CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE

1.       THE STRUCTURALIST VIEW: Believe that language can be described in terms of observable and verifiable data,
and the behavior of the language as it is used. They describe language as regularities and patterns, or rules in language
structure. To them, language is a system of speech sounds, arbitrarily assigned to the objects, state of concepts to
which they refer, used for human communication.

CONTEXT:
A.      Language is a means of communication.
B.      Language is primarily vocal.
C.      Language is a system of systems.
D.     Language is arbitrary.

2.       THE TRANSFORMATIONALIST VIEW: Believes that language is a system of knowledge made manifest in
linguistic form and considered innate and universal.

CONTEXT:
A.     Language is a mental phenomenon: It is not mechanical.
B.     Language is innate: The presence of language acquisition device (LAD) predisposes all normal children to
acquire language in a short period of time.
C.     Language is universal: In a sense that all normal children the world over acquire a mother tongue, and in a
highly abstract level, it shares the similar key features in all human languages.
D.     Language is creative: It enables us to produce and understand sentences we have not heard nor used before.

3.       THE FUNCTIONALIST VIEW: Believes that language is a dynamic system through which the members of a
community exchange information. It is a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning such as expressing one’s
emotions, persuading people, asking and giving information, making people do things for us.

The theory emphasizes meaning and function rather than the grammatical characteristics of language that lead to
language teaching content consisting of categories of meaning and functions rather than by grammatical  structures.

4.       THE INTERACTIONIST VIEW: Believes that language is a vehicle for establishing interpersonal relations and for
performing social interactions between individuals. It is a tool for creating and maintaining social relations. Language
teaching content, in this view is specified by patterns of exchange and interaction.

                Scope of linguistic Studies:

1.       Phonology: Is the scientific study on the combination of sounds into organized units of speech, the combination of
syllables and larger units. It describes the sound system of a particular language and distribution of sounds which occur
in that language. Classification is made on the basis of the concept of the phoneme.

Phonology is the study of the sound system of language: the rules that govern pronunciation. It is the component of a
grammar made up of the elements and principles that determine sound patterns in a language. (see: Human language /
Speech utterance)

2.       Morphology: Studies the pattern of formation of words by combination of sounds into minimal distinctive units
called morphemes. It deals with the rules of combining morphemes to form words, e.g. suffixes or prefixes are attached
to single morphemes to form words.

Morphology is the study of word formation; it deals with the internal structure of words. It also studies the changes
that take place in the structure of words, e.g. the morpheme go changes to went and gone to signify changes in
tense and aspect.

4.       Syntax: It deals with how words combine to form phrases, phrases combine to form clauses, and clauses join to make
sentences. Syntax is the study of the way phrases, clauses and sentences are constructed. It is the system of rules and
 categories that underlies sentence formation. It also involves the description of rules of positioning elements in the
sentence, such as noun phrases, verb phrases, adverbial phrases, etc.

Syntax also attempts to describe how these elements function in the sentence, i.e. the function that they perform in
the sentence. E.g.  The word girl has different functions in the following sentences:

a.        The girl is reading a new novel. (function as a subject)

b.       She gave the girl a new novel. (function as an indirect object)

5.       Semantics: Deals with the level of meaning in language. It attempts to analyze the structure of meaning in a
language, e.g. how words are similar or different are related; it attempts to show these inter-relationships through
forming categories. Semantics accounts for word, phrase, and sentence meaning.

6.       Pragmatics: Deals with the contextual aspects of meaning in particular situations. Pragmatics is the study of how
language is used in real communication. As distinct from the study of sentences, pragmatics considers utterances –
those sentences which are actually uttered by speakers of the language. E.g. dynamite: explosive device (noun  -
semantics ) / dynamite: amazing, great (adjective - pragmatics)

7.       Discourse: Study of large portions of language which are bigger than a single sentence. At this level, inter sentential
links form a connected or cohesive text are analyzed.

PHONOLOGY
A.       Phoneme is a distinctive, contrasted sound unit, eg. / m/, /æ/, /n/. These distinct sounds enter into combination
with others to form words, eg. /mæn/ - man.

Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound of any language that causes a difference in meaning. It is a phone segment that
has a contrastive status. The basic test for sound’s distinctiveness is called minimal pair test. A minimal pair consists of
two forms with distinct meaning that differ by only one segment found in the same position in each, for example, [ sΙp
] – sip and [ zΙp ] – zip form a minimal pair and show that the sounds  [ s ] and  [ z ] contrast in English; hence they
are separate phonemes /s/ and /z/.

VOICED -
VOICELESS -

B.       Allophones are variants or other ways of producing a significant sound or a phoneme. These are phonetically similar
and are frequently found in complementary distribution. For example, the systematic variations of / t/ are:

/t/ in    top           –     aspirated         [ ђ ] th;

/t/ in    stop         –     released       [ t ];
/t/ in    pot           –     unreleased [ t ]

C.       The most basic division among sounds is into two major classes; vowels and consonants.

Vowels – are produces with little obstruction in the vocal tract and are generally voiced. The quality of vowels are
determined by the particular configuration of the vocal tract in the production of that sound. They are described in
terms of the following physical dimensions: tongue height, frontness, lip rounding, tenseness. Different parts of the
tongue is raised or lowered. The lips could be spread or pursed. The passageway which the air travels, however is never
narrow as to obstruct the free flow of the airstream.

Consonants – are produced with some restrictions or closure in the vocal tract as the air from the lungs is pushed
through the glottis out the mouth. The airflow is either blocked momentarily or restricted so much that noise is
produced as air flow pass the constriction. Consonants are described in terms of physical dimensions: place of
articulation, manner of articulation, voicing.