1. Chapter 7: Acquiring and Using Language
1.1. Competency in one language only, typical of most Americans with English, is uncommon in the rest of the world (Stanlaw et al. 156).
1.2. Learning to speak a foriegn language is difficult when dealing with unfamiliar sounds. Yet, children are not taught, they learn through exposure.
1.3. polygots
1.3.1. speak several languages fluently
1.4. Theories
1.4.1. behaviorist psychology theory
1.4.2. innatist theory
1.5. Neurolinguistics
1.5.1. concerned with role brain plays
2. Chapter 6: Development and Evolution of Language
2.1. Communication among members of animal species is universal because it is important to their survival (Stanlaw et al. 117)
2.2. Speech is not the only means by which humans communicate but it is the most common and efficient method. The capacity for speech is genetic but language must still be learned.
2.3. Channel
2.3.1. Acoustic
2.3.2. Optical
2.3.3. Tactile
2.3.4. Olfactory
2.4. Design features of language
2.4.1. Vocal-auditory channel
2.4.2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception
2.4.3. Rapid fading
2.4.4. Interchangeability
2.4.5. Complete feedback
2.4.6. Specialization
2.4.7. Semanticity
2.4.8. Arbitrariness
2.4.9. Discreteness
2.4.10. Displacement
2.4.11. Productivity
2.4.12. Duality of patterning
2.4.13. Cultural transmission
2.4.14. Prevarication
2.4.15. Reflexiveness
2.4.16. Learnability
2.5. Theories
2.5.1. Continuity
2.5.1.1. Language evolved in straight line
2.5.2. Discontinuity
2.5.2.1. Unique, without evolutionary antecedents
2.5.3. Polygenesis
2.5.3.1. Originate separately
2.5.4. Monogenesis
2.5.4.1. Just once
3. Chapter 8: Language through Time
3.1. Living languages change slowly but constantly (Stanlaw et al. 175).
3.2. Language changes through time. Sounds can become more similar, assimilation, or less similar, dissimilation. Protowords can be reconstructed due to the tendency of sound changes regularity.
4. Chapter 9: Language in Variation
4.1. Speech pattern of one person is somewhat different from the next (Stanlaw et al. 179)
4.2. There are 6900 languages today which belong to hundreds of language groups yet the majority of people speak languages belonging to around a dozen language families.
4.3. Dialect
4.3.1. variation of language spoken by specific group
4.4. pidgin
4.4.1. simplified language that allows people with different languages to communicate
5. Chapter 10: Ethnography of Communication
5.1. A combination of techniques used by linguistic anthropology and classical sociolinguistics (Stanlaw et al. 199).
5.2. A speech community shares rules for speaking and interpreting speech. Rules of interaction are at times broken which results in embarrassment and may result in termination of communication between individuals.
5.3. genre
5.3.1. term used to classify types of spoken/written language