Introduction to Linguistics - PowerPoint Presentation

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Introduction to Linguistics

Fakry

Hamdani

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LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

(

n.

) The scientific study of language; also called

linguistic

science

. (

David Crystal:2008)

Linguistics

is a comparatively new science, or new, at least, in the form it has taken in recent years. The science seeks to answer the following questions: (a) what exactly do we know when we know a language (b) how is this knowledge acquired and (c) how is such knowledge used? (Petra)

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Langage

, Langue & Parole

langage

/

l

Fì

a

pè

/ (

n.

) A French term introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure to

refer to

the human biological faculty of speech.

(David Crystal:2008)

It is distinguished in his approach from

langue

, the language system of a speech community.

langue

denotes a system of

internalised

, shared

rules governing

a national

language’s

vocabulary, grammar

, and sound system;

Parole

designates

actual oral and

written communication

by a member or

members of

a particular speech community.

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Contexts in which linguistics arose

philosophy (Greece)

language teaching (Alexandria)

philology (study of ancient texts, often of sacred nature) (India, Greece)

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Cratylus: a Socratic dialogue

Protagonists:

Cratylus: words are natural signs, some names are ‘correct’ others are not

Hermogenes: names are arbitrary/ conventional

Socrates: middle position: there is such a thing as a correct name, but names may be corrupted, and yet be used

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Etymology of theos

‘god’

Socrates: It seems to me that the first inhabitants of Greece believed only in those gods in which many foreigners still believe today – the sun, the moon, earth, stars and sky. And, seeing that these were always moving or running, they gave them the name ‘theoi’ because it was their nature to run (

thein

).

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Modern View (F. de Saussure)

words and expressions are basically conventional: arbitrary by agreement in a speech community

no Humpty-Dumpty

partial motivation of signs possible:

when they are complex

onomatopoetic words

(maybe) sound symbolism

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Study of human language

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The interdisciplinary nature of modern Linguistics

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Determining

Sincerity

In an essay that looks at media coverage in the aftermath of the death

of Princess

Diana on 31 August 1997, Martin Montgomery discusses ways

in which

audiences constructed their own ideas about the sincerity of what

they saw

and heard on radio and television.

The

essay examines ways in

which members

of the British public reacted to the three highest-profile

tributes broadcast

by the BBC in the days following Diana’s death.

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The

first of

these was

a television interview given by Tony

Blair. Standing

in the open air,

Blair spoke

without notes direct to camera, his voice

trembling and

hesitant with emotion

.

On 5 September came the second major broadcast, a speech to the nation by the Queen. She expressed her sadness at the death of her daughter-in-law and declared that she was speaking as ‘your Queen and as a grandmother’.

This broadcast was made live, using a teleprompter and showed the Queen composed and speaking clearly and fluently.

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The third speech analyzed was the address by Diana’s brother, the Earl Spencer, at her funeral service in Westminster Abbey, when he pledged that her ‘blood family’ would do all they could to raise her sons as she would have wished and appeared to be on the verge of breaking down in tears towards the end of his oration.

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What is language?

A system of symbols with standard meanings.

Allows humans to communicate and is the main vehicle of transmission of culture.

Language provides context for symbolic understanding.

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Other Communication

Human:

Direct

Body language (kinesics), tone of voice, personal space (proxemics), gesture

Indirect

Writing, mathematics, music, painting, signs

Nonhuman:

Sounds, odors, body movements

Call systems, ethologists

ASL – American Sign Language

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Nonhuman Communication - ASL

American Sign Language taught to chimps and gorillas

Physiologically and developmentally similar to humans.

Chimps taught: Lana, Nim, Kanzi, Washoe

Gorillas taught: Koko

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Nonhuman Communication - Washoe

Born 1965

Taught ASL 1966

Mastered 100s of signs

First nonhuman to learn language

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Nonhuman Communication - Lana

Taught with keyboard, 1970s

Able to use and combine signs

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Nonhuman Communication - Koko

1970s, first gorilla taught ASL

IQ of 85 at 4 years old

Koko learning ASL

Koko on AOL

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Nonhuman Communication –

Nim Chimpsky

1980s taught ASL

Wouldn’t initiate conversation

Never signed to other chimps

Nim Chimpsky and his namesake, the famed linguist Noam Chomsky

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Nonhuman Communication - Kanzi

1980s, communicates with lexigrams

Vocabulary of 90 symbols

Could understand English

Command of syntax

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Nonhuman Communication –

Jane Goodall

Gombe Game Reserve

Chimps need stimulus to make sounds

Since 1960s

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Animal v. Human Communication

Four differences:

Productivity (infinite expressions)

Displacement (past, present, future)

Arbitrariness (no link between word and sound)

Combining sounds (phonemes)Dime versus dine or

lock

versus

rock

in English

English has 45 phonemes; Italian 27; Hawaiian 13

Nonhuman animals cannot combine sounds (1:1 correspondence of sounds)

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Anatomy of Language

Brain

Size

Laterality

Wernicke’s area

Broca’s areaMotor cortex

Motor cortex

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Anatomy of Language

Respiratory System

Larger lung capacity

Larynx, pharynx

Tongue, lips, nose

Hyoid

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Structure of Language

Phonology (sounds)

Morphology (words)

Syntax (sentence structure)

Semantics (meaning)Pragmatics or grammar (rules)

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Structure of Language - Phonology

The study of sounds of a language.

No human language uses all the sounds humans can make.

IPA – International Phonetic Alphabet

Phonemes and phones

/l/ and /r/ = phonemes (English has 40)

/p/ and /ph/ = phones

Ghoti = fish (tou

gh

, w

o

men, posi

ti

on)

Other sounds

Tones, nasals, clicks (Genesis in the !Kung language)

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Structure of Language - Morphology

Morphemes are the smallest units of language.

Words

(dog

,

cat) = free morphemesPrefixes (un-,

sub-

)

Syllables (-

s

, -

ly

)

Declining and conjugating

Verbs are conjugated (am, are, is)

Nouns are declined in some languages

Latin, Greek, German, Russian, etc.

Word form changes based on position in sentence.

= bound morphemes

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Structure of Language - Syntax

Rules for how to put together sentences and phrases.

Six possible arrangements, based on Subject, Verb, Object

English is SVO = The girl will hit the boy.

Forming questions: English = V

1SV2O?

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Structure of Language - Syntax

Example of syntax

Lewis Carroll’s

Jabberwocky:

‘Twas brillig, and the

slithy

toves

Did

gyre

and

gimble

in the

wabe

.

All

mimsy

were the

borogoves

,

And the

mome raths

outgrabe. Verb Noun Adjective

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Structure of Language - Semantics

The meaning of symbols, words, phrases, and sentences of a language.

Ethnosemantics and kinship terms

Aunt/uncle

versus non-gendered

cousin

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Evolution of Language

Old Theories:

“bowwow” and “ding-dong”

Locke, B.F. Skinner, Descartes

New Theories:

Noam ChomskyUniversal and generative grammarPrinciples and parametersCreoles, pidgins, and

Ebonics

Sapir-Whorf

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Historical Linguistics

Focuses on how language changes over time and how languages relate to one another.

Anthropologists are interested in cultural features that correlate with language families.

Reconstruction of languages:

Proto-Indo-European

Sino-Tibetan

Linguistic divergence

Gradual or by force

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PIE

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Historical Linguistics – Old English

Compare Old, Middle, and Modern English

Beowulf

(Old English):

Hwæt!

We Gardena in

geardagum

,

þeod

cyninga

, þrym gefrunon,

hu

ða

æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,

monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,

egsode

eorlas

.

Lo

, praise of the prowess of people-

kings

of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,

w

e have heard

, and what honor

the

athelings won! Oft Scyld the Scefing tore the mead-bench from squadroned foes, from many a tribe awing the

earls

.

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Historical Linguistics –

Middle English

The Canterbury Tales

(Middle English):

This worthy lymytour, this noble Frere,

He made alwey a maner louryng chiere

Upon the Somonour, but for honestee

No vileyns word as yet to hym spak he.

This worthy limiter, this noble friar,

He turned always a lowering face, and dire,

Upon the summoner, but for courtesy

No rude and insolent word as yet spoke he.

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Descriptive Linguistics

Also called structural linguistics

Tries to discover the rules of phonology, morphology, and syntax of another language, especially those with no written dictionary or grammar.

Seeks to discover language rules that are not written down but are discoverable in actual speech.

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Sociolinguistics

Like descriptive linguistics in a way, in that sociolinguists are concerned with the ethnography of speaking—cultural and subcultural patterns of speech variation in different social contexts.

Examples:

Pronunciation and dialects

Honorifics and social status

Gender differences

Multilingualism

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Fun Stuff

Language as art

Calligraphy

Illumination

Left to Right:

Chinese

Greek

Arabic

English

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Semiotics:

Some Points of

Reference

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‘Science of signs’

Signification:

systematic, structural aspects of signs; meaning-bearing potential

Communication:

transactional aspects of signs; cf. Jakobson’s codes and messages, source and destination, channel and context

Semiotics

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Saussure: signifier-signified; arbitrary and conventional signs; (mentalistic)

Peirce:

Representatum

(perceptible object) – ‘stands to somebody, for something

Object

in some respect’To create an

interpretant

[itself a sign]’

Categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness

The Sign [N]

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Sign = Linguistic form + Meaning

‘The word

cat’ = [

kh æ t] +

Saussure’s Theory of the Sign

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‘The word

cat’ = [

kh

æ t] +

SIGN = SIGNIFIER

+ SIGNIFIEDSignification

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Water

Wasser

Eau

Shui

Signs are Arbitrary

/

li

:/

“lit” in French

=

bed

Question

marker

in Russian

“

meadow,”

“side sheltered from

the wind,” or

“proper name Lee”

in English

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– [

kakodudldu

]

– [

kikiRiki] German– [kokoRiko

] French– [kukuku] Spanish

Onomatopoeia

– [

miauw

]

– [

miauw

] German

– [

meauw

] Chinese

– [

niauw

] Japanese

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English has 11 basic color terms.

Russian

has 12 –

siniy

(dark blue),goluboy

(light blue).Shona (a language of Zimbabwe) has 3: citema

(black),

cicena

(white

),

cipswuka

(red).

Bassa

(a language of Liberia) has

2:

hui

and

ziza

.

Linguistic Relativity

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Saussure



Hjelmslev

 Greimas, Metz and Eco

– structuralism; content-expression (signified-signifier); linguistic bias; paradigms and syntagmsPeirce

 Morris

–

rich typologies of signs; emphasis on process of semiosis (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic dimensions); semiotic typology of discourse

Eco

–

‘toward a logic of culture’; a theory of codes and a theory of sign production

Sebeok

–

‘how the body interacts with the mind to produce signs, messages, thought and ultimately cultural behaviour’

Semioticians

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The syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of the sign

A theory or discipline studying these properties

Theories about how to study these properties

Methods: “method of formalization; method of language analysis; method of interpretation”

Application: “use semiotics to analyze some fragment of reality, e.g. arts, architecture, film… fashion, folk customs, etc.”

Summary: Five Notions of Semiotics [ENC]

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“Semiotics, depending on whether it is defined as a type of research or as a doctrine, as a theory or as a set of methods, can

use the tools of several sciences or doctrines

, from logic and

metamathematics

to linguistics, aesthetics, and all the ‘social sciences.’”

But, “it must refer constantly and consistently to any of its possible objects through sign and sign functioning, using methods implying a theory of signs and sign function

”

‘Summary’ [ENC]

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