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General Linguistics - Week 1 Lecture
General Linguistics - Week 1 Lecture
Understanding
Language
Term 1, Week 1
Dr Sheena Shah
ss170@soas.ac.uk
Week 1
• What is linguistics?
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What is language?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg02KxwrO5U 3
Linguistics
What is language?
▪'native-speaker intuitions'
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Different areas of linguistics
(Aitchison 1999:8) 7
Phonetics
Production, transmission and perception of sounds
used in speech.
“Why did Ken set the soggy net on top
of his deck?”
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Phonology
Sounds:
vowels
consonants
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What consonant sounds occur in English?
What consonant (sound) combinations occur at the
beginning of English words?
Cats
Dogs
Finches
Morphology is concerned
with the way words
are structured in a language;
Friend with how they are made up
Friendly
Unfriendly of meaningful parts.
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Syntax
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In some languages, the order of words is extremely
important:
Semantics
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Pragmatics
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Other areas of investigation in linguistics
• Typology/universals
• Discourse analysis
• Evolutionary linguistics
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A linguist…
Need not be fluent in languages, but …
• Studies the structure and functions of language.
• Tries to describe and explain language structures and how they are
used.
• Remains objective and avoids making social judgments about
‘correctness’ or ‘purity’ of the languages they are studying. Linguists
view language either as a system of structures or as an instrument of
communication. Some take a more middle view: theoretical
frameworks that explore what language is and how people
communicate.
• ‘One is trained, through the discipline of linguistics, to develop
conventionalized styles of academic argumentation, for example, as
well as to approach information comprehensively and systematically,
paying attention to details, organizing information in useful ways,
recognizing data that support (or refute) a particular analysis, and in
accepting with tolerance — and, sometimes, even actively seeking —
exceptions to one's most deeply held opinions’ (Jefferies 1992).
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LANGUAGE???
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What is language?
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Plants: Pass on information about advancing predators by means
of chemical signals.
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Design features of human language (1)
1. Interchangeability 5. Arbitrariness
All members of the species can There is no natural or inherent
send and receive messages. connection between a token and its
referent.
2. Feedback
Users of the system are aware of 6. Discreteness
what they are transmitting. The communication system consists
of isolatable, repeatable units.
3. Specialization
The communication system 7. Displacement
serves no other function but to Users of the system are able to refer
communicate. to events remote in time and space.
4. Semanticity 8. Productivity
The system conveys meaning New messages on any topic can be
through a set of fixed relationships produced at any time.
among signifiers referents and
meanings.
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Design features of human language (2)
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Definitions of language
• ‘Language is an intricate network of interlinked
elements in which every item is held in place and
given its identity by all other elements’ (Aichison
1999).
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INVENTORY OF THE WORLD’S
LANGUAGES
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Inventory of the world’s languages
How many languages are there in the world
today?
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Question of the day
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The top 10 (data from Ethnologue)
Phonetics!
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