LINGUISTICS THOUGHTS

Budi Eko Pranoto, M.Hum.

 OUTLINE
4 Major Linguistics Thoughts:
⊡ Traditional Approach
⊡ Structuralism
⊡ Generativism
⊡ Functionalism

2
 1

TRADITIONAL
APPROACH

3
 TRADITIONAL
APPROACH

⊡ Traditional approach in linguistics refers to how language is seen traditionally as

unit of structure that is claimed to have similarities in other languages.
⊡ The roots of traditional grammar are in the work of classical Greek and
Latin philologists, when at that time, traditional grammarians thought that the
Greek and latin model of grammar could be used for the description of any
language.
⊡ Traditional grammarians divided the sentence into some structure such as
subject, verb, object, adverb (part of speech) and clause.

4
 TRADITIONAL
APPROACH

⊡ The linguistic traditions of ancient Greece and Rome greatly influenced

the traditional grammar concepts as they are still in use up to the present
day, especially in the teaching of the classical languages.
⊡ Which one? When they believe that the language should be "pure" and
"correct“, and any deviation from it was seen as a corrupt and decayed
form of language.
⊡ This is what we call as “prescriptive”, considering the correct version of
language that a community should speak rather than what they actually
speak in real condition.

5
 TRADITIONAL
APPROACH

The limits of traditional approach:

⊡ It can never touch the area of psycholinguistics, sosiolinguistics pragmatics
since they only think about “fixed rules”, not the descriptive/ performance one.
⊡ It can be limitedly applied in Proto Indo European Language families. Structures
of other languages are very far different.

6
 2

STRUCTURALISM

7
 STRUCTURALISM
⊡ The father of modern linguistics: Ferdinand de Saussure.
His influential work: Cours de linguistique generale).
⊡ Saussure concept was influenced by Emile Durkheim
stating that sociology was the science of social fact,
therefore, Saussure see language is a social fact (contains
value, norm and social structure).
⊡ Structuralism is an approach to linguistics that focuses on
the idea that languages are fixed systems made up of many
different units that connect with each other.

8
 STRUCTURALISM
⊡ Language is seen as behavioral/social phenomenon, rather
than mental phenomenon.
⊡ Linguistic analysis is only based on the observable and
static phenomenon.
⊡ Each level of language (syntax, morphology, phonology)
should be analyzed independently.
⊡ There is no universality in language, because each
language is exclusive in its structure.

9
 STRUCTURALISM
Saussure Concepts:
⊡ Terms for language: langage (language in general both
spoken and verbal), langue (a particular language, with its
system, belongs to particular society), and parole (actual use
of language)
⊡ Language is synchronic (static/present) instead of
diachronic (accross the time). He thoughts that it is not
necessary to see the present system of language by reffering
to the past.

10
 STRUCTURALISM
Saussure Concepts:
⊡ Semiotics: sign consists of signified (meaning) and
signifier (mental image).
⊡ Language is prescriptive (what it should be) vs descriptive
(what is in the reality)
⊡ Language relations are paradigmatic (vertical relation) and
syntagmatic (horizontal relation)

11
 3

GENERATIVISM

12
 GENERATIVISM
⊡ Generativism emerged as a response to oppose American structuralism
(Leonard Bloomfield).
⊡ The work of Noam Avram Chomsky (born in 1928) became the basis for
the generativism approach to linguistics.
⊡ It was originally a way to explain how humans acquire language in the
first place.
⊡ The generative theory of language suggests that, in its most basic form,
language is made up of certain rules that apply to all humans and all
languages.
⊡ This led to the theory of “universal grammar”, that all humans are capable
of learning grammar.

13
 GENERATIVISM

Characteristics of Chomsky’s theory:

1. Mentalism: language is mental phonemenon, not a reaction to
external stimuli. It is to formulate thoughts, not to communicate
them.
2. Deductionism: it applies deductive reasoning (from general
principle to specific conclusion)
3. Explicitness: the aim of grammar is to formulate explicit description
of the implicit human linguistic competence.

14
 GENERATIVISM
Characteristics of Chomsky’s theory:
4. Universalism: all language are based on the same set of universal principle
(Universal Grammar). It must be legitimate to use cross-linguistic data to analyze
structure of any language.
5. Nativism: linguistic competence is innate/ genetically transmitted, so language is
acquired, not learned. Thus in the process of language acquisition, the innate
linguistic competence is adjusted to a given natural language.
6. Transformationalism: certain linguistic structures are derivable from other more
basic structure. By this approach we analyze sentence to a smallest unit. Thus
generativism assume to different level of representation: deep structure and
surface structure.

15
 4

FUNCTIONALISM

16
 FUNCTIONALISM
⊡ Influential figure in Functional approach: Halliday, Chafe,
Jespersen and Bolinger.
⊡ Functionalism focuses on how language is used in everyday
life/ the importance of social context (performance).
⊡ Functionalism emphasizes the importance of social context,
usage, and the communicative function of the grammar,
phonology, orthography, and more, of a language.

17
 FUNCTIONALISM
⊡ It is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analyzed
and understood with reference to the functions they carry out.
⊡ The context where linguistic elements are used and studies
are instrumentally useful or functional in the given
environment.
⊡ Functional grammar makes much use of corpus
linguistics and linguistic typology to provide material
because they want to see broader contexts of language use.

18
 FUNCTIONALISM
⊡ Functionalists try to explain competence, often on the basis
of performance because competence is affected by
performance.
⊡ Everyone recognizes that grammars are full of arbitrariness,
but functionalists emphasize non-arbitrariness and explain
wherever possible.
⊡ Functionalists allow exception, so their empirical coverage is
broader.

19
 “
“Each thoughts has its own perspective to see
language. It is all about fixed or modified system,
innate or learned, and it’s the system in human mind
and the realization of it. “

20
Questions?

21