Introduction to Linguistics Lecture 2: Introduction to the study of Human Language

Schedule today: introduction Linguistics: basic principles The structure and study of the human language The structure and study of the human language in linguistics Language Universals: body parts

The tower of BABEL ?

The tower of Babel Story told in “The book of Genesis” that is meant to explain the origin of different languages The story: - a united humanity after the Great Flood (the arc of Noah) - The land of SHINAR

THE STORY Everyone on earth spoke the same language. As people migrated from the east, they settled in the land of Shinar. People there sought to make bricks and build a city and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for themselves, so that they not be scattered over the world. God came down to look at the city and tower, and remarked that as one people with one language, nothing that they sought would be out of their reach. God went down and confounded their speech, so that they could not understand each other, and scattered them over the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city. Thus the city was called Babel. Babel is derived from the greek form Bbylon and according to popular meaning the name was given as such because of the tower and the city – it means “Gateway of the God”

Question: what is linguistics ?

1) Linguistics: basic principles The nature of language and linguistic communication So two questions arise that we want to answer in the study of human language: What is the nature of language? How does communication work?

1) Linguistics: basic principles These questions are too broad to answer The general idea of linguistics is to break them down into pieces and look at them unit per unit HOW? Cf. next slide

2) The structure of the human language

2) The structure of the human language So, we step outside of the languages we know (Albanian, English, Serbian, Turkish, etc.) and look at HUMAN LANGUAGE as an OBJECT that can be STUDIED and DESCRIBED

2) The structure of the human language PRAGMATICS MORPHOLOGY Human language as an object outside of all other languages you know SYNTAX HUMAN LANGUAGE Etc. PHONOLOGY AND PHONETICS SEMANTICS

2) The structure of the human language NOAM CHOMSKY

2) The structure of the human language: Noam Chomsky American linguist The Michael Jackson of linguistic theory His main proposal is human language has the same underlying structure which is biologically determined in the human mind and genetically transmitted

2) The structure of the human language: Noam Chomsky Three models are central to the understanding of language, and language needs therefore to be studied with these three components in mind (2) Performance (1) Competence (3) Language Acquisition

2) The structure of the human language COMPETENCE?

(1) Competence “GRAMMAR” Is what fluent speakers know about their language They have COMMAND over their language and are able to produce what they want to say They hear a sound and connect that sound to meaning “GRAMMAR”

(1) Competence SOUNDS COMPETENCE LINGUISTIC MEANING

2) The structure of the human language PERFORMANCE?

(2) Performance How speakers actually use their linguistic competence So, it does not only reflect a speaker’s knowledge of his/her language, but it is SPEECH PRODUCTION and SPEECH COMPREHENSION Speaker’s Message Extra-linguistic influences: examples? MC KRESHA Performance Sound

Video – Prive 60 seconds

2) The structure of the human language LANGUAGE ACQUISITION?

(3) The Language Acquisition Model Reflects the changes in competence and performance are influenced as a person acquires his/her language Language experience Acquisition Performance and Competence EXAMPLE: child acquires his/her language, based on his language experiences his knowledge and performance will change

2) The structure of the human language So, you basically need these 3 elements to address The structure and nature of human language How human language is put into use (communication)

3) The structure of the human language in linguistics LANGUAGES ARE RULE – GOVERNED ?

3) The structure of the human language in linguistics Example: schools RULE-GOVERNED Prescriptive grammar

QUESTION ARE WE, AS LINGUISTS, ALLOWED TO MAKE RULES OF GRAMMAR OR RULES OF HOW TO SPEAK CORRECTLY? The answer is no.

ANSWER The answer is no Linguists understand that languages are rule- governed – have their own set of rules (the system – the engine), but we are not allowed to prescribe, we are only allowed to analyze and describe

4) Language universals …and by describing language systems, we have found regularities across languages We have come to generalizations across language …and we have come to see language as a unified phenomenon LANGUAGES ARE UNIVERSAL: all languages have nouns, verbs, consonants and vowels

4) Language Universals = THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THAT CAN BE EXPRESSED IN ONE LANGUAGE, BUT CANNOT BE EXPRESSED IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE = EVEN IF THERE IS NO WORD FOR THE EXPRESSION, YOU CAN INVENT ONE (morphology)

4) Language universals: Body parts eyes head And here’s the interesting part If there is a word for “hand” in a language there will be a word for “foot” (and the other way around) If there is a word for “individual toes” there will be a word for individual “fingers” arm

The end You can find all this information in your book if you like (but you don’t have to study the book if you make good notes in my slides, so don’t worry about that) From page 6 – 10