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

2. 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

3. The tower of BABEL ?

5. 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

6. 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”

7. Question: what is linguistics?

8. 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?

9. 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

10. 2) The structure of the human language

11. 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

12. 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

13. 2) The structure of the human language
NOAM CHOMSKY

14. 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

15. 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

16. 2) The structure of the human language
COMPETENCE?

17. (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”

18. (1) Competence
SOUNDS
COMPETENCE
LINGUISTIC MEANING

19. 2) The structure of the human language
PERFORMANCE?

20. (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

21. Video – Prive 60 seconds

23. 2) The structure of the human language
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION?

24. (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

25. 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)

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

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

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

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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)

32. 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

33. 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