The Origins and Development of the English Language Chapter 1: Language and the English Language

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The Origins and Development of the English
Language Chapter 1 Language and the English
Language

• John Algeo and Thomas Pyles
• Michael Cheng
• National Chengchi University

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A Definition of Language

• Language is a system of conventional vocal signs
  by means of which human beings communicate.
• System
• Signs
• Vocal
• Conventional
• Human
• Communicate

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Language as System

• Language is not a collection of words, like a
  dictionary
• There are rules or patterns that relate the words
  to one another
• Duality of patterning
• Meaningful units Words and words parts
• Adam liked apples.
• Meaningless components Sounds of letter
• About 35 basic sounds in English

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Language as System

• Duality of patterning lets people build an
  immensely large number of meaningful words out of
  only a handful of meaningless sounds. (p. 2)
• Meaningless Components sound system or phonology
• Meaningful Units lexis or vocabulary
  grammatical system or morphosyntax

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Language as System

• Patterns in the sound system
• mb never occurs at the beginning or end of words
  in Modern English
• Lexis is least systematic, but there are
  collocations.
• mild and gentle vs. lenient
• mild weather gentle breeze severe case of the
  flu severe judgment lenient judgment lenient
  case of the flu
• More stuff can be added to bridge to next slide

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Language as System (Elaborate)

• Grammatical Signals The grammatical system of
  any language has various techniques for relating
  words to one another within the structure of a
  sentence.
• Most important
• 1. Parts of speech noun, verb, adjective, adverb
• 2. Affixes prefixes, suffixes, inflectional
  suffixes
• 3. Concord or agreement
• 4. Word order
• 5. Function words
• 6. Prosodic signals

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Language as System
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Language Signs

• The system organizes signs
• Signs stand for something else
• apple stands for the actual object
• Tell me a really long word.
• Linguistic signs can be smaller or larger than
  whole words.

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Language Signs

• The smallest linguistic sign is a morpheme, which
  is a meaningful form that cannot be divided into
  smaller meaningful parts (p. 5)
• Free morphemes can be used alone as words
• Bound morphemes must be combined with other
  morphemes to make words.
• Reactivation re-act-ive-ate-ion
• (again) (adj)(v) (n)

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Language Signs

• Morphemes can have more than one pronunciation or
  spelling
• Plural noun ending -s/-es s,z,?z
• Spoken variations are allomorphs

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Language Signs

• Base morphemes and affixes
• Affix is a bound morpheme that is added to a
  base morpheme
• Affixes can be prefixes or suffixes
• reactivation
• Base morphemes are usually free
• Insulate (insula ate) insula lat. island
• Compound word with more than one base morpheme
• firefighter

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Language Signs

• Language signs can be larger than words
• Idioms a combination of words whose meaning
  cannot be predicted from those of its constituent
  parts (p. 6)

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Language as Speech

• Language is basically oral-aural
• Produced by the mouth and received by the ear
• Sounds follow one another sequentially
• Language is one dimensional
• Other ways of expressing language
• writing, sign language
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of
  other ways of expressing language?

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Language as Speech

• Writing vs. Speech
• Which is primary and which is secondary?

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Language as Speech Writing as Speech

• Humans have been writing for 5000 years
• Writing developed from speech and is meant to
  represent speech
• Some spoken languages have no written form
• We talk before we write
• We have to take special effort to learn to write
• Many people who can speak are unable to write

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Language as Speech

• If speaking makes us human, writing makes us
  civilized.
• Advantages of writing
• Permanent
• Indicates pauses more clearly
• Grade A vs. gray day
• Pretty hot day vs. pretty, hot day

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Language as Speech Writing as Speech

• Deficiencies of writing
• Cant indicate pitch
• Why did you do it? (rising vs. falling)
• sound quality (tone vs. quality)
• incense (enrage vs. stuff to burn)
• sewer (tailor vs. conduit)

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Language as Speech Writing as Speech

• Homonyms homographs, homophones
• Transliteration
• Translation
• Orthography Writing system

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Language as Speech Gestures and Speech

• Gestures can communicate also
• Speech may have developed from gestures
• Gestures can be unconscious
• Kinesics study of communicative body movement
• Tone of voice
• Paralanguage parallel communication that
  accompanies language

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Language as Convention

• Language is mostly conventional and arbitrary
• There is usually no reason we connect the sounds
  we make with a particular meaning, but each
  language agrees on what particular sounds mean
• Exception echoic words/onomatopoeia
• Bow wow, gnaf-gnaf, wau-wau

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Language as Convention Language Change

• Language changes because it is culturally
  transmitted
• Causes of language change
• Syntagmatic change nearby elements influence one
  another within the flow of speech
• sandwich

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Language as Convention Language Change

• Paradigmatic or Associative Change
• Words can be affected by other words that are not
  immediately present but with which they are
  associated

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Language as Convention Language Change

• Starboard Right
• Ladeboard Left
• Ladeboard ? Larboard ? Port

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Language as Convention Language Change

• Social Change
• Language changes because of the influence of
  events in the world
• New technology google
• New forms of behavior suicide bomber, sexting
• Contact with new people and cultures

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Language as Convention The Notion of
Linguistic Corruption
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Language as Convention Language Variation

• Language exists in many varieties
• Historical or diachronic variation
• Contemporary or synchronic variation
• Dialects mutually intelligible forms of
  language associated with particular regions or
  groups
• Dialect Language associated with a certain
  place, social level, ethnic group, sex, age
• Registers Variations according to participants,
  settings, and topics
• Register Variety of language used for a certain
  purpose sermon, restaurant, telephone, postcard

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Language as Convention Registers
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Language as Convention Registers

• Joos (1961) cited in Wikipedia
• Frozen Printed unchanging language such as bible
  quotations often contains archaisms.
• Formal One-way participation, no interruption.
  Technical vocabulary "Fussy semantics" or exact
  definitions are important. Includes introductions
  between strangers. (This is the standard for
  work, school, and business.)
• Consultative Two-way participation. Background
  information is provided prior knowledge is not
  assumed. "Backchannel behaviour" such as "uh
  huh", "I see", etc. is common. Interruptions
  allowed. (Formal Register used in conversations.)
• Casual In-group friends and acquaintances. No
  background information provided. Ellipsis and
  slang common. Interruptions common. (Language
  used in conversation with friends.)
• Intimate Non-public. Intonation more important
  than wording or grammar. Private vocabulary.
  (Language between lovers (and twins).)

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• Dialects and registers provide options
• Alternate ways to communicate depending on the
  circumstances

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Language as Convention Correctness and
Acceptability

• Correctness Idea that some form of English is
  pure or correct.
• Language isnt so clean cut
• Acceptability Degree to which users will judge
  an expression to be OK, or will not notice
  anything out of the ordinary
• How acceptable? To whom?

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Language as Convention Correctness and
Acceptability

• If I were in your shoes
• If I was in your shoes
• If we was in your shoes
• ate
• et
• et

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Language as Human

• Gestures may have preceded language
• Ability to learn language is innate
• Children below 9 can learn a new language better
  than their native language
• Children of about 5 have mastered comprehension
  of most grammatical forms of a language (but
  still continue to improve)

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Language as Human Animals in the wild, do they
communicate?

• Informative behavior vs. Communicative behavior
• Do you intend an action to inform?
• Alarm cries are signaling behavior but not
  intentionally communicative
• Do animals display deceptive behavior?
• Innate, involuntary, limited in number

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Language as Human

• Conditioning vs. Intentionality
• Clever Hans
• Some birds can mimic human sounds

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Language as Human

• Closest human relatives are apes
• Teaching apes to talk has been a complete failure
• Problem is anatomical
• Alternatives to speech include signing and
  writing
• Apes are capable of forming paired associates
  linking an object with an arbitrary symbol
  (Holzman, 1997)

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Language as Human

• Sarah used plastic tokens to communicate
• Lana typed messages
• Washoe used Ameslan
• Kanzi used lexagrams
• Is this real communication?

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Language as Communication

• Relationship between language and thought
• Language is clothing for thought and thought is
  quite independent of the language used to express
  it
• Thought is merely suppressed language, and when
  we are thinking, we are just talking under our
  breath

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Language as Communication

• Whorf hypothesis
• The language we speak influences the way we think
  about the world and the way we perceive it
• Sorting colored chips into piles
• Usually make as many piles as basic color terms
  in your language

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Other Characteristics of Language

• Open you can make up new combinations of words
  that no one has made before
• Displaced you can talk about things that are not
  present abstract, lie,
• Entertaining it is not just utilitarian, you can
  joke, tell stories, etc.

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Why Study the History of English?

• To understand how things are, it is often helpful
  to know how they got that way (p. 18)
• Many of the irregularities of English are
  remnants of earlier regular patterns
• Clarify literature written in earlier periods

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• Keats description of sculptured effigies on
  tombs
• The sculpturd dead, on each side, seemed to
  freeze
• Emprisond in black, purgatorial rails.

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Exercises