语言学超精简1

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION
Session A
Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.
Language is a means of verbal communication. It is instrumental in that communicating by speaking or writing is a purposeful act.
It is social and conventional in that language is a social semiotic and communication can only take place effectively if all the users share a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonverbal cues, motivation, and socio-cultural roles. Language learning and use are determined by the intervention of biological, cognitive, psychosocial, and environmental factors.Other definitions：Language is a symbolic form of communication that involves, on the one hand, the comprehension of words and sentences and, on the other, the expression of feelings, thoughts, and ideas. The basic units of language are phonemes, morphemes, and words.
from Encyclopedia Britannica
Language is the systematic communication by vocal symbols. It is a universal characteristic of the human species.Nothing is known of its origin, although scientists have identified a gene that clearly contributes to the human ability to use language. Scientists generally hold that it has been so long in use that the length of time writing is known to have existed (7,900 years at most) is short by comparison. Just as languages spoken now by peoples of the simplest cultures are as subtle and as intricate as those of the peoples of more complex civilizations, similarly the forms of languages known (or hypothetically reconstructed) from the earliest records show no trace of being more ―primitive‖ than their modern forms.
from The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
人类特有的一种符号系统。

当作用于人与人的关系的时候，它是表达相互反应的中介；当作用于人和客观世界的关系的时候，它是认知事物的工具；当作用于文化的时候，它是文化信息的载体。

from 《中国大百科全书·语言文字卷》by许国璋
Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.
from Language(1921) by Sapir
A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates.
from Outline of Linguistic Analysis (1942) by B Bloch& G L Trager
…a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.
from Syntactic Structures (1957) by N. Chomsky
Language is the method of human communication using spoken or written words.
from Macmillan English Dictionary
Language is a system of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar, or the system of communication used by the people of a particular country or profession.
from Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
Language is the use of a system of communication which consists of a set of sounds or written symbols.
from Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners
Language is a system of communication by written or spoken words, which is used by the people of a particular country or area.
from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Language is the use by human beings of voice sounds, and often written symbols representing these sounds, in organized combinations and patterns in order to express and communicate thoughts and feelings.
from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
Language is a human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, feelings and desires by means of a system of sounds and sound symbols.
from Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English1984
As Bertrand Russell once observed: ―No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.‖ So what makes human language so complicated and flexible, so unrestrained by the immediate context and so capable of creating new meanings, in a word, so distinctive from languages used by other species? The features that define our human languages can by called DFESIGN FEATURES (by Charles F Hockett—originally 12 features). The following are the frequently discussed ones.
arbitrariness duality creativity displacement interchangeability reflectiveness cultural transmission
Instructor presents the Design features of language on the Bb.
1. Arbitrariness
An example: river—江、河—fleuve (into the sea)/eiviere (branch)
The widely accepted meaning of this feature, which was discussed by Saussure, first refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning.
(What‟s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call‟d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.)
ROMEO and JULIET SCENE II Act ⅱ
However there seems to be different levels of ARBITRARINESS.
§1. Arbitrary relationship between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning
§2. Arbitrariness at the syntactic level
According to systemic-functionalists and American functionalists, language is not arbitrary at the syntactic level. The order of elements in a sentence follows certain rules, and there is a certain degree of correspondence between the sequence of clauses and the real happenings (iconicity). Therefore the functionalists hold that the most
strictly arbitrary level of language exists in the distinctive units of sounds by which we distinguish pairs of words like pin and bin, or fish and dish.
§3. conventionality
―名无故宜，约之以命，约定俗成谓之宜，异于约则谓之不宜。

名无固实，约之以命，约定俗成谓之实名‖《荀子·正名》
The link between a linguistic sign and its meaning is a matter of CONVENTION. Arbitrariness of language makes it potentially creative, and conventionality of language makes learning a language laborious.
2. Duality(of patterning)/ double articulation linguistique (André MARTINET)
―By DUALITY is meant the property of having two levels of structures, such that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organiza tion‖ (Lyons, 1982:20 Language and Linguistics )
The property of duality then only exists in such a system, namely, with both elements (primary units) and units.
Language is hierarchical. The lowest level consists of dozens of bits of meaningless sounds, which occur in chumps that we call syllables. A syllable is the smallest unit that is normally spoken by it. Scores of syllables become the carriers of hundreds of meaningful segments of words that are called morphemes, such as the prefix trans-or the suffix –ism. With thousands of words we associate millions of meanings, and on top of these millions—astronomical number of possible sentences and discourses.
―Stratification—this organization of levels on level—is the physical manifestation of the ‗infinite use of finite means‘, the trait that most distinguishes human communication and that provides its tremendous resourcefulness.‖ (Bollinger and Sears 1981)
3. Creativity/productivity
By creativity we mean language is resourceful because of its duality and its recursiveness. It enables native speakers to construct and understand an infinitely large number of utterances, including utterances that they have never previously encountered. (Colorless green ideas sleep furiously/A red-eyed elephant is dancing on the small hotel bed with an African gibbon.)
Language is creative in another sense, that is, its potential to create endless sentences. The recursive nature of language provides a theoretical basis for this possibility. (Recursiveness simply means the rule of non-random repetitions of substrings within strings.) e.g.
I know that you know that I know that you know…
4. Displacement
Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts, which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication.
5. Interchangeability(Lyons: semantics Vol.Ⅰ)
It refers to the fact that man can both produce and receive messages, and his roles as a speaker and a hearer can be exchanged at ease.
6.Reflectiveness/reflexivity (Lyons: semantics Vol.Ⅰ)
By reflectiveness is meant that language can be used to refer to, or describe itself. The language used is called matalanguage.
7. Cultural transmission
While human capacity for language has a generic basis, i.e., we were all born with the ability to acquire language (N. Chomsky called man‘s capacity for language ―language acquisition device‖, or LAD), the details of any language system are not genetically transmitted, but instead have to be taught and learned. Any language is passed on from generation to the next through teaching and learning, rather than by instinct.
Conclusion: language is human specific.
1) First of all, human language has six ―design features‖ which animal communication systems do not have, at least not in the true sense of them.
2) Secondly, linguists have done a lot trying to teach animals such as chimpanzees to speak a human language but have achieved nothing inspiring. Washoe, a female chimpanzee, was brought up like a human child by Beatrix and Alan Gardner. She was taught ―American sign Language‖, and learned a little that made the teachers happy but did mot make the linguistics circle happy, for all experiments with
chimpanzees, including the Washoe case, failed to teach them human language. Another example is Nim Chimpsky. The chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky was the subject of a landmark experiment in teaching sign language to apes. Named in a humorous salute to language theorist Noam Chomsky, Nim was raised in a human-like setting and taught sign language by his caretaker Petitto as if he were a human child. Nim learned to use basic signs but, it was generally agreed, did not develop complex language skills.
3) Thirdly, a human child reared among animals cannot speak a human language, not even when he is taken back and taught to do so.
Tips:
The most extensive catalog of the world‘s languages, generally taken to be as authoritative as any, is that of the Ethnologue organization(民族语言), whose detailed classified list currently includes 6,809 distinct languages.
1. God created language
―In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.‖(The Gospel according to John1:1)
―And the Lord said, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.‖ (Genesis Chapter11:6)耶和华说，看哪，他们成为一样的人民，都是一样的言语，如今既作起这事来，以后他们所要作的事就没有不成就的了。

2. The bow-wow theory汪汪说
In primitive times people imitated the sounds of the animal calls in the wild environment they lived and speech developed from that.
3. The pooh-pooh theory噗噗说
In the hard life of our primitive ancestors, they utter instinctive sounds of pain, anger and joy.
4. The “yo-he-he” theory哟-嗬-哟说
As primitive people worked together, they produced some rhythmic grunts, which gradually developed into chants and then into language.
One thing we can say for certain is that language evolves within specific historical, social and cultural contexts.
Anecdote:
In the seventh century B.C., the Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus conducted an unusual experiment: he plucked a couple of infants from their mothers and turned them over to a shepherd, to be raised in seclusion and in the absence of any spoken word. The idea was that whatever sounds the babies spontaneously emitted would reveal the oldest, the original human language.
Herodotus: Histories (2) Linguistics is the science of language, or the scientific study of language.
Note: 1) The word ―study‖ here does not mean ―learn‖, but means ―examine‖ or ―investigate‖; the word ―scientific‖ refers to the way language is studied.
2) The process of linguistics study:
a. First, certain linguistic facts are observed, which display some similarities, and generalizations are made about them;
b. Based on these generalizations, hypotheses are formulated to account for these facts;
c. Then the hypotheses are tested by further observations;
d. Finally a linguistic theory is constructed about what language is and how it works.
3) The four principles guiding the study of language:
In order to make his analysis scientific, a linguist is usually guided by four principles: exhaustiveness, consistency, Economy and objectivity. Exhaustiveness means he should gather all the materials relevant to the study and give them an adequate explanation, in spite of the complicatedness. He is to leave no linguistic ―stone‖ unturned. Consistency means there should be no contradiction between different parts of the total statement. Economy means a linguist should pursue brevity in the analysis when it is possible. Objectivity implies that since some people may be subjective in the study, a linguist should be (or sound at least) objective, matter-of-face, faithful to reality, so that his work constitutes part of the linguistics research.
Tips: the following is a list of some international linguistic journals.
1. Language 语言(American)(by the Linguistic Society of America (1924), LSA, and Bloomfield as one of the founders)
2. Lingua 语言学(the Netherlands)
3.Journal of linguistics 语言学杂志(Britain)
(by the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, LAGB)
4. Applied linguistics 应用语言学(Britain)
5. Journal of pragmatics 语用学杂志(the Netherlands)
6. Linguistic inquiry 语言学研究(America)
7. Computational linguistics 计算语言学(America)
(by the Association for Computational Linguistics) 8.Meta 译者(Canada)
Session C
1.general linguistics vs descriptive linguistics
historical linguistics
theoretical linguistics vs applied linguistics
microlinguistics vs macrolinguistics
General linguistics is the study of language as a whole.General linguistics attempts to establish general principles for the study of all languages and to determine the characteristics of human language as a phenomenon. It supplies the concepts and categories in terms of which particular languages are to be analyzed. Descriptive linguistics is the description of particular languages.It provides the data which confirm or refute the propositions and theories put forward in general linguistics.
Historical linguistics is the study of the historical development of particular languages and with formulating general hypotheses about language change.
Theoretical linguistics is the study of language and languages with a view to construction a theory of their structure and functions and without regard to any practical applications that the study might have.
When the findings, method, or theoretical principles of general linguistics are applied to the problems from other areas of experience, this enquiry is called applied linguistics (in the broad sense), in spite of the fact that this term is often
restricted to the study of the theory and methodology for foreign language teaching (in the narrow sense). In practice, there is little difference made between the terms ―general linguistics‖ and ―theoretical linguistics‖.
At its narrowest, microlinguistics is concerned solely with the structure of language systems. At is broadest, macrolinguistics is concerned with everything that pertains in any way at all to language and languages, e.g. language acquisition, the interdependence of language and culture, and the physiological and psychological mechanisms involved in language behavior.
It might be thought that, in view of the acknowledged importance of language to so many disciplines, linguistics ought to take the broadest possible view of its subject matter. There is a sense in which this is true. The problem is that there is not yet, and may never be, a satisfactory theoretical framework within which we can view language simultaneously from psychological, sociological, cultural, aesthetic and neurophysiological points of view. Macrolinguistics are interdisciplinary. Most linguists nowadays would say that it is theoretical synchronic microlinguistics that constitutes the core of their discipline and gives it whatever unity and coherence it has.
Microlinguistics generally includes five parameters, namely, phonologic, morphologic, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic.
2. Instructor presents the following on Bb.
phonetics phonology morphology syntax semantics pragmatics
Phonetics is the study of speech sounds.
four levels of study aim/object
anatomy & physiology speech organs & their functions
articulatory phonetics classification
auditory phonetics how listeners analyze or process a sound wave
acoustic phonetics physical properties of speech sounds
(the sub-branches of phonetics are to be discussed in Chapter 2)
Phonology is the study of the sound systems of languages/the study of the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the
shape of syllables.
Phonetics focuses on chaos of sounds that human voice is capable of creating and phonology focuses on order of a subset of those sounds that can distinguish meaning.
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed. Morphology studies morphemes—the minimal unit of meaning.
Languages differ in their degrees of dependence on the morphological components. e.g. Latin uses inflectional morphemes to show the difference between nominative case and accusative case.
Paulus vidit Mariam.= Paulus Mariam vidit.= Vidit Paulus Mariam.
= Mariam vidit Paulus.= Mariam Paulus vidit.= Vidit Mariam Paulus.
Syntax is the study of the formation of sentences or the study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences in a language.
Sentences show not only linear structure but hierarchical structure.
Semantics is the study of meaning (in abstraction).
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.
Macrolinguistics includes psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics and computational linguistics.
Instructor presents the following on Bb.
psycholinguistics sociolinguistics anthropological linguistics computational linguistics cognitive linguistics discourse analysis/text linguistics corpus linguistics
Psycholinguistics is the study of the interrelation of language and mind.
Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society.
Anthropological linguistics is the study of the relationship between language and culture. (Ethnolinguistics is a subdivision of anthropological linguistics concerned with the study of the interrelation between a language and the cultural behaviour of those who speak it.)
Computational linguistics is the study of the use of computers to process or
produce human language.
machine translation information retrieval expert systems with natural language interfaces speech synthesis
Cognitive linguistics is the study of language as an instrument for organizing, processing and conveying information. (categorization, iconicity, grammaticalization conceptual metaphor etc.)
Discourse analysis/text linguistics is the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which language is used.
corpus linguistics is the study of language based on the extensive accumulation of naturally occurring language data and its analysis by computers.
descriptive vs prescriptive synchronic vs diachronic langue vs parole
competence vs performance etic vs emic
1. Instructor presents descriptive vs prescriptive on Bb.
By “descriptive” is meant a linguistic study describes and analyses the language people actually use.
By “prescriptive” is meant a linguistic study aims to lay down rules for “correct” behavior, i.e. to tell people what they should say and what they should not say.
Modern linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Linguistic studies before this century were largely prescriptive because many early grammars were based on ―high‖ (li terary or religious) written records. Modern linguistics is mostly descriptive, however. It (the latter) believes that whatever occurs in natural speech (hesitation, incomplete utterance, misunderstanding, etc.) should be described in the analysis, and not be marked as incorrect, abnormal, corrupt, or lousy.
2. Instructor presents synchronic vs diachronic on Bb.
F D Saussure discussed in detain this distinction between synchronic vs diachronic. The description of a language at some point in time (as if it stopped developing) is a synchronic study. It takes a fixed instant (usually, but not necessarily, the present),as its point of observation. Most grammars are of this kind. T he description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic study. An e ssay entitled ―On the Use of THE‖, for example, may be synchronic, if the author
does not recall the past of THE, and it may also be diachronic if he claims to cover a large range or period of time wherein THE has undergone tremendous alteration.
Modern linguistics is mainly a synchronic study.
Synchrony is a fiction because language is always changing and grammar-writing is a lengthy enterprise.
3. Instructor presents langue vs parole on Bb.
The distinction between langue and parole was made by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure early last century (Cours de Linguistique Générale/Course in General Linguistics1916). Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of a speech community.It is the set of conventions and rules which language users all have to follow. Langue is relatively stable; Langue is abstract in the sense that it is not the language people actually use. Langue is not complete in any speakers, but exists in a collectivity, i.e. in the brains of a group of individuals. It is social and essential. Parole refers to the realization of langue in actual use. Therefore, it is the concrete use of the conventions and the application of the rules. It is individual and accidental. Paroles are the naturally occurring language events. They vary from person to person, and from situation to situation.
Langue is abstract, parole specific to the speaking situation; langue not actually spoken by an individual, parole always a naturally occurring event; langue relatively stable and systematic, parole is a mass of confused facts, thus too varied and confusing and not suitable for systematic investigation. What a linguist ought to do, according to Saussure, is to abstract langue from instances of parole, i. e. to discover the regularities governing all instances of parole and make them the subject of linguistics.
Saussure‘s Langue is a social product, and a set of conventions for a community. He looks at language from a sociological or sociolinguistic point of view.
4. Instructor presents competence vs performance on Bb.
This distinction between competence and performance was first put forward by N Chomsky in his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965). By competence is meant a language user’s underlying knowledge about the system of rules. By performance is meant the actual use of language in concrete situations.
According to Chomsky, the task of a linguist is to determine from the data of
performance the underlying system of rules that has been mastered by the language user. ―Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly‖. Chomsky‘s distinction is related to Saussure‘s. But for him, langue should not be seen as a mere systematic inventory of items and competence is closer to German linguist Humboldt‘s conception, i.e. the underlying competence as a system of generative processes. Competence is deemed as a property of the mind of each individual. N. Chomsky approaches language psychologically or psycholinguistically.
Dissatisfied with Chomsky‘s proposition, Dell Hymes approaches language from a socio-cultural viewpoint with the aim of studying the varieties of ways of speaking on the part of the individual and the community. It is found that speakers vary their performance not at random but in a regular way. Dell Hymes put forward communicative competence to include not only Chomsky’s competence (knowledge of grammar) but the pragmatic ability for language use.
5. Instructor presents etic vs emic on Bb.
The distinction between etic(素)and emic(位) was put forward by the American linguist Kenneth Pike at Michigan University in his language theory Tagmemics. Pike coined the terms from the endings of the words, phonemic and phonetic.―An emic unit is a physical or mental item or system treated by insiders as relevant to their system of behavior and as the same emic unit in spite of etic variability‖.―…there is etic variation within an emic unit‖.The ―emic‖ view is the perspective of the i nsider, the participant within a system, or the native; the ―etic‖ view of a unit is the perspective of the outsider or the alien observer. This etic/emic contrast is used by Pike to distinguish between those elements which are crucial, indispensable factors (emic) and those which are incidental, insignificant (etic) in a grammar.
For example, a noncardplayer observing a game of bridge will see different things than a bridge- player will. The noncardplayer, who is an “alien” in this situation, may notice that the cards are handled and passed around, that the players pick up the cards in front of them and carry on a short conversation in cryptic phrases, that one player then puts all of his cards on the table while the other three put theirs down one by one as this player or that puts little piles of cards in front of him . . . What the bridge- player sees as a “native” to the game is a distinct unit called a “hand,” consisting of the deal, the bidding, the play and the scoring. The noncardplayer observes a number of etic facts, some of which fit into the emic categories of the bridge- player and some of which are irrelevant . . . To know which events at the card table are significant for the game, which are not, and how the
significant events are related to one another, one must know the rules of the game--that is, one must know the events emically.
6. Instructor presents speech vs writing on Bb.
Language has two media: speech and writing.
One of the general principles of linguistic analysis is the primacy of speech over writing. Speech is primary, because, firstly, it phylogenetically existed long long before writing systems came into being; secondly, (genetically/ontogenetically) children learn to speak before learning to write; thirdly, written forms just represent in this way or that the speech sounds: individual sounds, as in English and French as in Japanese.
In contrast to speech, spoken form of language, writing as written codes, gives language new scope and use that speech does not have. Firstly, messages can be carried through space so that people can write to each other. Secondly, messages can be carried through time thereby, so that people of our time can be carried through time thereby, so that people of our time can read Beowulf, Samuel Johnson, and Edgar A. Poe. Thirdly, oral messages are readily subject to distortion, either intentional or unintentional (causing misunderstanding or malentendu), while written messages allow and encourage repeated unalterable reading.
(3) Most modern linguistic analysis is focused on speech, different from grammarians of the last century and theretofore.
Chapter 2 Phonology
. Session A
articulatory phonetics acoustic phonetics auditory phonetics
Speech and writing are the two media or substances used by natural languages as vehicles for communication.
Speech sounds are a limited range of sounds that are meaningful in human communication. Speech sounds constitute the phonic medium of language.
The three steps of the processes of speech production and perception are production of speech sounds by a speaker, transmission of sounds by means of sound waves, and perception of speech sound by the hearer.
Accordingly, three areas of the study of sounds are distinguished, each dealing with one of the processes.
Articulatory phonetics is the branch of phonetics that studies the production of speech sounds.It studies sounds from the speaker‘s point of view.。