COLLABORATIVE WORK 1

LANGUAGE FORMS AND FUNCTIONS

551019_13

Raul Bareño Bareño

CODE: 79138325

HOLBEL MENDEZ

Tutor

OPEN AND DISTANCE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

TEFL

BOGOTÁ, OCTOBER 2014

 SUMMARY CHAPTER 1
THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS ABOUT LANGUAGE.

There are certain deeply notions and are often erroneous, about language. For
example, the tendency to equate language with writing. There is a difference
between speech sounds and written symbols; and between language spoken and
written language syntax or vocabulary. Therefore, we believe that there is a
connection between a word and the thing it represents. Sometimes we avoid
naming taboo things, to avoid invoke because we are afraid or because they fear
(e.g. God, our parents, dangerous animals and disease). In conclusion, there is a
kind of feeling, according to which the language has an effect on the action.
We also believe that the main and almost the only function of language is to
express our thoughts, and transmit information (communicative function), or serve
as raw material for literature (narrative or poetic function) however, the language
has many other functions such as: make others do things, express our emotions
and feelings, check if there is some kind of contact (phatic function).

Linguistic Signs

An order that goes from the most natural to the most abstract:

Indexical: a fact that a natural and spontaneous way, announces an event.

Example: black clouds is a sign of storm, the frosting is indicative of cold, brown
leaves falling from the trees is indicative of Autumn.

Iconic: this type of signs should have been given an intentional meaning.
Examples: portraits (including stamps), photographs, drawings, plans, maps, etc.
Here we must remember the ancient scriptures such as Chinese or Egyptian, who
had in mind the similarity between the real objects and their depictions.
Symbolic: the identification between the real object and its representation is often
arbitrary and also conventional. Example: the green pharmacy cross, the hammer
and sickle of communism, etc.

The Rule-Governed Nature of Language

The language consists of a series of signs organized as a system and not

randomly .. This system consists of small units which enter into a relationship with
others, and perform specific functions. These small units are organized according
to certain principles or rules. Grammatical competence is a set of language rules
that are deductible from observable patterns. And it is part of the implicit
knowledge possessed by a native speaker; is its internal grammar. While
grammatical competence is complete and perfect their use by the speakers, it is
not; and that is what is referred to as performance.

Language Universals, Innateness, and Creativity

A more general set of restrictions on the language is called linguistic universals.

These are the language features that are not specific to language; that is found in
all languages of the world. Along with the notion of universals there is the idea that
human language is innate, we are born with a natural ability to acquire language,
and are genetically equipped to apprehend it. In spite the general and specific
constraints of language we can say that language is creative. The first aspect of
creativity is that humans can produce and understand new claims and sometimes
new words. The second aspect of creativity is that we can create statements of
infinite length, though obviously there are practical limits.
THE NATURE OF GRAMMAR

Prescriptive grammar is a set of rules created to label grammatical constructions

as "right" or "wrong". Following strictly the prescriptive grammar of a language is
associated with a formal speech or writing. Most native speakers of a language
(even those without formal education) have an intuitive sense of grammatical
structures that sound "good". These statements may not follow the rules of
prescriptive grammar, but are widely used and understood by speakers of that
language. The descriptive grammar study these constructions not prescriptive.
The difference between descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar is similar to
the difference between constitutive rules, which specify how something works
(such as the rules for the game of chess), and regulatory rules, which control
behavior (such as the rules of etiquette, which specify the when, where, with
whom, and how to talk). If the former are violated, the thing cannot work, but if the
latter are violated, the thing works, but crudely, awkwardly, or rudely.

LINGUISTICS AND THE COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE

Linguistics is defined as the study of language systems. For the purposes of study,
language is divided into levels, or components, such as:
Phonology: It deals with sound keep in mind the difference meanings as opposed
to other sounds within the same language. Therefore, it consideres the features
that in each sound, are relevant to the different meanings.
Phonetics: It deals with the sound’s materiality of and sound’s substance,
described their physical qualities (acoustic phonetics), their production (articulatory
phonetics), their perception (auditory phonetics).
Morphology: It studies the internal structure of words to define, identify and
classify their units, classes of words that leads and the formation of new words.
Syntax: It examines how they combine and relate the words to form larger
sequences, clauses and sentences and the role within these.
Semantics: It refers to aspects of linguistic meaning and interpretation signs as
symbols, words, expressions or formal representations.
Pragmatics: It is interested in the way in which the context influences the
interpretation of meaning. The context must be understood as a situation, which
may include any extra-linguistic aspect: communicative situation, speakers shared
knowledge, relationships, etc. Pragmatics takes into consideration the
extralinguistic factors that influence the use of language, that is, those factors that
are not referenced in a purely formal study.