英语语言学lecture two

Take language as a tool for access to some other fields rather than study it as a subject Language distinguishes us from animals because it is far more sophisticated than any animal communication system.

What is language?

It is very difficult to give a satisfactory definition. We may say “Language is a tool for human communication”. But that does not say anything about its defining properties, only about its function. There are many other systems (secret codes, traffic signals) performing the same function.

We may say “Language is a set of rules.”; again that says nothing about its function, and there are other systems containing sets of rules.

A tentative definition is given like the following: Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

Language must be a system, since elements in it are arranged according to certain rules. And they can not be combined at will.

Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connection between the word pen and the thing we use to write with. That fact that different languages have different words for it speaks for the arbitrary nature of language.

We say language is vocal because the primary medium is sound for all language, no matter how well developed are their writing systems. All evidence shows that writing systems came much later than the spoken forms. The fact that children acquire spoken language first before they can read or write also indicates that language is primarily vocal.

The term “human” in the definition is meant to specify that language is very different from the communication systems other forms of life possess (such as bird songs and animal cries.)

Step1. Design features of language

What makes our language advantageous over animal “languages”/ distinctive from languages used by other species/ complicated and flexible?

1.Arbitrariness

bear no natural relationship to their meaning and objects. We can not explain why a book is called a /buk/ in English but a 书in Chinese.

@What is the link between a linguistic sign and its meaning? It is a matter of convention.

@There is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. However, language is not entirely arbitrary How about onomatopoeia, words that sound like the sounds they describe.; there are cases where there seems to be some association between sounds and meaning.

The onomatopoeic words are certain words in every language which imitate natural sounds, such as bang, crash in English or putong, dingdang in Chinese. But in different languages, totally different words are used to describe the sound. For example, the dog barks wow wow in English but wangwang in Chinese.

Some compound words are not entirely arbitrary; there is a certain connection between their sounds and meaning. For example, the machine we type our papers on is called “typewriter”.

@There are different levels of arbitrariness. That is to say, syntax is less arbitrary than words. As we know, the order of elements in a sentence follows certain rules, and there is a certain degree of correspondence between the sequence of clauses and the real happenings.

(a)He came in and sat down.

(b)He sat down and came in.

(c)He sat down after he came in.

Arbitrary relationship between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning

“It is only when you know the meaning that you infer that the form is appropriate.” (Widdowson, 1996).

@The arbitrary nature of language is a sign of sophistication and this makes it possible for language to have unlimited sources of expression.

2.Duality

@“By duality is meant the property of having two levels of structures, such the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the tow levels has its own principles of organization.”(Lyons, 1982)

The property of duality then only exists in such a system, namely, with both elements and units. Many animals communicate with special calls, which have corresponding meanings. That is, the primary units have meanings but cannot be further divided into elements.

@Language is hierarchical. The lowest level consists of dozens of bits of meaningless sounds. The sounds occur in chumps to form syllable which is the smallest unit. (etc. monosyllabic like cat, dog and polysyllabic like transplant,) Scores of syllables becomes the carriers of hundreds of meaningful segments of words that are called morphemes, such as the prefix trans-. Morphemes compose thousands of word. Out of the huge number of words, there can be endless number of sentences, which in turn can form unlimited number of texts and discourses.

Stratification----this organization of levels on levels----is the physical manifestation of the “infinite use of finite means”, the trait that most distinguishes human communication from animal.

3.Creativity

@Language is a far more complicated entity than traffic lights is that we can use it to create new meanings. Words can be used in new ways to mean new things and can be understood by people who have never come across that word before.

@Birds can only convey a limited range of messages. As Bertrand Russell once observed: “No matter how eloquently a dog may mark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.”@Because of duality the speaker is able to combine the basic linguistic units to form an infinite set of sentences. (dictionary)

4.Displacement (the movement from initial position to subsequent position)移位

@Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication.

Language can be used to refer to things which are not present: real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future or in faraway places. In other words, language can refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker.

@Some animals are under “immediate stimulus control”. Calls or cries are produced in contact of food, in presence of danger or in pain. Once the danger or pain is over, calls are stopped. Human language is stimulus free.

@The intellectual benefits of displacement to us is that it makes it possible for us to talk and think in abstract terms.

Step2. Origin of language

So far there are only fruitless search for the origin of languages. The action reflects people?s concern with the origin of humanity and may come up with enlightening findings in future. And one thing we can say for certain is that language evolves within specific historical, social and cultural contexts.

Step3. Functions of language

A brief explanation to Jakobson’s classification of functions of languge P 9

1 Informative function (ideational function/ referential function)

Language serves an informative function when it is used to tell what the speaker believes, to give information about facts, or to reason things out. Language serves for the expression of content. This function is characterized by the use of declarative sentences

For most people the informative function is predominantly the major role of language. Language is the instrument of thought and people often feel need to speak their thoughts. The use of language to record the facts is a prerequisite of social development.

2. Interpersonal function 人际功能

By far the most important sociological use of language is the interpersonal function, by which people establish and maintain their status in a society. For example, the ways in which people address others and refer to themselves ( e.g. Dear Sir, Dear Professor, yours, your obedient servant) indicate the various grades of interpersonal relations.

Language marks people?s identity. For example, the chanting of a crowd at a football match, the shouting of names or slogans at public meetings, the stage-managed audience reactions to TV games shows all signal who we are and where we belong.

Performative function 言语行为功能

The performative function of language is primarily to change the social status of persons. The kind of language employed in performative verbal acts is usually quite formal and even ritualized. Language is also used to “do things”., to perform actions. This is called the performative function. On certain occasions, the uttering of the appropriate words is the central component in the performance of the act. At a meeting, for example, as soon as the chairman says “I declare the meeting open”, the meeting has started”. If the president says “I declare war…”, war exists between the two countries. In all these cases, the act cannot be performed without the sentences being uttered. The kind of language employed in performative verbal acts is usually quite formal and even ritualized.

Emotive function (expressive function)

@According to some investigations, though the conveying of information occurs in most uses of language, it probably represents not more than 20 percent of what takes place in verbal communication. The emotive function of language is one of the most powerful uses of langue.

It is a means of getting rid of our nervous energy when we are under stress.

@A man may say ouch! After striking a fingernail with a hammer, or he may mutter damn when realizing that he has forgotten an appointment. Exclamations such as Man! Oh, boy! And hurrah! are usually uttered without any purpose of communicating to others, but as essentially a verbal

response to a person?s own feelings.

@ The emotive function is the use of language to reveal something about the feelings and attitudes of the speaker. While in the informative function language is used to pass judgement on the truth or falsehood of statement, in emotive function, language is used to evaluate, appraise and assert the speaker?s attitudes.

Phatic communion

We all use such small, seemingly meaningless expressions to maintain a comfortable relationship between people without involving any factual content. Ritual exchanges about health or weather such as Good morning, God bless you, Nice day often state the obvious.

And different cultures have different topics of phatic communion.

Broadly speaking, it is function refers to expressions that help define and maintain interpersonal relations, such as slangs, jokes, jargons etc. 我靠

Recreational function (close to Jakobson’s poetic function)

The use of language for the sheer joy of using it, such as a baby?s babbling

The sheer joy of playing on language

Fill in the ancient given rhythm and rhyme scheme in poetry with the current content

对联couplet

上：指数函数，对数函数，三角函数，数数含辛茹苦；

下：平行直线，交叉直线，异面直线，线线意切情深。

我爱的人名花有主

下：爱我的人惨不忍睹（横批是：命苦）

上联:忆往昔,红米饭,南瓜汤,老婆一个,小孩一帮.下联:看今朝,白米饭,王八汤,小孩一个,老婆一帮

If you observe a children?s play, you will find the power of sound. Sometimes even nonsensical lyrics perform a recreational function in the game: the repetitive rhythms help to control the game Poetry writing gives adults the pleasure of using language for its sheer beauty.

酒，装在瓶里像水，喝到肚里闹鬼，说起话来走嘴，走起路来闪腿，半夜起来找水，早上起来后悔，中午酒杯一端还是挺美。

女卑为婢，女又可称奴。

人曾是僧，人弗能成佛。

7. Metalingual function

Language can be used to talk about itself.

To organize any written text into a coherent whole, writers employ certain expressions to keep their readers informed about where they are and where they are going

We human beings can talk about talk and think about thinking, and thus only humans can ask what it means to communicate, to think, to be human.

Step4 What is linguistics?

Step5. Main branches of linguistics

1.Phonetics

@Phonetics studies speech sounds, including the production of speech, that is how speech sounds are actually made, transmitted and received, the sound of speech, the description and classification of speech sounds, words and connected speech, etc.

It studies the characteristics of speech sounds and provides methods for their description, classification and transcription.

@We can approach it on various levels. We can focus on the speech sounds produced by these organs by identifying and classifying the individual sounds in the sub-branch of articulatory phonetics发音语音学. We can also investigate the properties of the sound waves---acoustic phonetics声学语音学. As speech is intended to be heard or perceived , it is therefore possible to focus on the way in which a listener analyses or processes a sound wave----auditory phonetics听觉语音学.

In this course book we will focus on articulatory phonetics. In fact, the four levels can be integrated.

2.Phonology 音位学

@Phonology studies the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables.

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds that the human voice is capable of creating whereas phonology is the study of a subset of those sounds that constitute language and meaning. The first focuses on chaos while the second focuses on order.

Human beings can make a wide range of sounds but only a small set of sounds are used in speech. Phonology identifies the set of speech sounds for each language, how they are arranged to form meaningful units, and the function of each sound. Phonology reveals what the possible combinations of sounds in a language are and explains why certain words take the form they do. @Phonology takes phoneme as the point of departure. A phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit of sound that can signal a difference in meaning. For example, /p/ and /b/ English has approximately forty-five phonemes. ( eg. /pig/ and /big/)

3.Morphology 形态学

@Morphology studies the minimal units of meaning----morphemes and word-formation processes. Morphology is the branch of grammar which studies the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed. (eg. Purify---“pure”+ “-ify” so to work out a rule: a new form of verb can be formed by adding “-ify” to an adjective such as amplify, simplify, etc.).

@Languages differ in their degrees of dependence on the morphological components. In Japanese, for example, meaning is changed through the use of many morphological endings. In contrast, in English word order is used more than morphological additions to convey much of the meaning of the utterance.

4.syntax

@Syntax is about principles of forming and understanding correct English sentences. The form or structure of a sentence is governed by the rules of syntax.

Syntax studies the rules governing the combination of words into sentences. Sentences are not strings of words put together in a random order. They permit certain sequences of words but not

others. Syntax identifies the permissible sequences in a language and the relationships between elements in sentence structure.

We know that words are organized into structures more than just word order.

5.Semantics

Semantics examines how meaning is encoded in a language.

It is not only concerned with the meaning of words, but also with the meaning of morphemes and sentences, levels of language below and above the word.

The key concepts look like: denotation of words, sense relations between words such as antonymy and synonymy, sense relations between sentences such as entailment and presupposition.

6.Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. It deals with particular utterances in particular situations.

In other words, pragmatics is concerned with the way language is used to communicate rather than with the way language is internally structured.

Since language is transmitted primarily via the speech mode, pragmatic rules govern a number of conversational interactions, such as sequential organization, repair of errors, role and speech acts. Organization of conversations includes taking turns, opening, maintaining and closing a conversation, establishing and maintaining a topic etc.

Step6. Macrolinguistics

Linguistics is not the only field concerned with language. Other disciplines such as psychology, ethnography, the science of law and artificial intelligence etc. are also preoccupied with language. Linguistics is developing interactive links with other sciences.

For instance, as a tool for communication, language is intimately related with society. As a human capacity, language is related with psychology. As a basic element in expression, language is certainly inseparable from literature.

1.Psycholinguistics

It investigates the interrelation of language and psychology/ mind/ brain , in processing and producing utterances and in language acquisition for example.

It also studies language development in the child, such as the theories of language acquisition; biological foundation of language; and a profound aspect ---- the relationship between language and cognition.

Within this area of research, some people have been investigating the effects of psychological constraints on the use of language. Others have been concerned with the mental processes in speech planning, production, perception and comprehension.

2. Sociolinguistic

@It covers a variety of different interests in language and society, including the social functions of language and the social characteristics of its users.

It seeks to discover the societal rules and norms that explain and constrain language behavior and the attitudes toward language in speech communities.

Sociolinguistics is the study of the characteristics of language varieties, the characteristics of their functions, and the characteristics of their speakers as these three constantly interact and change

tithing a speech community.

@Language and society are closely connected. For one thing, the language a person uses often reveals his social, educational and regional background. People from different social classes often speak differently. Educated people do not talk exactly the same as uneducated people. Many speak with an accent peculiar to their place of origin.

Generally, a formal variety is used on formal occasions. A more colloquial variety is preferred among family members and close friends in informal settings. A person who does not go by there norms may be criticized for his “inappropriate linguistic behaviour”

Some dialects or languages are more prestigious than others. Often one dialect is regarded as the “standard speech” or one language is said to be the official language in multilingual situation.

All these problems are investigated by a special branch of linguistics called sociolinguistics.

3.Anthropological linguistics 人类语言学

In contrast with other linguists, anthropological linguists are interested primarily in the history and structure of formerly unwritten languages.

They are concerned with the emergence of language and also with the divergence of languages over thousands of years.

Because an unwritten language must be heard in order to be studied, it does not leave any traces once its speakers died off. Anthropological linguists must begin in the present, with comparisons of contemporary languages. Then they draw inferences about the changes.

Anthropological linguistics uses the theories and methods of anthropology to study language variation and language use I relation to the cultural patterns and beliefs of man.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/ef7235654.html,putational linguistics

It is an interdisciplinary field with centers around the use of computers to process or produce human language..

To this field, linguistics contributes an understanding of the special properties of language data, and provides theories and descriptions of language structure and use.

Some applied areas include machine translation/ automatic translation, corpus linguistics and information retrieval( storing and finding relevant documents in large collections of text), and computer mediated communication(projects which teach machines to recognize speech sounds and words; like robots---man and machine can have simple conversation.).

Some other applications:

Neurolinguistics神经语言学: it studies the neurological basis of language development and use I human beings. It also tries to construct a model of the brain?s control over the process of speech and hearing. There have been a number of studies on how many messages the nervous system has to send out to various speech organs in order to produce on individual sound and in what order they are sent.

Mathematical linguistics数理语言学: it studies the mathematical features of language, often employing models and concepts of mathematics. One approach is to study the application of statistical techniques in linguistic theory and description. This includes the analysis of frequency of distribution of linguistic units in texts, with the aim of identifying the distinctive characteristics of the speaker or writer.

Stylistics linguistics文体语言学: many critics and stylisticians are now using the findings and methodology of linguistics to analyse literature and have shown satisfactory results. The analysis

of language can be used to make our commentary on these effects less impressionistic and subjective.

Step7. Important distinction in linguistics

1.Descriptive (non-normative) & prescriptive ( prescriptive, making or giving directions, laws

or rules)

@Don?t say X. (prescriptive)

People don?t say X. (descriptive)

The distinction lies prescribing how things ought to be and describing how things are/ to discover and record the rules.

A linguistic study is descriptive if it describes, records and analyses facts observed, it is prescriptive if it tries to lay down rules for “correct” behavior.

@To distinct two types of rules is simply that traditional grammar was very prescriptive/ normative in character. In the 18th century, all the main European languages were studied prescriptively.

for instance, traditional grammar often uses logical and aesthetic criterion to judge the correctness of sentences. They tell school children not to say “it?s me”, but say “it?s I” because …it?s me” is not logical. They also tell people to avoid “split infinitive”, “never end a sentence with a preposition”and so on, because sentences like that do not sound pleasant to the ear.

@ Modern linguistics is mostly descriptive. Modern linguists believe that whatever occurs in natural speech (hesitation, incomplete utterance, misunderstanding,….) should be described in their analysis.

@But the nature of linguistics as a science determines its preoccupation with description instead of prescription.

2.Synchronic & diachronic

@A synchronic description takes a fixed instant (usually, but not necessarily, the present) as its point of observation. As being descriptions of the language as it exists at the present day and most linguistic studies are of this type.

@Language exists in time and changes through time. So we speak of “middle English”, “modern English”, “classical Chinese” and so on. We can study a language as it exists at any time or over a

period of time.

Sassure’s diachronic linguistics is the study of a language through the course of its history.

@The synchronic description is essential to linguists. One principle in linguistics is the priority of synchronic descriptions. The reason: Unless the various states of a language are successfully studied it would be difficult to describe the changes that have taken place in its historical development.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/ef7235654.html,ngue & parole

This is a distinction made by the Swiss linguist F. de Saussure early in 20th century.

@The linguistic competence of the speaker------langue

The actual phenomena or data of linguistics (utterance)-------parole

In separating language (langue) from speaking (parole) we are at the same time separating (1)

what is social from what is individual; and (2) what is essential from what is accessory and more or less accidental”

Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community and parole refers to the actualized language, or realization of langue.

Langue----①a set of conventions abided by members of a speech community or generalized rules of the language; ②abstract ③it is not actually spoken by anyone. ④stable and

systematic.

Parole----- ①the concrete use of the conventions or application of the rules; ②specific to the situation. ③it is always a naturally occurring event. ④personal and situational

constraints.

@The linguist’s proper object is the langue of each community.

For Saussure, parole is a mass of confused facts and not suitable for systematic investigation. What the linguist has to do is to abstract langue from instances of parole-----that is, to discover the regularities governing all instances of parole and make them the subject of linguistics.

@ the distinction between langue and parole is very important, and it influenced many linguist in later generations.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/ef7235654.html,petence and Performance

@This fundamental distinction is discussed by American linguist Chomsky in his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax in the 1950s.

@A language user’s underlying knowledge about the system of rules is called linguistic competence. And performance refers to the actual use of langue in concrete situations. Competence is the ideal language user?s knowledge of the rules of his language. Performance is the actual realization of this knowledge in utterances.

@Competence enables a speaker to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences and to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities. A speaker?s competence is stable but his performance is often influenced by psychological and social factors.( such as pressure, distress, anxiety, or embarrassment) (imperfection performance----slips of tongue, unnecessary pauses, make grammatical mistakes) a speaker?s performance does not always match his competence.

not his performance. Chomsky also believe that one?s linguistic competence must be a set of rules which can be applied over and over again to generate large number of sentences, including sentences he has never heard before. The task of the linguist is to discover the rules from the speaker?s performance.

Dell Hymes approaches language from a socio-cultural viewpoint with the aim of studying the varieties of ways of speaking on the part of the individual and the community. Thus it is possible to extend the notion of competence, restricted by Chomsky to a knowledge of grammar, to incorporate the pragmatic ability for language use. This extended idea of competence can be called communicative competence.

Saussure?s langue is a social product, a set of conventions for a speech community. Chomsky regards competence as a property of the mind of each individual. Saussure looks at language more from a sociological point of view while Chomsky looks at it more from a psychological point of view.

Review:

1. Define the following terms:

Synchronic description:

A synchronic description takes a fixed instant (usually, but not necessarily, the present) as its

point of observation.

Diachronic description

is the study of a language through the course of its history.

Prescriptive

Descriptive

The distinction lies prescribing how things ought to be and describing how things are/ to discover and record the rules.

A linguistic study is descriptive if it describes, records and analyses facts observed, it is

prescriptive if it tries to lay down rules for “correct” behavior.

Duality

By duality is meant the property of having two levels of structures, such the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the tow levels has its own principles of organization.”

Displacement

Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication.

Language can be used to refer to things which are not present: real or imagined matters in the past, present, or future or in faraway places. In other words, language can refer to contexts removed from the immediate situations of the speaker.

Phatic communion

We all use such small, seemingly meaningless expressions to maintain a comfortable relationship between people without involving any factual content.

2.Do you think that onomatopoeia indicates a non-arbitrary relationship between form and

meaning?

Not really. Onomatopoeia is at most suggestive of the natural sounds they try to capture. They are arbitrary as signifiers.

3. A story by Robert Louis Stevenson contains the sentence “As the night fell, the wind rose.”

Could this be expressed “As the wind rose, the night fell?” If not, why? Does this indicate a degree of non-arbitrariness about word order?

Yes. Changing the order of the two clauses may change the meaning of the sentence, because clauses occurring in linear sequence without time indicators such as “before” or “after” will be taken as matching the actual sequence of happening.

4.Does the traffic light system have duality, why?

There is only simple one-to-one relationship between signs and meaning, namely, red—stop, green—go and yellow---get ready to go or stop.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/ef7235654.html,munication can take many forms, such as sign, speech, body language and facial

expression. Do body language and facial expression share or lack the distinctive properties of human language?

Less arbitrary, lack duality, less creative, limited repertoire.

6.Can you mention some typical expressions of phatic communion in Chinese?

出去啊、天气不错啊。今天好冷啊，现在身体还好吧

7.Why is competence and performance an important distinction in linguistics? How do you like

the concept communicative competence?

The distinction makes linguists clarify the object of their research. The task of the linguist is to discover the rules from the speaker?s performance.

with the aim of studying the varieties of ways of speaking on the part of the individual and the community.

extend the notion of competence, restricted by Chomsky to a knowledge of grammar, to incorporate the pragmatic ability for language use. This extended idea of competence can be called communicative competence.

8.Which branch of linguistics do you think will develop rapidly in china and why?

https://www.360docs.net/doc/ef7235654.html,putational linguistics

It is an interdisciplinary field with centers around the use of computers to process or produce human language..

To this field, linguistics contributes an understanding of the special properties of language data, and provides theories and descriptions of language structure and use.

Some applied areas include machine translation/ automatic translation, corpus linguistics and information retrieval( storing and finding relevant documents in large collections of text), and computer mediated communication(projects which teach machines to recognize speech sounds and words; like robots---man and machine can have simple conversation.).

10.There are many reasons for the discrepancy between competence and performance in normal

language users. Can you think of some of them?

(imperfection performance----slips of tongue, unnecessary pauses, make grammatical mistakes)

a speaker?s performance does not always match his competence.

by psychological and social factors.( such as pressure, distress, anxiety, or embarrassment) socioeconomic status, professions, region of country