INTRODUCTION TO THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE SYSTEM

Nature of

Language and

Linguistics
English Language Studies
 Objectives
describe the characteristics of human language;
differentiate iconic, indexical, and symbolic signs;
identify the nature of grammar;
familiarize study of linguistics and its subparts
Are you ready

for today?
 r
Natu
e of

Human
Langu age
Language gives expression to our thoughts.
Language is used to transmit information, also known

as its "communicative function".

Language is used to maintain social intercourse, also

known as "phatic function".

Language provides the raw material for works of

literature.
Linguistic Signs according to

Philosopher C.S. Peirce:

Iconic - resemble the things they represent

(photographs, models, scales, dioramas, diagrams)

Indexical - has the necessary connection with the

things they represent (smoke to fire; symptom to

illness, smile to happiness)

Symbolic - is only conventionally related to the

thing they represent (rose to love, flag to nation,

dove for peace)

Grammatical Competence
Language consists of signs in a system,

called Grammar (rule-governed).

Grammatical Competence is one of the

Communicative Competences by Dell

Hathaway Hymes.
Grammatical Competence vs.

Performance (expectation vs. reality)

Language Universals
The shared elements of language are referred to as their

Principles; the differences are known as Parameters.

Three (3) main sentence elements:
Subject (Su), Verb (V), Object (O)
In the syntax of all languages, a sentence has a subject.
Each language is unique because of its parameters.
Language Innateness
Nature vs. Nurture discourse on language learning
People are born with an inborn capacity for language

acquisition and are genetically equipped to learn a

language.
In human body development, children learn their first

language during a crucial period of language acquisition

(birth to age 4)
Must: Meeting halfway of two ideologies
Language Creativity
1st aspect: Human beings can produce and understand

novel sentences and new words.

2nd aspect: We can create sentences of (theoretically)

infinite length.
Example: This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the
rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that
Jack built.
Nature of

Grammar
What is Grammar?
In Linguistics, it is the rules or principles by which

language works, that is, its system or structure.

Descriptive Grammar vs. Prescriptive Grammar

sense of grammar and

Constitutive

Descriptive
structure Rules

how grammar rules

Regulatory

Presciptive
should be used Rules
Descriptive & Presciptive

The fly the frog ate it.

Is it grammatically correct? Did you understand the message?

"If I was your boyfriend" (Bieber, 2012)

Is it grammatically correct? Did you understand the message?
Fallacies on Grammar
1. There are languages with "no or little grammar"
2. The simpler the grammar, the more ancient it is, the

more complex the grammar, the more advanced it is.

3. Language should be logical/analogical. (relating to

word inflections)
4. Change in grammar means deterioration of language.
5. Equating spoken to written language
Components of

Language
1. Phonetics-speech sounds
2. Phonology-phonemes
3. Morphology-words
4. Syntax-phrases and sentences
5. Semantics-literal meaning of phrases and sentences
6. Pragmatics- meaning in the context of discourse
Any questions?
Thank You!
Do you have any questions for

before we go?