INTRO TO LINGUISTICS

KNOW – LEARNED – QUESTIONS KNOW LEARNED QUESTIONS  What do you know about ‘linguistics’, if anything?  What did you learn about linguistics that particularly stands out?  Identify one question or idea this has topic raised for you.

Linguistics is…  The study of the nature and structure of language and languages.

Varieties of Linguistic Study  Historical Linguistics: The study of the histories and pre-histories of languages, with the discovery of ancient connections between languages, and with the study of language change.

Varieties of Linguistic Study  A person interested in historical linguistics could study words within the English language that have been borrowed from other languages, such as Latin:  Latin loans: organum (organ), rosa (rose), scola (school) prior (prior), hymnus (hymn), credo (creed)  Or, might study the historical roots of the Nova Scotian dialect by looking at patterns of immigration.

Varieties of Linguistic Study  Sociolinguistics: studies language as it represents fundamental dimensions of social behavior and human interaction. It is concerned with:  language attitudes among large populations on a national level  the fact that language tells us how we organize our social relationships within a particular community  how people manage their language in relation to their cultural backgrounds.

How We Study Language(s)  Language is studied in four main ways: 1. Phonology 2. Morphology 3. Syntax 4. Semantics

How We Study Language(s) 1. Phonology: The study of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language.  A phoneme is the smallest unit of meaningful sound that can distinguish words in a language.  You can use minimal pairs, such as “pin” and “bin”, as evidence for phonemes; each means something different, but they only differ in terms of one sound.

How We Study Language(s)  Phonemes are not universal; different languages have different units of meaningful sound.  Compare the phonemic alphabets of German, Spanish, and English:

How We Study Language(s) 2. Morphology: The study of the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed.  A morpheme is the smallest unit of linguistic meaning (not to be confused with a phoneme, which is the smallest unit of meaningful sound).  “pin” and “bin” are each single morphemes, that are comprised of a single syllable.

How We Study Language(s)  A single word may be composed of more than one morpheme though. For example:  Two morphemes: Coy + ish Desire + able  Three morphemes: Coy + ish + ness Desire + able + ity  Four morphemes: Un + desire + able + ity Gentle + man + li + ness  More than four morphemes: Un + gentle + man + li + ness

How We Study Language(s)  How many morphemes do you count in the following words?  Coquettishness  Frankly  Exceedingly  Pestles  Antidisestablishmentarianism

How We Study Language(s) 3. Syntax: The study of the structure and ordering of components within a sentence.  When looking at syntax, we notice and examine parts of speech (subject, verb, noun, pronoun, adjective, etc.) and word order.  For example, most English sentences tend to follow a Subject-Verb-Object order: The dog ate my flash drive. Monica gave Starr a blue dress.

How We Study Language(s) 4. Semantics: The study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences.  Semantic change is when a word changes meaning. It can become wider in meaning or narrower, or more positive or more negative. An example is the word 'bad', which has changed meaning from negative to positive in some contexts.

Attitudes in the Study of Language(s)  There are two dominant attitudes or approaches to the study of language(s): Prescriptive & Descriptive

Attitudes in the Study of Language(s)  “The view that one variety of language has an inherently higher value than others, and that this ought to be imposed on the whole of the speech community.”  Especially applied to grammar, vocabulary & pronunciation  Uses ideology of “correctness”  “[Its] main aim is to describe and explain the patterns of usage which are found in all varieties of the language, whether they are socially prestigious or not.”  In other words, this approach does not condemn dialects as ‘ugly’, ‘incorrect’, or ‘illogical’, simply because they adhere to different rules PRESCRIPTIVE APPROACHDESCRIPTIVE APPROACH Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. New York: Press Syndicate of the U of Cambridge, 1995.

Attitudes in the Study of Language(s)  What attitudes do you believe are found in the education system? Why?  Do you agree that there is/are varieties of language that have an inherently higher value than others? Why or why not?  Why might prescriptive attitudes be viewed as oppressive by some?

KNOW – LEARNED – QUESTIONS KNOW LEARNED QUESTIONS  What do you know about ‘linguistics’, if anything?  What did you learn about linguistics that particularly stands out?  Identify one question or idea this has topic raised for you.