语言学笔记
陈银 2014/3/15
Lecture 3
Pretext
• 1. Define the following terms:
• 1). Functions of language
• 2). Phatic communion
• 3). Metalingual function
Answer
• 1). Functions of language: the role language plays in communication (e.g. to express ideas, attitudes) or in particular social situations (e.g. religious, legal.)
• 语言的功能：语言在交际（如表达观点、态度等）或特定的社会情境（如宗教、 法律场合）中所起的作用。
• 2) Phatic communion: said of talk used to establish atmosphere or maintain social contact.
• 寒暄：用来创造气氛或维持社会联系的谈话。
• 3) Metalanguage: a language used for talking about language.
• 元语言：用来谈论语言的语言。
• 2. Answer the following question:
Halliday proposes a theory metafunctions of language, what are they?
Answer 2. The metafunctions of language are: ideatinal, interpersonal and textual functions.
• 1) ideational function is to organize the speaker’s or the writer’s experience of the real or imaginary world, i. e. language refers to real or imagined persons, things actions, events, states, etc.
• 概念功能指组织说话者或作者现实或虚构世界的体验，即语言指称实际或虚构的人、物、动作、事件、状态等。
• 2) Interpersonal function is to indicate, establish, or maintain social relationships between people. It includes forms of address, speech function, MODALITY, etc.
• 人际功能表明、建立或维持人与人之间的社会关系，包括称谓形式，语言功能，情态等。
• 3) Textual function is to create written or spoken TEXTs which cohere within themselves and which fit the particular situation in which they are used.
• 语篇功能指组成书面或口头的语篇，这些语篇内部连贯，并适用于所用的特定场景。
1.7 Main branches of linguistics
Can you answer these questions?
1. What is the difference between a ‘knight’ and ‘knave’? 2. How do you pronounce the word ghoti?
3. How many words are there in the sentence
4. ‘The cats talked and the dogs walked’ 7, 6 or 2?
5. Do sentences grow on trees?
6. Can ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ ?
The branches of linguistics can help us find the answers…
Can you answer this question?
Q. What is the difference between a knight and a knave?
A. Time
Why?
‘Knave’ and ‘knight’ both meant ‘boy’ once. They now mean opposing things. Meanings of words and pronunciation change over time
Historical Linguistics
Etymology is the study of the historical development of words, which is part of Historical Linguistics.
Q. How do you pronounce the word ghoti?
A. ...
Why? If we take the [gh] from ‘laugh’, the [o] from \"women\" and the [ti] from ‘nation’ the word ghoti can be pronounced fish. We spell some words in English in ways which bear no resemblance to the way they are pronounced.
Ghoti was invented by the playwright George Bernard Shaw to show the illogicality of English spelling. Phonetics and Phonology
These are the areas of Linguistics that deal with the study of the sound system of a language (Phonology) and the scientific study of speech processes (Phonetics).
1.7.1 Phonetics
• Phonetics studies speech sounds, including the production of speech, that is how speech sounds are actually made, transmitted and received, the description and classification of speech sounds, words and connected speech, etc.
• We can approach it on various levels.
• At one level, speech is a matter of anatomy and physiology. We can
study organs such as tongue and larynx and their functions in the production of speech.
• At another level, we can focus on the speech sounds produced by
these organs by identifying and classifying the individual sounds. This is the domain of articulatory phonetics.
• We can also investigate the properties of the sound waves — acoustic phonetics.
• As speech is intended to be heard or perceived, it is therefore possible to
focus on the way in which a listener analyses or processes a sound wave — auditory phonetics.
1.7.2 Phonology
• Phonology studies the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables. It deals with the sound system of a language by treating phoneme as the point of departure.
– A phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit of sound that can signal a
difference in meaning.
Can you answer this question?
Q. How many words are there in the sentence ‘The cats talked and the dogs walked’ 7 or 6?
A. Both
Why 7? It all depends what you mean by word because the word ‘word’ is ambiguous. If the question means ‘How many word forms’ then the answer is 7 (sometimes this is referred to as 7 word tokens).
Q. How many words are there in the sentence ‘The cats talked and the
dogs walked’ 7 or 6?
A. Both
Why 6? If we mean ‘how many different word forms’, then the answer is 6 since there are two ‘the’s (sometimes referred to as word types).
Q. How many of the words in the sentence would you expect to find in the dictionary?
A. 6 or 2
Why 6? The dictionary is not a list of actual word forms but of ‘dictionary words’. We will find ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ but not ‘cats’ and ‘dogs’; we will find ‘walk’ and ‘talk’ but not ‘walked’ and ‘talked’. ‘-s’ and ‘-ed’ are not in the dictionary at all, thus 6: CAT, DOG WALK, TALK, the, and
Q. How many of the words in the sentence would you expect to find in the dictionary?
A.6 or 2
Why 2? But if we mean how many actual word forms the answer will be 2 (the, and). Look it up and see!
1.7.3 Morphology
• Morphology is concerned with the internal organization of words. It studies the minimal units of meaning — morphemes and word-formation processes.
– Although many people think of words as the basic meaningful
elements of a language，many words can be broken down into still smaller units, called morphemes.
• Morphemes serve different purposes. Some derive new words by changing the meaning or the part of speech, others only refine and give extra grammatical information about the already existing meaning of a word.
– As morphemes are pairings of sounds with meanings, there are
many complexities involved, forming a new field by the name morphophonology.
Can you answer this question?
Q. Do sentences grow on trees?
A. Yes
Why? Sentences are structured strings of words.
The string of words ‘Sentences grow on trees’ is recognisable as a well-formed sentence of English. By contrast ‘sentences grow trees on’ or ‘trees on grow sentences’ are simply word salad.
One way to show that sentences have structure is to identify which words go together to form units. So ‘on trees’ is a unit (Where do sentences grow?); so is ‘grow on trees’ (What do sentences do?) and so is ‘sentences’ (what grow on trees?).
However, the strings ‘sentences grow’ or ‘grow on’ do not relate to sensible questions and are not units in this sentence.
The relations of words in sentences is from a branch of Linguistics called ‘Syntax’
Can you answer this question?
Q. Can colourless green ideas sleep furiously?
A. Yes and no!
Why yes? Yes… because this sentence is grammatically correct – that is the nouns, verbs, adjectives are in the right place for an English sentence.
Why no? No…because you can’t make sense of it in the ‘real world’. This demonstrates that it is not grammar alone that makes a sentence sensible, but the context in which it is created. In the ‘real world’ a colour can’t be colourless and an idea can’t be green.
The world of the imagination is another matter, however! 1.7.4 Syntax
• Syntax is about principles of forming and understanding correct sentences.
– The form or structure of a sentence is governed by the rules of
syntax, which specify word order, sentence organization, and the relationships between words, word classes and other sentence elements.
• We know that words are organized into structures more than just word order.
– The children watched [the firework from the hill ].
– The children watched [the firework ] [from the hill ].
– The chicken is too hot to eat.
Semantics
The branch of linguistics dealing with meaning is called Semantics.
1.7.5 Semantics
• Semantics examines how meaning is encoded in a language.
– It is not only concerned with meanings of words as lexical items,
but also with levels of language below the word and above it, e.g. meaning of morphemes and sentences.
• The following are what the key concepts look like:
– semantic components
– denotation of words
– sense relations between words such as antonymy and synonymy
– sense relations between sentences such as entailment and
presupposition and others.
Pragmatics
The branch of linguistics dealing with meaning in context is called Pragmatics.
1.7.6 Pragmatics
• Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. It deals with particular utterances in particular situations and is especially concerned with the various ways in which the many social contexts of language performance can influence interpretation.
– In other words, pragmatics is concerned with the way language is
used to communicate rather than with the way language is internally structured.
• It regards speech performance as primarily a social act ruled by various social conventions.
• Some key concepts such as reference, force, effect, and cooperative principles may appear commonsensical, yet pragmatics is just about one of the most promising fields of linguistic studies.
• Take conversation for example.
– Since language is transmitted primarily via the speech mode,
pragmatic rules govern a number of conversational interactions, such as sequential organization, repair of errors, role and speech acts.
– Organization of conversations includes taking turns, opening,
maintaining and closing a conversation, establishing and maintaining a topic etc.
Microlinguistics
• 1. Sound phonetics
• 2. Sounds phonology
• 3. Word morphology
• 4. Phrases/sentence syntax
• 5. Meaning semantics
• 6. Meaning in a context pragmatics
Microlinguistics vs. Macrolinguistics 1.8 Macrolinguistics
• Linguistics is not the only field concerned with language.
• Other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, ethnography, the science of law and artificial intelligence etc. are also preoccupied with language
1.8.1 Psycholinguistics:the study of language to psychology:
Eg.
• how the human mind works when we use language
• how we memorize
• how the information is processed in the course of communication
1.8.2 Sociolinguistics
• An interdisciplinary study of language use, attempting to show the relationship between language and society.
专八人文知识语言学真题
9. The study of the mental processes of language comprehension and production is D
A. corpus linguistics B. sociolinguistics C. theoretical linguistics D. psycholinguistics
1.9 Important distinctions in linguistics
• Descriptive vs. prescriptive
• Synchronic vs. diachronic
• Langue & parole
• Competence and performance
1.9.1 Descriptive vs. prescriptive（描述和规定）
If a linguistic study describes and analyzes the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive; if it aims to lay down rules for “correct” behavior, i. e., to tell people what they should say and what they should not say, it is said to be prescriptive.
• Don't say X.
• People don't say X.
• The first is a prescriptive command, while the second is a descriptive statement.
– The distinction lies in prescribing how things ought to be and
describing how things are.
• descriptive is to tell what language is and how we actually use language; while prescriptive is to tell what language should be and how we must use language;
E.g. He is taller than ______. ( a. me b. I)
Comment on the following sentences.
1.(A). It is I.
(B) It is me.
2. (A). Who did you speak to?
(B) Whom did you speak to?
3. (A). I haven’t done anything.
(B) I haven’t done nothing.
Modern linguistics differs from the linguistic study normally known as “grammar”. Early grammars were based on “high” (religious, literary) written language. They set models for language users to follow. And today,
the grammar taught to learners of a language is still basically prescriptive. It tells the learner what he should say, or what is supposed to be correct usage.
On the other hand, modern linguistics is mostly descriptive. Linguistic study is supposed to be scientific and objective and the task of linguists is supposed to describe the language people actually use, be it “correct” or not. Linguists believe that whatever occurs in the language people use should be described and analyzed in their investigation.
1.9.2 Synchronic vs. diachronic （共时和历时）
The description of a language at some point in time is a synchronic study; the description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. A diachronic study of language is a historical study; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time. （For example, a study of the features of the English used in Shakespeare’s time would be a synchronic study, and a study of the changes English has undergone since then would be a diachronic study.）
E.g. 小 姐（古汉语/现代汉语/当代汉语）
In modern linguistics, synchronic study seems to enjoy priority over diachronic study. The reason is that unless the various states of a language are successfully studied it would be difficult to describe the changes that have taken place in its
historical development. Synchronic descriptions are often thought of as being descriptions of a language as it exists at the present day and most linguistic studies are of this type.
1.9.3 Langue & parole（语言和言语）
• The distinction between langue and parole was made by the Swiss linguist F. de Saussure（索绪尔） in the early 20th century. Langue and parole are French words. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use.
Langue is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to abide by, and parole is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is abstract; it is not the language people actually use. Parole is concrete; it refers to the naturally occurring language events.
Langue is relatively stable, it does not change frequently; while parole varies from person to person, and from situation to situation. (Take for example the structure of a sentence in English. An English sentence must have a subject and a predicate. This is a rule agreed on by all the English speakers. This is part of the langue. While adhering to the same abstract system, each user of English has his own way of applying the rules. Thus each act of speaking is a unique event, different from any other act. )
Saussure made this distinction in order to single out one aspect of language for serious study. In his opinion, parole is simply a mass of linguistic facts, too varied and confusing for systematic investigation, and what linguists should do is to abstract langue form parole, i. e., to discover the regularities governing the actual use of language and make them the subjects of study of linguistics.
1.9.4 Competence and performance（语言能力和语言运用）
Similar to Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole is the distinction between competence and performance, which was proposed by the American linguist N. Chomsky（乔姆斯基） in the late 1950’s.
• Chomsky defines competence as the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language, and performance the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication. According to Chomsky, a speaker has internalized a set of rules about his language, this enables him to produce and understand an infinitely large number of sentences and recognize sentences that are ungrammatical and ambiguous.
• Despite his perfect knowledge of his own language, a speaker can still make mistakes in actual use, e.g. slips of the tongue, and unnecessary pauses. This imperfect performance is caused by social and psychological factors such as stress, anxiety and embarrassment.
Similar to Saussure, Chomsky thinks that what linguists should study is the ideal speaker’s competence, not his performance, which is too haphazard to be studied. Although a speaker possesses an internalized set of rules and applies them in actual use, he can not tell exactly what these rules are. So the task of the linguists is to discover and specify these rules.
• While Saussure’s distinction and Chomsky’s are very similar, they differ at least in that Saussure took a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions, and Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view and to him competence is a property of the mind of each individual.
Practice
Please look at the hand-out 1.
Group Work
Group 3: 2.1 How Speech Sounds Are Made?
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