Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA VIZCAYA STATE UNIVERSITY

Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Secondary Education

REV COURSE 3 (Review on Specialization/Content Courses)

2nd Semester, S.Y. 2019 – 2020

Specialization : English
Subject : Linguistics
Lecturer : Prof. Alma Bella G. Cablinan
Subject Teacher : Prof. Jane D. Navalta

Introduction to Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

CHAPTER 1: What is Linguistics?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguists do work on specific languages, but their primary goal is to
understand the nature of language in general. Linguistics is primarily concerned with the nature of language and
communication. There are broadly three aspects to the study, including language form, language meaning, and
language use in discursive and communicative contexts.

Linguistics deals with the study of particular languages, and the search for general properties common to all
languages or large groups of languages.

Some questions linguistics tries to answer:

 What distinguishes human language from other animal communication systems?

 What features are common to all human languages?
 How are the modes of linguistic communication (speech, writing, sign language of the deaf) related to each
other?
 How is language related to other types of human behaviour?
 What is language and how is it organized?
 How is it analysed? How are its units discovered and tested, etc.

Branches of Linguistics

Pragmatics

Semantics Phonology

LINGUISTICS

Syntax Phonetics

Morphology

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The Elements of Linguistics

Phonology refers to the study of sounds or studies how sounds are organized in particular languages.
Morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same
language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes
Syntax derives from the Greek word syntaxis, which means arrangement or the formation of words in a sentence.
Semantics refers to the study of meanings or the study of relationships between words and how we construct
meaning

Language defined by renowned linguists

1. Henry Lee Smith: Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members of
speech community or a sub-cultural group interact; hence, a language is a system for communicating with
each other in terms of common values, attitudes, assumptions and common experiences.
2. Edward Sapir: Language is purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions,
and desires by means of auditory system of voluntarily produced symbols.
3. Leonard Bloomfield: Language is a form of human behavior consisting of a set of conditioned human
responses to physical and chemical stimuli. These responses are conditioned that is neither instinctive nor
inherited and they are substitutes to other forms as a bodily behavior. These sets of signals are socially
significant in which utterances can be generalized for all speakers since they are members of the same
speech community.
4. John Hudges: Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols which thought is conveyed from one
human being to another.
5. Ferdinand Saussure: Language is a succession of discrete self-defining systems whose changes are
brought about by the innovating factors introduced by individual deviations of the mass people, speaking
the language through time. (Language is therefore considered dynamic)
6. Firth: Language is a meaningful activity, which can be described on different levels. Internal relation of the
context of situation is one of them. The speaker identifies himself/herself the mode of his/her participation,
in the speech situation, the elements of the situation non which he acts or to which he responds according
to the restrictions of the sound and grammatical systems of his language.

Language Competence and Language Performance

Competence is the ability of native speakers to create understanding grammatical sentences, to detect
deviant and ungrammatical sentences, and to make other linguistic judgments about utterance in their language.
Performance, on the other hand, is the actual utterances produced by speakers of a language (Lyon, 1977).

The distinction between competence and performance is closely related to that between form and
substance. The formal system we describe accounts for a native speaker’s knowledge of his/her language. This
knowledge allows him/her the potentials to understand and produce utterances, which he/she actually may never
find the opportunity either to understand or to produce. For example, the reader will have understood the previous
sentence, will understand this one, will understand this one, and will understand the next one. The ability the reader
has to understand novel-sentence in the language is competence.

Competence is the knowledge that persons have their grammar while performance involves knowledge
for using competence so that the process of sentence production and understanding can be realized.

Linguistic competence can be defined as the “mental grammar” instilled in the mind of the speaker. In
short, it the speaker’s linguistic knowledge (or competence) that permits them to form longer and longer sentences
by joining sentences and phrases together or adding modifiers to a noun. Whether one stops at three, five, or
eighteen adjectives, it is impossible to limit the number one could add if desired. Very long sentences are
theoretically possible, although they are highly improbable. Evidently there is a difference between having the
knowledge necessary to produce sentences of a language and applying this knowledge. It is a difference between
what you know, which is linguistic competence, and how you use this knowledge in actual speech production and
comprehension, which is you linguistic performance.

APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Applied Linguistics builds on the findings of Theoretical Linguistics and, combining its strengths with those
of other sciences such as Psychology, Sociology, etc., and seeks to examine the circumstances under which
language is acquired and used by a language community.

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 Linguistics is subdivided into

Historical

Theoretical Comparative

Descriptive Geographical

Applied

Applied Linguistics entails using what we know about language, about how it is used, and about how it is learned
in order to solve some problem in the real world.
Applied Linguistics uses language-related research in a wide variety of fields (e.g. language acquisition, language
teaching, literacy, gender studies, language policy, speech therapy, discourse analysis, censorship, workplace
communication, media studies, translation, lexicography, forensic linguistics).
“Applied Linguistics is the utilization of the knowledge about the nature of language achieved by linguistic
research for the improvement of the efficiency of some practical task in which language is a central component.”
(Corder, 1974)
“Applied Linguistics is using what we know about (a) language, (b) how it is learned, and (c) how it is used, in
order to achieve some purpose or solve some problems in the real world” (Schmitt & Celce-Murcia, 2002).
“The focus of applied linguistics is on trying to resolve language-based problems that people encounter in the real
world, whether they be learners, teachers, supervisors, academics, lawyers, service providers, those who need
social services, test takers, policy developers, dictionary makers, translators, or a whole range of business clients.”
(Grabe, 2002).

Defining characteristics of Applied Linguistics

Autonomous, multidisciplinary and problem solving: uses and draws on theory from other related fields
concerned with language and generates its own theory in order to find solutions to language related problems and
issues in the real world.
Practical concerns have an important role in shaping the questions that AL will address.
Language related problems concern learners, teachers, academics, lawyers, translators, test takers, service
providers, etc.

What problems are related to language?

Problems related to:
language learning
language teaching
literacy
language contact (language & culture),
language policy and planning
language assessment
language use
language and technology
translation and interpretation
language pathology

A sample of questions Applied Linguistics addresses:

How can we teach languages better?
How can we diagnose speech pathologies better?
How can we improve the training of translators?
How can we develop valid language examinations?
How can we determine the literacy levels of a population?
What advice can we give the department of education on proposals to introduce a new teaching method?
What advice can we give a defense lawyer on the authenticity of a police transcript of an interview with a suspect?

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What is the relationship between AL and other language related disciplines?
Applied linguistics occupies an intermediary, mediating position between language related disciplines (linguistics,
psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics) and professional practice
It uses theories/principles from language related disciplines in order to understand language related issues and to
solve language related problems.
The choice of which disciplines are involved in applied linguistics matters depends on the circumstances.
Applied linguistics conducts research into professional practice and on the basis of the results develops theory.’

Theoretical, Interdisciplinary and Applied Linguistics

Theoretical linguistics Interdisciplinary
Linguistics
• Phonology • Psycholinguistics
• Morphology • Sociolinguistics
• Syntax and structural • Pragmatics
grammar • Discourse analysis
• Semantics • Computational and corpus
• Historical linguistics linguistics
Applied Linguistics
• Applied linguistics to language
education
• Applied linguistics to foreign
language education
• Translation studies
• Lexicography

Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

Linguistics is primarily concerned with language in itself and in findings ways of analysing language and building
theories that describe language.
Applied linguistics is concerned with the role of language in peoples’ lives and problems associated with language
use in peoples’ lives.
Linguistics is essential but not the only feeder discipline.

Applied Linguistics and its relationship to other fields

Linguistics
(the study of the nature, structure and variation of
language)
Applied Linguistics

Education (teaching, learning, acquisition, assessment)

Sociology
(the scientific study of human behavior and the study of
society)

Psychology (the science of mind and behavior, and the

application of such knowledge of various spheres of
human activity)

Anthropology
(the scientific study of the origin and behavior of man)

Applied Linguistics or linguistics applied?

Widdowson (2000) presents the question in terms of linguistics applied and applied linguistics:
“The differences between these modes of intervention is that in the case of linguistics applied the assumption is that
the problem can be reformulated by the direct and unilateral application of concepts and terms deriving from
linguistic enquiry itself. That is to say, language problems are amenable to linguistics solutions. In the case of
applied linguistics, intervention is crucially a matter of mediation . . . applied linguistics . . . has to relate and
reconcile different representations of reality, including that of linguistics without excluding others.”

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 Subfields of Applied Linguistics

Language and education Language, work and the law Language, information and effect

• First language education, • Workplace communication, • Literary stylistics,

• Second language education, • Language planning, • Critical discourse analysis,
• Foreign language education, • Forensic linguistics. • Translation and Interpretation,
• Clinical linguistics, • Information design,
• Language testing. • Lexicography.

Who may be interested in Applied Linguistics?

1. The Elementary School Teachers
-the acquisition of second language (level of language acquisition that the child has achieved at the time of
school entrance)
Task: helps the children learn to read, write, and understand the relationship between writing and speech.
2. The Secondary School Teachers
- to be aware of the rules and forms that make up the language system (grammar and phonology)
3. The Philosopher
-Language is one of the chief factors that distinguishes man from other animals;
-What language is and how it contributes to man’s special place in the universe;
- A special interest in determining relationships between language and logic and between language and
thought;
- Language provides wide material for the investigation of learning.
4. The Anthropologist
- The analysis of a vocabulary shows the principal emphasis of a culture and culture history.
- Language is an integral part of a culture of any society.
5. Writers and Poets
- Language as the medium in which ideas are expressed.
• To understand the use of language in prose and poetry (genre, stylistics), one must also
understand the possibilities for expression offered by language (Discourse Analysis).
6. Psychologist
- Language is a necessary means for understanding of language behavior (psycholinguistics)
7. Sociologist/Sociolinguist
- Language is a guide to social reality. It helps understand:
• How particular varieties of language are associated with particular social groups
• Correctness of speech (or social style), in speech (modes of pronunciation, slang, jargon,
professional terminology- are some of the symbols that society arranges itself and are of crucial
importance for the understanding of the development of individual and social attitudes)
• The technique of communication between human beings
• The symbolic significance in social sense
To sum up:
Applied Linguistics :
 Examines the structure of language and its role in communication.
 Explores how children acquire language.
 Studies how the skills of L2 and EFL speakers develop and investigates how the social or cultural
environment interacts with language.
 Investigates how an understanding of language can be put to use in a variety of fields including first
and second language acquisition.
Applied Linguistics:
 can be applied to all aspects of language use.
 deals with mother, foreign, second language acquisition.
 examined the relationship between language and such areas as law, communication, media,
social, and educational psychology and education in general.
Domain of Applied Linguistics
 approaches to text
 language
 literacy
 research

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  language teaching and learning
 translation

PHONOLOGY
1. Phonology
_ studies how sounds are organized in particular languages
_ tries to discover the psychological patterns and underlying organization of sounds shared by
native speakers of a certain language.
_ abstracts from the physical data provided by phonetics.

2. Phonotactics
Phonotactics studies what kind of sound patterns (sound combinations) are in a particular language and which are
not.
For example, certain languages do not only allow consonant clusters (CV syllables; this is a universal feature, but
some languages are more strict than others). Interesting thing happens with borrowings from other languages:

Japanese:
Besuboru- baseball sutoraiku- strike
Gorufurendu- girlfriend arubaito- job (German Arbeit)

Setswana (Botswana):
Kirisimasi- Christmas gelase- glass hafu- half

Shona (Southern Bantu language, Zimbabwe, replacing [l] with [r]): Strictly CV (C even
cannot be in the final of a word)
turoko- truck puruvhu- proof
furusitopi- full stop bhirifi- brief
sitirecha- strecher giramu- gram
hendibhegi- handbag kirimu- cream
kanduro- candle chitofu-stove

Other examples:
 Word initial stress { Czech, Hungarian, Finish, English (for most words)
 Word final obstruents (stops, fricatives, africates) are voiceless- Czech, Polish, Russian, German, Dutch
and many other languages.

3. Phonemes
It is sometimes difficult for native speakers of a language to tell the difference between sounds which may be
completely distinct for speakers of another language.

(1) a. English: pit [phIt] vs. spit [spIt]

b. Hindi: [phu:l] (fruit) vs. [pu:l] (moment)

 English speakers consider [p] and the [ph] to be the same sound, despite some irrelevant articulatory
details.
For Hindi speakers, the same details are enough to completely differentiate the two sounds, making them
as different as [p] and [b] for English speakers.
 In English, [p] and [ph] are called variants (allophones) of the same phoneme /p/.
In Hindi, [p] and [ph] are two distinct phonemes { /p/ and /ph/

You can think about phonemes as the stuff in your head, and phones as the real stuff you say. You know there is a
/p/ in both pit and spit, but you pronounce [ph] in pit and [p] in spit.

So phonetics studies how sounds really sound, while phonology studies how they sound to speakers of some
language.

4. Phonological Rules

Phonological rules translate phonemes to the real sounds (phones).

(1) a. /pIt/ → [phIt]
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 b. /spIt/ → [spIt]
So we can say:
(2) a. /p/→ [ph] at the beginning of the word
b. /p/→ [p] otherwise (rules like this are usually omitted)
We can also state similar rules for /t/ and /k/:
(3) a. /t/→ [th] at the beginning of the word
b. /k/→ [kh] at the beginning of the word
However, /p/, /t/ and /k/ are all English voiceless stops, therefore we can write just one general rule:
(4) voiceless stop→ aspirated at the beginning of the word
Or in a more “scientific" way:
(5) [-voiced, +stop] → [+aspirated] / #-
Note: # marks word boundary (#-means word initially, -# means word finally)

Languages have many rules like that. Some of them all the speakers share, some are used only by some speakers.
Some of them occur always, some only in fast speech, etc.

In these rules we can refer to classes of phonemes like:

 voiced consonants ([b, d, ɟ, ɡ, ð, z, ʒ, n, m, . . . ]),
 rounded vowels ([u, ʊ, o, ɔ]),
 nasals ([m, n, ᵑ , ɲ]),
 sibilants (hissy sounds [s, z, ʃ , ʒ, t ʃ, dʒ],
 etc.
In Czech or German, all word-final obstruents become voiceless:
a. /hund/ → [hunt] Hund (dog)
b. /hunde/ → [hunde] Hunde (dogs)
c. /tag/ → [tak] Tag (day)
d. /tage/ → [tage] Tage (days)

5. Kinds Of Phonological Rules

Different languages have different rules, however there are some typical kinds of rules that are very common:
 Assimilation- a process by which a sound becomes more like a nearby sound.
-place assimilation:
comfort - /m/ can assimilate to /f/→ [m] (bilabial→ labiodental)
input [mp], bonbon [mb] `candy'
-bit [I] vs. bin [Ī] - /I/ assimilates to the following /n/ (nasal) → [_I]
-because you [bIkɔʒju]- /z/ can assimilate to /j/ (palatal) → [ʒ]
-I can bake [ɑĪ kᴂm beĪk]
-I can play [ɑĪ kᴂm pleĪ]
Reason: easier to pronounce; the assimilation level depends on speakers and situation

 Dissimilation- the opposite of assimilation, two nearby sounds become less alike.
-In Latin, suffix -alis changes to -aris when it is added to a word containing [l].
These words came into Czech/English as adjectives ending in -al or -ar.
-al : annecdot-al, annu-al; natur-alni, manu-alni
-ar : angul-ar, annul-ar; mol-arni, plan-arni
Here the change is even reflected in spelling.

 Insertion- a new sound is inserted.

-prince /prIns/→ [phrIn(t)s]: [t] is sometimes inserted
-hamster /hæmstr/→hæm(p)str]: [p] is sometimes inserted
Reason: Difference of timing of various articulators. For example, in prince the velum is already positioned for
pronouncing [s], but the tongue is in in place for [n], and [t] results.

 Deletion- a phoneme is not pronounced in certain environments

- mystry, genral, funral, vigrous, Barbra
Reason: easier and faster to say

 Metathesis- two sound (usually adjacent) switch their place.

-whale, what, etc.

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 MORPHOLOGY

Morphology

In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the
same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems, root words, prefixes, and
suffixes

Types of Morphemes

Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes

A bound morpheme is a word element that cannot stand alone as a word, including both prefixes and suffixes. A
free morpheme, on the other hand, can stand alone as a word and cannot be broken down further into other word
elements.

Attaching a bound morpheme to a free morpheme, like adding the prefix "re-" to the verb "start," creates a new
word or at least a new form of a word, like "restart." Represented in sound and writing by word segments called
morphs, bound morphemes can further be broken down into two categories; derivational
and inflectional morphemes.

Hundreds of bound morphemes exist in the English language, creating near-infinite possibilities for expanding
unbound morphemes — commonly referred to as words — by merely attaching these elements to pre-existing
words.

Bound and free morphemes

Free morphemes:
o constitute words by themselves – boy, car, desire, gentle, man
o can stand alone

Bound morphemes:
o can’t stand alone – always parts of words - occur attached to free morphemes
cats: cat  free morpheme
-s  bound morpheme
undesirable: desire  free morpheme
-un, -able  bound morphemes
o affixes
o prefixes – occur before other morphemes
 unhappy, discontinue, rewrite, bicycle, bipolar
o suffixes – following other morphemes
 sleeping, excited, desirable
o infixes – inserted into other morphemes
 Bontoc, a language in the Philipines –
fikas ‘strong’ fumicas ‘to be strong’
kilad ‘red’ kumilad ‘to be red’
 English
full word obscenities into another word –
in+fuggin+credible
also+bloomin+lately
o circumfixes – attached to another morpheme both initially and finally
 German
Past participle of irregular verbs – ge+lieb+t
Roots and Stems
o morphologically complex words consist of
a root + one or more morpheme(s)
o root
 a lexical content morpheme that
 cannot be analyzed into smaller
 painter , reread, conceive
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  may or may not stand alone as a word
 read, -ceive
o stem
 a root morpheme + affix
 may or may not be a word
 painter  both a words and a stem
 -ceive+er  only a stem
 as we add an affix to a stem, a new stem and a new word are formed

Morphemes and syllables

The terms morpheme and syllable should not be confused:
 many morphemes are syllabic (i.e., contain at least one vowel) - cat
 many others are non-syllabic (contain no vowels): -s  'more than one'

Inflectional Versus Derivational Morphemes

The two classes of bound morphemes that linguists recognize to modify the grammatical class of words are
inflectional and derivational morphemes. Inflectional morphemes predictably influence the base words to signal a
change in quantity, person, gender, tense, or the like while leaving the base word's class unchanged.

Inflectional morphemes are considered more predictable because there are only eight in the closed set of accepted
inflectional morphemes, which include the pluralizing "-s," the possessive "-'s," the third-person singular "-s," the
regular past tense "-ed," the regular past participle "-ed," the present participle "-ing," the comparative "-er," and
the superlative "-est."

On the other hand, derivational morphemes are considered lexical because they influence the base word according
to its grammatical and lexical class, resulting in a larger change to the base. Derivational morphemes include
suffixes like "-ish," "-ous," and "-y" and prefixes like "un-," "im-" and "re-."

Andrea DeCapua describes this class of morphemes in her book "Grammar for Teachers" as having "to do with the
vocabulary of language" wherein derivational morphemes "form an open set to which new words or word forms are
frequently added." Oftentimes, these additions change the part of speech of the base word they're modifying,
though that is not necessarily always the case, leading to derivational morphemes to be considered less predictable
than their inflectional counterparts.

Forming Complex Words

Bound morphemes attach to free morphemes to form new words, oftentimes with new meanings. Essentially,
there's no limit to the number of bound morphemes one can attach to a base word to make it a complex word. For
instance, a misunderstanding is already a complex word formed from the base "understand" wherein "mis-" and "-
ing" bound morphemes are added to change both the meaning of understanding ("mis-" means "not") and the verb
tense ("-ing" makes the verb into a noun).

In the same way, you could continue to add more bound morphemes to the beginning of the word to make it even
more complex and once again alter its meaning — though this has the potential to result in a convoluted word that's
hard to understand.

Such is the case with words like "antiestablishmentism," whose four bound morphemes change the original word
"establish," which means "to form," into a word that now means "the belief that systemic structures of power are
implicitly wrong."