Linguistic Systems

What is Linguistics?•Linguistics is defined as the science of language or the scientific study of language. In this definition, there are two key terms; the first is scientific or science and the second is language.

What do we mean by scientific?•There are scientific and non-scientific methods.

The scientific method is described as empirical, exhaustive, exact and objective. ▫Empirical: based on evidence.▫Exhaustive: linguistic description should be

comprehensive, adequate and cover all the aspects of the phenomenon.

▫Exact: uses exact language avoiding vague terms (ill-defined words) like some, few, I think, I imagine.

▫Objective: avoiding moral terms that signify subjectivity which invalidates linguistic results and findings. Such as "I think this language is superior/inferior.”

•What is Language?•Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

•system a rule governed phenomenon (phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic rules).

•vocal symbols sounds– language is primarily a spoken phenomenon.

•for human communication the main function of language is communication.

Branches of Linguistics:•Theoretical linguistics is the branch of

linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge. The fields that are generally considered the core of theoretical linguistics are syntax, phonology, morphology, and semantics.

•Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study that identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology.

•The main objective of the current lecture is to have an introductory knowledge of linguistics. Therefore, our attention will be on pure theoretical knowledge of the linguistic systems of language.

Linguistic Systems: MORPHOLOGY• What is Morphology?• Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies

word formation.• What is a Morpheme?• It is the smallest/minimal meaningful unit in a

language.• smallest that unit which can not be broken down

into smaller units, for example /house/ a free morpheme which can not be broken down into /hou/ - /se/* while

description-/describe/-/tion/ each morpheme has a meaning /tion/ has a grammatical (derivational) function.

Classifications of Morphemes in Language:•The Free and Bound Morphemes:•Free morpheme refers to a morpheme which can

stand (occur) alone by itself- independent. It doesn't need any other units in the language to occur in utterances /describe/-/style/.

•Bound morpheme is not independent- can't occur by itself – usually attached to other morphemes /tion/ - /ish/.

•Simple words and Complex words:•Simple word is the word that consists of a

morpheme (unit) /spoon/ - / mosque/.•Complex word is the word that consists of two

morphemes (units) trees /tree/+/s/.

•Open class words and closed class words:

•Open class words are the content words (morphemes); they are the major parts of speech nouns, verbs …etc.

•- Why are they called OPEN?•Because language can develop, can borrow words (nouns – verbs ..) from time to time.

• Closed class words are the function words (articles, prepositions, demonstratives, conjunctions…etc).

•Inflectional Morphemes and Derivational Morphemes:

• Inflectional morphemes:•This area studies the inflectional morphemes,

their functions, and their behaviors in the language (inflectional markers-inflectional morphemes-inflectional endings). They are the following: the plural /s/, the third person present singular /s/, the possessive /s/, the past /ed/, the past participle markers, e.g. /en/, the present participle /ing/, the comparative /er/ and the superlative /est/.

• Derivational morphemes:• They are the bound morphemes. They are

derivational because we use them to derive new words, for example, "son" and "sonny" the derivational morpheme can change the grammatical category of a word, while the inflectional morphemes do not.

• Which one is used first? (Inflectional or Derivational)?

• The inflectional morphemes follow the derivational ones, for example, modern modernize modernizes.

• They may have the same form, for example, ing "speaking in a conference" and "he is speaking" – er "teacher" and "bigger."

Linguistic Systems: Phonology•What is the difference between Phonology

and Phonetics?•Phonetics: is the study of human speech

sounds. It is mostly concerned with the physical properties of the human speech sounds. Therefore, when we define articulatory phonetics, we say it is a study of how the sounds are articulated; how they are produced; this is a physical mechanism. In phonetics, we focus on speech organs and describe the sounds in terms of place of articulation, manner of articulation and in terms of the air flow.

•Phonology: is the study of sound system. We deal with the sound pattern, so the words pattern or system suggest the notion of abstractness. In phonology, we study the speech units, but not by focusing on their physical properties or the way they are produced; we look at phonemes (the minimal unit of sounds), the system of sounds and the distribution of sounds.

What is the ultimate goal of Phonology?•To produce a full and adequate

account or description of the sound system in a particular language or of phonological universals.

•What are the phonological universals?

•They are the common features shared by all human languages. For example, all known languages are said to have these three vowels /i a u/ and the existence of /t/ and /d/ sounds in all languages.

Linguistic Systems: Syntax•Syntax is the study of sentence

structure. It refers to the ways symbols are combined to create well-formed sentences in the language.

• Syntax defines the formal relations between the constituents of a language, there by providing a structural description of the various expressions that make up legal strings in the language.

•Syntax deals solely with the form and structure of symbols in a language without any consideration given to their meaning.

•The rules of syntax detail an underlying structure and a transformational process. The underlying structure of English for example would have a subject-verb-object sentence order (John hit the ball). The transformational process would allow an alteration of the word order which could give you something like (The ball was hit by John).

When a syntactition describe the syntax of a language, he focuses on 2 things :

• 1- The individual sentence, which he breaks down into units, and tell us about the relationship among the units in the sentence itself.

•2- The relationship between this sentence and related sentences in the language. For example, when he analyzes a passive sentence, he analyzes it within the context of the active sentence. He tries to describe the relationship between the passive and the active sentence.

Tree Diagram•In order to demonstrate the relationship between the units in the sentence, and the relationship between related sentences , a syntactition tends to use Tree Diagrams.

Linguistic Systems: Semantics

•Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning.

• In discussing semantics, linguists normally use the term lexeme (as opposed to word), so that word can be retained for the inflected variants. Thus one can say that the words walk, walks, walked, and walking are different forms of the same lexeme. There are several kinds of sense relations among lexemes. First is the opposition between syntagmatic relations (the way lexemes are related in sentences) and paradigmatic relations (the way words can substitute for each other in the same sentence context).

•Important paradigmatic relations include:

(1) synonymy - a relation of "sameness", e.g. pavement and sidewalk; (2) hyponymy - a relation of "inclusion", e.g. a cat is a type of animal; (3) antonymy - a relation of "oppositeness", e.g. big VS. small or buy VS. sell;

(4) homonymy - " the same shape—

spelling and pronunciation—of two lexemes", e.g. bank1'an area of ground' and bank2'a building'.

(5) polysemy -" One lexeme acquires different, though obviously related meanings, often with respect to particular contexts", e.g. wood a piece of a tree a geographical area with many trees. (6) incompatibility - mutual exclusiveness relation within the same superordinate category, e.g. red and green.

Linguistic Systems: Pragmatics•Pragmatics refers to the meaning of

language in context. It is the study of meaning of words, phrases and full sentences, but unlike semantics which deals with the objective meanings of words that can be found in dictionaries, pragmatics is more concerned with the meanings that words in fact convey when they are used, or with intended speaker meaning as it is sometimes referred to.

•Pragmatics starts from the observation that people use language to accomplish many kinds of acts, broadly known as speech acts (as distinct from physical acts like drinking water or mental acts like thinking about drinking water). We use the term speech act to describe actions such as 'requesting,' 'commanding,' 'questioning,' or 'informing.' We can define a speech act as the action performed by a speaker with an utterance. If you say, I'll be there at six, you are not just speaking, you seem to be performing the speech act of promising.

•Speech acts include asking for a glass of water, in addition to issuing warnings or threats, giving orders, making requests for information, and many others. In such cases, we can describe the speech acts as direct speech acts

•However, when the interrogative structure is used to fulfill a different purpose as in ‘Can you close the window?’ where it clearly is not a question about ability, but a polite request, such a situation is described as an indirect speech act.

Linguistic Systems: Discourse Analysis•Discourse analysis is a primarily linguistic study examining the use of language by its native population whose major concern is investigating language functions along with its forms, produced both orally and in writing. It involves looking at both language form and language function and includes the study of both spoken interaction and written texts.

•It identifies linguistic features that characterize different genres as well as social and cultural factors that aid in our interpretation and understanding of different texts and types of talk. A discourse analysis of written texts might include a study of topic development and cohesion across the sentences, while an analysis of spoken language might focus on these aspects plus turn taking practices, opening and closing sequences of social encounters, or narrative structure. 

Linguistic Systems: Non-verbal communication• While verbal communication is much

studied and is the focus of much applied attention in different areas, the fact is that human beings communicate more through nonverbal means. nonverbal communication may be vocal (focusing on vocal characteristics such as pitch, rate, and so on) or nonvocal (focusing on body language, environment, attire and the like). Some linguists identify an aspect of nonverbal communication called paralanguage. This refers to a range of nonlinguistic elements of speech, such as facial expressions, gestures, the use of time and space, and so on.

•However, most linguists adhere to stricter categorization. Commonly, the study of nonverbal communication is divided into several specific categories. For example:

•  Kinesics (body language) deals with physical movement, particularly the face, hands and arms. It also deals with posture in standing and sitting, as well as with eye and facial expressions, such as the arching of eyebrows or rolling of the eyes.

•Occulesics deals with eye behavior as an element of communication. Some aspects of occulesics deal with a static or fixed gaze versus dynamic eye movement.

•Vocalics (also called paralanguage) deals with vocal cues, more accurately referred to as thenonphonemic qualities of language. These include accent, loudness, tempo, pitch, cadence, rate of speech, nasality and tone, insofar as these convey meaning.

 Uses of Nonverbal Communication:

•To repeat and reinforce what is said verbally.

• To manage and regulate the interaction among participants in the communication exchange.

• To express emotion beyond the verbal element.

•To convey relational messages of affection, power, dominance, respect, and so on.

Uses of Non-verbal Communication:•To promote honest communication by detecting deception or conveying suspicion.

•To provide group or social leadership by sending messages of power and persuasion.

References:•Akmajian, A. (1995). Linguistics: An introduction to

language and communication. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

•Demo, Douglas (2001). Discourse analysis for language teachers. Center for Applied Linguistics.

•Wisneiwis, Kamel (2006). Discourse analysis. Retrieved from http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/pragmatics.htm.

End of the Lecture