语言学流派复习题.doc

精选Theories and schools of linguistics1. Saussures ideaSaussures idea was developed along 3 lines: linguistics, sociology and psychology.1）Linguistics:Saussure received the greatest influence from the American linguist William Dwight Whitney. He work within essentially the neogrammarian tradition but raised the question of the sign. In his books, he argued that language is in fact an institution, founded on social convention. In stressing the institutional and conventional nature of language, Whitney distinguished human communication from the merely instinctive animal communication, and language keep developing and changing.Saussure acknowledged Whitneys influence on his own turning to the problem of the sign. In his Course in General Linguistics, Saussure said that by insisting on the concept of arbitrariness of the sign to emphasize that language is an institution. It is Whitney who led Saussure to see that by making representation of a language rather than the history of it the basis of a discipline, one could begin to distinguish the relevant data from the irrelevant, and the functional from the non-functional. For Saussure, meaning exists only because there are differences of meaning and it is these differences of meaning that enable one to establish the articulation of linguistic forms. Forms can be recognized not because of their historical continuity, but because of their different functions, their ability of distinguish and to produce distinct meanings.Saussure fundamental perception is of revolutionary significance. Meaning depends on differences of meaning; only through differences of meaning can one identify forms and their defining functional qualities. Forms must be established through analysis of a system of relations and differences.2）Sociology: As for sociology, Saussure was influenced by the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, who wrote Rules of Sociological Method and On Suicide: Sociological Studies. First, he introduced the term “social facts”, according to Durkheim, social facts are ideas in the “collecting mind” of a society. The collective mind of a society is sth that exists over and above the individual members of the society, and its ideas are only indirectly and imperfectly reflected in the minds of the people who make up the society. Durkheims idea is that a society comprises a web of phenomena of this category, many of which will possess much more complex structures. The position resulted in postulating the existence of a collective consciousness distinct from the totality of individual consciousness.About the nature of social facts, Durkheim said that we must remember that our social institutions are largely bequeathed to us by former generations and we ourselves take no part in forming them.Social constraint is one of the tests for a truly social fact. When we fully conform to the social facts, the constraint is felt only slightly and is therefore unnecessary. It is the social norms that enable human beings to communicate and act meaningful.Language is a social fact, since it is general throughout a community and exercises a constraint on the speakers. This constraint is peculiar, since (1) it consists in our lack of any alternative, if we wish to communicate, and (2) it is imposed on us by education, but when we master it, we are no longer aware of any constraint.Throughout his Course, there is the principle that language as a social fact is independent of historical development, any language in any historical period can be described and analyzed regardless of its history.3）Psychology:Influenced from psychology mainly comes from psychoanalysis, a discipline founded and practiced by Sigmund Freud, the Austrian psychiatrist. Freuds works include The Interpretation of Dreams, the Ego of Id, etc.Freud discussed the prohibition of incest and other social taboos. He also discussed Oedipus complex. He postulated the continuity of a collective psychy, which he called the unconscious.The historical event is asserted as a cause, but then it is inferred from the subconscious system.Structural explanation relates actions to a system of normsthe rules of a language, the collective representation of a society, the mechanisms of a psychical economyand the concept of the unconscious is a way of explaining how these systems have explanatory force. It is a way of explaining how these systems can be simultaneously unknown yet effectively present.In fact, one could argue that in linguistics the concept emerges in its clearest and most undeniable form. The unconscious is the concept which enables one to explain an undeniable fact: I know a language, yet I do not know what I know. I know a language, yet I need a linguist to tell me precisely what it is what I know. The concept of the unconscious connects and makes sense of these two facts and opens a space for exploration.Another example for this discipline is the placing the subject or the “I” at the centre of ones analytical domain and then deconstructing it. Saussure put the subject right at the centre of his analytical project. The notion of the subject becomes central to the analysis of language.2. The linear feature of the signifierAccording to Saussure, the signifier, being auditory, is unfolded solely in time. It has the following characteristics: it represents a time span-one word after another; and the span is measurable in a single dimension-it is line.Auditory signifiers have at their command only the dimension of time. Their elements are presented in succession: they form a chain, in a temporal sequential order and it is impossible for two elements to appear simutaneously.In a language state, everything is based on relations. The signs in the language system are related in two ways: there are rules for their combination and there are contrasts and similarities between them. Thus, Saussure distinguished two relations: the syntagmatics and paradigmatics. When people speak, one signifier comes after another and they form an order. For example: “He walks slowly”. In this order, the signifiers form a relationship in which every one of them derives its own value. On the other hand, one sign can lead to many associations. For instance, in “He walks slowly”. One can associate “he” with “she, they ,it ”ect; associate “walk” with “run”; associate “slowly” with “fast, as fast as he can” ect. Later, linguists termed this relation of association as selectional relation.Thus, the two dimentions of language, combination and contrast/ similarity, are commonly illustrated diagrammatically as two axes: On the syntagmatic axis, words are linked or chained together according to grammatical rules, but we make choices about which words to link together. On the paradigmatic axis, the axis of choice. Language is understood by the way the signifiers are organised in terms of a paradigmatic axis of selection and a syntagmatic axis of combination. The way in which the syntagms and paradigms are organised constitutes the structure of language.3. The immutable nature of the signifier According to Saussure, although linguistic signs are arbitrarily chosen with respect to the ideas that they represent, the signifier is not arbitrary with respect to the linguistic community that uses it. When a certain object has a signifier, it is accepted by members of the speech community and can not be modified by any individual. The reasons are: first, a sudden change of the system would throw the community into confusion. You can imagine, if all the words change their meaning overnight, the speech community will be in confusion. Second, speakers of a language are never aware of the system, so they could do nothing about it. Even if they are aware of it, they are always satisfied with what they receive. Third, the arbitrary nature of the sign is what protects language from any attempt to modify it.However, in certain case, we can speak of immutability and mutability of the sign. Language is radically powerless to defend itself against the forcces which from one moment to the next are shifting the relationship between the signifier and the signified. This is one of the concequences of the arbitrary nature of the sign, so mutability is inescapable.4. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis refers to the views held by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf on the relationship between language and culture and thought. What lies at the centre of their hypothesis is the idea that a mans language moulds his perception of reality.Sapir argued that people do not perceive the world freely but rather they do so through their language, a filtering structure which will distort the reality and thus influence and control the speakers thought. This view was highlighted by Whorfs elaborate example.The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has two major components:linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. The former is simply a claim that language determines thought, and the latter is a claim that there is no limit to the structural diversity of languages. The point that Sapir-Whorfs linguistic determinism is that ones thinking is completely determined by his native language because one can only perceive the world in terms of the categories and distinctions encoded in the language. Sapir said that human beings are greatly influenced by the particular language serving as the medium of expression for their society. The “red world” is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds. Language not only refers to but actually defines our experience. The point of Sapir-Whorfs linguistic relativity is that the categories and distinctions encoded in one language system are unique to that system and incommensurable with those of others. Whorf said that the linguistic system is part of the background knowledge of mankind. People are not conscious of this background. The background linguistic system is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of the ideas.The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis furthered peoples knowledge of the relationships between language and thought, language and culture, by drawing attention to the influence of culture on language and the influence of language on thought. The hypothesis has had great influences on such fields as anthropology, sociology, linguistics and language teaching.5Synchrony and Diachrony Synchrony linguistics is also called static linguistics, studying the language state without considering how the state has evolved. Diachronic linguistics is also called evolutionary linguistics, studying the changes a language has undergone over long periods of time in history.It is an important contribution of Saussure to distinct between the synchronic linguistics and diachronic linguistics.The relations between synchronic linguistic phenomena are not like those between diachronic linguistic phenomena. In synchronic linguistics, “foot/feet”; “tooth/teeth”; “goose/geese” are in opposition, while in diachronic linguistics, the forms of “foot” (foti,feti,fet) have no necessary relations but only indicate accidental changes over time.As the dual nature of language, Saussure explained the relation between synchrony and diachrony with a comparison between the functioning of language and a game of chess. First, the state of language is very much like that of the set of chessmen. The respective value of the pieces depends on their position on the chessboard just as each linguistic term derives its value from its position to all other items. Second, the system is always momentary, varying from one position to the next. The value of each piece depends on an unchangeable convention-the set of rules exists before the game begins. Rules that are agreed upon once and for all exist in language too. Third, to pass from one state of stability ( or synchrony) to the next, only the chess pieces have to be moved. Some changes bring about great effects, other changes bring about minor effects. In spite of that, the move does effect the whole system. Synchronic linguistics deals with the language system proper, and it is more important than diachronic linguistics. Any language in any historical period can be described and analyzed regardless of its history. Without synchronic studies, there can be no diachronic studies.However, the distinction of diachronic linguistics from synchronic linguistics is not largely accepted, because it is not easy to draw a sharp line between these two aspects of language studies. First, languages are in a constant state of changing. There is never a moment when a language remains static for our description. Second, the language of any speech community is never uniform. Which variety is to be described is quite a matter of question. Third, when a language changes, it is not the case that one set of features are suddenly replaced by another set of features.6. 6. the arbitrary nature of the sign The first principle of Saussure s theory of language concerns the essential quality of the sign. The linguistic sign is arbitrary. The particular combination of the signifier and the signified is an arbitrary entity. By arbitrary nature of the sign Saussure means that there is no natural or inevitable link between sound and meaning, or between the signifier and the signified. There is no intrinsic reason why one of these signifiers rather than another should be linked with the concept of a tree, a cow , or a dog. However, arbitrariness is a matter of degree. There are two ways in which linguistic signs may be made less arbitrary. First, there are cases of onomatopoeia, a phenomenon in which sounds are mimetic or imitative, such as “bang” and “crash” in English, “dingdang”, “putong” and “pingpang” in Chinese. Second, some compound words are not entirely arbitrary, and there is a certain connection between their sounds and meaning. For example, the process of combining “black” and “board”, or “type” and “writer” to create new motivated signs is fundamentally similar to the way in which we combine words to form phrases. Third, all languages have as their basic elements arbitrary signs first, and then they have various process for combining these signs. In spite of the various processes of combining new signs, the essential nature of language and its elementary constituents are never altered. There is more to the arbitrary nature of nature of the sign than the arbitrary relation between the signifier and the signified. If language were a nomenclature for a set of universal concepts, it would be easy to translate from one language to another. But there is a vast amount of proof that languages are not nomenclatures, and that the concepts or signifieds of one language may differ radically from those of another. Each language articulates or organizes the world differently. If language were a set of names applied to independently-existing concepts, then in the historical evolution of a language the concepts should remain stable. Language is not a nomenclature ant therefore its signifieds are not pre-existing concepts bur changeable and contingent concepts which vary feom one state of language to another. The fact that the relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary means: since there are no fixed universal concepts or fixed universal signifiers, the signified itself is arbitrary, and so is the signifier.7.Langue and parole Sausure made a crucial opposition between langue and parole. Langue is the system of a language, the language as a system of forms, whereas parole is actual speech, the speech acts that are made possible by the system of the language. Langue is what the individual assimilates when he learns a language, a set of forms and a grammatical system which , to all intents and purposes, exists in the mind of each speaker. Parole, on the other hand, involves both the combinations by which the speaker uses the code of the linguistic system in order to express his own thoughts and the psychophysical mechanisms which permit him to externalize these combinations. The study of langue involves an inventory of the distinctions which create signs and of rules of combinations, whereas the study of parole would lead to an account of language use, including the relative frequencies with which particular forms were used in actual speech. this distinction leads to two distinct disciplines that study sound and its linguistic function: phonetics and phonology. The former studies sounds in speech acts from a physical point of view, and the latter is not interested in physical events themselves but in the distinctions between the abstract units of signifiers which are functional within the linguistic system. At another level, we can distinguish between utterance, as a unit of parole, and sentence, as a unit of langue. It is the distinction that gives the linguistic unit a relational identity. Saussure used the terms signification and value. The former involves the use of linguistic elements in actual situations of utterance, while the latter is the result of the oppositions which define them. The distinction between langue and parole is a logical and necessary consequence of the arbitrary nature of the sign, the object of linguistic studies.8. Why do we call Saussure “the father of semiology”? Semiology is based on the assumptions that insofar as human actions convey meaning, insofar as they function as signs, there must be an underlying system of conventions and distinctions which make this meaning possible. Where there are signs there are systems. We call Saussure “the father of semiology”, because he is the first scholar to point out that the semiological perspective is central to any serious study of language. He said, “Language is a system of sings that express id