Invitation to linguistics

By Shao Chunyan

What is language? Human speech The ability to communicate by this means A system of vocal sounds and combinations of such

sounds to which meaning is attributed used for the expression or communication of thoughts and feelings

The written representation of such a system Definition: language is a means of verbal

communication Instrumental, social and conventional, sophisticated

Design features of language Arbitrariness: (There is no natural relationship

between a form and its sound) dog—狗 Onomatopoeia Levels of Arbitrariness: morpheme, syntax, Convention Duality: (the property of having two levels of structure

such that units of the primary level(meaning) are composed of elements of the secondary level(sound) and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization.)

Hierarchical: letter-syllable-morpheme-word-phrase-sentence-paragraphs

Design features of language Creativity: (resourceful because of its duality and recu

rsiveness) The ability to create new meanings Watergate—…门 Recursive: I lent her the book that my father gave me i

n the library where there is a famous person who influenced the whole country in 1923 when the immigrates flooded in who wanted to escape from….

Displacement (human lgs. Enable their speakers to symbolize objects, events, and concepts which are not present at the moment of communication. )

Can dogs tell his mother that he saw a bone yesterday?

Origin of lg.

The bow-wow theory: animal calls The pooh-pooh theory: instinctive sounds o

f pain, anger, joy The “yo-he-ho” theory: rhythmic grunts The experiments aimed to find out about th

e origin of languages.

Functions of lg. Informative: lg. Is the instrument of thought

and people use it to communicate with each other

Interpersonal: the sociological use of lg. By which people establish and maintain their status in a society.

---“I was wondering if you could be so kind as to close the door.” “the door!”

Identity: physically, psychologically, geographically, ethnically, socially.

Functions of lg. Performative: changing the social status of persons.

---I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.

---I sentence you fifteen years of imprisonment. Emotive: changing the emotions of the audience for

and against someone.

---She is a very bad girl. I don’t like her. Phatic communion: to maintain a comfortable relati

onship between people without involving any factual content.

--Lovely weather, isn’t it?

Functions of lg. Recreational: the use of lg. For the sheer joy o

f using it.Poem. R is roaring thunder A is amazing lightening I is incredible downpower N is nothing to do. Metalingual: lg. Can be used to talk about itse

lf. Paraphrase, explanations.--What do you mean?--I mean that ….

What is linguistics? Definition: the science of lg., or the scientific study

of lg. Main branches of linguistics --phonetics --phonology --morphology --syntax --semantics --pragmatics Macrolinguistics: interdisciplinary studies --psycholinguistics --sociolinguistics --Anthropological linguistics --computational linguistics

phonetics The study of speech sound, including the prod

uction of speech, that is, how speech sounds are actually made, transmitted, and received, the sounds of speech, the description and classification of speech sounds, words and connected speech.

Anatomy and physiology Articulatory phonetics Acoustic phonetics Auditory phonetics

phonology

The study of the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds, and the shape of syllable.

The point of departure is phoneme. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound

system that can signal a difference in meaning. /p/ in put and please, put and but

morphology The study of the internal organization of words. It

studies the minimal units of meaning—morphemes and word-formation processes.

Morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning.

--The dog sees the rabbit.

--The rabbit sees the dog.

--Der Lehrer seht mich.

--Mich seht der Lehrer.

syntax

The study of the principles of forming and understanding correct English sentences. The rules specify word order, word classes and other sentence elements.

I saw ( (a man) with a binoscope).

I saw ( a man ) with a binoscope.

semantics

Examine how meaning is encoded in a language.the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular.

Sense relations. A word and its reference. What is a human being? What is a table?—four legs? What is a horse? Is crow always black?

pragmatics

The study of meaning in context. It deals with particular utterances in particular situation and is especially concerned with the various ways in which the many social contexts of language performance can influence interpretation.

You are beautiful without glasses.

Psycholinguistics The investigation of the interrelation of language

and mind, in processing and producing utterances and in language acquisition.

How does a child learn a language? How do people relate language to the world? What is the relation between language and cogniti

on? There is a boat in the lake.—湖里有一条船。

sociolinguistics The study of the characteristics of language

varieties, the characteristics f their functions, and the characteristics of their speakers as these three constantly interact and change within a speech community.

What lag. Do you speak? Where do you come from? What social class do you belong to?

Anthropological linguistics--Anthropology fieldwork and linguistics

--How languages are related? what history does it have?

Computational linguistics

--The interdisciplinary field which centers around the use of computer to process or produce human languages.

Important distinctions in linguistics Descriptive vs. prescriptive

--What lg. Should be like. Vs. what lg. Is like.

--You should say this.

--People say this. Synchronic vs. diachronic (Saussure)

--Shakespeare English, modern Chinese.

--The change of the existential sentence through history.

Important distinctions in linguistics Langue vs. parole (Saussure)

--The linguistic competence of the speaker vs. the actual phenomena or data of linguistics.

--The social bond that constitute language --. the actual use of speaking

Competence vs. performance (Chomsky)

--A language users underlying knowledge about the system of rules---the actual use of language in concrete situations