I.

Linguistics: Basic Concepts

Overview of topics

Language and Languages

Speech vs. Writing
Approaches to language: Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
Grammar and its parts
Arbitrariness (conventionality)

What to remember:

Language, linguistics, grammar (language system), mental grammar, descriptive approach,

prescriptive approach, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, arbitrary
(conventional), iconic, onomatopoeia.

e.g. You should be able to explain what the descriptive approach is.

1. Language

Language is a system that associates sounds (or gestures) with meanings in a way that uses words
and sentences.

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It tries:

first, to observe languages and to describe them accurately,
then, to find generalizations within what has been described,
finally, to draw conclusions about the general nature of human language.

Applied linguistics attempts to make practical use of the knowledge derived from general linguistic
research in order, for example, to:
improve the ways in which a students native language is taught
help people learn foreign language more efficiently
write better dictionaries
improve therapy for people with language problems
search the Internet more efficiently and successfully

Linguistics overlaps and (ideally) cooperates with: psychology, sociology, anthropology,

philosophy, logic, mathematics, computer science, speech pathology, acoustics, music, crypt-
analysis, etc.

2. Speech vs. Writing

Written texts tend to be more carefully worded and better organized than spoken texts, they
contain fewer errors, hesitations, and incomplete sentences, because writing is usually planned in
advance, is subject to fewer time constraints, is proofread, etc.

However: How about instant messaging, quick e-mails?

 Written texts last and can be preserved for a long time. However: CDs, tapes, . . . can
preserve speech
Writing styles change much more slowly than speech styles, and so writing seems more
permanent and authoritative.

However: This can be is also disadvantage writing lags behind the times.

2.1 Linguists reasons for claiming that speech is primary

Historically, spoken language existed much earlier than writing.

Writing was invented in Sumer (Mesopotamia, current Iraq) about 6000 years ago.

There are many societies which only speak their language and do not write it. And no
society uses only a written language (with no spoken form).

We learn to speak before we learn to write.

Most people say more during one month than they write during their entire lives.
Writing must be taught, whereas spoken language is acquired automatically.
Speech contains information that writing lacks intonation, stress, voice quality

What about non-verbal communication?

3. Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Approach to Language

3.1 Descriptive Approach

Linguists attempt to describe the grammar of the language that exists in the minds of its
speakers, i.e. to create a model of speakers mental grammar.
The resulting descriptive grammar describes persons basic linguistic knowledge. It explains
how it is possible to speak and understand and it summarize what speakers know about the sounds,
words, phrases and sentences of their language.
Creating a descriptive grammar involves observing the language and trying to discover the
principles or rules that govern it.
Descriptive rules accept as given the patterns speakers actually use and try to account for
them. Descriptive rules allow for different dialects of a language and even variation within one
dialect.

3.2 Prescriptive Approach

Prescriptivists tell you someones idea of what is good or bad.
Prescriptive rules make a value judgment about the correctness of certain utterances and
generally try to enforce a single standard. For example:

Dont split infinitives; dont say: to easily understand

Dont end a sentence with a preposition; dont say Where are you from?

Dont use me in a subject of a sentence; dont say You and me went to the store.
 Dont use aint; dont say Aint it the truth?

The people who prescriptive grammar make up the rules of the grammar.
They attempt to impose the rules for speaking and writing on people without much regard
for what the majority of educated speakers of a language actually say and write.
So-called prescriptive grammar usually focuses only on a few issues and leaves the rest of a
language undescribed (unprescribed?). In fact, from the linguistic point of view, this is not grammar
at all.

3.3 Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism

In summary: Linguists describe language, they do not prescribe it.

As a science, linguistics:

is not in the business of making value judgments about language use.

studies how language really is used and then attempts to describe the facts, in order to
analyze and, eventually, explain them.

An Analogy:

Physicists:
dont complain that objects fall to earth
simply observe and describe the fact of falling, then try to discover the laws that are
behind it.

Linguists:
dont say that people shouldnt use aint
simply observe that some people in certain situations do use aint (without judging,
although they do note any systematic correlations of such use with particular groups, regions,
situations, styles, etc.)

4. The parts of Grammar

Grammar is a language system, a set of principles (rules) that underlie a language.

Mental Grammar the knowledge of language that allows a person to produce and understand
utterances

Grammar can be described as having different parts:

phonetics
phonology
morphology
syntax
 semantics
pragmatics

Since linguists study all of these, the terms are also used to refer to subfields of linguistics.

4.1 Phonetics & Phonology

Phonetics the production and perception of speech sounds as physical entities.

E.g., [v] is pronounced by bringing the lower lip into contact with upper teeth and forcing air out of
the mouth while the vocal folds vibrate and nasal cavity is closed o.

Phonology the sound patterns (the sound system of a particular language) and of sounds as
abstract entities.

In English, a word never starts with [kn] (note that knife starts with [n] not [k]), while in German it
is possible (e.g., Knabe boy)

4.2 Morphology

Morphology the word structure and of systematic relations between words.

Morpheme the building-blocks of words, the smallest linguistic unit which has a meaning or
grammatical function.

Words are composed of morphemes (one or more).

Sing-er-s answer-ed un-kind-ly

4.3 Syntax

Syntax phrase and sentence structure

Syntacticians try to discover rules that govern:

word order: The book is on the table.

agreement: I am here.

subject/object forms (cases): I like her. etc.

*Table book on is the the. *I are here.

*I like she.

Note: In linguistics, placing an asterisk (*) before a sentence marks that sentence as ungrammatical,
i.e., not of the kind normally used by most speakers of a particular language.
4.4 Semantics

Semantics is the literal meaning of sentences, phrases, words and morphemes. E.g., What is the
meaning of the word vegetable?

4.5 Pragmatics

Pragmatics studies language usage, especially how context influences the interpretation of
utterances the same sentence can be used to do different things in different situations.

E.g., Gee, its hot in here! can be used either to state a fact or to get someone open a window.

Simply put: semantics is the literal meaning and pragmatics is the intended meaning.

5. Arbitrariness

Arbitrariness in Language

In linguistics, the combination of a meaning and a form (e.g., a group of sounds) is called a
linguistic sign.

Arbitrariness in linguistics refers to the fact that

the meaning of linguistic signs is not in any way predictable from the form, nor is the form
dictated by the meaning. In the opposite case, if a symbol is nonarbitrary, then
one should be able to deduce its meaning from the form of the symbol.
Iconicity describes the most extreme examples of nonarbitrary form-meaning connections, where
the form is directly representational of the meaning.

One such example might be a no-smoking sign. The sign effectively contains its meaning in its
form. There is a direct link between the sign and its meaning, that link being the shape of a
cigarette. If cigarettes looked different, the sign would then also have to look different.
Another similar example is a deer-crossing sign, which is directly linked to the shape of deer.

Human language is completely arbitrary with very few exceptions (to be mentioned shortly).
This is most clearly shown by the fact that there are so many different words with little or no
similarity of form in different languages meaning the same thing.
(1) tree: French arbre, Russian derevo, Japanese ki, Korean namu, German Baum

Also, even within the same language, the form of words changes over time. We would not expect
this if there was a direct link between a words meaning and its form, since the constancy of the
meaning should prevent the form from changing. Conversely, we have words which change
meanings over time, so that the same form comes to be associated with a different meaning, again
making the existence of a link between the two highly unlikely.
The (partial) exceptions to the claim that human language is arbitrary fall under two restricted
categories onomatopoeia and sound symbolism (the partial representation of the sense of a word
by its sound, as in bang, fizz, and slide.).