Title: A Course on Linguistics for Students of English Fen
1A Course on Linguistics for Students of
English Feng Yujuan School of Foreign
Language, SWUN
21. General Introduction 2. Language and society
(social linguistics) 3. Language and culture
(cross-cultural communication) 4. Applied
linguistics 5. Computational and statistic
linguistics 6. Modern theories and school of
linguistics 7. Phonetics and phonology 8.
Morphology, syntax and semantics 9. Second
language acquisition 10.Pragmatics 11.Psycholingui
stics
3The Goals for this Course
- To get a scientific view on language
- To understand some basic theories on linguistics
- To understand the applications of the linguistic
theories, especially in the fields of language
teaching learning (SLA or TEFL), cross-cultural
communication - To prepare for the future research work.
4The Requirements for this course
- Class attendance
- Classroom discussion
- Fulfillment of the assignment
- Examination
5Reference Books
- ???,???,(2002),???????????,??????????
- ???,(2001),?????,????????
- ???,???,(2002),???????,???????
- ???,(1995),???????,???????????
- ???,Maurice Cogan Hauck,(2001),
???????,????????? - H.G.Widdowson, (2000), linguistics, Shanghai
Foreign Education Press
6Chapter 1. Introduction
7What is language?
- what a person says (e.g. bad language,
expressions) - the way of speaking or writing (e.g.
Shakespeares language, Luxuns language) - a particular variety or level of speech or
writing (e.g. language for special purpose,
colloquial language) - the abstract system underlying the totality of
the speech/writing behavior of a community (e.g.
Chinese language, first language) - the common features of all human languages (e.g.
He studies language) - a tool for human communication. (social function)
8Sapirs definition (1921)
- Language is a purely human and non-instinctive
method of communicating ideas, emotions and
desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.
9Who is Sapir
- American anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir
- Sapir-Whorf hypothesis people do no perceive the
world freely but rather do so through language,
which will distort the reality and thus influence
and control their thought. - LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM / LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY
10Halls definition (1968)
- Language is the institution whereby humans
communicate and interact with each other by means
of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary
symbols.
11Chomskys definition (1957)
- From now on I will consider language to be a set
of (finite or infinite) sentences, each finite in
length and constructed out of a finite set of
elements.
12Who is Chomsky?
- Chomsky is strongly against Bloomfields
behaviorist psychology and empiricism and adopts
cognitive psychology and rationalism. He believes
that language is somewhat innate, otherwise there
are important facts that can never be adequately
explained. - TG Grammar
13Language can be generally defined as
- a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for
human communication.
14Language is a system
- Systematic rule-governed, elements in it are
arranged according to certain rules cant be
combined at will. e.g. bkli, I apple eat.
15Language is arbitrary
- Arbitrary no intrinsic connection between the
word and the thing it denotes, e.g. pen by any
other name is the thing we use to write with.
16Language is symbolic in nature
- Symbolic words are associated with objects,
actions ideas by convention. A rose by any other
name would smell as sweet Shakespeare
17Language is primarily vocal
- Vocal the primary medium is sound for all
languages writing system came much later than
spoken form.
18Language is human-specific
- Human-specific different from the communication
systems other forms of life possess, e.g. bird
songs, bee dance, animal cries.
19The design/defining features of human language
(Charles Hockett)
- Arbitrariness
- Productivity/Creativity
- Duality
- Displacement
- Cultural transmission
- Interchangeability
20Arbitrariness
- No logical (motivated or intrinsic) connection
between sounds and meanings. - Onomatopoeic words (which imitate natural sounds)
are somewhat motivated ( English rumble,
crackle, bang, . Chinese putong, shasha,
dingdang ) - Some compound words are not entirely arbitrary,
e.g. type-writer, shoe-maker, air-conditioner,
photocopy
21Duality (double articulation)
- Lower level----sounds (meaningless)
- Higher level----meaning (larger units of meaning)
- A communication system with duality is considered
more flexible than one without it, for a far
greater number of messages can be sent. A small
number of sounds can be grouped and regrouped
into a large number of units of meaning (words),
and the units of meaning can be arranged and
rearranged into an infinite number of sentences.
(we make dictionary of a language, but we cannot
make a dictionary of sentences of that language.)
22Productivity/creativity
- Peculiar to human languages,users of language
can understand and produce sentences they have
never heard before, e.g. we can understand
sentence like A red-eyed elephant is dancing on
the hotel bed, though it does not describe a
common happening in the world. - The bee dance does have a limited productivity,
as it is used to communicate about food sources
in any direction. But food sources are the only
kind of messages that can be sent through the bee
dance bees do not talk about themselves, the
hives, or wind, let alone about people, animals,
hopes or desires
23Displacement
- Language can be used to refer to things, which
are not present real or imagined matters in the
past, present or future, or in far-away places. - A gibbon never utters a call about something he
ate last year
24Cultural transmission
- Language is culturally transmitted (through
teaching and learning rather than by instinct). - Animal call systems are genetically transmitted.
All cats, gibbons and bees have systems which are
almost identical to those of all other cats,
gibbons and bees. - A Chinese speaker and an English speaker are not
mutually intelligible. This shows that language
is culturally transmitted. That is, it is pass on
from one generation to the next by teaching and
learning, rather than by instinct. - The story of a wolf child, a pig child shows that
a human being brought up in isolation simply does
not acquire human language.
25Interchangeability
- any human being can be both a producer and a
receiver of messages.
26Functions of language
- Phatic establishing an atmosphere or maintaining
social contact. - Directive get the hearer to do something.
- Informative give information about facts.
- Interrogative get information from others.
- Expressive express feelings and attitudes of the
speaker. - Evocative create certain feelings in the hearer
(amuse, startle, soothe, worry or please) - Performative language is used to do things, to
perform actions.
27The origin of language
- The divine-origin theory Language is a gift of
God to mankind. (Babel) - The invention theory imitative, cries of
nature, the grunts of men working together. - The evolutionary theory the result of physical
and psychological development.
282. What is linguistics?
- Linguistics is the scientific study of
language. - A person who studies linguistics is known as a
linguist.
29Four principles of linguistic studies
- Exhaustiveness/adequacy
- Consistency
- Economy
- Objectivity
30- Exhaustiveness/adequacy the linguist should
father all the material relevant to his
investigation and give them an adequate
explanation. - Consistency there should be no contradiction
between different parts of the total statement.
31- Economy other things being equal, a shorter
statement or analysis is preferred to a longer or
more involved one. - Objectivity a linguist should be as objective as
possible in his description and analysis of data,
allowing no prejudice to influence his
generalization.
32The scope or major branches of linguistics
- Theoretical linguistics
- Phonetics
- Phonology
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics
- Use of linguistics
- Applied linguistics
- Sociolinguistics
- Psycholinguistics
-
33- Phonetics phonetics is the branch of linguistics
which studies the characteristics of speech
sounds and provides methods for their
description, classification and transcription. - articulatory phonetics the study of the speech
organs and how they move to produce speech sound. - acoustic phonetics the study of the physical
properties of speech sound. - auditory phonetics the study of the perception
of sounds by the human ear.
34- Phonology phonology is the branch of linguistics
which studies the sound patterns of languages. It
identifies the set of speech sounds for each
language, how they are arranged to form
meaningful units, and the function of each sound.
35- Morphology morphology is the branch of
linguistics which studies the form of words. It
identifies the smallest meaningful units in a
language which are called morphemes and looks
into the ways the morphemes are arranged to form
words. - free morpheme / bound morpheme
36- Syntax syntax is the branch of linguistics which
studies the rules governing the combination of
words into sentences.
37- Semantics semantics is the branch of linguistics
which studies the meaning of language.
38- Pragmatics pragmatics is the branch of
linguistics which studies language in context and
linguistic communication. - The context of situation in which a sentence is
used contributes a lot to its meaning, meaning
that cannot be accounted for in pure semantic
analysis. In this sense, pragmatics can be
defined by this formula PRAGMATICS MEANING
SEMANTICS
39- Sociolinguistics sociolinguistics is the branch
of linguistics which studies all social aspects
of language and its relation with society, such
as social background, social norms, social
changes, etc.
40- Psycholinguistics psycholinguistics is the
branch of linguistics which studies the relation
between language and psychology.
41- Applied linguistics findings in linguistic
studies can often be applied to the solution of
such practical problems as the recovery of speech
ability. The study of such applications is
generally known as applied linguistics.
42Some important distinctions in linguistics
43Speech vs writing
- Speech ---- primary medium of language
- Writing ---- later developed
44Descriptive vs prescriptive
- Descriptive ---- describe/analyze linguistic
facts observed or language people actually use
(modern linguistic) - Prescriptive ----lay down rules for correct
linguistic behavior in using language
(traditional grammar)
45Synchronic vs diachronic
- Synchronic study---- description of a language at
some point of time (modern linguistics) - Diachronic study---- description of a language
through time (historical development of language
over a period of time)
46Langue vs parole (F. de Saussure)
- Langue ---- the abstract linguistic system shared
by all members of the speech community. - Parole ---- the realization of langue in actual
use. - Saussure takes a sociological view of language
and his notion of langue is a matter of social
conventions.
47Competence and performance (Chomsky)
- Competence ---- the ideal users knowledge of the
rules of his language - Performance ---- the actual realization of this
knowledge in linguistic communication - Chomsky looks at language from a psychological
point of view and to him competence is a property
of the mind of each individual.
48Linguistic potential and Linguistic behavior
(Halliday)
- The linguistic competence versus performance
distinction is one between what a person know
and what he does - While the linguistic potential versus actual
linguistic behavior distinction is one between
what a person can do and what a person does
49Chapter 2 sociolinguistics
50- 1. Sociolinguistics language and society
- 1.1 What is Sociolinguistics?
- A sub-field of linguistics that studies the
relation between language and society, between
the uses of language and the social structures in
which the users of language live.
51- 1.2 What are dialect and accent respectively?
- Dialect refers, strictly speaking, to difference
between kinds of language which have differences
of vocabulary and grammar as well as
pronunciation. - Accent refers solely to differences of
pronunciation
52- 1.3 What is standard dialect?
- Standard dialect is the variety of language which
usually used in print, normally taught in school
and to non-native speakers learning a language.
It is also the variety which is normally spoken
by educated people and used in news broadcasts
and other similar situations. - Standard English (dialect)/ RP (received
pronunciation)
53- Take the pronunciation of non-prevocalic /r/ in
British dialect as an example - rat rich
- carry sorry
- cart car
- these words formerly had an /r/ sound, as the
spelling shows,, but in these accents /r/has been
lost except where it occurs before a vowel. Thus,
the /r/ sounds at the end of words (car) or
before a consonant (cart) can be referred to as
non-prevocalic /r/
54- Table Attitudes towards the use of
non-prevocalic /r/ upper middle class in New
York City - Age /r/ used
- 819 48
- 2039 34
- 40 9
55- 2 language varieties
- 2.1 varieties of language influenced by social
factors - 2.1.1 Language and Social Class (sociolect)
- speaker A speaker B
- I done it yesterday. I did it yesterday.
- He aint got it He hasnt got it
- It was her what said it It was her that said it
56- What happens if we wish to negate the following
sentence - I can eat anything.
- There are two possibilities in the standard
variety of English - I cant eat anything.
- I can eat nothing.
- There are other varieties of English, where there
is a third possibility where we can negate both
elements - I cant eat nothing.
57- A survey was taken in Detroit, and it was found
that there was a clear relationship between
employment of double negation and social class - UMC 2
- LMC 11
- UWC 38
- LWC 70
58- 2.1.2 Language and Ethnic Group
- Ethnic-group differences may be correlated with
phonological or grammatical features, as well as
or instead of with lexical differences. - An example of BVE (Black Vernacular English)
- A fifteen-year old black boy You know, like some
people say if youre good your spirit goin t
heaven n if you bad, your spirit goin to
hell. Well, bullshit! Your spirit goin to hell
anyway. Ill tell you why. Cause, you see,
doesn nobody really know that its a God. An
when they be sayin if you good, you goin t
heaven, thas bullshit, cause you aint goin to
no heaven, cause it aint no heaven for you to
go to.
59- Contrast between BVE and standard English
- 1) All the white children studied used some s in
the appropriate verb forms, and the average score
for the group as a whole was 85 percent s usage.
On the other hand, only 76 percent of the black
children used any s, and the overall average
score for s usage was only 13 percent.
60- 2) the absence or invariance of the verb to be
- BVE Standard English
- He busy right now. Hes busy right now.
- Sometimes he be busy. Sometimes hes busy.
- 3) question inversion in BVE
- A. I asked Mary where did she go.
- B. I asked Mary where she went.
- A. It aint heaven for you to go to.
- B. There is no heaven for you to go to
- A. Cant nobody do nothing about it.
- B. Nobody can do anything about it.
61- 2.1.3 Language and gender
- It is known from linguistic research that in many
societies the speech of men and women differs. - In South Africa, research has been carried out,
comparing the speech of male and female
high-school pupils of the same age in the same
town - boy /b