英语语言学导论

Chapter 1 Introduction: Language and Linguistics

●What is language?

As is agreed by linguists in broad terms, language can be defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication

●Features of human language

?Creativity

◆Language provides opportunities for sending messages that have never

been sent before and for understanding novel messages.

◆The grammatical rules and the words of a language are finite, but the

sentences are infinite. Every speaker uses language creatively.

?Duality

◆Language contains two subsystems, one of sounds and the other of

meanings.

◆Certain sounds or sequences of sounds stand for certain meanings.

◆Certain meanings are conveyed by certain speech sounds or sequences of

speech sounds.

?Arbitrariness

◆The relationship between the two subsystems of language is arbitrary.

◆There is no logical connection between sound and meaning.

?Displacement

◆There is no limit in time or space for language.

◆Language can be used to refer to things real or imagined, past, present or

future.

?Cultural transmission

◆Culture cannot be genetically transmitted. Instead, it must be learned.

◆Language is a way of transmitting culture.

?Interchangeability

◆All members of a speech community can send and receive messages.

?Reflexivity

◆Human languages can be used to describe themselves.

◆The language used to talk about language is called meta-language.

●Functions of language – three meta-functions

?The ideational function

◆To identify things, to think, or to record information.

?The interpersonal function

◆To get along in a community.

?The textual function

◆To form a text.

●What is linguistics?

?Linguistics may be defined as the scientific study of language.

?Branches of linguistics

◆Internal branches: intra-disciplinary divisions

●Phonetics

●Phonology

●Morphology

●Syntax

●Semantics

◆External branches: inter-disciplinary divisions

●Pragmatics

●Psycholinguistics

●Sociolinguistics

●Applied linguistics

●Computational linguistics

●Neurolinguistics

?Modern linguistics began in the early 20th century. It founder is the Swiss

scholar, Ferdinand de Saussure.(索绪尔)

Chapter 2 Phonetics

●What is phonetics?

Phonetics is termed as the study of speech sounds. (It studies how speech sounds are produced, transmitted and perceived.)

●Description of speech sounds

?Description of English consonants

◆General feature: obstruction

◆Criteria of consonant description

●Places of articulation

●Manners of articulation

●V oicing of articulation

◆Places of articulation

●This refers to each point at which the air stream can be modified to

produce a sound.

?Bilabial: [p] [b] [m] [w]

?Labiodental: [f] [v]

?Interdental: [ ] [?]

?Alveolar: [t] [d] [s] [z] [l] [n] [r]

?Palatal: [?] [?] [t?] [d?] [j]

?Velar: [k] [g] [?]

?Glottal: [h]

◆Manners of articulation

●This refers to how the air stream is modified, whether it is

completely blocked or partially obstructed.

?Stops: [p] [b] [t] [d] [k] [g]

?Fricatives: [s] [z] [?] [?] [f] [v] [ ] [?] [h]

?Affricates: [t?] [d?]

?Liquids: [l] [r]

?Glides: [w] [j]

?Nasals: [m] [n] [?]

◆V oicing of articulation

●This refers to the vibrating of the vocal cords when sounds are

produced.

?V oiced sounds

?V oiceless sounds

Chapter 3 Phonology

●What is phonology?

Phonology is the study of sound patterns and sound systems of language.

●Discovering phonemes

?Contrastive distribution – phonemes

◆If sounds appear in the same environment, they are said to be in

contrastive distribution.

◆Typical contrastive distribution of sounds is found in minimal pairs and

minimal sets.

● A minimal pair consists of two words that differ by only one sound

in the same position.

●Minimal sets are more than two words that are distinguished by one

segment in the same position.

◆The overwhelming majority of the consonants and vowels represented by

the English phonetic alphabet are in contrastive distribution.

◆Some sounds can hardly be found in contrastive distribution in English.

However, these sounds are distinctive in terms of phonetic features.

Therefore, they are separate phonemes.

?Complementary distribution – allophones

◆Sounds that are not found in the same position are said to be in

complementary distribution.

◆If segments are in complementary distribution and share a number of

features, they are allophones of the same phoneme.

●Syllable structure

? A syllable is a phonological unit that is composed of one or more phonemes.

?Every syllable has a nucleus, which is usually a vowel.

?The nucleus may be preceded by one or more consonants called the onset and

followed by one or more consonants called the coda.

Chapter 4 Morphology

●What is morphology?

Morphology is defined as t he study of the internal structure and the formation of words.

●Morphemes and allomorphs

?The smallest meaningful unit of language is called a morpheme.

?The different morphs of the same morpheme are called allomorphs.

●Conclusion: classification of morphemes

?Morphemes

◆Free morphemes: can be used independently as a word

◆Bound morphemes: are the morphemes which cannot be used as a word,

they must be attached to the other morphemes.

●Formation of new words

?Derivation

◆Derivation forms a word by adding an affix to a free morpheme.

◆Since derivation can apply more than once, it is possible to create a

derived word with a number of affixes. For example, if we add affixes to

the word friend, we can form befriend, friendly, unfriendly, friendliness,

unfriendliness, etc. This process of adding more than one affix to a free

morpheme is termed complex derivation.

◆Derivation does not apply freely to any word of a given category.

Generally speaking, affixes cannot be added to morphemes of a different

language origin.

◆Derivation is also constrained by phonological factors.

◆Some English suffixes also change the word stress.

?Compounding

◆Compounding is another common way to form words. It is the

combination of free morphemes.

◆The majority of English compounds are the combination of words from

the three classes – nouns, verbs and adjectives – and fall into the three

classes.

◆In compounds, the rightmost morpheme determines the part of speech of

the word.

◆The meaning of compounds is not always the sum of meaning of the

components.

?Conversion

◆Conversion is the process putting an existing word of one class into

another class.

◆Conversion is usually found in words containing one morpheme.

?Clipping

◆Clipping is a process that shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting one or

more syllables.

◆Clipped words are initially used in spoken English on informal

occasions.

◆Some clipped words have become widely accepted, and are used even in

formal styles. For example, the words bus (omnibus), vet (veterinarian),

gym (gymnasium), fridge (refrigerator)and fax (facsimile)are rarely

used in their complete form.

?Blending

◆Blending is a process that creates new words by putting together

non-morphemic parts of existing words. For example, smog(smoke +

frog), brunch (a meal in the middle of morning, replacing both breakfast

and lunch), motel(motor + hotel). There is also an interesting word in

the textbook for junior middle school students –“plike” (a kind of

machine that is like both a plane and a bike).

?Back-formation

◆Back-formation is the process that creates a new word by dropping a real

or supposed suffix. For example, the word televise is back-formed from

television. Originally, the word television is formed by putting the prefix

tele- (far) to the root vision (viewing). At the same time, there is a suffix

–sion in English indicating nouns. Then people consider the –sion in the

word television as that suffix and drop it to form the verb televise.

?Acronyms and abbreviations

◆Acronyms and abbreviations are formed by putting together the initial

letters of all words in a phrase or title.

◆Acronyms can be read as a word and are usually longer than

abbreviations, which are read letter by letter.

◆This type of word formation is common in names of organizations and

scientific terminology.

?Eponyms

◆Eponyms are words that originate from proper names of individuals or

places. For example, the word sandwich is a common noun originating

from the fourth Earl of Sandwich, who put his food between two slices

of bread so that he could eat while gambling.

?Coinage

◆Coinage is a process of inventing words not based on existing

morphemes.

◆This way of word formation is especially common in cases where

industry requires a word for a new product. For example, Kodak and

Coca-cola.

Chapter 5 Syntax

●What is syntax?

Syntax is the study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences in a language, or simply, the study of sentence formation.

?Immediate constituent (IC) analysis

◆Structural grammar is characterized by a top-down process of analysis.

◆ A sentence is seen as a constituent structure. All the components of the

sentences are its constituents. A sentence can be cut into sections. Each

section is its immediate constituent. Then each section can be further cut

into constituents. This on-going cutting is termed immediate constituent

analysis.

◆Examples:

●Old men and women: old | men and women, old || men | and women

●The ||| little || girl | speaks || French.

◆In this way, sentence structure is analyzed not only horizontally but also

vertically. In other words, IC analysis can account for the linearity and

the hierarchy of sentence structure.

●I will suggest | that this || in itself reflects ||| a particular ideology

|||| about gender ||||| that deserves to be re-examined.

◆Two advantages of IC analysis:

●It can analyze some ambiguities.

●It shows linearity and hierarchy of one sentence.

●Transformational-generative (TG) grammar

?Background and the goal of TG grammar

◆Chomsky (1957) – grammar is the knowledge of native speakers.

?Syntactic categories

◆Noun Phrase (NP)

◆Verb Phrase (VP)

◆Sentence (S)

◆Determiner (Det)

◆Adjective (Adj)

◆Pronoun (Pro)

◆Verb (V)

◆Auxiliary Verb (Aux)

◆Prepositional Phrase (PP)

◆Adverb (Adv)

?Phrase structure (PS) rules

◆S →NP VP

(Det) (Adj) N

◆NP →{

Pro

◆VP →(Aux) V (NP) (PP)

◆PP →P NP

Chapter 6 Semantics

●What is semantics?

Semantics is defined as the study of meaning. More specifically, semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular.

●Lexical sense relations

?Synonymy

◆Synonyms are words which have different forms but similar meanings.

●Dialectal synonyms –lift/elevator, flat/apartment

●Synonyms of different styles –gentleman/guy

●Synonyms of different registers –salt/sodium chloride

●Synonyms differing in affective meaning –attract/seduce

●Synonyms differing in collocation –beautiful/handsome,

able/capable

◆Synonyms are frequently used in speaking and writing as a cohesive

device. In order to avoid repetition the writer/speaker needs to use a

synonym to replace a word in the previous co-text when he/she wants to

continue to address that idea. The synonyms together function to create

cohesion of the text.

?Antonymy

◆Antonyms are words which are opposite in meaning.

●Gradable antonyms – pairs of words opposite to each other, but the

positive of one word does not necessarily imply the negative of the

other. For example, the words hot and cold are a pair of antonyms,

but not hot does not necessarily mean cold, maybe warm, mild or

cool. Therefore, this pair of antonyms is a pair of gradable

antonyms.

●Complementary antonyms –words opposite to each other and the

positive of one implies the negative of the other: alive/dead

●Reversal (relational) antonyms – words that denote the same relation

or process from one or the other direction: push/pull, up/down,

teacher/student

◆Antonymy is frequently utilized as a rhetorical resource in language use.

Oxymoron and antithesis based on antonymy. Gradable antonyms may

give rise to fuzziness.

?Homonymy

◆Homonyms are words which have the same form, but different

meanings.

●Homographs – words which are identical in spelling, but different in

meaning and pronunciation: tear [???] (v.)/tear [???] (n.)

●Homophones –words which are identical in pronunciation, but

different in spelling and meaning: see/sea

●Full homonyms –words which are identical in spelling and

pronunciation, but different in meaning: bear (v. to give birth to a

baby/to stand)/bear (n. a kind of animal)

◆Rhetorically, homonyms are often used as puns.

?Polysemy

◆ A polyseme is a word which has several related senses.

◆Polysemy is based on the intuition of native speakers as well as the

etymology or history of words.

?Hyponymy

◆Hyponymy is a relation of inclusion.

◆Tiger, lion, elephant and dog are hyponyms of the word animal. Words

like animal are called superordinates.

◆This kind of vertical semantic relation links words in a hierarchical

work.

●Sentencial sense relations – semantic relations of sentences

?Sentences may be related in sense. I will illustrate sense relations within and

between sentences.

◆Tautology: The bachelor is unmarried.

◆Contradiction: The bachelor is married.

◆Inconsistency: John is single./John is married.

◆Synonymousness: John broke the glass./The glass was broken by John.

◆Entailment: The meeting was chaired by a spinster./The meeting was

chaired by a woman.

◆Presupposition: Sam has returned the book./Sam borrowed the book.

?These semantic relations are found within or between meaningful sentences.

There are sentences which sound grammatical but meaningless. These

sentences are said to be semantically anomalous. For example:

◆Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

◆The pregnant bachelor killed some phonemes.

Chapter 7 Pragmatics

●What is pragmatics?

Pragmatics can be defined as the analysis of meaning in context.

●Speech acts

?In linguistic communication, people do not merely exchange information.

They actually do something through talking or writing in various

circumstances. Actions performed via speaking are called speech acts.

?Types of speech acts

◆Locutionary speech act – the action of making the sentence

◆Illocutionary speech act – the intentions

◆Perlocutionary speech act – the effects

◆Of these dimensions, the most important is the illocutionary act.

●Cooperation and implicature

?Conversational Implicature

◆In our daily life, speakers and listeners involved in conversation are

generally cooperating with each other. In other words, when people are

talking with each other, they must try to converse smoothly and

successfully. In accepting speakers’ pres uppositions, listeners have to

assume that a speaker is not trying to mislead them. This sense of

cooperation is simply one in which people having a conversation are not

normally assumed to be trying to confuse, trick, or withhold relevant

information from one another.

◆However, in real communication, the intention of the speaker is often not

the literal meaning of what he or she says. The real intention implied in

the words is called conversational implicature. For example:

[1]A: Can you tell me the time?

B: Well, the milkman has come.

◆In this little conversation, A is asking B about the time, but B is not

answering directly. That indicates that B may also not no the accurate

time, but through saying “the milkman has come”, he is in fact giving a

rough time. The answer B gives is related to the literal meaning of the

words, but is not merely that. That is often the case in communication.

The theory of conversational implicature is for the purpose of explaining

how listeners infer the speakers’ intention through the words.

◆The study of conversational implicature starts from Grice (1967), the

American philosopher. He thinks, in daily communication, people are

observing a set of basic rules of cooperating with each other so as to

communicate effectively through conversation. He calls this set of rules

the cooperative principle (CP) elaborated in four sub-principles

(maxims), that is the cooperative principle.

?The Cooperative Principle

◆Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at

which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk

exchange in which you are engaged. The maxims are:

●Quantity

?Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the

current purposes of the exchange).

?Do not make your contribution more informative than is

required.

●Quality – Try to make your contribution one that is true.

?Do not say what you believe to be false.

?Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

●Relation – Be relevant.

●Manner – Be perspicuous.

?Avoid obscurity of expression.

?Avoid ambiguity.

?Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).

?Be orderly.

◆We assume that people are normally going to provide an appropriate

amount of information, i.e. they are telling the relevant truth clearly. The

cooperative principle given by Grice is an idealized case of

communication.

Chapter 11 Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

●What is SLA?

The term language acquisition refers to t he natural process of children’s language development.

To summarize, second language acquisition(SLA) may be defined as the process by which a language other than the mother tongue is learnt in a natural setting or in

a classroom.

◆Contrastive analysis

●Compare the target language with the mother tongue.

◆Error analysis

●Describing errors

?Omission

-He came into _ classroom with a book in _ hand.

?Addition/wordy

-My child goes to his school.

?Selection

-I hope/wish…

?Disordering

-I yesterday went to … (I, yesterday, went to …/I went to …

yesterday)

Chapter 12 Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching (FLT)

?Syllabus design and material development