chapter 12 Theories and School of Modern Linguistics Lecturer: Rui Liu

Contents 1. Saussure and Structuralism 2. The Prague School 3. The London School 4. American Structuralism 5. Transformational –Generative Grammar

1. Saussure and Structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts Structuralism

1. Saussure and Structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 - 1913) -- a Swiss linguist and Sanskritist, A course in General Linguistics in 1916. -- the founder of modern linguistics in its attempts to describe the structure of language rather than the history of particular languages and language forms. -- founder of structuralism.

1. Saussure and Structuralism Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts -- Linguistic Sign — Signifier vs. Signified e.m. The word “tree” does not refer to the thing in the world but rather to a concept in our minds. One uses deictic markers like “this” or “that” to relate concepts to objects in the world.

1. Saussure and Structuralism Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts -- Langue VS Parole

1. Saussure and Structuralism Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts -- Synchronic VS Diachronic

1. Saussure and Structuralism Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts -- Syntagmatic VS Associative

1. Saussure and Structuralism -- interrelationship between UNITS, (also called “surface phenomena”), and “RULES”, (the ways that units can be put together); -- 3 schools of structuralisms Structuralism Focus The Prague School the function of linguistic structures The London School the relationship among linguistic structures American School the description and analysis of the form of linguistic structures

2. The Prague School Prague structuralism is functionalistic in that the Prague School views language as a combination of structure and function. So language is a structural system of multifunction, which comprises many interdependent sub-systems.

Focus of linguistic study 2. The Prague School Phonological Contribution -- Trubetzkoy’s Phonological Oppositions -- “principle of Phonology” Focus of linguistic study Spoken Language Written Language

2. The Prague School 9 phonological oppositions -- Bilateral opposition (双边对立) -- Multilateral opposition (多边对立) -- Proportional opposition (均衡对立) -- Isolated opposition (孤立对立) -- Privative opposition (否定对立) -- Gradual opposition (分级对立) -- Equipollent opposition (等价对立) -- Neutralisable opposition (抵消对立) -- Constant opposition (永恒对立)

2. The Prague School Syntactic Contribution — Functional Sentence Perspective It examines how language functions in the act of communication. a sentence contains a point of departure and a goal of discourse. The point of departure is equally present to the speaker and hearer — it is the ground on which they meet. This is called the theme. The goal of discourse presents the very information that is to be imparted to the hearer. This is called the rheme. The map is on page five. On page five is the map. Subject Predicate Predicate Subject Theme Rheme Theme Rheme Known New Known New

3. The London School -- “systemic linguistics” and “functional linguistics” -- emphasize the importance of context of situation and the system aspect of language -- Prosodic phonology (John Rupert Firth (1890-1960)); -- Systemic Functional Grammar (M.A.K. Halliday (1925-?));

3. The London School Prosodic phonology -- Firth’s Prosody Prosodies are features extending over stretches of utterance. It includes not only pitch, stress, tone and rhythm but also lip rounding or nasalization, when these are used to account for phonological restrictions, or to characterize grammatical structure. -- Firth’s Context to conduct contextual analysis on four levels 1) phonological analysis 2) lexical and semantic analysis 3) grammatical analysis 4) the analysis of the context of situation -- Firth’s System VS. Structure system is the theoretical representation of paradigmatic relations, contrasted with structure for syntagmatic relations

3. The London School Systemic Functional Grammar - Introduction Halliday built his linguistic theory upon two conceptions of Firth, one is the concept of system, the other is context of situation. From “system” derived the syntactic analysis in the London style — systemic grammar. In Firth’s system-structure theory, neither of these is given priority. In systemic theory the system takes priority: the most abstract representation at any level is in paradigmatic terms. Syntagmatic organization is interpreted as the realization of paradigmatic features.

3. The London School Systemic Functional Grammar - System -- Transitivity system: interprets and represents our experience of phenomena in the world and in our consciousness by modeling experiential meanings in terms of participants, processes and circumstances. -- Mood system: central resource for establishing and maintaining an ongoing exchange between interactants by assuming and assigning speech roles such as giving or demanding goods and services or information. So include indicatives (including declarative and interrogative) and imperatives. -- Theme system : the resource for setting up a local context for a clause by selecting a local point of departure in the flow of information — theme. The remainder of the message, the part in which the theme is developed, is called rheme.

3. The London School systems realize metafunctions Transitivity Systemic Functional Grammar - Function -- Ideational metafunction -- Interpersonal metafunction -- Textual metafunction systems realize metafunctions Transitivity Ideational function Mood Interpersonal function Theme Textual function

3. The London School Systemic Functional Grammar – Context -- field -- tenor -- mode Relationship among systems, functions and context Systems realize metafunctions register Transitivity Ideational function Field Mood Interpersonal function Tenor Theme Textual function Mode

4. American Structuralism Bloomfield -- stimulus-response reinforcement -- S stands for practical stimulus, r stands for the substitute reaction of speech, s stands for the substitute stimulus, and R stands for external practical reaction. Sapir -- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, arguing that language moulds mind. -- The theory has been enormously influential but has for the most part been superseded by subsequent research. Sapir’s studies on the ethnology and linguistics or various Native American groups of the United States contributed greatly to the development of descriptive linguistics.

4. Transformational –Generative Grammar In the 1950s the school of linguistic thought, known as transformational-generative grammar, received wide acclaim through the works of Noam Chomsky. Originally expounded by Noam Chomsky, his students, and colleagues, transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is an attempt to define the grammatical rules underlying all of the surface expression of language.

4. Transformational –Generative Grammar Chomsky’s Syntactic Structure A syntactic base of language called deep structure, which consists of a series of phrase structure rules, and a series of rules called transformations that act upon the phrase structure to form more complex sentences. The end result of a transformational-generative grammar is a surface structure that, after the movement, deletion, insertion, substitution of words and pronunciations, is identical to an actual sentence of a language. All languages have the same deep structure, but they differ from each other in surface structure because of the application of different rules for transformations and pronunciation.

4. Transformational –Generative Grammar Chomsky’s Innateness Hypothesis -- mainly include: a large part of the grammar is innate and universal in all human beings (like the ability to walk, unlike the ability to ride a bike); the part of the grammar which is not innate (and which determines the structural variation across the world’s languages) is learned via a language-specific module of the mind/brain.

4. Transformational –Generative Grammar Structural Linguistics and T-G Grammar Linguistic school Structuralism T-G Grammar Key figure Bloomfield Chomsky Definition of language A set of habits A set of rules Aim in linguistics To describe language To produce a grammar Types of data collected Naturally occurring utterances Any data Methodology Inductive generalization Hypothesis-deductive View of language learning Empiricism, behaviorism Rationalism, mentalism