Linguistics Applied to Language teaching

Lecture 2

2.1 Linguistic knowledge.

2.2 Language. Designed features of language.
2.3 Functions of Language
2.4 Language and Speech. Language and Thinking
2.5 Language Universals.
2.6Origins of Language
2.7 What we know about language.

2.1 Linguistic knowledge.

The possesion of language , perhaps more than any other attribute , distinguishes humans from
other animals. To understand our humanity, one must understand the nature of language that
makes us human. According to the philosophy expressed in the myths and religions of many
peoples, language is the sourseo human life and power. To some people of Africa , a newborn
child is a KINTU , a “thing” , not yet a MUNTU ,” a person “. Only by the act of learning language
the child becomes a humna being. But what does it mean to “ know “a language?

When you know a language, you can speak and be understood by others who know that
language. Part of knowing a language means knowing what sounds ( o signs) are in that
language and what sound are not, which sounds may start a word , end a word and follow each
other. Knowing a language is also to know that certain sound sequencies signify certain
concepts or meaning.
When you know a language, you know words in that language, that is th soiund units that are
related to specific meaning.
There is a difference between what you know , which is your linguistic competence , and how
you use this knowledge in actual speech production and comprehention, which is you linguistic
performance.

2.2 Language. Designed features of language

Language is a highly elaborated signaling system. We call the aspects that are peculiar to it the
design features of language. Some of these we find only with the language of human beings,
others we have in common with animals. Another aspect of human language is that we express
thoughts with words.
 A principle feature of human language is the duality of patterning. It enables us to use
our language in a very economic way for a virtually infinite production of linguistic units.

How does this principle work?

All human languages have a small, limited set of speech sounds. The limitation derives
from the restricted capacity of our vocal apparatus. The speech sounds are referred to
as consonants and vowels. Linguistically speaking, the distinctive speech sounds are
called phonemes, which are explained in more detail in the chapter on phonology. You
cannot use isolated phonemes for communication, because phonemes are by
themselves meaningless. But we can assemble and reassemble phonemes into larger
linguistic units. These are commonly called "words". Although our capacity to produce
new phonemes is limited, we frequently coin new words. Hence, our capacity to
produce vocabulary is unlimited.

 Displacement
In contrast to other animals, humans have a sense of the past and the future. A gorilla,
for example, cannot tell his fellows about his parents, his adventures in the jungle, or his
experience of the past. The use of language to talk about things other than "the here
and now", is a characteristic of humans. Displacement is thus our ability to convey a
meaning that transcends the immediately perceptible sphere of space and time.
Although some animals seem to possess abilities appropriating those of displacement,
they lack the freedom to apply this to new contexts. The dance of the honey-bee, for

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instance, indicates the locations of rich deposits of food to other bees. This ability of the
bee corresponds to displacement in human language, except for a lack of variation. The
 bee frequently repeats the same patterns in its dance, whereas humans are able to
invent ever new contexts.
 Open-endedness Knowledge of a language enables you to combine words to form
phrases, and phrases to form sentences.The ability to say things that have never
been said before, including the possibility to express invented things or lies, is
also a peculiar feature of human language. The linguist Noam Chomsky refers to this
ability as part of the creative aspect of language use.Not every spekaer of a language
can create great literature , but you and everybody who knows a language , can create
new sentences when you speak , and unerstand new sentences created by others.
 Stimulus-freedom is another aspect that distinguishes human language from animal
communication. The honey-bee must perform its dance, the woodchuck must cry out in
order to warn his fellows when it beholds an eagle.
Humans have the ability to say anything they like in any context. This ability is only
restricted in certain ceremonial contexts such as church services, etc., where a fixed
form is expected to be followed. The possibility to violate this fixed linguistic behavior is
then the source of jokes, such as a bride's "no".
 Arbitrariness
Why is a table called "table"? Obviously, the thing never told us its name. And tables do
not make a noise similar to the word. The same applies to most of the words of our
language. Hence, words and their meaning have no a priori connection. We cannot tell
from the sound structure which meaning is behind it.If you don’t know a language the
words ( and sentences) will be mainly incomprehensible, because the relationship
between speech sounds and meaning they represent in the languages of the world is ,
an arbitrary one. You have to learn , that the sounds represented by the letters HOUSE
signify the concept ________; if you know French , this same meaning is represented
by MAISON; if you know Russian , by dom ; if you know Spanish , by casa. Similarly
_________ is representend by hand in English , main on French and ruka in Russia ,
mano in Spanish.
 Language is not motivated, as we can also put it. There are, however, exceptions to
this rule: language can be iconic, which means that there is a direct correlation between
form and meaning. The length of a phrase, for example, could represent a length of
time the phrase refers to, like in "a long, long time ago". Here, the extension
serves to visually represent the semantic emphasis. Iconicity in language can be
found frequently. Another example for nonarbitrariness are onomatopoeia. These are
words that seem to resemble sounds. Most languages contain onomatopeic words
like buzz , mur-mur that imitate the sounds associated with thew object or actions they
refer to. Even there the sounds differ There are many examples for onomatopoetic
words, like splash or bang. Some names for animals are also onomatopoetic, for
example, "cuckoo". But even here the sounds differ amonglanguages, reflecting the
particular sound system of the language.

Bee : English: bzzzz ,German: summ summ ,Ukrainian: dzzz

Cat : English: meow, Greek: niaou ,Japanese: nyaa
Pig : English: oink oink, French: groin groin, Russian: khryu-khryu ,Vietnamese: ut-it
Rooster :English: cock-a-doodle-doo, German: kickeriki, Japanese: kokekokkoo,Russian: ku-ka-
re-ku
 The human vocal tract
An elaborated language requires a highly
sophisticated speech organ that will enable the
speaker to produce the many differentiated
sounds. Only humans are endowed with a speech
organ of this complexity.

2.3 Functions of Language

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There exists different points of view as to the nature of the language. Is it a biological or social
phenomenon? And the scientists give various answers to this question. Some scholars ( A.
Muller , W Schleicher) considered the language to be a biological phenomenon , other linguists
( H. Steintal , W. Humboldt) consider it as a psychical phenomenon. Nowadays in modern
linguistics there is a predominating point of view that the language is a social phenomenon. And
there are certain grounds for this view. Language cannot be inherited; it can be gained in the
course of human’s life.
Functions of language can prove the fact that it is a social phenomenon because functions
reveal the language essence. Thus they characterize the language.
The main functions of the language are:
 Communicative ( as a means of communication)
 Cognitive( as a means of thinking and cognition)
 Emotive(for expressing feelings and emotions)
 Metalinguistc(as a means of language investigation)
There are also secondary functions of the language:
 Phatic (as a means of establishing the contact)
 Conative (assimilation)
 Voluntative
 Historical /cultural ( the preservation of culture , history , etc.)
The cognitive function correlates with the representative or nominal function ( as a means of
naming the objects and phenomena)The emotive function is closely related to the poetic or
aesthetic function(as a means of expressing the beauty).
These main and secondary functions are of great practical importance.
There is no one common point of view as to the number of the language functions. For example
A. Suprun names three main functions1) language as a means of communication;2) language
as a means of preservation and transmission of human’s experience;3) language as a means of
thinking.
Some linguists consider that the communicative function is dominant. But all the linguists have
something in common : language functions have a social character and that’s why they are
sometime called the social functions of language.
The notion of the language function is one of the main items in the concept of Prague Linguistic
Circle based on K. Buller’s scientific work “Theory of language. Structural model of language”
from Buller’s point of view psychic abilities of a person –to think , to feel and to express one’s
will-give birth to three language functions :communicative, expressive and addressive.
According to these functions three types of utterances are singled out-declarative , exclamatory
and imperative.
Prague linguists rejected psychological explanation of the notion of function and developed the
idea of language as a functional system. They defined language as a system of expressive
means which serve a definite aim.

2.4 Language and Speech. Language and Thinking

Language and speech are quite different linguistic notions. According to F, de Suassure
language has 2 aspects: the system of language and the manifestation of this system in social
intercourse sounds , affixes , words, grammar rules and rules of lexical series. The system of
language enables us to speak and to be understood since it is known to all members of a
speech community. Speech is the total of our utterances and texts. It is based on the system of
language , and it gives the linguist the possibility of studying the whole system. Speech is linear
( synagmatic ) aspect of language; the system of language is the paradigmatic aspect. The
speech is always individual and it is situationally oriented whereas the system of language is its
ground it is social and potential entity.
The problem of relationship between language and thought is seen in terms of two extremes.
First, there is the hypothesis that language and thought are totally separate entities , with one
being dependant on the other. At the opposite extreme , there is the hypothesis that language
and thought are identical-that it is not possible to engage in any rational thinking without
language.
Within the first position , there are two possibilities: language might be dependent upon thought
or thought might be dependent upon language. The traditional view supports the first of these:
people have thoughts, and they put these thoughts into words.

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The second view has also been widely held: the way people use language dictates the lines
along which they can think.
A third possibility which is also widely held these days is that language and thought are
interdependent To see them as interdependent is to recognize that language is a regular part of
the process of thinking , at the same time recognizing that we have to think in order to
understand the language.
The medieval and rationalist views implied that man as a rational , thinking creature invented
language to express his thoughts, fitting words to an already developed structure of intellectual
competence . With the examination of the historical relations between language and thinking , it
became more plausible to say that language emerged not as a the means of expressing already
formulated judgments, questions and the like but as the means of thought itself, and that man’s
rationality developed together with the development of this capacity for speaking.
The intermate connection between language and thought as opposed to the earlier assumed
unilateral dependence of language on thought opened the way to recognition of the possibility
that different language structures might in part favour or even determine ways of understanding
and thinking about the world. The extent of the interdependence of language and thought-
linguistic relativity as it has been termed-is the fact that can hardly fail to be acknowledged. It
can be easily proved with the bond between the ability to speak and the ability to conceptualize.
A child learns both these skills together at the same time. A good deal of the flexibility of
languages has been exploited in man’s progressive understanding and conceptualizing of the
world he lives in and of his relations with other men.

2.5Language Universals

The way we are using the word grammar in linguistics differs from most common usages.
Grammar includes everything speakers know about their language: phonology, semantics,
morphology , syntax and lexicon.
In 1974 the grammarian John fell in essey towards an English gramamr stated:” It is certainly
the businessof a grammarian to find out , and not to make , the laws of a langauge.” This
business is just what the liguist attempts- to find out the “laws” of a language and the laws that
pertain to all languages. Those laws representing the universal proprieties of all languages
constitute a universal grammar.To discover the nature of this universal grammar whose
principles characterize all human languages is a major aim of linguistic theory.

Nearly five thousand languages are spoken in the world today. They seem to be quite different,
but still, many of them show similar principles, such as word order.
For example, in languages such as English, French, and Italian, the words of the clause take
the order of first the subject, then the verb, and then the direct object.
There even exist basic patterns or principles that are shared by all languages. These patterns
are called universals .When the same principles are shared by several languages, we speak of
language types. There are several examples for universals.

Semantic universals

There are semantic categories that are shared by all cultures and refered to by all languages -
these are called semantic universals. There are many examples of semantic universals. Let's
discuss two of them:
 One semantic universal regards our notion of color. There exist eleven basic color
terms:

black, white, red, green, blue, yellow, brown, purple, pink, orange, and grey.

The pattern that all languages universally abide by, is that they do not entertain a notion
of a color term outside of that range. This means, any imaginable color is conceived of
as a mixture, shade, or subcategory of one of these eleven basic color terms.
As a result, one way of classifying languages is by color terms. The eleven color terms
are not in usage equally among the languages on Earth. Not all languages have all
basic color terms. Some have two, some three, and some four. Others have five, six, or

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seven, and some have eight to eleven.

Those with two color terms always have
black and white,
those with three
black, white, and red,
and those with more have additional basic color terms according to the order in the list
given above. This is a universal pattern. The languages which have the same basic
color terms in common belong to the same language type. Hence, we find seven
classes of languages according to this scheme.

 Another semantic universal is the case of pronouns. Think of what it is you do when you
talk to someone about yourself. There is always the "I", representing you as the
speaker, and the "you", meaning the addressee. You could not possibly do without that,
and neither could a speaker of any other language on earth. Again, we find a universal
pattern here. Whenever you do not talk about yourself as a person, but as a member of
a group, you use the plural "we". English is restricted to these two classes of pronouns:
singular and plural, each in the first, second, and third person. All languages that evince
this structure are grouped into one language type. There are other languages that make
use of even more pronouns. In some languages, it is possible to address two people
with a pronoun that specifically indicates not just their being plural, but also their being
'two' people; this is then the dual pronoun.
Other examples are languages that have pronouns to refer to the speaker and the
addressee together, called inclusive pronouns. Exclusive pronouns refer to the speaker
together with people other than the addressee. However, these are not among the
European languages.

Phonological universals

Different languages may have very different sets of vowels. If you are familiar with a few foreign
languages, you may find it difficult to believe there are universal rules governing the distribution
of vowels, but they do exist. Remember our example of basic color terms: A similar pattern
could be drawn on the basis of the vowel system. Languages with few vowels always have the
same set of vowel types. And if a language has more vowels, it is always the same type of
vowel that is added to the set. These vowels may not always sound exactly the same, but they
are always created at the same location in our vocal apparatus.

Syntactic universals

Remember the word order of English I mentioned above. Hmhm, you say: that cannot be a
universal rule, since you know other sentences from English and possibly from other languages
which do not follow this order. You are right, but the order subject, verb, object (SVO) may be
defined as the basic order of English sentences. In other languages there are different "basic"
orders, such as Japanese (SOV) or Tongan (VSO), a Polynesian language. After an extensive
study, one can define two different sets of basic orders that languages follow: First

SVO, VSO, SOV and second VOS, OVS, OSV.

What is the difference? In the first set the subject precedes the object, in the second set it
follows the object. Since the first set is the one which applies to the basic structures of far more
languages than the second one does, the universal rule is that there is an overwhelming
tendency for the subject of a sentence to precede the direct object among the languages of the
world.

Absolute universals - universal tendencies; implicational - nonimplicational universals

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Of course, not all universals can be found in all languages. With so many tongues spoken, it
would be hard not to find any exceptions. Most languages have not even been the subject of
extensive research as of yet. However, some rules appear without exception in the languages
which have been studied so far. We call these absolute universals. If there are minor exceptions
to the rule, we speak of universal tendencies or relative universals. In saying this, we take for
granted that exceptions may be found in future surveys among languages which have remained
unexplored.
Sometimes a universal holds only if a particular condition of the language structure is fulfilled.
These universals are called implicational. Universals which can be stated without a condition
are called nonimplicational. In other words, whenever a rule "If ... then ..." is valid,
the universal appears in the structure of the respective language.
There are thus four types of universals: implicational absolute universals, implicational relative
universals, nonimplicational absolute universals, and nonimplicational relative universals. The
final determination of which type a universal belongs to is dependent on intensive field research.

2.6 The origins of language.

The origin of language is hidden on depth of antiquity. Man’s search for the origin of language is
deeply rooted.The irony is that the question is a fruitless one. Each generation asks the same
question , and reaches the same impasse- the absence or any evidence relating to the matter ,
given the vast, distant time-scale involved.we have no direct knowledge of the origins and early
development of language , nor it is easy to imagine how such knowledge might ever be
obtained we can only speculate , arrive at our own conclusions and remain dissatisfied.
However we shall consider the merits of some of those speculations.
The divine source. According to one view God created Adam and “whatsoever Adam called
every living creature, that was the name thereof”(Genesis,2:19). Alternatively , following a Hindu
tradition. Language came from the goddess Sarasvatu, wife of Brahma, creator of the universe.
In most religions , there appears to be a divine source that provides humans with language.
The natural sounds source. A quite different view of the beginning of human speech is based
on the concept of natural sounds. The suggestion is that primitive words could have been
imitations of the natural sounds which early men and women heard around them. When an
object flew by m making a CAW_CAW sound m the early human imitated the sound and used it
to refer to the object associated with the sound. The fact that all modern languages have some
words with pronunciation which seem to “echo”naturally occurring sounds could be used to
support this theory. In English , we have splash, boom , buzz, hiss and forms as bow-wow. In
fact this type of view has been called “bow-wow theory” of language origin. While it is true that a
number of words in any language are onomatopoeic , it is hard to see how most of the
soundless or abstract entities of our world could have bee referred to.
The oral-gesture source. One suggestion involves a link between physical gesture , and orally
produced sounds. This theory proposes an extremely specific connection between physical and
oral gesture. It is claimed that originally a set of physical gestures was developed as a means of
communication. Then a set of oral gestures , specifically involving the mouth developed, in
which the movements of the tongue , lips and so on were recognized according to patterns of
movement similar to physical gestures. This proposal by Sir R. Paget 1930 seems a bit
outlandish now.
Physiological Adaptation. One further speculative proposal concentrates on some of the
physical aspects of humans: human vocal tract

2.7 What we know about Language.

Much is inknown about the nature of human languages , their grammar and use.The science of
linguistics is concerned with these questions.Investigations of linguists and the analyses of
spoken languages date back at least to 1600 B.C.E. in Mesopotamia. We have learnt a great
deal since that time.A number of facts pertaining to all languages can be stated.
1. Wherever humans exist , alnguage exists.
2. There are no “primitive” languages- all languags are equally complex and equally
capable of expressing any idea in the universe.The vocabulary in any language can
be explained to include new words for new concepts.
3. All languages change through time.

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4. The relationship between the sounds and meanings of spoken languages are for
the most part arbitrary.
5. All human languages use a finite set of discrete sounds that are combined to form
meaningful elements or words , which themseles may be combined to form infinite
set of posiible sentences.
6. All grammars contain rules of a similar kind for the formation of words and
sentneces.
7. Every spoken language includes discrete sound segments , like p,n or a , that can
all be defined by a finite set of sound properties or features. Every spoken language
has a class ov vowels and a class of consonants.
8. Similar grammatical categoiries ( noun m verb)are found in all languages.
9. There are universal semantic properties like “ male “ or “ female” etc , found in
ebery language in the world.
10. Every language has a way of negating , forming questions , issuing commands ,
reffering to past or future time , and so on.
11. Speakers of all languages are capable of producing and comprehending an infinite
et of sentnces. Syntactic universals reveal that every language has a way of forming
sentences such as:

Linguistics is an interesting subject.

I know that linguistics is an interesting subject.
You know that I know that linguistics is an interesting subject

12. Any normal child , born anywhere in the world , of any racial , geografica, social, or
economical heritage, is capable of learning any language to which he ar she is
exposed. The differecies we find among languages cannot be due to biological
reasons.

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