English Linguistics戴版课件1.ppt

1、A Course on Linguistics for Students of English School of Foreign Languages,The Goals for this Course,To get a scientific view on language; To understand some basic theories on linguistics; To understand the applications of the linguistic theories, especially in the fields of language teaching To pr

2、epare for the future research work.,The Requirements for this course,Class attendance 30% Examination 70%,Reference Books,戴炜栋，何兆熊，(2002)，新编简明英语语言学教程，上海外语教育出版社。 胡壮麟，(2001)，语言学教程，北京大学出版社。 刘润清，(1995)，西方语言学流派，外语教学与研究出版社。 Fromkin,V. cant be combined at will. e.g. *bkli, *I apple eat.,Language is arbitrar

3、y,Arbitrary- no intrinsic connection between the word and the thing it denotes, e.g. “pen” by any other name is the thing we use to write with.,Language is symbolic in nature,Symbolic- words are associated with objects, actions ideas by convention. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”-Sha

4、kespeare,Language is primarily vocal,Vocal- the primary medium is sound for all languages; writing system came much later than spoken form.,Language is human-specific,Human-specific- different from the communication systems other forms of life possess, e.g. bird songs, bee dance, animal cries.,The d

5、esign/defining features of human language (Charles Hockett),Arbitrariness Productivity/Creativity Duality Displacement Cultural transmission,Arbitrariness,-No logical (motivated or intrinsic) connection between sounds and meanings. Onomatopoeic words (which imitate natural sounds) are somewhat motiv

6、ated ( English: rumble, crackle, bang, . Chinese: putong, shasha, dingdang ) Some compound words are not entirely arbitrary, e.g. type-writer, shoe-maker, air-conditioner, photocopy,Productivity/creativity,-Peculiar to human languages，users of language can understand and produce sentences they have

7、never heard before, e.g. we can understand sentence like “ A red-eyed elephant is dancing on the hotel bed”, though it does not describe a common happening in the world. A gibbon call system is not productive for gibbon draw all their calls from a fixed repertoire which is rapidly exhausted, making

8、any novelty impossible. The bee dance does have a limited productivity, as it is used to communicate about food sources in any direction. But food sources are 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 pe

9、ople, animals, hopes or desires,Duality (double articulation),Lower level-sounds (meaningless) 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 sound

10、s can be grouped and regrouped into a large number of units of meaning (words), and 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.,Displacement,-Language can b

11、e used to refer to things, which are not present: real or imagined matters in 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 sourc

12、es they have found when they are no longer in the presence of the food. In this 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 dis

13、covered last month nor do they speculate about future discoveries.,Cultural transmission,-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 t

14、o those of all other cats, gibbons and bees. A Chinese speaker and 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

15、, a pig child shows that a human being brought up in isolation simply does not acquire human language.,Functions of language,Linguists talk about the functions of language in an abstract sense, that is, not in terms of using language to chat, to think, to buy and sell, to read and write, to greet, p

16、raise and condemn people, etc. They summarize these practical functions and attempt some broad classifications of the basic functions of language.,For Jakobson, language is above all for communication. While for many people, the purpose of communication is referential, for him (and the Prague school

17、 structuralists), reference is not the only, not even the primary goal of communication. Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of lang

18、uage, poetry, and art.,In his famous article, Linguistics and Poetics, he defined six primary factors of any speech event, namely: speaker, addressee, context, message, code, contact. 1 context 2 message 3 sender - 4 receiver 5 channel 6 code In conjunction with these, Jakobson established a well-kn

19、own framework of language functions based on the six key elements of communication, namely:,referential (to convey message and information),Language is used to tell something, to give information, or to reason things out. Declarative sentences serve this function. For instance, the symbol “Road clos

20、ed” on a road serve this function.,poetic - to indulge in language for its own sake The addresser uses language for the sole purpose of displaying the beauty of language itself, e.g. poetry,Emotive- to express attitudes, feelings and emotions The emotive function of language is one of the most power

21、ful uses of language because it is crucial in changing the emotional status of an audience for or against someone or something. It is a means of getting rid of our nervous energy when we are under stress, e.g. swear words, obscenities, involuntary verbal reactions to a piece of art or scenery; conve

22、ntional words/phrases, e.g. God, My, Damn it, What a sight, Wow, Ugh, Oh.,Conative - to persuade and influence others through commands and requests Most imperative sentences are of this function. For example, the sentence “Close your book and listen to me” perform this function.,Phatic- to establish

23、 communion with others Phatic function/communion: language is used to establish an atmosphere or maintain social contact between the speaker and hearer. Greetings, farewells, and comments on the weather serve this function. For example, the expressions such as How do you do? and Ah, here you are, do

24、 not convey meaning, but are used to establish a common sentiment between the speaker and hearer.,metalingual - to clear up intentions and meanings,They correspond to such communication elements as context, message, addresser, addressee, contact and code respectively. Jakobsons views of the function

25、s of language are still of great importance.,Halliday proposes a theory of metafunctions of language, that is, language has ideational, interpersonal and textual functions.,Ideational function constructs a model of experience as well as logical relations, interpersonal function enacts social relatio

26、nships and textual function creates relevance to context.,The origin of language,The divine-origin theory- Language is a gift of God to mankind. The invention theory- imitative, cries of nature, the grunts of men working together. The evolutionary theory- the result of physical and psychological dev

27、elopment.,2. What is linguistics?,-Linguistics is the scientific study of language. -A person who studies linguistics is known as a linguist.,Four principles of linguistic studies,(i) exhaustiveness: it strives for thorough- goingness in the examination of relevant materials; (ii) consistency: there

28、 should be no contradiction between different parts of the total statement; (iii) economy: other things being equal, a shorter statement or analysis is to be preferred to one that is longer or more complex. Methodology：Prescriptive or descriptive (iv) Objectivity,How can we approach an object scient

29、ifically?,A scientific study is one which is based on the systematic investigation of data, conducted with reference to some general theory of language structure. Observationgenerallzationhypotheslstested by further observationtheory,The scope or major branches of linguistics,Theoretical linguistics

30、 Phonetics Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Use of linguistics Applied linguistics Sociolinguistics Psycholinguistics ,Theoretical linguistics,Phonetics-speech sound (description, classification, transcription): articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, auditory phonetics. Phonology-sound pat

31、terns of languages Morphology-the form of words Syntax-the rules governing the combination of words into sentence. Semantics-the meaning of language (when the meaning of language is conducted in the context of language use-Pragmatics),Use of linguistics,Sociolinguistics Psycholinguisticss Applied li

32、nguistics Stylistics,Sociolinguistics,Sociolinguistics studies the relations between language and society: how social factors influence the structure and use of language. It studies such mattes as the linguistic identity of social groups, social attitudes to language, standard and non-standard forms

33、 of language, the patterns and needs of national language use, and so on.,Psycholinguisticss,Psycholinguistics is the study of language and mind: the mental structures and processes which are involved in the acquisition, comprehension and production of language. Perhaps the most well-developed part

34、of psycholinguistics is concerned with language acquisition in children although there is a growing amount of work being done on second language acquisition and learning. People have also attempted to study such things as speech perception and comprehension. These topics of research are intrinsicall

35、y bound up with the broader psychological studies of cognition and memory. We will return to the discussion of psycholinguistics in Chapter 9.,Applied linguistics,Applied linguistics is primarily concerned with the application of linguistic theories, methods and findings to the elucidation of langua

36、ge problems which have arisen in other areas of experience. The most well-developed branch of applied linguistics is the learning and teaching of foreign languages and sometimes the term is used as if this were the only field involved. But several other fields of application have emerged in recent y

37、ears, including the linguistic analysis of language disorders, which is called clinical linguistics, and the use of language in mother-tongue education, which is called educational linguistics, and developments in lexicology, translation and stylistics. It seems that there is no clear-cut boundary b

38、etween applied linguistics and the various interdisciplinary branches of linguistics, such as sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. On the other hand, as these branches develop their own theoretical foundations, the distinction between “pure” and “applied” is becoming obvious.,Stylistics,Stylistic

39、s is the study of how literary effects can be related to linguistic features. It usually refers to the study of written language, including literary texts, but it also investigates spoken language sometimes. It is concerned with the choices that are available to a writer and the reasons why particul

40、ar forms and expressions are used rather than others. Since stylistics is the scientific study of literary style, it can be called the “science of literature”.,Some other applications,Neurolinguistics Anthropological linguistics Computational linguistics,Anthropological linguistics,Anthropology and

41、linguistics became closely associated in the early days of anthropological fieldwork when anthropologists enlisted the help of linguists to study unwritten languages. In contrast with other linguists, then, anthropological linguists are interested primarily in the history and structure of formerly u

42、nwritten languages.,Because an unwritten language must be heard in order to be studied, it does not leave any traces once its speakers died off. Anthropological linguists must begin in the present, with comparisons of contemporary languages. Then they may draw inferences about the kinds of change in

43、 language that may have occurred in the past and that may account for similarities and differences observed in the present.,Computational linguistics,Computational linguistics is an approach to linguistics which employs mathematical techniques, often with the help of a computer. It includes the anal

44、ysis of language data, the research on machine-aided translation, electronic production of artificial speech and the automatic recognition of human speech. It has produced programmes for collecting and evaluating large amounts of language data for making frequency word lists, for automatically index

45、ing, and for producing concordances (word lists with contexts).,Neurolinguistics,Related with psycholinguistics is the study of language processing and language presentation in the brain, which is now known as neurolinguistics or neurological linguistics. It typically studies the disturbances of lan

46、guage comprehension and production caused by the damage of certain areas of the brain. Now it has been found that damage in Brocas area will cause non-fluent speech, full of broken sentences consisting mainly of content words. Damage in Wernickes area will cause severely weakened comprehension of wo

47、rds and sentences especially in speech.,Global view of branches of linguistics,Some important distinctions in linguistics,Descriptive vs prescriptive,Synchronic vs diachronic,Speech vs writing,Langue vs parole (F. de Saussure),Competence and performance (Chomsky),Traditional grammar vs modern lingui

48、stics,Descriptive vs prescriptive,Descriptive - describe/analyze linguistic facts observed or language people actually use (modern linguistic) Prescriptive -lay down rules for “correct” linguistic behavior in using language (traditional grammar),Synchronic vs diachronic,Synchronic study- description

49、 of a language at some point of time (modern linguistics) Diachronic study- description of a language through time (historical development of language over a period of time),Speech vs writing,Speech - primary medium of language Writing - later developed,Langue vs parole (F. de Saussure),Langue - the

50、 abstract linguistic system shared by all members of the speech community. Parole - the realization of langue in actual use. Saussure takes a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions.,Langue is social, conventional side of language, while parole is ind

51、ividualized speech. Langue is the code, and parole is the message. Parole is the concrete manifestation of language either through speech or writing. Langue is the abstract knowledge necessary for speaking, listening, writing and reading. It is relatively stable and systematic, whereas parole is mor

52、e variable and may change according to contextual factors. Parole and langue together constitute language. While parole constitutes the immediately accessible data, the linguists proper object is the langue of each community, the lexicon, grammar, and phonology implanted in each individual by his up

53、bringing in society and on the basis of which he speaks andunderstands his language.,Competence and performance (Chomsky),Competence - 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.,In wh