form–function distinction

a distinction between two fundamentally different ways of analyzing language, one with respect to its structural properties (form) and the other with respect to its communicative properties (function). For example, a formal analysis of the utterance Where are the pencils? would point to the use of where and the auxiliary verb be to frame a wh- question and the agreement between that verb and the subject pencils; a functional analysis would need to judge whether the utterance is a request for information or a request for action. See formal grammar; functional grammar.

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Psychology term of the day

February 25th 2025

confluence model

a controversial theory that intelligence of siblings is correlated with family size. According to this model, average intelligence generally declines as the number of children in a family increases. Intelligence is also held to decline with birth order. The one exception is an only child, whose intelligence suffers because he or she does not have an older sibling to serve as a teacher. However, many variables (e.g., spacing of children) could affect and reverse such generalizations. [proposed in 1975 by Robert B. Zajonc and Greg Markus]