1. Language and Linguistics
Introduction
Language and Linguistics

2. Preview Introduction: importance of language Communication systems
Functions of language
Universal properties of language
Definitions of language
Approaches to the study of language

3. Importance of language
A means to pass a record of what has happened from one generation to the next through stories and sagas, even before written records
Development of tools to meet a broad range of needs – impossible without language

4. Importance of language
Capacity for self-awareness and abstract thought – dependent on language
The ability to transfer complex information, to discuss the meaning of events and outcomes of alternative actions, to share feelings and ideas – impossible without language

5. Questions for discussion
What is communication?
Which communication systems can you think of?
What are the basic elements of communication?
Are we the only beings capable of communication?
Is communication always verbal?

6. Questions for discussion
What distinguishes human from animal communication?
Why is context important for communication?
What types of context can you think of?

7. Communication Communication – transfer of information
Sign – a basic unit of communication
Sign – sth that stands for sth else (referent) to communicate it (communicate = to make sth common)

8. What is a sign?

9. Sign

10. Semiotic triangle

11. Semantic Triangle

12. Communication
sign
communication
human
animal

13. Communication verbal natural non-verbal (gestures, etc.) human
artificial (street signs)

14. Basic elements of communication
Sender: sends the message
Channel: the medium used to transmit the message
Receiver: reconstructs the message
Feedback

15. Communication

16. Code Sender intentionally produces a sign for the recipient
How can the recipient interpret the sign?
Code – a set of signs, determined by convention, that provides the rules of interpretation
All communication systems - codes

17. Code For successful communication, the code has to be shared
The lack of a common code – a recurring issue in the area of language and law

18. Context Needed for communication over and above the code
Co-present communication brings its own context i.e. the surrounding space (deictics)

19. Context Immediate verbal context Situational context
Socio-cultural context

20. Answer the following: What are the main functions of language?
What are the main properties of language?
What is linguistics?
Can you mention some branches of linguistics?

21. Functions of language R. Jakobson’s classification
Message
Sender-Receiver
Channel
Channel (contact)
Phatic f.
Sender (emotive or expressive f.)
Message (poetic f.)
Code (metalinguistic f.)
Context
Referential f.)
Receiver (conative f.)

22. Language functions
Emotive (expressive)-expresses the speaker’s feelings (“What a surprise!”)
Referential – information about external reality
Conative – making the recipient act in a particular way (“Open the window!”)
Phatic – establishing contact (“Hello!”)
Poetic – focuses on the message (Carl Sandburg: “The fog comes in on little cat feet”; metaphor)
Metalinguistic – focuses on the code “What’s the subject of this sentence?”

23. Properties of language
Multifunctionality
Freedom from stimulus
Distancing
Social transferability
Transferability of medium

24. Multifunctionality of language
Expresses thought
Transmits information
Initiates, maintains and regulates cooperative activities and social relationships
Expresses feelings and states of mind
Resolves problems
Creates possible worlds

25. Freedom from stimulus
Language – independent from stimuli, i.e. external aspects of a situation
Distinguishes human from animal language
Human verbal messages – free, no deterministic aspect

26. Distancing
The possibility to formulate messages which are distant in space and time – characteristic of human language as opposed to animal communication

27. Social transferability
Anthropologically, any language is socially and culturally transmitted
Any human being acquires at least one language (mother tongue) and can learn other languages
Innate language faculty: universal properties of language – empty slots filled by material provided by the environment

28. Transferability of medium: spoken and written
Primacy of the spoken language:
Ontogenetic (a child first learns to speak)
Filogenetic (writing developed much later in human history)
Social primacy of the written language in modern societies (higher cultural prestige; science, education, law)

29. Universal properties of language
Although languages differ in many ways, they are made possible by the same genetic information, processed in the brain in the same ways and they share some fundamental features and structural characteristics
Understanding and explaining the properties which are universal to all languages, as well as those which vary across languages – task of general linguistics

30. Universal properties of language
Arbitrariness
Modularity
Compositionality and recursion
Discreteness
Productivity
Reliance on context
Variability

31. Arbitrariness
the relationship between the form (the sounds / words / letters / characters) that we use has no natural/meaningful relationship with their meaning, therefore this relationship (between form and meaning) is said to be arbitrary.

32. Modularity
Language – a modular system: produced and interpreted by using a set of component subsystems (or modules) in a coordinated way
Different regions of the brain – associated with different aspects of language processing

33. Modularity Production and interpretation of speech sounds – phonetics
Words and their structure – morphology
Structure of sentences – syntax
Lexicon – interacting with these properties
Meaning – semantics
Discourse - organization of language beyond the sentence

34. Compositionality and recursion
Languages – organized into constituents, allowing simpler structures to build increasingly complex units

35. Compositionality: examples
She sat down.
The smart woman sat down.
The tall, dark-haired, smart woman with the bright red sweater and pearl necklace sat down.

36. Recursion
Property of language which allows grammatical processes to be applied repeatedly, combining constituents to produce and infinite variety of sentences of indefinite length

37. Recursion
Profound implications – noone can learn a language by memorizing all the sentences of that language, so there must be another explanation for how human beings are able to learn them
The human brain – finite, but recursiveness means that it is capable of producing and understanding an infinite number of sentences

38. Productivity
Language can always produce messages that have never been produced before
Infinite combinations of basic units whose number is limited
Rule-based creativity: infinite productivity based on a limited number of principles and rules

39. Discretness
Units of language are not continuous; there is a limit between one element and the next

40. Discreteness Language – composed of sounds, words, sentences etc.
The fact that we hear speech as a sequence of individual sounds, words and sentences – incredible accomplishment
Children in the first year or two learn to pick out words from the stream of speech with no instruction

41. Reliance on context
Pronounciation of one and won: the same sequence of sounds can represent different concepts in the same language
The meaning of a sentence depends on the context in which it is uttered
The context: sentence or sentences which precede it, or the broader physical or social circumstances in which the sentence is uttered

42. Reliance on context: examples
It’s cold in here – could be a complaint, a request to close the window, or even a compliment
Languages rely on the connection between form (what is said) and context (when, where, by whom, and to whom it is said) to communicate much more than is contained in a sequence of words.

43. Variability
The language people use varies depending on who’s speaking and the situation in which they are speaking
Variation – essence of information
Variability of language – indexical
Speakers vary the language they use to signal their social identities (geographical, social status, ethnicity, gender) and also to define the immediate speech situation

44. Variability
People show who they are by the variety of language they use - they reveal their geographical origin and social status.
They signal membership in a range of overlapping social groups: male or female, teenager or adult, member of an ethic group, etc.

45. Variability
People also use language variation to communicate the situation and purpose in which they are talking, as well as the roles they are playing in those situations

46. Definition of language
Language is
a) a code
B) which organizes a system of signs which are
C) primarily phonic-acoustic
D) fundamentally arbitrary
F) capable of expressing anything
G) possessed as interiorized knowledge which allows to produce infinite sentences starting from a limited number of elements

47. General principles for the analysis of language
Synchronic and diachronic approach
Langue et parole
Paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis
Levels of analysis

48. The descriptive approach
Language – universal characteristic of human beings
All languages (and language varieties) – equal
Language varieties differ because over time they have adapted to differing needs of their speech communities
Each language – equally functional in meeting the communicative needs of its speech community

49. Standard languages vs other varieties
the language variety of the dominant group is often perceived as having higher status as well, especially if speaking it affords increased access to power or wealth; language varieties spoken by the less powerful groups – often stigmatized as “incorrect” or “bad” language

50. The descriptive approach
Linguists take language as they find it, rather than attempting to regulate it in the direction of preconceived criteria

51. Approaches to the study of language
Synchronic – diachronic
Langue – parole
Paradigmatic - syntagmatic

52. Synchronic and diachronic study
Syn (‘with’) + chronos (‘time’)
Dia (‘across’) + chronos
Diachrony – study of language over time (history)
Synchrony – study of language at a definite moment in time
Two approaches - complementary

53. Langue et parole
Distinction between the abstract system (langue) and its concrete realization (parole): Ferdinand de Saussure
System and use (Louis Hjelmslev)
Competence and performance (Noam Chomsky)

54. Langue et parole
Langue (system, competence) – a set of interiorized rules of a language that constitute our capacity to produce messages in a certain language; abstract, unconscious competence shared by all members of a linguistic community
Parole – individual linguistic act, concrete realization of a message in a particular language

55. Langue et parole
Langue et parole: opposition between the abstract, social and constant on the one hand (langue) and concrete, individual and variable on the other (parole)

56. Paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis
Paradigmatic axis concerns relations on the level of the system, syntagmatic axis concerns relations on the level of structures that realize the potentialities of the system
Paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimensions constitute a double perspective according to which the structures, combinations of linguistic signs, function

57. Paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis
Paradigmatic axis

58. Levels of analysis
Phonetics and phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics

59. External world cognitively codified
Levels of analysis
Physical reality
Phonetics and phonology
Morphology Syntax
Lexicon and semantics
External world cognitively codified

60. Levels of analysis
Phonetics and phonology, semantics – link with external reality
Phonetics – physical support to communication
Semantics: conceptualisation and cognitive categorisation of our world

61. Levels of analysis
Morphology and syntax – internal levels on which the system is organised according to the principles that govern the language faculty

62. Branches of linguistics
General linguistics
Historical linguistics
Language acquisition
Sociolinguistics
Psycholinguistics
Cognitive linguistics
Computational linguistics
Corpus linguistics
Applied linguistics (foreign language learning, LSP, translation studies, forensic linguistics etc.)

63. Summary Communication systems Functions of language
Universal properties of language
Study of language: linguistics