英语语言学导论

Course Name:Introduction to LinguisticsSept. 2012, for Grade 2010 Classes 1-6English Undergraduate ProgramDepartment of EnglishSchool of Foreign Language StudiesNanchang University (NCU)Course Instructor: Prof./Dr. JIANGSyllabusCourse Description:This course aims at providing undergraduate juniors of English major with a fundamental and systematic account of the basic knowledge of the studies of linguistics at the modern time with explanations, illustrations, and necessary examples from the course book and also from present English and Chinese language uses, to help develop the students’ interest in this study, to facilitate their understanding of the linguistic terms and theories, and to build a systematic knowledge of the said study.Major Books Used for this Course:1)Hu, Zhuanglin 2006.Linguistics. A Course Book (Third Edition). BeijingUniversity Press, used as students’ course book.2) Robins, R. H. 1967/1997. A Short History of Linguistics (4th edn). London, NewYork: Longman.4) Yule, George. 2000. The Study of Language. Beijing: Foreign Language Teachingand Research Press.5) Keith Brown et al. (eds.) 2006. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd edn),Oxford: Elsevier.6) Collinge, N. E. (ed.) 2005. An Encyclopaedia of Language. London, New York:Routledge.7) Strazny, Philipp (ed.) 2005. An Encyclopedia of Linguistics.New York, Oxon:Fitzroy Dearborn.8) Wikipedia.9) Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2007. the electronic edition can be accessible on theinternet.Course Requirements:1)Attentive listening, active participation, quick note-taking and understanding,nice presentation in class and all the related activities2)Complete preview, in-class and after-class assignments3)Pass the final examinationCourse Schedule:1)General Introduction2)Chapter 1—Design features, origin, and functions of language3)Chapter 1 — Main branches, macro-linguistics, and important distinctionsin linguistics4)Chapter 2—Phonetic studies5)Chapter 2—Phonological studies6)Chapter 3—Word and Formation7)Chapter 3—Word/lexical changes8)Chapter 4—Syntactic relation, construction, and function9)Chapter 4—Grammatical categories, phrasing and beyond10)Chapter 5—Meaning and sense relation11)Chapter 5—Meaning analyses12)Chapter 8—Pragmatics (1)13)Chapter 8—Pragmatics (2) --Post-Gricean developments14)Chapter 11—Linguistics and foreign language teaching15)SummaryLecture 1General Introduction:Modern Linguistics and Earlier Linguistic StudiesIn this lecture, we shall make a general introduction to the development of modern linguistics and the linguistic studies before that. The students will get a general view/picture of the developments, the main linguistic schools, and their studies through attending this lecture.0.Leading in: What does your mind do most of the time? Or what do you do most ofthe time in your life including the dreaming time when you sleep? What is your major? What is English? Language is what you use most of the time in your life and is also your major. Since you are language majors, very likely you will use it for your future work. Why not learn about it then? What is language? What does it cover? …These are the questions for linguistics.1.The beginning of MODERN linguistics: 1916—(Q1. When did modern linguistics begin?)1) The first modern linguistic approacha. The “father of modern linguistics”-- Ferdinand de Saussure索绪尔(1857-1913)(Q2. Who was the father of modern linguistics?)b. The first modern linguistic book “A Course on General Linguistics”(1916).《普通语言学教程》Saussure’s two students pieced their notes takenfrom attending their teacher’s lectures and got it published in 1916/Englishversion in 1959.(Q3. What was the first modern linguistic book?)(Q4. Who published it?)2) Why is it “modern”?Because of the scientific views and the researchmethods introduced in this book. Eg. Language is a system of signs.Language has a sound system and a meaning system. Language has associative relation and paradigmatic relation.(Q5. In what sense is it called a “modern” linguistic book?)2.What happened before Saussure?Some traditional approaches to language—there are three successive phases before Saussure’s time(Q6. Who were the earliest scholars of language? What did they study?)1) The Greek researchers and their studies--“Traditional Grammar” wasinstituted;Based on logic;Aiming solely at providing rules;Distinguishing correct from incorrect forms;Classic study, philosophical, logical, meaning.(Q7. What were studied about language during the Middle Ages?)2) The researches during the Middle Ages--PhilosophyAlexandria, the “philosophical” school, religious, literary, linguistic;Linguistic structure is not the central concern, but meaning is;Seeking primarily to establish, interpret and comment upon texts;Applying the method of criticism;Comparison of texts of different periods and of different writers;Data—written language, exclusively Greek & Roman antiquityPrescriptive grammar;Paved the way for historical linguistics.(Q8. What were the two establishments in the 19th century?)3) Linguistic researches during 1800-1900--“Comparative grammar”a. The establishment of linguistic family trees—The Indo-European Family Tree印欧语系The Sino-Tibetan Family Tree 汉藏语系, etc*In 1816, “The Sanskrit Conjugation(动词变位) System” by Franz Bopp was a study of the connections between Sanskrit（梵文）, Germanic, Greek, Latin, and other European languages. The primitive elements that Sanskrit maintained are vital for the purposes of reconstruction of Indo-European language family.b. The establishment of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 国际音标and the publication in 1888, based on French teachers’ practice of teachingLatin and some other related languages.Later representatives—Max Müller, G. Curtius, A. Schleicher;Historical and comparative, etymological (语源学的);Comparativist school was the dominating study of the time.3. What does modern linguistics cover?1) Saussure and his study: the first structuralist approach2) Prague School布拉格学派The leading figure—V. Mathesius马泰休斯(1882-1946);Flourished during 1920s-30s;Mainstream structuralism; synchronic;Approach language structurally and functionally —form-functionalapproach;Followed both Polish B. de Courtenay (库尔特内) and Swiss F. de Saussure;First functionalist;Founded the International Functional Linguistic Association 1976;Distinguished contributions:a) Established the theory of phonology; distinguished between phoneticsand phonology; developed phonology as an independent study in 1939;b) Mathesius’ functional analysis of sentence components—very close tothe present division of given/new or theme/rheme, functional syntacticanalysis.3) American Structuralism/ Also called descriptive linguistics 美国结构主义/美国描写语言学Developed independently from the anthropological studies by American scholars such as Boas, Sapir, etc.；The representative figure—Leonard Bloomfield布龙菲尔德(1887-1946), his Language《语言论》(1933)；Flourished during 1930s-1950s；Structural and behavioral；Major focus—syntactic analysis；Contribution—IC analysis (immediate constituent analysis)4) The Chomskian approachThe leading figure—Noam Chomsky乔姆斯基(1928--);Influential during 1960s-1980s;Formal approach, deep structure/surface structure; NP VP;Psychological; we were born with LAD (language acquisition device);Innateness;Major focus—syntax;Contributions— a. Phrase Structure Theory;b. Transformational-Generative Grammar.5) London School 伦敦学派Leading figures:a. Malinowsky马林诺夫斯基(1884-1942) — anthropologist;b. Firth 弗斯(1890-1960) the 1st professor of General Linguistics in GreatBritain;c. M. A. K. Halliday韩礼德(1925-- ) Systemic-Functional Grammar;Influential from the 1980s;Functional approach and anthropological;Major focus—meaning in society and functional grammar;Contribution — functional analysis6) Cognitive Linguistics: a new perspective on how language is used; how weview the world and express it in language; how language tells different cognition of the same world in which human beings live.Leading figures: R. Langacker兰盖克; G. Lakoff 拉可夫;M. A. K. Halliday (partly);N. Chomsky (partly)7) Computational Linguistics: a branch of linguistics about how to teachcomputer to receive, comprehend, produce and translate natural languages. It reflects human ambition.4. Homework:1) Go over the questions discussed.2) Preview 1.1--1.5 of Chapter 1.3) What is language defined by different people? What is linguistics? How does asound come to have meaning?Lecture 2Design Features, Origin and Functions of LanguageIn this section, we shall mainly discuss some important features and functions of language. As widely discussed, there are four features and seven main functions.(Q9. What is linguistics? p14.What is language?p3.)0.Check students’ homework orally in class; ask them to give some presentation;offer them some different definitions (cf. Essentials of Linguistics pp.1 & 14);underline the key words in the definitions; explain them one by one with examples from English and Chinese to facilitate their understanding and memorizing.1) “Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for humancommunication. ---It is a system since linguistic elements are arranged systematically rather than randomly. It is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connection between a word and the object it refers to. It is symbolic because words are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention. It is vocal because sound or speech is the primary medium for a human language. It is human in that no other animals possess such language.”2) “Modern linguistics is the scientific study of language. ---It studies the rules and principles whereupon human languages are constructed and operated as systems of communication. ”(Q10. What is a design feature of language?)(Q11. How many design features are there and what are they?)1. 4 Design features of languageThe features that define human languages are called design features. (p3) (Q12. What is arbitrariness?)1)Arbitrariness 任意性There is no natural relationship between meaningand form, as well as meaning and sound of a language.Eg 1. fish (in English)le poisson (in French)鱼(in Chinese)*The above words and sounds all mean the same and all refer to the same kind of animal living in water, yet they take different forms.Eg 2. eat (in English)manger (in French)吃(in Chinese)(Q13. What is duality?)2)Duality 双重性Word is a combination of sound and meaning. Language has alevel of sounds/ a sound system and a level of meaning/ meaning system.Or: language has two systems—sound system and meaning system.(Q14. What is creativity?)3)Creativity 创造性(productivity 能产性in other linguistic books)a.We can create new words;b.We can create endless new sentences with limited number of words.(Q15. What is displacement?)4)Displacement 不受时空限制性a.One can refer to someone/sth. in the past, at the present or in thefuture;b.One can refer to someone/sth in another place or in another world,real or imagined.(Q16. What is convention?)*Convention 约定俗成is a community’s or society’s acceptance, use, and carrying on of a certain sound or form for a meaning.2. Origin of Language(Q17. How did language possibly begin?)1) Language is the very thing that makes us human.2) William C. Stokoe’s interpretation of language origin: language may have begunwith gestural expressions.Instrumental manual actions may have been transformed into symbolic gestures, and vision would have been the key of language evolution.(Q18. What is the possible relationship between language and gesture?)3) The relationship between language and gesture—whether it is one of unity orduality. Should we consider gesture and language as different and independent phenomena?A unity for language and gesture is a more reasonable understanding (Adam Kendon, in McNeill 2000).*Our knowledge and understanding of the nature of language and other related types of communication is limited and calls for ceaseless exploratory endeavor.(Q19. How many functions are there of human language? What are they?)(Q20. What is informative function?)3. 7 Functions of language1) Informative function: 信息功能(also understood as ideational function)Language is used to note down, to carry, and to pass information.(Q21. What is interpersonal function?)2) Interpersonal function: 人际功能Language is used for human communication/for communication amongpeople. It is used to establish and maintain people’s status in society/ orestablish and maintain social rules.(Q22. What is performative function?)3) Performative function: 行事功能We can use language/words to do things.a. We can use it to make others do something;b. We do something ourselves at the time when we are saying something.(Q23. What is emotive function?)4) Emotive function: 情感功能(expressive function in other books)Language can be used to express feelings or emotions.Egs. “My God.”“Alas!”“Ouch!”“Damn it!”“Wow.”(Q24. What is phatic function?)5)Phatic [\feitik] function: 酬应功能Language can be used to indicate or to maintain relationship.This function originated from Malinowski’s study of the functions oflanguage.Egs. “Good morning.”“God bless you.”“I’m sorry to hear it.”“Good day.” “Hello!” “Good-bye.”(Q25. What is recreational function?)6)Recreational function: 娱乐功能Language can be used for joy, fun, amusement, or recreation.Egs. Jokes,Chinese cross talk,songs and lyrics,poetry in general(Q26. What is metalingual function?)7)Metalingual function: 元语言功能Language can be used to talk about itself.Eg. “book” is a word that we use to refer to something that we read…*What teachers do in class is mainly the use of language of this function--touse language to explain language.4. Homework:1) Go over the questions discussed.2) Preview sections 1.7 -- 1.9 of Chapter 1. Write about differences andsimilarities between phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax,semantics and pragmatics, and hand in this homework next time.Lecture 3Main Branches, Interdisciplinary Branches and Important Distinctions0.Collect homeworkAn oral check of the questions discussed last time.(Q27. How many main branches of linguistics are there? What are they?)(Q28. What is phonetics?)1. 6 Main branches of linguistics1)Phonetics: 语音学The study of speech sounds. It studies and describes any speech sound whether it distinguishes meaning or not.Eg. three “p”sound s are noted in “speak”(un-aspirated不送气, as [p=]), “peak”(aspirated送气, as indicated by the diacritic h in [p h]), and “deep”(the neutral one [p]).(Q29. What is phonology?)2)Phonology: 音位学/音系学The study of the sound system of language--of the minimal/smallest meaningful sounds.--of the minimal sounds that distinguish meaning.Eg. the three “p”s in 1) above don’t distinguish meaning. They are of one meaningful phoneme.*Yet, in “tip” and “sip”, or “tip” “dip” the change of “t” to “s” or “t” to “d”brings about another word. T herefore, “t” and “s” are two independentphonemes.(Q30. What is morphology?)3)Morphology:形态学The study of the internal structure of words or of the formation of words.Prefix, suffix, root all help to form words.Eg. ab | norm | alfriend | lyglob | al | iz | ationdialogue, monologue, onomatopoeicinternationalism, localization(Q31. What is syntax?)4)Syntax:句法学The study of the structure/formation of sentence.Eg. I speak French.traditional analysis: Chomsky’s analysis:S Pr O SNP VPV NP(Q32. What is semantics?)5)Semantics: 语义学The study of meaning.a.meaning of words and their relations;b.meaning of sentences/ or: sentence meaning.Eg1. flower ( a super-ordinate word)rose lily tulip daffodil (hyperboles)Eg2. buy/purchase; begin/commenceEg3. in/out; give/take(Q33. What is pragmatics?)6)Pragmatics: 语用学The study of meaning in context, or meaning in use.How can people understand the following utterances correctly? Pragmaticstries to explain how and why people get the inference/implied meaning ofutterances other than the superficial/literal meaning expressed by the words.Eg1. A: How do you think of my new dress?B: The one you wore last week is really beautiful.2. A: Shall we go to the cinema?B: I have to complete the homework.3. Butterflies in one’s stomach.4. Apple in one’s eye.5. John is a lion. Queen Victoria was made of iron.(Q34. What is macrolinguistics or interdisciplinary linguistics?)2.Macrolinguistics宏观语言学It is the interdisciplinary(跨学科/跨专业) studies of linguistics, the study of language involving other fields.(Q35. What is psycholinguistics?)1)Psycholinguistics心理语言学: it is the study of the interrelation betweenlanguage and mind(语言与心智), about how language is produced, understood, and acquired/learned.(Q36. What is sociolinguistics?)2)Sociolinguistics社会语言学: it is the study of the characteristics oflanguage varieties, language functions and language speakers within a speech community/society.(Q37. What is anthropological linguistics?)3)Anthropological linguistics人类语言学:it is the study of the unwrittenlanguage, the emergence of language and the divergence of languages over thousands of years through human development.(Q38. What is computational linguistics?)4)Computational linguistics计算（机）语言学: it studies the use of computersto process or produce human language, including machine translation, computer-aided teaching, corpus(语料库), information retrieval(信息提取), and artificial intelligence, etc.3. 4 Important distinctions in linguistics(Q39. What is the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive?)1)Descriptive vs. prescriptive study: 描写性/规定性The former describes how things are; the latter prescribes how thingsought to be.*The 18th century grammar books are mainly prescriptive and the modern onesare mainly descriptive.(Q40. What is the distinction between synchronic and diachronic?)2)Synchronic vs. diachronic: 共时性/历时性The former describes phenomenon of language of a certain/single period;the latter describes language by analyzing its development throughdifferent period of time.Egs: 1) the study of the development of the Chinese “ba-construction”;2) the development of the sound“阿”from “[e]” to “[a]”;3) meaning changes of words (“小姐”,“老板”, “girl”, “bird” etc).(Q41. What is the distinction between langue and parole?)3)Langue & parole: 语言/言语The former refers to the abstract innate system of language; thelatter—the outcome (words and sentences) or what we actually utter/write.(Q42. What is the distinction between competence and performance?)4)Competence & performance: 语言能力/语言使用（或语言行为）The former refers to one’s knowledge or ability of a language; the latterthe use of it.[*The difference between pairs 3) and 4) above: Langue & parole are a pairof notions distinguishing rules and production by people following the ruleswhile competence & performance are a pair of notions focusing on languageuser’s power and the performing of it.]4.Homework: 1) Go over the questions discussed.2) Preview 2.1 & 2.23) What is “fanqie”反切? How to use it? What is 注音字母？Howdid it occur? How to use it? When and how did “pinyin”拼音begin?And the significance of its occurrence?Lecture 4PhoneticsIn this section, we shall start a new chapter—discussing speech sounds. The students will learn about 1）the main areas of the study；2）the speech organs；3）the manners and places of sound production; and 4）the description of consonants and vowels of English.0.Check students’ homework in class(Q43. What are the three branches of phonetics?)1.Three main areas of phonetics1) Articulatory Phonetics发声语音学--the study of sound production2) Acoustic Phonetics声学语音学--the study of physical properties of sounds3) Auditory Phonetics听觉语音学--the study of how sounds are perceived and understood(Q44. What organs do we use in producing speech sounds?)2. Vocal organs and sound notation1) Speech organs/ vocal (of voice) organs●Lung, trachea (wind pipe), throat, nose, mouth●Tongue, palate (腭roof of the mouth)●pharynx咽, larynx喉●vocal folds (vocal cords)声带, vocal tract 声道●oral cavity, nasal cavity 口腔，鼻腔(Q45. What is a coronal, a dorsal, a radical sound? p25. What is a voiceless sound, a voiced sound? p27.)*In phonetics, the tongue is divided into five parts: the tip, the blade, the front, the back and the root. In phonology, the sound made with the tip and blade is referred to as a coronal sound, with front and back as a dorsal sound, with root as a radical sound.*When the vocal folds are apart, the air can pass through easily and the sound produced is a voiceless sound. When the vocal folds are close together, the airstream causes them to vibrate against each other the resultant sound is voiced.(Q46. What is sound/phonetic notation/transcription? What’s the principle for establishing the IPA?)2) Phonetic transcription/sound notation语音标示/音标●The use of sets of symbols for transcribing speech sounds or torepresent language sounds.●The main principles were that there should be a separate letter foreach distinctive sound, and that the same symbol should be usedfor that sound in any language in which it appears.●International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), developed first by a group ofFrench language teachers based on their teaching experience around1930s.●Danish grammarian Otto Jesperson 叶斯柏生(1860-1943) formallyproposed it in 1886.●The first publication was in 1888.●Revised and corrected several times afterwards, widely used indictionaries and textbooks.●The very recent version came out in 2008.(Q47. What is a pulmonic sound, a non-pulmonic sound? p29)*Pulmonic sounds are produced by pushing air out of the lung, as in mostcircumstances, while non-pulmonic sounds are produced by either suckingair into the mouth or closing the glottis and manipulating the air betweenthe glottis and a place of articulation.(Q48. What are the manners of articulation? )3. Manner and place of sound production1) Manner of articulation● 1. stop/ plosive塞音/爆破音● 2. nasal 鼻音● 3. fricative 摩擦音● 4. approximant 延续音/畅音● 5. lateral 边音● 6. trill颤音●7. tap and flap触音/闪音eg. better, letter, city, pretty, bottom, button●8. affricate 塞擦音*Find examples for them from English.(Q49. What are the places of articulation? Give examples for each.)2) Place of articulation:● 1. Bilabial 双唇[b] [p] [m][w]● 2. Labio-dental唇齿[f] [v]● 3. Dental 齿[θ][δ]● 4. Alveolar 齿龈[t][d][n][s] [z][l][r]● 5. Postal velar后齿龈[∫] [з][t∫] [dз]egs. chew, true, child, tried, choose, truth, joke, drove, jam, drum● 6. Retroflex卷舌[r]●7. Palatal 颚[j]●8. Velar 软颚[k] [g] [η] eg. English, ink●9. Uvular 小舌[r] in French●10. Pharyngeal咽头Glottal 声门[?] egs. fat[f æ?t], pack[p æ? k], beaten[bi:?n], lantern, button[h] egs. glottal fricative: home, hold, hand, hat4. English speech sounds(Q50. How to describe a consonant sound of English?)1) English consonants (24 symbols according to recent revision)made with a sequence of a) the place of articulation; b) the manner.Eg 1. bilabial stop—where bilabial is the place and stop is the manner. [p] [b]Eg 2. bilabial nasal [m]Eg 3. bilabial approximant [w]*Notice: whenever there are two members in the same box in the table above,a third distinction –voice-- is needed and is mentioned in the first place:Eg 4. [p] a voiceless bilabial stop[b] a voiced bilabial stopEg 5. a voiceless labial-dental fricative [f]a voiced labial-dental fricative [v]3) English vowels (20 symbols according to recent revision)front central backhigh i: u:I umid-highз: əo:mid-low e٨ Dlow æ α:(Q51. How to describe a vowel sound of English? p37.)4) The description of English vowels is made in terms of 4 aspects:(1) the height of the tongue (high, mid, low)—tongue height(2) the position of the higher part of the tongue (front, central, back)—tongueposition(3) the length or tenseness of the sound (tense vs. lax, or long vs. short)(4) lip-rounding (rounded vs. un-rounded)Egs. [i:] high front tense un-rounded vowel[I] high front lax un-rounded vowel[α:]low back tense un-rounded[æ]low front un-rounded[ə]mid central un-rounded4. Homework:1) Go over the questions discussed.2) Find how many mistakes you make in your pronunciation of the 44 basicsounds of English. What are they and why do they occur?3) Hand in next time: What is Mandarin Chinese? How many dialects has it? Whatis the difference between language branch(语族), language, and dialect? What is a dialectic island and the significance of its existence?Lecture 5Phonological analysis0. Collect homework and check the other two parts of the homework orally inclass by asking individual students.(Q52. What is co-articulation? What is anticipatory co-articulation and perseverative co-articulation? p38.)1. Co-articulation and different transcriptions1) Co-articulation协同发音Simultaneous/overlapping articulation because of the influence of the neighbor sound(s)Eg. “map” where [æ] is influenced by [m], making it a bit nasalized.“lamb” where [æ] becomes more like the following sound [m].*If a sound becomes more like the following sound, it is anticipatoryco-articulation. If a sound shows the influence of the preceding sound, it isperseverative co-articulation.(Q53. What is nasalization? p38.)* When a non-nasal sound carries some feature of a neighboring nasal sound,this phenomenon is called nasalization.(Q54. What is narrow/broad transcription?)2) Narrow/broad transcription: 严式标音/宽式标音The former intends to symbolize all the possible speech sounds while the latter indicates only those capable of distinguishing one word from another.Egs. 1）[p=] [p h] [p] for variations of sounds in “speak” “peak”“deep”2）[p] for all of them(Q55. What is a phone, a phoneme, and an allophone?)2. Phonology—some basic concepts1) Phone, phoneme, and allophone●Phone 音素—a phonetic unit or segment. Any smallest speech soundwe hear and produce.Eg. [pit] [tip] [spit] we can identify three different /p/s;It is what “n arrow transcription” d escribes;It may or may not distinguish meaning.●Phoneme音位—a phonological unit. It has distinctive value; anabstract unit in the sound system that has no particular sound;represented by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context.Eg. /p/ is realized differently in [pit] [tip] [spi:k]./æ/is realized by an un-nasalized [æ]and a nasalized [æ].This is an important factor for determining what sounds should bedescribed when setting up the sound system.●Allophones音位变体—the phones representing the same phoneme. Or,the different realizations of the same phoneme. They are sounds whichare phonetically different but do not make one word so phoneticallydifferent as to create a new one or a new meaning thereof. Sounds that donot distinguish meaning.Eg. the three different /p/s in the above sounds.。