语言学 第一章.ppt

1、Chapter 1 Introduction,要求,1 无特殊情况不得请假 2 如果在书上做笔记，用蓝色笔做；以后用红色笔划重点 3 要合理利用时间记忆吸收所学过的东西 4 要整理一些题目的答案,I What is linguistics?,-Linguistics is the scientific study of language. -it studies not any particular language, but languages in general -It tries to answer “what is language?” “how does language work

2、?” “what do all languages have in common” “what makes languages change?” “how does a child acquire his mother tongue?” and so on -A person who studies linguistics is known as a linguist.,II The major branches of linguistics,General linguistics is the study of language as a whole, which deals with th

3、e basic concepts, theories , descriptions , models and methods applicable in any linguistic study Applied linguistics is the studies of how to apply linguistic findings to solving some practical problems such as the recovery of speech ability and teaching a foreign language and so on. Applied lingui

4、stics is often referred to language teaching , especially second language teaching,Theoretical linguistics 2.1 Phonetics( 语音学） is the study of sounds used in linguistic communication，e g. how a person make a sound 2.2 Phonology(音位学）studies how sounds are put together to convey meaning in communicati

5、on, for example, the sound /l/ in leap and feel are two different sounds, but they are interchangeable and make no differences in meaning, we can just leave them as one phoneme(音位） /l/,2.3 Morphology(形态学）studies how the symbols are arranged and combined to form words English we can never put “p,t,d,

6、m” these 4 letters together to form a word no matter in what kind of order because an English word must have a vowel in it , pure consonants can hardly form a word ( except hmm and some abbreviations缩略词） 2.4 Syntax(句法学）studies the rules governing the words to form grammatically permissible sentences

7、, eg, we can say “I love you” but we can never say “I you love” because there is a rule that we should put the subject at the beginning of the sentence and put the object after the verb.,2.5 Semantics(语义学）can be simply defined as the study of meaning. For example, the basic meaning of the word dog :

8、 an animal with 4 legs and a tail, often kept as a pet or trained for work such as hunting or guarding buildings. A: I like dogs B: I saw a lot of dogs yesterday. The meaning of the word dog in these 2 sentences are different for in A ,it refers to dogs in general but in B ,it refers to some particu

9、lar dogs.,2 The scope or major branches of linguistics,Use of linguistics 2.6 Pragmatics(语用学）is the study of meaning in a context of language use. Wife: Oh ,darling, I like this gold earring very much. Husband: You know, Im now out of job. What is the semantic meaning of the 2 sentences? What is the

10、 pragmatical meaning?,2.7 Sociolinguistics(社会语言学）is the study of social aspects of language and its relation with society ,for example, dirty words are spoken in different social classes, but the extent of speaking it is varied concerning different area, education background and so on. 2.8 Psycholin

11、guistics（心理语言学） is the study of language that relates to psychology such as how our mind works when we use language, how we memorize and how we process the information we receive in communication., Some important distinctions in linguistics,3.1 Descriptive vs. prescriptive Descriptive (描写性的）- descri

12、be or analyze linguistic facts observed or language people actually use (modern linguistic) Prescriptive（规定性的） -lay down rules for “correct” linguistic behavior in using language (traditional grammar),3.2 Synchronic vs. diachronic,Synchronic study（共时的）- description of a language at some point of tim

13、e (modern linguistics) Diachronic study（历时的）- description of a language through time (historical development of language over a period of time),3.3 Speech vs. writing,Speech(言语)- primary medium of language. Spoken language is prior to writing, it plays a greater role than writing language. Even toda

14、y there are still some languages without written form Writing（文字） -it is later developed and is only the “revised” record of speech.,3.4 Langue vs. parole (F. de Saussure 索绪尔),Langue - the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of the speech community. (ie, Chinese linguistic system, Engli

15、sh) Parole - the realization of langue in actual use. It differs from person to person, and from time to time. (ie. he had said that ) Saussure takes a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions.,3.5 Competence and performance (Chomsky) 语言能力 语言应用 乔姆斯基,Co

16、mpetence - the ideal users knowledge of the rules of his language Performance - the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view and to him competence is a property of the mind of each individual.,3.6 Traditional gramma

17、r vs. modern linguistics,Traditional grammar - prescriptive, written, Latin-based framework Modern linguistics - descriptive, spoken, not necessarily Latin-based framework, What is language?,4.1 Language can mean what a person says (e.g. bad language, expressions) the way of speaking or writing (e.g

18、. Shakespeares language, Luxuns language) a particular variety or level of speech or writing (e.g. language for special purpose, colloquial language),the abstract system underlying the totality of the speech/writing behavior of a community (e.g. Chinese language, first language) the common features

19、of all human languages (e.g. He studies language) a tool for human communication. (social function) a set of rules. (rule-governed),Sapirs definition (1921)萨丕尔,“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols

20、.”,Halls definition (1968)霍尔,Language is “the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.”,Chomskys definition (1957),“From now on I will consider language to be a set of (finite or infinite) sentences, each finite

21、in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.”,4.2 Language can be generally defined as,a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.,Language is a system,i.e. elements in it are arranged according to certain rules and cant be combined at will. e.g. *bkli, *I apple e

22、at can not hold its ground,Language is arbitrary,There is no intrinsic connection between the linguistic symbol and what the symbol stands for, or say, between a word and the thing it denotes, e.g. “pen” by any other name is the thing we use to write with. A rose by any other name would smell as swe

23、et”-Shakespeare,Language is vocal,vocal-the primary medium for all languages is sound. Writing system came into being much later than the spoken forms .Children acquire spoken language before they can read or write.,Language is human-specific,Human-specific- different from the communication systems

24、of other forms of life possess, e.g. bird songs, bee dance, animal cries, we cannot call the sounds from animals language, The design/defining features of human language (Charles Hockett),Arbitrariness Productivity/Creativity Duality Displacement Cultural transmission,5.1 Arbitrariness,there is no l

25、ogical (motivated or intrinsic) connection between sounds and meanings. When we say language is arbitrary we should also notice that language is not entire arbitrary , Onomatopoeic words(拟声词） (which imitate natural sounds) are somewhat motivated( English: rumble, crackle, bang, . Chinese: pu tong, s

26、ha sha, ding dang )， Some compound words are not entirely arbitrary, e.g. type-writer, shoe-maker, air-conditioner, photocopy,5.2 Productivity/creativity能产性创造性,-Peculiar to human languages，users of language can understand and produce sentences they have never heard before, e.g. we can understand sen

27、tence like “ A red-eyed elephant is dancing on the hotel bed”, though it does not describe a common happening in the world. Productivity is unique to human language. The bee dance does have a limited productivity, as it is used to communicate about food sources in any direction. But food sources are

28、 the only kind of messages that can be sent through the bee dance; bees do not “talk” about themselves, the hives, or wind, let alone about people, animals, hopes or desires,5.3 Duality (double articulation) 双层性,Language is a system consisting 2 sets of structures or 2 levels: Lower level-sounds (me

29、aningless) Higher level-meaning (larger units of meaning) A communication system with duality is considered more flexible than one without it, for a far greater number of messages can be sent.,A small number of sounds can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning (words), and

30、the units of meaning can be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences. (we make dictionary of a language, but we cannot make a dictionary of sentences of that language.,5.4 Displacement 移位性,-Language can be used to refer to things, which are not present: real or imagined matters i

31、n the past, present or future, or in far-away places. A gibbon never utters a call about something he ate last year There is something special about the bee dance though. Bees communicate with other bees about the food sources they have found when they are no longer in the presence of the food. In t

32、his sense, the bee dance has a component of displacement. But this component is very insignificant. For the bees must communicate about the food immediately on returning to the hive. They do not dance about the food they discovered last month nor do they speculate about future discoveries.,5.5 Cultu

33、ral transmission 文化传承性,-Language is culturally transmitted (through teaching and learning; rather than by instinct). Animal call systems are genetically transmitted. All cats, gibbons and bees have systems which are almost identical to those of all other cats, gibbons and bees. A Chinese speaker and

34、 an English speaker are not mutually intelligible. This shows that language is culturally transmitted. That is, it is pass on from one generation to the next by teaching and learning, rather than by instinct. The story of a wolf child, a pig child shows that a human being brought up in isolation simply does not acquire human language., Functions of language,6.1 three ma