Language is creative
      • It can discuss hypothetical or imaginary things
   INTRODUCTION
   • To learn a language, you must learn sound 
    production
     • Rules for producing any sound in any human language
   • You must also learn phonology
   • Many sounds in other languages will not be the 
    same as those in your native language
    PHONOLOGY
    • The study of sounds in a language
    • It focuses on two differences
    • 1. phonetics
      • Identifies and describes language sounds
    • 2. phonemics
      • Analyzes the way sounds are arranged in a language