Linguistics

Theories
6th meeting
Linguistics Theories
Linguistics is an inquiry on an aspect of reality. Like any other such inquiry
therefore, the theory of linguistics must provide about its objects a theory of being
(ontology), a theory of knowledge (epistemology), and a theory of value (axiology).
The object of linguistics being language, the theory of linguistics ought to
provide, then, a theory of language (ontology), a theory of linguistic analysis
(epistemology), a theory of linguistic description (axiology) such as psycholinguistic,
variation linguistics, sociolinguistic, historical linguistics, which concentrates among
others, on the means for evaluating alternative statements about language and for
choosing between them.
Traditional Theories
1. Philosophy thinking
2. Language and writing was differed
3. Giving definition
4. Making procedures
5. Grammatical level was not good
6. Part of speech dominated
Structural Theories
1. Based on behaviourism
2. Language as utterance
3. Language as signifie/signifiant
4. Language was a habit factor
5. Grammatical standard based on general
6. Grammatical level is good
7. Focus on morphology
8. Language analysis descriptively
 Transformational grammar
Transformational grammar is developed by Noam
Chomsky “Syntactic Structure” (1957). The main
purpose of this theory is to construct or arrange of
grammar of any language (Kridalaksana, 2007:364).
The transformational grammar is abbreviated to TG
(Robin, 1964:276). Transformational grammar, also
called Transformational-generative Grammar, a system
of language analysis that recognizes the relationship
among the various elements of a sentence and among
the possible sentences of a language and uses processes
or rules (some of which are called transformations) to
express these relationships. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
For
example, transformational gramm
ar relates the active
sentence “John read the book” with
its corresponding passive, “The book
was read by John.”
The statement “George saw Martha” is
related to the corresponding
questions, “Whom [or who] did
George see?” and “Who saw Martha?
Chomsky uses competence (
kemampuan) and performance
(perbuatan).
• Competence is the knowledge of the
language user.
• Performance is the user of the language
in the real condition.
• And performance is to be the main
object for this transformational
grammar theory.
The Purpose Of Linguistics Theories

Describing linguistic phenomena

Describing linguistic phenomena is
one of the central purpose in linguistics. This
may include describing individual languages,
describing what is common to all languages or
describing how languages differ from each other.
Explaining linguistic phenomena
Chomsky. In 1957, he argued that the proper role of linguistic
theory is to provide criteria for selecting the most explanatory
grammar from among a group of competing grammars. He says
that what a theory seeks to explain has profound consequences
for the content and organization of the theory and he gives a
partial list of topics for what a linguistic theory should explain:
• How speakers use language in different social situations
• Why human languages have to structure that they do
• What is common to all human languages
• How human languages change over time
• How speakers produce and understand language in real time
• The nature of native speakers’ knowledge
• How children learn language
Understanding the cognitive basis of language
Following Chomsky, maintain that cognitive issues are in fact the most important issues to be
explained; they do not necessarily agree on which questions are the most important. The three
questions highlight three major facets of the psychology of language:
• Processing: What cognitive processes are involved when human beings produce and
understand language or line in real time?
• Knowledge: How is it organized? How is it represented?
• Acquisition: How do human beings come to have knowledge of language? Is coming to
know language similar to or different from acquiring knowledge in other cognitive domains?
Thanks!
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