I’m Heidi Campbell

 Many aspects of acquiring a language we may simply be unaware of.  Much of today will make you aware of many subconscious aspects of language.

 Speak and be spoken to by others who know that language  Produce sounds that signify certain meaning  Understand/interpret sounds produced by others.  Language is more than speech  Modality of expression can vary such as sign language.  Speaking a language requires knowledge that most speakers are unaware of.

 Why would a French speaker pronounce ‘this’ and ‘that’ as ‘zis’ and ‘zat’?  Why would a Native English speaker have difficulty pronouncing ◦ Nkrumah or ◦ Xnoskribnwztl?

 Is ‘boy’ a word?  Is ‘moy’ a word?  Is ‘toy’ a word?  How do you know?

 You know: ◦ words in that language ◦ which sequence of sounds are related to specific meanings and which are not.

Relation of Form and Meaning…

 When we learn a language we learn a picture of a house represents the word house  In French a picture of a house is represented by the word maison.  As Juliet said… “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”

 Onomatopoeic = example buzz or murmur.  Differs per language.  In English what sound does a Turkey make: = gobble gobble.  In Istanbul a turkey goes glu-glu.

 Words are finite  Sentences are infinite  You may begin learning a language by learning words  In actuality learning a language involves much more than learning the words only

 (Sounds form words) (Words form phrases) (Phrases form sentences)  Noam Chomsky = one of the people most responsible for modern revolution in language and cognitive science refers to infinite sentence creation and the ability to comprehend as the creative aspect of language.  Contrary to Chomsky, behaviorist believe language is a set of learned responses to stimuli.  Knowledge of a language, makes it possible to understand and produce new sentences. Few sentences are stored in our brain. All human languages permit their speakers to increase the length; complexity of sentences; creativity is a universal property of human language.

 How do you know the difference in Sentences and Nonsentences?  Not every string of words constitutes a sentence.

 Linguistic Competence =  Linguistic Performance =

 Summary Linguistic Competence and Linguistic Performance in your notes:  Linguistic Competence = what we know versus: ◦ The knowledge necessary to produce sentences of a language

 Linguistic Performance = how we use this knowledge in actual speech production and comprehension – applying knowledge of language to form comprehensible communication. If sentences are too long speakers will lose track of what they have said or comprehend. Sentences are thoughts organized into a string of words.  For the most part linguistic knowledge is unconscious knowledge, ie acquisitions.  The linguistic system – the sounds, structures, meanings, words and rules for putting them all together is acquired with no conscious awareness.

 Teaching grammars assume that the student already knows one language  Then compares the grammar of the target language with the grammar of the native language.

 Universal grammar = ◦ those rules representing the universal properties that all languages share.  Particular grammar = ◦ rules of particular languages

 Children acquire a language within a short period of time despite the fact that parents and other caregivers do not provide them with any specific language instruction.

 The Sounds of Language.  The study of speech sounds is called phonetics.

 When we speak the sounds seems to run together and it isn’t at all obvious where one sound ends and the next begins.

 I have acoupla socks 'round here somewhere.  Ain'tcha done yet?  Algo next.  D'jeat yet?  F'yno how to do that problem, then just do it.  Why jask?  Wassamatta wit'chu?  Whataya doin'?  You didn't bring your truck wijyadidja?

 It is important to know what an individual sound is, and how each sound is different.  It can be difficult to identify how sounds differ because when we speak, the sounds seem to run together and it is not at all obvious where one sound ends and the next begins.  Fortunately when we know the language we hear the individual sounds in our minds ear and are able to make sense of them.  Mother: hold on / 2 year old – I’m holing don  not know word breaks

 While all languages have sounds,  languages vary because they differ to a greater or lesser degree  in the inventory of speech sounds that words are built on.  This is also known as language distance.

 Acoustic phonetics- physical properties of sound.  Auditory phonetics – how listeners perceive sounds.  Articulatory phonetics – the concern of Ch 6 – study of how the vocal tract produces the language

 Alphabetic spelling, ◦ does not represent the sounds of a language in a consistent way.

 We must devise a way for the same sound to be spelled with the same letter every time, and for any letter to stand for the same sound every time.  Example: Did he believe that Ceasar could see the people seize the seas? ◦ The same sound is represented by: ae, ee eo, ei  Combination of letters represents one sounds = shoot, character,  Some letters have no sound (silent letters) knot, gnaw, lamb autumn, sword

 Since it was unsuccessful to change spelling, hence phoneticians had to invent an alphabet to represent ◦ one sound = one symbol correspondence.  International Phonetic Alphabet IPA – was created in 1888 to symbolize the sounds of all languages.  It uses both ordinary alphabet and invented symbols.  Each character of the alphabet had exactly one value across all of the world’s languages.

 Read the paragraph in your group – ◦ then report back to the whole class… ◦ (In goups of 4 one person in each group take a paragraph – then all 1s come to the front)