英语语言学课程教案.doc

英 语 语 言 学 课程教案课程编号：总学时： 周学时： 适用年级专业（学科类）：英语专业三、四年级开课时间： 学年第 秋 学期 使用教材： 新编语言学教程 授课教师姓名： 教学内容：MODERN LINGUISTICS教学重点：1. 语言的定义、语言的功能、语言的特征和语言与社会及文化的关系。2. 语言学的概念、研究内容和方法以及现代理论语言学的主要流派和发展趋势。3. 形态学、句法学、语义学、语用学和语言习得。 考核方式：平时成绩（30）和期末成绩（70）结合 教学方法：课堂传授型教学、课堂讨论型教学和课外指导型教学相结合。教学目的和基本要求： 通过灵活多变的教学方式让学生比较全面、比较系统地了解现代语言学这一领域的研究成果，以及一些最主要、最有影响的语言学理论和原则，从而加深对语言这一人类社会普遍现象的理性认识，并具备一定的运用语言学理论解释语言现象、解决具体语言问题的能力，提高自身的语言修养和语言学习的能力。教学过程： 课前：布置预习内容。 课上：关于语言的定义、功能、特征和语言与社会及文化的关系等内容，课堂教学以讨论型为主，以学生为主，尽量调动学生的积极性，培养学生的参与意识，以实现互动教学。关于语言学的概念、研究内容和方法以及现代理论语言学的主要流派和发展趋势、形态学、句法学、语义学、语用学和语言习得等内容，课堂教学以传授型为主。 课下：在课下，采用指导型，指导学生读书、写学术论文、做小型研究、答疑解或并完成学期论文。PrefaceBefore we get down to our business, Id like to give you a brief introduction to this course, which will be of great help to your studies of linguistics during this semester, and perhaps next semester as well.This course is actually a very brief introduction to linguistics, that is to say, it is just an outline of modern theoretical linguistics, which is required for English majors. We try to give an introduction to the most important concepts like language, linguistics, the scope of linguistics or major branches of linguistics, such as phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and the most important trends and schools in contemporary linguistic theories which are essential for your further study, if you have strong interest in this field and have decided to pursue further study. Anyway, linguistics is rich and exciting field. The more you penetrate into it, the more fascinating you will find it. To be quite frank, there are so many interesting and mysterious things in this field of linguistic science that I myself cannot know or fully understand all of them, so speaking from this point, linguistics is really a bottomless pit. So I hope to find one or two good friends among you, with whom I can talk, I can discuss, I can even debate, anything about linguistics. Now Id also like to mind you, here are some requests for you, or you may say they are suggestions:(1). Try to get familiar with all the linguistic terms given in the glossary at the end of this book as soon as possible, better memorize some (Linguistics: A Course Book by Hu Zhuanglin). (2). Read through the course book after class. My lectures are only based on the textbook, so for those points that cannot be found in the book, you may take some notes. You know, it almost impossible for us to deal with all the points mentioned in the book due to limited class time. So you are supposed to read the materials that we do not talk(3). Attend the lectures regularly. For you see, this book is a little bit difficult for you to understand totally. What I choose to explain in class time are relatively easier to understand and thus will give you a deeper impression.And at last, one more thing that I think you are most concerned about: Assessment will be based on three parts: your attendance; your assignments and the final exam. (The final exam might be a close-book test or a short term paper.) Chapter 1 IntroductionLecture 11. What is linguistics?1.1 The concept of linguisticsLinguistics is generally defined as the systematic or scientific study of language. The word “language” preceded by the zero article in English implies that linguistics studies not any particular language, e.g. English, Chinese, Arabic, and Latin, but languages in general. The word “study” does not mean “learn” but “investigated” or “examine”. And the word “systematic” or “scientific” refers to the way in which it is studied. 1.2 The aim and process of linguisticsLinguistics tries to answer the basic questions as follows (Please take down these questions to think about after class, and as our course progresses, we will find out part of the answers to the questions): What is language? How did language come into being? How does language work? What do all languages have in common? What range of variation is found among languages? Why do languages change? What kind of role does language play in our social life? To what extent are social class differences reflected in language? How does a child learn to speak? And so on. The process of linguistics study can be summarized as follows: First, certain linguistic facts are observed, which are found to display some similarities, and generalizations are made about them; next, based on these generalizations hypotheses are formulated to account for these facts; and then the hypotheses are tested by further observations; and finally a linguistic theory is constructed about language is and how it works.1.3 The scope of linguisticsIt is generally agreed that linguistics should include at least five parameters, namely, phonologic, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. The following are these main branches of linguistics. For each of which I will give a very simple explanation and later we will discuss them one by one in detail.(1) PhoneticsPhonetics studies speech sounds, including the production 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, etc.(2) PhonologyPhonology 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.(3) MorphologyMorphology is concerned with the internal organization of words. It studies the minimal units of meaning morphemes and word-formation processes.(4) SyntaxSyntax is about principles of forming and understanding correct English sentences. The form or structure of a sentence is governed by the rules of syntax.(5) SemanticsSemantics 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. meanings of morphemes and sentences.(6) PragmaticsPragmatics 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 structured.The study of language as a whole is often called general linguistics. Actually, general linguistics covers a wider range of topics and its boundaries are difficult to define. So besides the above-mentioned branches, which are usually referred to as micro linguistics, there are some other branches called macro linguistics, which can also fall into the scope of linguistics, such as applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics and mathematical linguistics, as are shown in the following diagram:psycholinguistics(the relationship between language and mind)semanticsphonologyphoneticssyntaxmorphologyotherbranches of linguisticssociolinguistics(the relationship between language and society)applied linguisticsLecture 22. Some important distinctions in linguisticsBy learning about these distinctions, we will have a rough idea of some characteristics modern linguistics.(1) Prescriptive vs. descriptiveIf a linguistic study describes and analyses 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. Modern linguistics, i.e. linguistic study carried out from the beginning of the 20th century is mostly descriptive. Linguistic study is supposed to be scientific and objective and the task of linguists is to describe the language people actually use, be it “correct” or not.(2) Synchronic vs. diachronicLanguage exists in time and changes through time. The description of a language at some point in time is synchronic study; the description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A diachronic study of language is historical study; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time, e.g. a study of the features of the English used in Shakespeares time would be a synchronic study, and a study of the changes English has undergone since then would be a diachronic study. In modern linguistics, synchronic study seems to enjoy priority over diachronic study. The reason is that unless the various states of a language are successfully studied, it would be difficult to describe the changes that have taken place in its historical development. Synchronic descriptions are often thought of as being descriptions of a language as it exists at the present day and most linguist studies are of this type.As it is shown in the picture: we can either look at a grammar at one particular point in time (a single cut across the tree) or study its development over a number of different cuts made across the tree trunk at different places. synchronic linguistics diachronic (historical) linguistics(3) Speech and writingSpeech and writing are the two major media of communication. Modern linguistics regards the spoken language as primary, not the written. In the past traditional grammarians tended to overstress the importance of the written word, partly because of its permanence. But modern linguists give priority to the spoken form of language. First, in any human language we know of, speech precedes writing. The writing system of any language is always a later invention, used to record the speech. Second, the spoken language is used for a wider range of purposes than the written, and carries a larger load of communication than the written.(4) Langue vs. paroleLangue and parole is a distinction made by Swiss linguist F. de Saussure. Speaking about Saussure, I cant help adding a few more words. Saussure (1857-1913) is considered Father of modern linguistics, for his book Course in General Linguistics, which was originally written in French: Cours de Linguistique Gnrale, and published in 1916. This book is said to have marked the beginning of modern linguistics. Its the foundation stone. According to Saussure, langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, for example, grammar, syntax and vocabulary, while parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Langue is abstract; it is not the language people actually use. Parole is concrete; it refers to the naturally occurring language events. Langue is relatively stable; it does not change frequently, while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation. In Saussure opinion, parole is simply a mass of linguistic facts, too varied and confusing for systematic investigation, and what linguists should do is to abstract langue from parole, that is, to discover the regularities governing the actual use of language and make them the subjects of study of linguistics.(5) Competence vs. performanceCompetence and performance is a distinction drawn by the American linguist Norm Chomsky. Competence refers to the ideal users knowledge of the language, that is the abilities all native speakers have of being able to understand and produce sentences which they have never heard before. Performance, on the other hand, refers to the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication.While Saussures distinction of langue and parole and Chomskys distinction of competence and performance are quite similar, they differ in that Saussure took a sociological view of language and his notion of language is a matter of social conventions, and Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view and to him competence is a property of the mind of each individual.Lecture 33. What is language?3.1 Definitions of languageIf we take linguistics to be the scientific study of language, our next question is “What is language?” This may at first sound like a nave and simple question, yet to this extremely familiar, everyday phenomenon, it is difficult to give a satisfactory definition. You may probably say, “Language is a tool for human communication.” But this only tells us what language does, or what it used for, i.e. its function. As a matter of fact, there are some other systems that can perform the same function, e.g. a secret code, traffic signals, gestures. So this does not distinguish language from other means of human communication. Alternatively, one might say, “Language is a set of rules.” Then this tells nothing about its function, and there are actually other systems that are rule-governed.According to Websters New World Dictionary mentioned in our course book (P3), the word “language” is most frequently understood in the following senses: (1) human speech. (2) the ability to communicate by this means. (3) 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. (4) The written representation of such a system.For years, many philosophers, linguists and historians have considered these questions and provided various answers to this question in accordance with the emphasis they laid on the different aspects of language. For instance, Sapir, an American linguist wrote in 1921: “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.” While Chomsky gave a different definition when he wrote Syntactic Structure in 1957: “From now on I will consider language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of finite set of elements.”Each of these definitions has its own special emphasis, and is not totally free from limitations. Sapir uses “ideas”, “emotions”, and “desires” in his definition. No matter how broadly we interpret these words, there is much that is communicated by language which is not covered by any of them; and the word “idea” in particular is imprecise. Then apart from language, there are other systems of “voluntarily produced symbols” that can serve the same purpose. Chomskys definition is quite different, and also many others proposed. It says nothing about the communicative function of natural or non-natural languages; it says nothing about the symbolic nature of the elements of language. Its purpose is to focus attention on the purely structural properties of languages and to suggest that these properties can be investigated from a mathematically precise point of view. However, there are some important characteristics of human language linguists have agreed on; these are included in the following generally accepted definition:Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.Short as it is, this definition has captured the main features of language. First of all, language is a system. If language were not constructed according to certain rules, it could not be learned, understood or used consistently. For example, *pdc is not a possible sound combination in English, and also *chair sit him is not an acceptable sentence in English. Second, language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connection between the word “pen”, for instance, and the thing we use to write with. The fact that different languages have different words for the same object is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of language. Hence, the symbolic nature of language: words are just symbols. For the same tool people use to write with, in English it is called “pen”, in French it is called “stylo”, while in Chinese it is called “钢笔”. We are safe to conclude that all other languages in the world have got different names for this same object. Third, language is vocal because the primary medium is sound for all languages, no matter how well developed their writing system are. All evidence points to the fact that writing systems came into being much later than the spoken forms and that they are only attempts to capture sounds and meaning on paper. The fact that children acquire spoken language before they can read or write also indicates that language is primarily vocal. At last, the term “human” in the definition is meant to specify that language is human-specific, i. e. it is very different from the communication systems other forms of life possess, such as bird songs and bee dances. While certain insects, birds, and animals are believed to be able to communicate with each other, language, as a means of communication for human beings, bears certain features distinguishing it from means of communication other forms of life may possess. And these features have all been included in the definition.3.2 Design featuresDesign features refer to the defining properties of human language that distinguish it from any animal system of communication. By comparing language with animal system of communication, we can have a better understanding of the nature of language.A framework was proposed by the American linguist Charles Hochett. He specified twelve design features, five of which will be discussed here. (1) Arbitrariness (vs. Iconicity 象似性 关于语言符号的任意性问题详见认知语言学概论P35 赵艳芳)。As mentioned earlier, language is arbitrary. This means that there is no logical connection between meanings and sounds. On the other hand, we should be aware that while language is arbitrary by nature, it is not entirely arbitrary.(2) Productivity (Creativity)Language is productive in that it makes possi