Introduction to Linguistics Reviewer for Midterms

Linguistics as the science of language.

- Study the human capacity to communicate and organize thoughts using different tools.
- It is the science of language because it studies language through scientific methods.
Sub-fields of Linguistics
- Phonetics- study of how speech sounds are made.
- Phonology – how sounds are organized. (Consonant, Vowel)
- Morphology – how sounds are organized into units of meaning. (Free and bound)
- Pragmatics – relationship between language signs and language users.
- Semantics – study of meaning themselves.
- Sociolinguistics – interaction of language and people of collectives.
- Syntax – how units of meaning come together to create utterances.
Why Study Linguistics?

 It permits a person to better understand the world.

 It is not just an investigation of the words or sounds but into the heart of humanity.
Definitions of Language According to Famous Theorists and Linguists

 Aristotle-
o Speech is the representation of the experiences of mind.
o Language is a speech sound used to express what is in our mind.
 Ferdinand De Saussure-
o Language is a borderland between thought and sound.
o Language is not just for expressing but also it builds and provides communication.
 Edward Sapir-
o Language is purely and noninstinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and
desires by means of a system of voluntary produced symbols.
o Language is for humans only because animals do not have a particular and specific
language.
o It is made through evolution and convection.
o It is not innate to us but we acquire it.
 Bernard Bloch and George Trager-
o Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means which a social group
cooperates.
o Language is composed of speech sounds and the meaning of words is given by the
language user itself.
 Noam Chomsky
o Language is inherent capability of native speakers to understand and form grammatical
sentences.
o Language is innate to us and the language itself is the one that gives meaning to
substance.
Macro Skills of Language
Skills that we need as we learn language and we need to communicate successfully.
1. Listening – ability to comprehend what the speaker is saying by hearing particular sounds.
(Sounds with meaning; noise does not have any meaning)
Responses- verbal, physical, written
2. Reading – ability to use sound units to figure out words, read them regardless of their difficulty
level, and comprehend their meanings.
It helps in improving vocabulary, enhancing memory, seeing new ideas.
3. Speaking – ability to deliver information verbally in clear and effective manner for the listeners to
understand better.
Do not do monotonous tone. To do add expressions.
4. Writing – most complex macro skills as this requires mastery in words, building ideas, and being
able to put them together to build informative paper in a precise and detailed form.
Types of writing narrative, analytical, expository, persuasive, and argumentative.
Dr. Jessie S. Barrot
Receptive: Viewing
Productive: Representing
Theories in Language Study

 Behaviorist View –
o Punishment and reinforcement are keys to language development.
o Language is a controlled behavior.
o B.F. Skinner believes that behavior and actions could be controlled by their
consequences.
 Nativist View –
o Views language as something that is innate to us instead of being acquired by learning.
o Noam Chomsky believes that we are born innate and is only guided by a Language
Acquisition Device (LAD).
 Cognitivist View –
o Focal point is the use of language.
o View that language reflects the general aspects of cognition.
o Best studied in the context of usage.
o Forefathers are Ronald Langacker, George Lakoff, and Leonard Tammy.
 Interactionist View –
o Focal point is social interaction.
o View that language emerges dependently upon social interaction.
o Desires to communicate motivates the user to learn through the sense of necessity.
o Proponent is Lev Vygotsky.

Communicative Competence
Dell Hymes –

 Broadened his concept of competence and performance. He included when, how, and to whom it
should be applied.
  Performance- capacity to put one’s knowledge to use.
 Competence- language knowledge one possesses.
Noam Chomsky - Shorter of communicative competence model’s development.
Communicative Competence Model – first model was developed by Canale and Swain in 1980.
Linguistic or Grammar Competence –

 Capability and effective use utterance including grammar and pronunciation.

 Understand the meaning and function of grammatical construction.
Sociolinguistic Competence –

 Right tone or formality while speaking or writing.

 Sense of sensitivity when it comes to culture.
 Avoid discrimination to gender and usage of deep terms.
Discourse Competence

 Coherence and consistency between words and sentences.

 All about delivery of language.
Strategic Competence

 Employing communication techniques to address issues that come up during the sharing of
knowledge.
 Fixing communication breakdown.
Components of Grammar

 Phonetics – how speech sounds are made.

o Articulatory – production of vocal.
o Auditory – perception of auditory systems.
o Acoustic – physical properties of sounds waves.
 Phonology – ways sounds are organized into words.
 Morphology – studies word structures. (Word is the smallest unit that can stand alone)
o Free – can stand alone, root/stem word. Ex. bad
o Bound - must occur with another morpheme to have meaning. Ex. Ly
 Syntax – proper order of words and phrases to form proper sentences.
 Semantics – describe differentiations that people have between meaning of words.
o Formal – math, philosophy, logic
o Lexical - general
o Conceptual – dictionary definition.
 Pragmatics – relationship between language signs and users.
o Special act theory – utilizing language not to say but to do.
o Cooperative principle – (Paul Grice) about cooperation to remove communication
obstacle.
o Conventional implicature – what you say must be distinct to what you mean.
 o Politeness theory – (Penelope Brown & Steven Levinson) how politeness in
conversation work.
World Englishes
World English – lingua franca utilized in business, trade, diplomacy and other global activities. Also
known as Standard English.
World Englishes – various dialects of English and English based creoles.
Global Englishes – most recent spread of English as a result of globalization.
Global Spread of English

 First Diaspora – movement away from the birthplace of Old English to Wales, Ireland, and
Scotland.
 Second Diaspora – beginning of colonial history into United States and Australia.
 Third Diaspora – consequence of colonial history in the Caribbean and West and South Africa,
India, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia.
 Fourth Diaspora – this concerns all places in which English language is spoken or used. English
as the global language.
The Origin of World Englishes
Started when Braj Kachru debated Randolph Quirk.

 Braj Kachru – there were many varieties of English, all of which were equal in the world of
linguistics.
 Randolph Quirk – all non-native English speakers should use standardized English based on
British English.
Classification of Englishes

 English Native Language (ENL) – primary language of the majority of the population in a
country. Ex. US, UK, Australia.
 English Secondary Language (ESL) – additional language for intranational and international
communication in multilingual communities. Ex. India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Singapore
 English Foreign Language (EFL) – most used exclusively for international communication. Ex.
Japan, China.
Kachru’s Three Circles of English

 Inner Circle – uses English as their primary language. USA, UK, Anglophone, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa
 Outer Circle – English usage came from colonialism. India, Zambia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Sri
Lanka, Jamaica, Ghana, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Philippines, Tanzania,
Bangladesh.
 Expanding Circle – English is spoken but it does not come from colonialism. China, Korea,
Zimbabwe, Egypt, Nepal, Indonesia, South Arabia, Israel, Taiwan, Japan, Russia
Schneider’s Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes
  Foundation – English bought by colonizers majority became bilingual.
 Exonormative Stabilization – stablish as language of administration; local elites are bilingual.
 Nativization – political independence but remaining their cultural association; common
bilingualism.
 Endonormative Stabilization – local norm of English establishes itself and organized in
dictionaries.
 Differentiation -dialects emerge within the local norm of English.
Standard English

 Used in most public discourse and in regular operation in America local institution.
 Mode of communication used in newspaper, media, government, professionals, etc.
Philippine English

 Learned English from colonizers of USA (1898-1946).

 Thomasites are the one that teaches English to Filipino.
 It evolves from American English.
Origin of Language

 Divine Source – language came from God or a Divine Source. Gift to human species.
 Natural Sound Source – language originated when human began to imitate or adopt the sound in
their environment.
o Bow-wow Theory – sounds imitated from natural onomatopoeic sounds.
o Pooh-Pooh Theory – sounds reflected the human emotions.
 Social Interaction Source – when humans started living together or interact, they learned to
produce different sounds.
o Yo-He-Ho Theory- the sound produced when they do physical and cooperative work.
 Physical Adaptation Source – as humans evolved, they became bipedal which developed their
different feature, especially the position of larynx. The FOXP2 in our DNA is a gene for
linguistics.
Animals and Human Language
6 Design Features by Charles F. Hockett

 Duality Patterning – ability to combine sounds together to form a certain meaning.

o Human – they can combine phonemes to create or make morphemes, which allows them
to create meaning by words and sentences.
o Animals – do not have the ability to rearrange arbitrary sounds, which limits the message
they want to convey.
 Creativity – creatively arranging phonemes and morphemes.
o Human – they can arrange it, which allows them to create and invent messages that helps
them to express themselves.
o Animals – they have a closed-system and they can only stick with the signals they
already have.
 Displacement – ability to talk past, present, and future including truthful and imaginary things.
o Human – can talk about things that are about to happen.
 o Animals – can only react to their current situation and environment.
 Interchangeability – any species can speak a certain language.
o Human – regardless of the gender of a human, it can use and speak the same language.
o Animals – a certain signal can only be used by a specific animal.
 Cultural Transmission – language is transmitted or influenced by culture.
o Human – learn language through the influence of culture and they can pass it to the next
generation.
o Animals – they can only communicate by what is transmitted to them biologically.
 Arbitrariness – unpredictability of language.
o Human – it is symbolic and it can be express through writing by the use of various
symbols or spoken verbally.
o Animals – it is not symbolic and cannot be spoken or written.

Developments of Writing
Pictograms

 Started from Pre-historic Age to Ancient Egypt until today.

 It is the used of symbols to convey meanings that resemble and represent the actual object.
Ideogram

 it is developed in Near East during Bronze Age.

 It is the use of symbols and illustration to convey idea or concept.
Logogram

 one of the earliest writing systems.

 It is used all over the world, from Asia, Middle East, Africa, to America.
 Symbols to represent and corresponds to a word or phrase.
Rebus Writing

 Commonly used in Egyptian hieroglyphs and early Chinese pictographs.

 It is the use of image and sounds to communicate specific words through the sound they made.
 Represented pictures and symbols of objects pronounced the same way.
Syllabic Writing

 Uses of set of written symbols to represent the syllables of the words in a language.
 Type of writing system used in Japanese writing.
Alphabetic Writing

 it uses symbols to represent the sound of consonant and vowel sounds.

Language Acquisition
First Language Acquisition

 process of learning the native language

 does not require explicit instruction or education
 1. Cooing Stage (2-4 months) – learned how to produce comfort sounds.
2. Babbling Stage (6-8 months) – can produce series of vowels and consonant sounds.
3. Holophrastic Stage (9-18 months) – can produce one single or unit of morpheme that represents
as a sentence.
4. Two-Word Stage (18-24 months) – knows at least 50 words, can make sentences however it is
prone to inconsistent grammar.
5. Telegraphic Stage (24-30 months) – knows at least 100 words, grammar structure is getting
better and pronunciation is clearer.
6. Multiword Stage (30 months) – can create sentences that are grammatically correct with
functional words.
Second Language Acquisition

 Learning new language aside from their native language.

 Needed explicit instruction and education.
 Can be learn after establishing their mother tongue.
Preproduction Period

 Learns new terms of the language and practicing them.

Early Production Period

 Speaks short phrases and collect new words.

Speech Emergence

 Knows thousand words and can communicate using simple phrases and questions.
Immediate Fluency

 Advance vocabulary.
 Complicated sentence structure.
 Can share thoughts and opinions.
Advance Fluency

 Several years of experience.

 Can function at a level close to a native speaker.
Gestures and Sign Language
Origin of Gesture

 First used by Anglo-French in 15th century.

Gestures

 a movement or position of the hand, arm, body, head, or face that is used to express ideas,
opinions, and emotions.
Edward Sapir
  a gesture is an elaborate and secret code that is written nowhere, known to none, and understand
by all.
Visual Gesture Medium

 used by deaf people.

Types of Gestures

 David McNeil (1985) distinguishes gesture into imagistic and non-imagistic.

Imagistic Gesture or Iconic Gesture

 hand gesture that represents meaning that is closely related to semantic content.
Non-Imagistic Gesture

 includes pointing gesture and beats.

o Deictic/pointing – point with index fingers.
o Beats – short and quick movements that have no particular meaning but is accompanied
with rhythm.
o Emblems – gestures that can stand alone, that do not depend on speech.

Sign Language

 System of communication that uses visual gestures and signs and is typically used by deaf people.
Origin of Sign Language

 Western Societies in 17th century.

General Categories

 Alternative
o Hand signals; it is limited communication and speech cannot be used.
 Primary
o Do not use the same spoken language.

5 Structure

 Shape and Orientation

o Shape depends on finger
o Orientation depends on palm
 Location
o Is where the palm and fingers are located.
 Movements
o How fast and slow the interpretation is.
 Prime
o Consisting elements within these four general features.
 Facial Expression and Finger Spelling
o it adds corresponding meaning to signs.
Introduction to Articulatory Phonetics (consonant)
Articulatory Phonetics – how speech sounds are produced in the vocal tract.
Difference Between Consonant and Vowels

 Consonant – some constriction of airflow.

 Vowel – it does not include constriction of airflow.
Describing Consonant
Voicing – what the vocal folds are doing.

 Voiceless sound – air through open vocal folds. (p)

 Voiced sounds – air through vibrating vocal folds. (b)

Place of articulation – where the constriction of air flow takes place.

 Bilabial – both lips come together. (p) (b) (m)

 Labiodental – upper teeth and lower lip come together. (f) (v)
 Interdental – tongue in between upper and lower teeth. (Ɵ) (ð)
 Alveolar – tongue or near the ridge behind the upper front teeth. (t) (d) (s)
 Palatal sound – front hard palate or root of the mouth. (ƒ) (j)
 Velar – velum or soft palate. (k) (g)
 Glottal – glottis or the space between the vocal folds. (h)

Manner of articulation – how is the airflow constructed.

 Stop – air released. (p) (t) (k) (b) (d) (g)

 Fricative – sounds produced when the tongue approaches but does not make a contact with place
of articulation causing bottleneck of airflow. (v) (Ɵ) (z) (ƒ)
 Affricative – sequence of stop plus fricative in succession.
 Nasal – velum is lowered allowing air to pass through the nasal cavity. (m) (n)
 Liquid – air pass through by one or both sides of the tongue.
 Glide – produced with very little constriction. (semi-vowels) (w) (j)
 Tap - rapid flick of the tongue at the alveolar ridge.

Voicing Place of articulation Manner of articulation

(b) bilabial stop
(s) alveolar fricative

Phoneme – distinct unit of sound in a language.

 There are 44 phonemes in the English language though there are only 26 alphabets.
  21 consonant letters and 5 vowel letters.
 24 consonant sounds and 20 vowel sounds
Use slash marks to indicate a phoneme, square brackets for each phonetic sound.

 Syllable – a phonological unit consisted of an onset and the rhyme.

 Onset – one or more consonant, beginning sounds with syllable.
 Rhyme (rime) – consisted of vowels, plus any other consonant.
o rest of syllable, after the onset; rhyme (rime) = nucleus + coda
 Nucleus - vowels
 Coda – consonant and the ending sound of syllable that preceding the nucleus.
o Ex. Flop; FL- onset A- Nucleus P- Rhyme
 Closed syllable – has a coda; ex. Cap, sit, man
 Open syllable – does not have a coda, ex. He, she, me
Note: syllable is represented as consonant and vowel.
Ex. Green (CCVC) G R I N
CCVC
EGGS EGS
VCC
LIKE LAYK
C V C
Transcript of phonemes based on pronunciation not spelling.
Morphology – study of forms or structure of words.
Morpheme – a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function in a word.
Ex. Reexamined – re-prefix examine-root word d-past tense
Two types of morphemes

 Free morphemes –
o Can stand alone as single words.
o Root word (stem in linguistics)
 Bound morphemes – cannot morally stand alone.
Types of Free Morphemes

 Lexical Morphemes
o Carry the content of the word
o Provide actual images, noun, verbs, adjective.
 Functional Morphemes
o Shows connectivity between and among words.
o Pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles.
Types of Bound Morphemes

 Derivational Morphemes - Affixes used to make new words.

o Class changing – changing the part of the speech.
o Class maintaining – maintaining the function of the word.
 Inflectional Morphemes – used to indicate aspects of grammatical function of words such as
tense, number degree of comparison and possession.
o Plural noun - s
o Possessive noun – ‘s
o Comparative adjective - er
o Superlative adjective - est
o Present verb - s
o Past verb - ed
o Past principle verb – en
o Present participle verb – ing