《英语语言学》教学大纲

1、英语语言学教学大纲一、 教学目标主要以英语为例，全面地向学生介绍语言学的基础知识，从而使学生系统地了解语言（特别是英语）的语音、文字、词汇、语法、语义等主要方面，把握语言与语境、语言与文化、语言与文学、语言与教学等各种关系，并提高对语言的重要性的认识。二、 教学要求通过本课程的教学，要求学生基本掌握语言学及其分支学科的基本观点、理论和方法，不仅了解语音学、音系学、词法学、句法学、语义学、语用学等核心分支的内容，而且还要熟悉社会语言学、心理语言学及语言与文化、文字、计算机及外语教学的关系，形成对语言和语言学的系统认识。三、 教学内容Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguis

2、ticsTeaching aims: let the students have the general idea about language and linguistics.Teaching difficulties: design features of language ; some important distinctions in linguisticsTeaching procedures1. language1.1 What is language?design features of language 语言的结构特征1.2 functions of language2. li

3、nguistics2.1 What is linguistics?2.2 Main branches (scope) of linguisticsphonetics 语音学-the study of sounds used in linguistic communication.phonology 音系学（音位学）morphology 词法学syntax 句法学semantics 语义学pragmatics 语用学2.2 Important distinctions in linguisticsa. Descriptive vs. prescriptive “描写式”和 “规定式”They r

4、epresent two different types of linguistic study. If a linguistic study aims to describe and analyze the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive; if the linguistic study aims to lay down rules for “correct and standard” behavior in using language, i. e. to tell people what they sh

5、ould say and what they should not say, it is said to be prescriptive.b. Synchronic vs. diachronic “共时”和 “历时”The description of a language at some point of time in history is a synchronic study; the description of language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A diachronic study is a hist

6、orical study; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time.c. langue & parole “语言” 和 “言语”The distinction was made by the Swiss linguist Saussure in the early 20th century. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of a speech community, and

7、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.d. Competence and performance 语言能力和语言运用The distinction is

8、discussed by the American linguist N. Chomsky in the late 1950s.Competence-the ideal users knowledge of the rules of his language.Performance-the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication.e. Traditional grammar and modern linguisticsModern linguistics started with the publicat

9、ion 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”. The general approach traditionally formed to the study of language before that is roughly referred to as “traditional grammar.” They differ in sev

10、eral basic ways: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”.Secondly, modern linguistics regard

11、s 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.Then, modern linguistics differs from traditional grammar also in that it does not force langu

12、ages 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.HomeworkQuestions and Exercises1,4,6,12Sel

13、f-study guideRead “A New Concise Course On Linguistics For Students Of English” Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Speech SoundsTeaching aims: let the students have the general idea about phonetics and phonology.Focal points: description of consonants and vowels; basic knowledge about phonologyTeachin

14、g difficulties: phoneme; allophone; minimal pair; complementary distribution Teaching procedure 1. Phonetics 1.1 Speech production and perception3 sub-branches of phonetics:Articulator phonetics-the study of the production of speech soundsAcoustic phonetics-the study of the physical properties of th

15、e sounds produced in speechAuditory phonetics-the study of the perception of speech sounds1.2 Speech organs (vocal organs)refers to the parts of the human body involved in the production of speech.The articulator apparatus of a human being contains 3 important areas: the pharynx (the throat), the or

16、al cavity (the mouth), and the nasal cavity (the nose). The air- stream coming from the lungs is modified in various ways in these cavities, resulting in the production of various sounds.·The pharyngeal cavitySpeech sounds are produced with an air-stream as their source of energy. The air-strea

17、m comes from the lungs and then passes bronchi into trachea. At the top of the trachea is the larynx, the front of which is the Adams apple. This is the first place where sound modification might occur (lying across glottis), The larynx contains two pairs of structure; one of which is vocal folds (v

18、ocal cords). Vocal cords are two membranes, the vibration of which gives the quality of voicing to the sounds produced.When the vocal cords are apart, the air can pass through easily and the sound produced is said to be voiceless. Consonants p, s, t are produced in this way When they are close toget

19、her, the airstreams causes them to vibrate and produces voiced sounds. e.g. b, z, dWhen they are totally closed, no air can pass between them, then produce the glottal stop ?The oral cavity The oral cavity provides the greatest source of modification. The main places evolved are the tongue, the uvul

20、a, the soft palate, the teeth ridge, the teeth and the lips .of all these, the tongue is the most flexible. Various obstructions created within the oral cavity lead to the production of various sounder p b; s z; k gThe nasal cavityThe nasal cavity is connected to the oral cavity at the back of the m

21、outh .The soft part of the roof of the mouth, the velum, (soft palate) can be draw back to close the passage so that the air can only go through the mouth and produce vowels and most consonants. The passage can also be left open to allow air to exit through the nose and produce nasal consonants m n

22、g1.3 phonetic transcription a method of writing down speech sounds in a systematic and consistent way. IPA (International phonetic Alphabet) The idea was first proposed by the Danish grammarian Jespersen in 1886. The first version of IPA was published in August 1888.The latest version was devised in

23、 1993 and corrected in 1996.With minor modifications, phoneticians and linguists now still use IPA.The basic principle of IPA is using a different letter for each distinguishable speech soundTwo ways to transcribe speech sounds Broad transcription: transcription with letter-symbols only. Its normall

24、y used in dictionaries and teaching textbooks.Narrow transcription: transcription with letter-symbols together with the diacrtics. This is the transcription required and used by the phoneticians in their study of speech sounds.Diacritics: A set of symbols added to the letter-symbols to show that it

25、has a sound value different from that of the same letter without the mark.1.4 English speech sounds Classification The English speech sounds can first of all be classified into vowels and consonants. The basic difference between them is that in the production of the former, the airstreams meets with

26、 no obstruction of any kind in the throat, the nose or the mouth, while in that of the latter its somehow obstructed.Semi-vowels ( semi-consonants) : the sounds produced with little obstruction.(also called glides or transition sounds) e.g. yet wet hotConsonants (P44). 3 parameters to identify a con

27、sonant: place of articulation: place in the mouth where obstruction occurs manners of articulation: ways in which articulation can be accomplished state of vocal cords: voiced VS. voicelessVowels (P45) the quality of vowels depend on position of tongue and the shape of lips.4.criteria (parameters) o

28、f vowel descriptionthe position of highest part of the tinge :front, central, backthe height of tongue raising: high, middle, lowthe shape of the lips (the degree of lip-rounding ) : rounded, unroundedthe length or tenseness of the vowel : tense vs. lax or long vs. short pure vowels (monophthong)vow

29、els where the quality remains constant throughout the articulationvowel glides-vowels where there is an audible change of qualitydiphthongsa single movement of the tongue is involvedtriphthongsa double movement2.phonology2.1 phonology and phoneticsPhonetics and phonology are the two disciplines deal

30、ing with speech sounds. While both are related to the study of sounds, they differ in their approach and focus. Phonetic studies how speech sounds are made, transmitted and received. Phonology, on the other hand, is the study of sound systems of language. Its concerned with the linguistic patterning

31、 of sounds, it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication. e.g. tea too the sound t here is a nondistinctive sound (it do not cause meaning difference)phoneticians are concerned with how these two ts diff

32、ered in the way they are pronounced while phonologies are interested in the patterning of such sounds and rules that underlie such variants.Phonological knowledge permits a speaker to produce sounds which form meaningful utterance, to recognize a foreign accent, to make up new words.2.2 phonemes, al

33、lophones phone: the speech sounds we use when speaking a language. Its a phonetic unit or segment ( any linguistic unit which can be isolated from the rest). If we pronounce the words feel, leaf, top, stop, the speech sounds involved are fi: fltpst, All these sounds are phones. Conventionally, phone

34、s are placed within square brackets “ ” (phonetic transcription)Phones do not necessarily distinguish meaning. Usually phones of different phonemes distinguish meaning. phoneme: an abstract unit that is of distinctive value. Its a basic unit in phonological analysis. It is not any particular sound,.

35、but rather its represented or realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context.Phonemes are placed in slashes “/ / ” (phonemic transcription) A phoneme is the smallest meaning-distinguishing unit. Neither the sound p in pit or the sound b in bit is a phoneme. They are phones; they are the p

36、honetic realization of the phoneme /p/ and /b/. In actual speech, a phoneme is realized phonetically as a certain phone.allophone: the different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that phonemeFor example, 1 in English words “let, play

37、, tell” are pronounced differently, and the substitution of 1 for would not make a different word, though native speakers may find pronunciation a bit strange so1 and f are allophones of phoneme1One phoneme may have several allophones, but the choice of an allophone is rule-governed.distinctive feat

38、ures: the features that a phoneme possesses, making it different from other phonemes, are its distinctive features.Distinctive features are language-specific. What doesnt distinguish meaning in one language may probably do in another language. e.g. aspiration does not distinguish meaning in English,

39、 but it does in Chinese.e.g.“ba” (爸) “pa”(怕)In Chinese, these two sounds are distinguished by aspiration ,while in English they are distinguished by “voicing”2.3 The phoneme theory The phoneme is the basic unit in phonological analysis.Complementary distribution and Minimal pairs.Phonetically simila

40、r sounds might be related in two ways. If they are two distinctive phoneme, they might form a contrast; e.g. /p/and /b/ in pit and bit; If they are allophones of the same phoneme, then they dont distinguish meaning, but complement each other in distribution, i.e. they occur in different phonetic con

41、text.Strictly speaking, every sound is different from every other sounds. But in phonology some of the difference may be ignoredA basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if substituting one sound for another result in a change of meaning. 1. Minimal pairs (最小对立体) When two differe

42、nt forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair.three requirements for a minimal pair:same number of segmentone phonetic difference in the same placedifferent meaninge.g. a mini

43、mal pair : lit-lip; phone-tone; pill-billa minimal set: beat, bit, bet, boot, but, bite 2. Complementary distributionNot all speech sounds occur in the same environment, when the two sounds never occur in the same environment they are said to be in complementary distribution. For example, in English

44、, p=,ph are two different sounds. They never occur in the same context, p= always occur after /s/ while ph always occur in other places.Not all phones in complementary distribution are considered to be allophones of the same phoneme. They must be phonetically similar and in complementary distributio

45、n.3. free variation A phone may sometimes has free variants. If two sounds occurring in the same environment do not contrast, that is, the substitution of one for the other does not produce a different word form, but merely a different pronunciation of the same word, then the two sounds are in free

46、variation.HomeworkQuestions and Exercises 1,3,5Self-study guideRead “Modern Linguistics” by He Zhao-xiong Chapter 2 PhonologyChapter 3 LexiconTeaching aims: let the students have a brief knowledge about morphemes and the basic word-formation methodsFocal points: definition and classification of morp

47、hemes; major word-formation methodsTeaching procedure 1. Word1.1 lexicon, lexeme, vocabularylexicon In its most general sense, lexicon is synonymous with vocabulary. In its technical sense, it deals with the analysis and creation of words. vocabulary It usually refers to all the words or lexical ite

48、ms a person has acquired about technical or un-technical things. It is also used to mean world list or glossary. lexeme: p 771.2 Word Definition of “word”A unit of expression that has universal intuitive recognition by native-speakers, whether it is expressed in spoken or written form. Three senses

49、of “word”a. a physical definable unit: a cluster of sound segments or letters between two pause or blankb. the common factor underlying a set of formsc. a grammatical unite.g. It is kind of you ,Miss Hou.Every word plays a grammatical part in the sentence. Classification of worda. Variable and invar

50、iable wordsb. Grammatical words vs. lexical wordsc. Closed-class words vs. open-class words2. Morpheme2.1 Morphology and morpheme2.2 Types of morphemes Free morpheme: those which may constitute words by themselves Bound morpheme: those which can not be used by themselves, but must be combined with o

51、ther morphemes to form words Inflectional morpheme: manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as number, tense, degree and case. E.g. walks, walking, walked ; Johns; children; biggest Derivational morpheme: prefix: change meaning dis-; un-; mis- suffix: change part of spe

52、ech -ly; -ness; -tion2.3 Word formationCompounding: F+Fblackboard godfather baby-sit Derivation: B+F or F+B Blending (join two parts of words together): smog; motel; brunch Clipping Shortening or abbreviationInitialism: VOA BBC WTOAcronym: UNCESO APEC SAR Back-formation BorrowingHomeworkQuestions an

53、d Exercises 1,2,3,5Self-study guideFurther readingAdams,V. 1973. An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation.Dai Wei-dong, 2002 A New Concise Course On Linguistics For Students Of English Chapter 3 MorphologyChapter 4 SyntaxTeaching aims: enable the students to understand and describe the inter

54、nal structures of sentences Focal points: different treatment of sentence structure by different linguistic schoolsTeaching difficulties: IC analysis, deep structure, surface structure, tree diagram Teaching procedure Syntax is the study of how words combine to form sentences and the rules which gov

55、ern the formation of sentences. Since sentence is usually regarded as the largest grammatical unit of a language, syntax has long been the center of grammatical study. In this chapter, we introduce some of the representative approaches to syntax.1. The traditional approach Lexical categories: words

56、are organized into groups of lexical categories, commonly knows as part of speech e.g.: n, v, adj, determiner etc.Syntactic categories: words and phrases are organized according to the syntactic categories they belong to. Syntactic categories usually refers to a word or a phrase that performs a part

57、icular grammatical functions. e.g. subject, predicate, object etc.2. The structural approachStarted by the Swiss linguist Saussure. Try to describe each language as a self-contained structural system.The structural approach regards linguistic units as interrelated with each other in a structure or a system.2.1 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationsSyntagmatic relations