Introduction To Linguistics. Step 2 - The nature of Linguistics and Language.

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Code: 1081516681

Course Name: Introduction To Linguistics

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Group: 58017_28

UNAD

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia

2019
 Task 1: individual activity

1. Read the following two documents “An Introduction to Linguistics and Language Studies”
pages 1-13, by McCabe A, and “Linguistics”; and also, read the document ‘Linguistics’ by
Bauer, Laurie. Pages 10-18, found in UNIT 1, in the Knowledge Environment.

2. Based on the first document, do Exercise 1.4 in page 13. You have six phrases and you
have to identify them to whom the phrases might belong, “Attribute each of the…phrases
to Ferdinand de Saussure, Noam Chomsky, or Michael Halliday.

 ‘If we could embrace the sum of word-images stored in the minds of all individuals, we
could identify the social bond that constitutes language. It is a storehouse filled by the
members of a given community through their active use of speaking, a grammatical
system that has a potential existence in each brain, or, specifically, in the brains of a
group of individuals. For language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly
only within a collectivity.’
(Ferdinan de Saussure)

 ‘It seems clear that we must regard linguistic competence – knowledge of a language
– as an abstract system underlying behavior, a system constituted by rules that
interact to determine the form and intrinsic meaning of a potentially infinite number
of sentences.’
(Noam Chomsky)

 ‘Every text – that is, everything that is said or written – unfolds in some context of use;
furthermore, it is the uses of language that, over tens of thousands of generations,
have shaped the system. Language has evolved to satisfy human needs; and the way it
is organized is functional with respect to these needs.’
(Michael Halliday)

 ‘Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-hearer, in a completely

homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected
by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts
of attention and interest, errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge
of the language in actual performance.’
(Noam Chomsky)
 ‘Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results
solely from the simultaneous presence of the others … [for example]. To determine
what a five-franc piece is worth one most know: (1) that it can be exchanged for a
fixed quantity of a different thing, e.g. bread; and (2) that it can be compared with a
similar value of the same system, e.g. a one-franc piece, or with coins of another
system (a dollar, etc.). In the same way a word can be exchanged for something
dissimilar, an idea; besides, it can be compared with something of the same nature,
another word. Its value is therefore not fixed so long as one simply states that it can
be ‘exchanged’ for a given concept.’
(Ferdinan de Saussure)

 ‘Spoken and written language, then, tend to display different KINDS of complexity;
each of them is more complex in its own way. Written language tends to be lexically
dense but grammatically simple; spoken language tends to be grammatically intricate
but lexically sparse’ … ‘The value of having some explicit knowledge of the grammar of
written language is that you can use this knowledge, not only to analyze the texts, but
as a critical resource for asking questions about them. ’
(Michael Halliday)

 What motivates, in each case, your response according to the text?

 What does the quote tell you about their perspective on the study and analysis of
language?”