语言学Chapter1WhatisLinguistics.ppt

1,Linguistics: an Introduction to Language and Communication Lecturer: Alexander ,Chapter One What Is Linguistics?,3,Teaching focus: 1. design features of language ; Arbitrariness; duality; productivity; displacement; cultural transmission,4,2. some important distinctions in linguistics Descriptive vs. prescriptive Synchronic vs. diachronic langue & parole Competence and performance Traditional grammar and modern linguistics,5,3. Definition Language Linguistics,6,1. What is Linguistics? The field of linguistics, the scientific study of human natural language, is a growing and exciting area of study, with an important impact on fields as diverse as education, anthropology, sociology, language teaching, cognitive psychology, philosophy, computer science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, among others.,7,1.1 Definition What is linguistics, then? Fundamentally, the field is concerned with the nature of language and (linguistic) communication.,8,It is generally defined as the scientific study of language. Language means not any particular language, but language in general. Study doesn t mean learn but investigate or examine. Scientific refers to the way in which the language is studied.,9,1.2 The scope of linguistics,1. Microlinguistics Phonetics Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics,10,Phonetics语音学,Phonetics studies speech sounds, including the production of speech, that is how speech sounds are actually made, transmitted and received, the description and classification of speech sounds, words and connected speech, etc.,11,Phonology音位学,Phonology studies the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables. It deals with the sound system of a language by treating phoneme（音素） as the point of departure. A phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit of sound that can signal a difference in meaning.,12,Morphology形态学,“Morphology,“ is concerned with the properties of words and word-building rules. Morphology is concerned with the internal organization of words. It studies the minimal units of meaning morphemes（ 词素） and word-formation processes.,13,Although many people think of words as the basic meaningful elements of a language，many words can be broken down into still smaller units, called morphemes.,14,Syntax句法学,Syntax is about principles of forming and understanding correct sentences. The form or structure of a sentence is governed by the rules of syntax, which specify word order, sentence organization, and the relationships between words, word classes and other sentence elements.,15,We know that words are organized into structures more than just word order. The children watched the firework from the hill . The children watched the firework from the hill .,16,Semantics语义学,Semantics examines how meaning is encoded in a language. It is not only concerned with meanings of words as lexical items, but also with levels of language below the word and above it, e.g. meaning of morphemes and sentences.,17,The following are what the key concepts look like: semantic components denotation of words sense relations between words such as antonymy and synonymy sense relations between sentences such as entailment and presupposition and others.,18,Pragmatics语用学,Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. It deals with particular utterances in particular situations and is especially concerned with the various ways in which the many social contexts of language performance can influence interpretation. In other words, pragmatics is concerned with the way language is used to communicate rather than with the way language is internally structured.,19,2. Macrolinguistics,Linguistics is not the only field concerned with language. Other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, ethnography（人种学）, the science of law and artificial intelligence etc. are also preoccupied with language.,20,Although Saussures goal was to establish the autonomy of linguistics, giving it a well-defined subject of study and freeing it from reliance on other disciplines, with its coming of age linguistics is developing interactive links with other sciences. The central goal of describing the underlying system remains: this is the province of general, descriptive linguistics.,21,But since language has both individual and social aspects, it is naturally of interest to psychologists and sociologists among others. Therefore it is not surprising that we have some branches of macrolinguistics that show an interdisciplinary nature from their very names:,22,Sociolinguistics社会语言学,Sociolinguistics is the study of the characteristics of language varieties, the characteristics of their functions, and the characteristics of their speakers as these three constantly interact and change within a speech community. An umbrella term which covers a variety of different interests in language and society, including the social functions of language and the social characteristics of its users.,23,Psycholinguistics 心理语言学,Psycholinguistics investigates the interrelation of language and mind, for example, in processing and producing utterances and in language acquisition. It also studies language development in the child, such as the theories of language acquisition, biological foundations of language, and a profound aspectthe relationship between language and cognition.,24,1.3 Some important distinctions in linguistics,Descriptive vs. prescriptive Synchronic vs. diachronic Speech and writing Langue & parole Competence and performance,25,Descriptive vs. prescriptive “描写式”和 “规定式”,If a linguistic study describes and analyzes the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive; if it aims to lay down rules for “correct” behavior, i.e. , to tell people what they should say and what they should not say, it is said to be prescriptive.,26,Synchronic vs. diachronic “共时”和 “历时”,A synchronic description takes a fixed instant (usually, but not necessarily, the present) as its point of observation. Most grammars are of this kind. Diachronic linguistics is the study of a language through the course of its history.,27,Speech and writing,Modern linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, not the written. Why?,28,Langue & parole “语言” 和 “言语”,Saussure distinguished the linguistic competence of the speaker and the actual phenomena or data of linguistics (utterances) as langue and parole.,29,While parole constitutes the immediately accessible data, the linguists proper object is the langue of each community, the lexicon, grammar, and phonology implanted in each individual by his upbringing in society and on the basis of which he speaks and understands his language.,30,Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of language in actual use. What linguists should do is to abstract langue from parole, i. e. to discover the regularities governing the actual use of language and make them the subjects of study of linguistics.,31,Competence and performance语言能力和语言运用,This fundamental distinction is discussed by Chomsky in his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax、句法理论诸方面 (1965). A language users underlying knowledge about the system of rules is called his linguistic competence. Performance refers to the actual use of language in concrete situations.,32,Competence-the ideal users knowledge of the rules of his language. Performance-the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication.,33,Chomsky points out that this distinction is related to the langue-parole distinction of Saussure; but he does not accept the view of seeing langue as a mere systematic inventory of items.,34,Traditional grammar and modern linguistics,Modern linguistics started with the publication of F. de Saussure s book “Course in General Linguistics” in the early 20th century. So Saussure is often described as “father of modern linguistics”.,35,The general approach traditionally formed to the study of language before that is roughly referred to as “traditional grammar.” They differ in several basic ways:,36,Firstly, linguistics is descriptive while traditional grammar is prescriptive. A linguist is interested in what is said, not in what he thinks ought to be said. He describes language in all its aspects, but does not prescribe rules of “correctness”.,37,Secondly, modern linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, not the written. Traditional grammarians, on the other hand, tend to emphasize, may be over-emphasize, the importance of the written word, partly because of its permanence.,38,Then, modern linguistics differs from traditional grammar also in that it does not force languages into a Latin-based framework. To modern linguists ,it is unthinkable to judge one language by standards of another. They are trying to set up a universal framework, but that would be based on the features shared by most of the languages used by mankind.,39,2. What is Language?,2.1 Definitions of language Language “is not to be confused with human speech, of which it is only a definite part, though certainly an essential one. It is both a social product of the faculty of speech and a collection of necessary conventions that have been adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty”. -Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913): Course in General Linguistics (1916),40,“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.” -Edward Sapir (1884-1939): Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921),41,Language is “the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.” -Robert A. Hall (1911-1997): Introductory Linguistics (1964),42,“From now on I will consider language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.” -Noam Chomsky (1928- ): Syntactic Structures (1957),43,“Language is a means of verbal communication.” It is instrumental in that communicating by speaking or writing is a purposeful act. It is social and conventional in that language is a social semiotic and communication can only take place effectively if all the users share a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonverbal cues, motivation, and socio-cultural roles.,44,Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Language is a system; Language is arbitrary; Language is vocal; Language is human-specific.,45,What is communication? A process in which information is transmitted from a source (sender or speaker) to a goal (receiver or listener).,46,A system-elements in it are arranged according to certain rules. They cannot be arranged at will. e.g. He the table cleaned. () bkli () Arbitrary-there is no intrinsic (logic) connection between a linguistic form and its meaning.,47,Symbols-words are just the symbols associated with objects, actions, and ideas by convention.,48,Vocal-the primary medium for all languages is sound, no matter how well developed their writing systems are. Writing systems came into being much later than the spoken forms. People with little or no literacy can also be competent language users.,49,Human -language is human-specific. Human beings have different kinds of brains and vocal capacity. “Language Acquisition Device”(LAD),50,2.2 Design Features of Language语言的结构特征,Language distinguishes human beings from animals in that it is far more sophisticated than any animal communication system.,51,Human language is unique,Arbitrariness,Productivity,Displacement,Cultural transmission,Duality,52,1. Arbitrarines任意性,Saussure: the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning Arbitrary relationship between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning: The dog barks wow wow in English but “汪汪汪” in Chinese. （miaow，mew 喵） E.g. “house” uchi (Japanese) Mansion (French) 房子(Chinese),53,Arbitrariness at the syntactic level: language is not arbitrary at the syntactic level. He came in and sat down. He sat down and came in. He sat down after he came in. The link between a linguistic sign and its meaning is a matter of convention.,54,2. Productivity多产性,Language is resourceful because of its duality and its recursiveness. We can use it to create new meanings. Words can be used in new ways to mean new things, and can be instantly understood by people who have never come across that usage before.,55,Birds, bees, crabs, spiders, and most other creatures communicate in some way, but the information imparted is severely limited and confined to a small set of messages.,56,an experiment of bee communication:,The worker bee, normally able to communicate the location of a nectar source, will fail to do so if the location is really new. In one experiment, a hive of bees was placed at the foot of a radio tower and a food source at the top. Ten bees were taken to the top, shown the food source, and sent off to tell the rest of the hive about their find.,57,The message was conveyed via a bee dance and the whole gang buzzed off to get the free food. They flow around in all directions, but couldnt locate the food. The problem may be that bee communication regarding location has a fixed set of signals, all of which related to horizontal distance. The bee cannot create a new message indicating vertical distance.,58,Because of duality the human speaker is able to combine the basic linguistic units to form an infinite set of sentences, most of which are never before produced or heard.,59,The recursive nature of language provides a potential to create an infinite number of sentences. For instance: He bought a book which was written by a teacher who taught in a school which was known for its graduates who .,60,3. Duality双层结构,The property of having two levels of structures, such that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization: Primary units words (meaningful) consist of secondary units sounds (meaningless).,61,Hierarchy of language: stratification as the infinite use of finite means. Sounds syllables morphemes words phrases clauses sentences/utterances texts/discourses,62,4 Displacement移位性,Human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication. Thus, we can refer to Confucius, or the North Pole, even though the first has been dead for over 2550 years and the second is situated far away from us.,63,Animal communication is normally under “immediate stimulus control”. For instance, a warning cry of a bird instantly announces danger. Human language is stimulus-free. What we are talking about need not be triggered by any external stimulus in the world or any inte