1. Linguistic Approaches to study the language.pdf
- 1. ← Linguistics Linguistics is the study of language as system. It involves an investigation of the nature, structure, constituent units, and modification of any such system. Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The word was first used in the middle of the 19th century to emphasize the difference between a newer approach to the study of language that was then developing and the more traditional approach of philology. The differences were and are largely matters of attitude, emphasis, and purpose. The philologist is concerned primarily with the historical development of languages as it is manifest in written texts and in the context of the associated literature and culture. The linguist, though he may be interested in written texts and in the development of languages through time, tends to give priority to spoken languages and to the problems of analyzing them as they operate at a given point in time. ← Philology This comes from Greek words philos which means ”loving” and logos ”speech”. It refers to the study of written records, the establishment of their authenticity and correctness, and the determination of their meaning. In the 19th century the term philology often referred more narrowly to the study of linguistics. In the 20th century philology has been used in literature, historical linguistics, and other areas of study in order to reconstruct the texts of imperfect or mutilated manuscripts and inscriptions. The modern philologist often determines the text of a lost original by comparing variant readings in extant copies. Philologists also interpret the texts, obtaining information about history and culture as well as about language and literature. Encyclopedia Britannica (1996) states that philology involved mainly in the study of the linguistic sources of a people or a group of peoples, forms the basic means for the comprehension of their respective cultures. It deals less with oral sources than with written sources, mainly literature (whatever its exact meaning). Philology deals with the formal aspects of writing under the topic of epigraphy and paleography. Linguistics is concerned with the study of linguistic systems as reconstructed mainly from oral sources. Pursued less than the study of "oral language," the study of the "written language"--that is, of the language as it is used in written sources is also a matter of linguistics. Linguistics deals with the structural aspects of writing under the heading of graphemics. The field of study that deals with writing in the broadest sense is called grammatology. Equally appropriate terms for this subject are grammatonomy and graphonomy. ← Branches of Linguistics: The field of linguistics may be divided in terms of three dichotomies: synchronic or descriptive versus diachronic or historical, theoretical versus applied, microlinguistics versus macrolinguistics. A synchronic description of a language describes the language as it is at a given time; a diachronic description is concerned with the historical development of the
- 2. language and the structural changes that have taken place in it. The goal of theoretical linguistics is the construction of a general theory of the structure of language or of a general theoretical framework for the description of languages; the aim of applied linguistics is the application of the findings and techniques of the scientific study of language to practical tasks, especially to the elaboration of improved methods of language teaching. The terms microlinguistics and macrolinguistics are not yet well established, and they are, in fact, used here purely for convenience. The former refers to a narrower and the latter to a much broader view of the scope of linguistics. According to the microlinguistic view, languages should be analyzed for their own sake and without reference to their social function, to the manner in which they are acquired by children, to the psychological mechanisms that underlie the production and reception of speech, to the literary and the aesthetic or communicative function of language, and so on. In contrast, macrolinguistics embraces all of these aspects of language. Various areas within macrolinguistics have been given terminological recognition: psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, dialectology, mathematical and computational linguistics, and stylistics. ← Theoretical Linguistics Linguistics is called theoretical when it attempts to establish a theory of the underlying structure of language, and is called applied when linguistic concepts are put to use for pedagogical purposes. Linguists may use either a synchronic approach to language study (i.e., describe a particular language at a particular time) or a diachronic approach (i.e., trace the development of a particular language through its history). Theoretical linguistics tends to isolate the structure of language from actual language production and therefore favours the synchronic approach when describing a language. Theoretical linguistics does not take into account language acquisition, usage, or any other aspects of language that are studied by scholars in such specialized fields of linguistics as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and anthropological linguistics. Findings from these fields often become useful tools in the hands of applied linguists. ← Descriptive Linguistics Synchronic Linguistics is the study of a language at a given point in time. The time studied may be either the present or a particular point in the past; synchronic analyses can also be made of dead languages, such as Latin. Synchronic linguistics is contrasted with diachronic linguistics (or historical linguistics; q.v.), the study of a language over a period of time. In the 20th century, synchronic description has come to be regarded as prior to diachronic description; the latter presupposes that synchronic descriptions at various stages of the development of a language have already been carried out. Previously, linguists had placed emphasis on
- 3. diachronic linguistics. The terminological distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics was first made by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). ← Historical Linguistics and Comparative Linguistics ←Historical Linguistics is also called DIACHRONIC LINGUISTICS, the branch of linguistics concerned with the study of phonological, grammatical, and semantic changes, the reconstruction of earlier stages of languages, and the discovery and application of the methods by which genetic relationships among languages can be demonstrated. Historical linguistics had its roots in the etymological speculations of classical and medieval times, in the comparative study of Greek and Latin developed during the Renaissance, and in the speculations of scholars as to the language from which the other languages of the world were descended. It was only in the 19th century, however, that more scientific methods of language comparison and sufficient data on the early Indo-European languages combined to establish the principles now used by historical linguists. The theories of the Neogrammarians, a group of German historical linguists and classical scholars who first gained prominence in the 1870s, were especially important because of the rigorous manner in which they formulated sound correspondences in the Indo-European languages. The historical linguists of the 19th century developed the comparative method of diachronic description, which consisted of comparing different languages in terms of their grammar, vocabulary, and phonology in the hope of finding a common ancestral language. The historical linguists did accomplish this when they discovered that Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin were related, that most of the languages of Europe had family relationships, and that all these languages descended from a common language called Proto-Indo-European. It was also shown that, through the centuries, systematic changes in pronunciation were responsible for the differentiation of languages. In the 20th century, historical linguists have successfully extended the application of the theories and methods of the 19th century to the classification and historical study of non-Indo- European languages. Historical linguistics, when contrasted with synchronic linguistics, the study of a language at a particular point in time, is often called diachronic linguistics. ← Comparative Linguistics, formerly COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR, or COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY, is study of the relationships or correspondences between two or more languages and the techniques used to discover whether the languages have a common ancestor. Comparative grammar was the most important branch of linguistics in the 19th century in Europe. It was also called comparative philology, the study was originally stimulated by the discovery by Sir William Jones in 1786 that Sanskrit was related to Latin, Greek, and German.
- 4. An important assumption to the comparative method is the Neogrammarian principle that the laws governing sound change are regular and have no exceptions that cannot be accounted for by some other regular phenomenon of language. As an example of the method, English is seen to be related to Italian if a number of words that have the same meaning and that have not been borrowed are compared: piede and "foot," padre and "father," pesce and "fish." The initial sounds, although different, correspond regularly according to the pattern discovered by Jacob Grimm and named Grimm's law (q.v.) after him; the other differences can be explained by other regular sound changes. Because regular correspondences between English and Italian are far too numerous to be coincidental, it becomes apparent that English and Italian stem from the same parent language. The comparative method was developed and used successfully in the 19th century to reconstruct this parent language, Proto-Indo-European, and has since been applied to the study of other language families. ← Applied Linguistics It attempts to put the insights resulting from linguistic research to practical uses. In the sense in which the term applied linguistics is most commonly used nowadays it is restricted to the application of linguistics to language teaching. Much of the recent expansion of linguistics as a subject of teaching and research in the universities in many countries has come about because of its value, actual and potential, for writing better language textbooks and devising more efficient methods of teaching languages. Linguistics is also widely held to be relevant to the training of teachers of the deaf and speech therapists. Outside the field of education in the narrower sense, applied linguistics (and, more particularly, applied sociolinguistics) has an important part to play in what is called language planning; i.e., in advising governments, especially in recent created states, as to which language or dialect should be made the official language of the country and how it should be standardized. ( J.Lyo./Ed.) ← Linguistics and Language The field of linguistics, the scientific study of human natural language, is a growing and exciting area of study, with an important impact on fields as diverse as education, anthropology, sociology, language teaching, cognitive psychology, philosophy, computer science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, among others. Indeed, the last five fields cited, along with linguistics, are the key components of the emerging field of cognitive science, the study of the structure and functioning of human cognitive processes. In spite of the importance of the field of linguistics, many people, even highly educated people, will tell you that they have only a vague idea of what the field is about. Some believe that a linguist is a person who speaks several languages fluently. Others believe that linguists are language experts who can help you decide whether it is better to say "It is I" or "It's me." Yet it is quite possible to be a professional linguist (and an excellent one at that) without having
- 5. taught a single language class, without having interpreted at the UN, and without speaking any more than one language. What is linguistics, then? Fundamentally, the field is concerned with the nature of language and communication. It is apparent that people have been fascinated with language and communication for thousands of years, yet in many ways we are only beginning to understand the complex nature of this aspect of human life. If we ask, What is the nature of lan- guage? or How does communication work? we quickly realize that these questions have no simple answers and are much too broad to be answered in a direct way. Similarly, questions such as What is energy? or What is matter? cannot be answered in a simple fashion, and indeed the entire field of physics is an attempt to answer them. Linguistics is no different: the field as a whole represents an attempt to break down the broad questions about the nature of language and communication into smaller, more manageable questions that we can hope to answer, and in so doing establish reasonable results that we can build on in moving closer to answers to the larger questions. Unless we limit our sights in this way and restrict ourselves to particular frameworks for examining different aspects of language and communication, we cannot hope to make progress in answering the broad questions that have fascinated people for so long. As we will see, the field covers a surprisingly broad range of topics related to language and communication. To turn now from the particular to the general, what are some of the background assumptions that linguists make when they study language? Perhaps the most important fundamental assumption is that human language at all levels is rule- (or principle-) governed. Every known language has systematic rules governing pronunciation, word formation, and grammatical construction. Further, the way in which meanings are associated with phrases of a language is characterized by regular rules. Finally, the use of language to communicate is governed by important generalizations that can be expressed in rules. The ultimate aim in each chapter, therefore, is to formulate rules to describe and account for the phenomena under consideration. At this point we must add an important qualification to what we have just said. That is, we are using the terms rule and rule-governed in the special way that linguists use them. This usage is very different from the layperson's understanding of the terms. In school most of us were taught so- called rules of grammar, which we were told to follow in order to speak and write "correctly"— rules such as "Do not end a sentence with a preposition," or "Don't say 'ain't'," or "Never split an infinitive." Rules of this sort are called prescriptive rules; that is to say, they prescribe, or dictate to the speaker, the way the language supposedly should be written or spoken in order for the speaker to appear correct or educated. Prescriptive rules are really rules of style rather than rules of grammar. In sharp contrast, when linguists speak of rules, they are not referring to prescriptive rules from grammar books. Rather, linguists try to formulate descriptive rules when they analyze
- 6. language, rules that describe the actual language of some group of speakers and not some hypothetical language that speakers "should" use. Descriptive rules express generalizations and regularities about various aspects of language . Thus, when we say that language is rule-governed, we are really saying that the study of human language has revealed numerous generalizations about and regularities in the structure and function of language. In spite of the fact that language is governed by strict principles, speakers nonetheless control a system that is unbounded in scope, which is to say that there is no limit to the kinds of things that can be talked about. Another important background assumption that linguists make is that the various human languages constitute a unified phenomenon: linguists assume that it is possible to study human language in general and that the study of particular languages will reveal features of language that are universal. What do we mean by universal features of language? So far we have used the terms language and human language without referring to any specific language, such as English or Chinese. Students are sometimes puzzled by this general use of the term language; it would seem that this use is rarely found outside of linguistics-related courses. Foreign language courses, after all, deal with specific languages such as French or Russian. Further, specific human languages appear on the surface to be so different from each other that it is often difficult to understand how linguists can speak of language as though it were a single thing. Although it is obvious that specific languages differ from each other on the surface, if we look closer we find that human languages are surprisingly similar. For instance, all known languages are at a similar level of complexity and detail there is no such thing as a primitive human language. All languages provide a means for asking questions, making requests, making assertions, and so on. And there is nothing that can be expressed in one language that cannot be expressed in any other. Obviously, one language may have terms not found in another language, but it is always possible to invent new terms to express what we mean: anything we can imagine or think, we can express in any human language. Turning to more abstract properties, even the formal structures of language are similar: all languages have sentences made up of smaller phrasal units, these units in turn being made up of words, which are themselves made up of sequences of sounds. All of these features of human language are so obvious to us that we may fail to see how surprising it is that languages share them. When linguists use the term language, or natural human language, they are revealing their belief that at the abstract level, beneath the surface variation, languages are re- markably similar in form and function and conform to certain universal principles. In relation to what we have just said about universal principles, we should observe once again that most of the illustrative examples in this study guide are drawn from the English language. This should not mislead you into supposing that what we say is relevant only to English. We will be introducing fundamental concepts of linguistics, and we believe that these
- 7. have to be applicable to all languages. We have chosen English examples so that you can continually check our factual claims and decide whether they are empirically well founded. Linguistics, perhaps more than any other science, provides an opportunity for the student to participate in the research process. Finally, we offer a brief observation about the general nature of linguistics. To many linguists the ultimate aim of linguistics is not simply to understand how language itself is structured and how it functions. We hope that as we come to understand more about human language, we will correspondingly understand more about the processes of human thought. In this view the study of language is ultimately the study of the human mind. This goal is perhaps best expressed by Noam Chomsky in his book Reflections on Language (1975,3-4): “Why study language? There are many possible answers, and by focusing on some I do not, of course, mean to disparage others or question their legitimacy. One may, for example, simply be fascinated by the elements of language in themselves and want to discover their order and arrangement, their origin in history or in the individual, or the ways in which they are used in thought, in science or in art, or in normal social interchange. One reason for studying language—and for me personally the most compelling reason—is that it is tempting to regard language, in the traditional phrase, as "a mirror of mind." I do not mean by this simply that the concepts expressed and distinctions developed in normal language use give us insight into the patterns of thought and the world of "common sense" constructed by the human mind. More intriguing, to me at least, is the possibility that by studying language we may discover abstract principles that govern its structure and use, principles that are universal by biological necessity and not mere historical accident, that derive from mental characteristics of the species. A human language is a system of remarkable complexity. To come to know a human language would be an extraordinary intellectual achievement for a creature not specifically designed to accomplish this task. A normal child acquires this knowledge on relatively slight exposure and without specific training. He can then quite effortlessly make use of an intricate structure of specific rules and guiding principles to convey his thoughts and feelings to others, arousing in them novel ideas and subtle perceptions and judgments. For the conscious mind, not specifically designed for the purpose, it remains a distant goal to reconstruct and comprehend what the child has done intuitively and with minimal effort. Thus language is a mirror of mind in a deep and significant sense. It is a product of human intelligence, created anew in each individual by operations that lie far beyond the reach of will or consciousness.”