Introduction to Contemporary Linguistics

Field of Linguistics What is language? “When we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the “human essence”, the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man. (Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind, 1968). According to the philosophy expressed in the myths and religions of many peoples, language is the source of human life and power. To understand our humanity, we must understand the nature of language that makes us human.

Language as a system of signs and means of communication Language plays a crucial role in our life as a functional system of human communication. It is central to our cultures and society and has played a significant role in intellectual history of the study of philosophy, mind, ancient history and culture.

Linguistics is the scientific studies of language. What is Linguistics? Linguistics is the scientific studies of language. A scientific approach to the study of language involves a critical attitude, it strives for objectivity, for developing hypotheses and putting them to the test. It means that linguistics is empirically grounded: it is based on actual language data. Linguistics is descriptive rather than prescriptive: its primary goal is to describe languages as they are actually spoken, what they are like and how are they used – rather than prescribe how they ought to be spoken.

The studies of language structures PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY MORPHOLOGY SYNTAX SEMANTICS PRAGMATICS

Interdisciplinary studies of language EVOLUTIONARY LINGUISTICS HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS SOCIOLINGUISTICS PSYCHOLINGUISTICS AND NEUROLINGUISTICS LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Phonetics and phonology Phonetics and phonology deal with the sound of the languages. Phonetics is concerned with the ways speech sounds are produced, their nature (the physics of sound waves) and how are they perceived. Phonology is concerned with the ways sounds are patterned in a language, with those characteristics that are significant in the sound system of the language.

Morphology Morphology deals with the way the words of a language are structured, how are they made up of smaller meaningful parts. E.g. reads is made up of read and the ending s, which tells you that the reading is being done by one person(who is not the speaker or hearer) at the present time or generally.

Syntax Syntax is concerned with the ways words go together to form sentences, and how the words are related to one another. For example The boy reads comics consists of a subject or doer of the action the boy, a verb representing an events reads and an object of the action comics. Sometimes words go together to make up constructions of intermediate size – larger than words but smaller than sentences – the boy.

Semantics and pragmatics Semantics and pragmatics deal with meaning. Semantics is concerned with the aspects of meaning that are encoded by words and grammar. Pragmatics handles the aspects of meaning of an utterance that come from its use in a particular context. The sentence Come again! Is made up of two words each of which has a meaning, as does the whole sentence (it is an instruction to the hearer to do something); these matters are the concern of semantics. But you can use this sentence in different circumstances and in different ways to mean different things -invitation to return, as an expression of disbelief, or request to repeat what has been said – such interpretations are the concern of pragmatics.

Psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics Psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics are concerned with the process involved in language production (e.g. speaking and writing) and comprehension (e.g. listening and reading). Psycholinguistics investigates the mental process underlying language processing, while neurolinguistics is biologically oriented, focusing on the brain’s language processing activities.

Language acquisition Language acquisition is the field of linguistics that investigates processes of attaining comprehension and production of a language. It is concerned with how children acquire their first language (native language or mother tongue) and how adults learn second or later languages.

Historical linguistics Historical linguistics studies how languages change over time. Languages never remain static for long: they change rapidly. Historical linguistics has methods for working out what changes are likely to have happened over time to a language or group of languages. It is also concerned with establishing genetic relations amongst languages: that is with showing that certain languages are related by having evolved from the same ancestor language. The comparative method is a technique devised for this purposes.

Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is concerned with language in its social context, with the relations between language and society. It explores the variation in languages associated with social phenomena such as the social group to which speakers and/or hearers belong (e.g. differences in speech according to class in Western societies). Other topics of interest in sociolonguistics are multilingualism, language choice (what motivates language choice in multilingual settings) attitudes to language and language variation, and standard and non-standard varieties of a language

Discourse analysis Discourse analysis examines stretches of language, both spoken and written, larger than sentence. It attempts to find regularities in the formation of these sentences, and correlations with grammatical, phonological, lexical and semantic phenomena. Among other issues are: how sentences are connected, how texts are made coherent and so on. Conversational analysis focuses attention on the properties of everyday conversation, including turn-taking (how conversation partners organize the exchange of speaker and hearer roles), negotiations of interactive expectations and goals, use of discourse markers and conversational coherence.

Evolutionary linguistics Evolutionary linguistics is concerned with the origins of language, with how we came to speak. Perhaps the basic question is why are we the only species with language? Is language a part of our genetic make-up as human beings or does biology merely permit us to speak?

Theories of language origin

The divine source The divine source – presented in most religions of the world, humans were provided with language by a divine source; The hypothesis was if human infants were allowed to grow up without hearing any language, they would speak the original God given language.

The natural sound source The natural sound source – primitive words could have been imitations of natural sounds; In English: cukoo, boom, hiss, bow-wow; This process of word formation is called onomatopeia, examples could be found in any language;

The social interaction source The social interaction source – “yo-he-ho” theory places the development of human language in a social context. People lived in groups, human sounds was a form of communication, no explication of the origins of the sounds provided. Animals use sounds, but have no capacity for speech.

The physical adaptation source The physical adaptation source – changes in physical features of humans: upright posture on two feet, change in front limbs functions, vocal tract etc. Evolutionary development of physical features relevant for speech: human teeth, lips, mouth, tongue – face with muscle to deliver sounds through their different shapes. The human larynx (voice box) and pharynx differ from animals’.

The tool-making source The tool-making source – physical adaptation process led to change of functions. Gestures – a precursor of language. Tool-making –evidence of a brain at work. Functions of motor movement (vocalization, speaking) and object manipulation (making tools) are close in the left hemisphere of the brain. There might be an evolutionary connection between them, and both were involved in the development of speaking; Other idea – single noises to indicate objects, but it lacks structural organization.

The genetic source Innateness hypothesis – children are born with a special capacity for language. Human genetics, a crucial mutation – not a gradual change, but something that happened rather quickly; The investigation of language origin turns into a search for the special ‘language gene’ that only humans possess.

George Yule. The study of Language. Chapter 1 Home assignment George Yule. The study of Language. Chapter 1