OUR OBJECT OF STUDY: LANGUAGE.

One has learnt to get the better of words

For the thing one no longer has to say or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.

T.S. Eliot, East Coker

Think of what these words have done. You have not only read a piece of poetry made
up of a combination of words, you now share with millions of other people Mr. Eliot’s
imagination and power to communicate his experience with words as a writer and as
language learner. Language helped us to bridge the gaps of time, space and acquaintance with
this famous thinker and writer. The use of written language as our medium of communication
makes it even more impressive, but spoken language is the real and primary engine of verbal
communication.

Have you ever imagined life without language?

Human language is the object of study of linguistics. What we are going to study is
not about English language but about our natural ability to learn, speak and understand
language.

TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE.

Language is the concern of linguistics, the systematic or scientific study of language,

and those who practise it are linguists. But language has been viewed along time from
different perspectives. Here are some definitions of language which are arranged in the
chronological order they appeared. Working in groups try to work out the strong and weak
points of each of them.

“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas,

emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols”. Sapir (1921)

“A language is a system of arbitrary vocal systems by means of which a social group

co-operates”. Bloch and Trager (1924)

“Language is the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each
other by means of habitually used oral-auditory symbols.” Hall (1968)

Robins (1979) does not give a formal definition of language but he points out that
such definitions “tend to be trivial and uninformative, unless they presuppose....some general
theory of language and linguistic analysis”.

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 WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?

It is the systematic study of language. According to the Oxford Companion to the

English Language (1992) “its aim is to look at language objectively, as a human phenomenon,
and to account for languages as they are rather than prescribe rules of correctness in their use.
It therefore has a two fold aim: to uncover general principles underlying human language, and
to provide reliable descriptions of individual languages.”

WHAT IS APPLIED LINGUISTICS?

Rod Ellis( 1997) defines an applied linguist “as a person who seeks to apply ideas
derived from linguistics, psychology, sociolinguistics, education, and any other area of
potentially relevant enquiry to language pedagogy.” For Widdowson (1984) “it is the
responsibility of applied linguists to consider the criteria for an educational relevant approach
to language” and that cannot be achieved by applying linguistic theory only, because linguists
and teachers conceive their tasks in a different way. “Linguists are concerned with the precise
description and explanation of language, whereas teachers are concerned with the effective
use of language and with its propagation.” (Ellis, p. 31)

Theory is important because it provides teachers with “an underlying rationale for
methodology in general” (Krashen 1983) and thus helps them to adapt to different situations
and constitutes a basis for evaluating new pedagogical ideas. Krashen argues that the theory
must be a a theory of L2 acquisition as opposed to lingusitic theory, or a theory of general
learning.

He believes that SLA (Second Language Acquisition) theory should be studied by

teachers because it explains how learners actually learn a second language, and therefore it is
of more direct relevance for them. But he explicitly recognizes that teachers will and should
bring ideas and intuitions based on their own practical experience to decision making. For
Krashen “teaching remains and art as well as a science”.

LINGUISTIC STUDIES

Linguists in the past two centuries have been heavily influenced by the model or
mental picture of language assumed to be valid at a particular time. Over the years, such
models have become increasingly detailed and explicit. In the 19th C. language was often seen
as a living organism which, like a plant or an animal, developed to maturity and then decayed.
Under the influence of the Darwinian theory of evolution, the relationships among languages
were also often described in terms of ‘parent’ languages giving way to ‘daughter’ languages,
the whole presented in family-tree-diagrams. In the first half of the 20th.c.this botanical model
was complemented by a structural model, one version of which represented language as a
series of relatively independent systems set one on top of the other in a box-like arrangement

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referred to as levels of language (phonology, morphology, syntax). Later, such a model gave
way to a ‘process model’ influenced by the theories of Noam Chomsky, who has taken syntax
to be the basic component on which other language components such as phonology and
semantics are dependent.

LINGUISTICS SCHOOLS IN THE 20TH CENTURY

STRUCTURALISM: FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE

Let's start by talking about structuralism in general as a philosophical stance or

worldview. Structuralists are interested in the interrelationship between UNITS, also called
"surface phenomena," and RULES, which are the ways that units can be put together. An
example is Tinkertoys. The "units" in a tinkertoy set are all the parts in the box: the various
colored rods of different lengths, the various kinds of connectors and wheels and attachments;
the "rules" of tinkertoy construction is that rods go into holes. That's the structure of
tinkertoys: everything you can make out of tinkertoys, whatever that may be, is made by using
the units according to the rules. A structuralist analysis of tinkertoys wouldn't look at what
you made (a building, a race car, a windmill, etc.) but would look only at the structure
governing every possible combination of tinkertoy elements. And that structure is that rods go
into holes.

That's what structuralist analysis does, whatever it's analyzing: looks at the units of a
system, and the rules that make that system work, without regard for any specific content. In
language, for instance, structuralists (like Saussure) the units are words (or, actually, the 31
phonemes which make all the sounds of words in English) and the rules are the forms of
grammar which order words. In different languages the grammar rules are different, as are the
words, but the structure is still the same in all languages: words are put together within a
grammatical system to make meaning.

In a sentence, any noun can replace any other noun and not change the grammatical
structure: the sentence "My pencil ate my PT Cruiser" might not make any rational sense, but
it's recognizable as a sentence because the parts of speech are all in the right places. Here's an
example of this using literature. I'll give you three characters: princess, stepmother, and
prince. Now you tell me the story. Many of you said "Cinderella," and others came up with
other story titles. From a structuralist point of view, Cinderella is the same story as Snow
White and as lots of other Disney stories and fairy tales: a princess is persecuted by a
stepmother and rescued (and married) by a prince. The "units" here are the characters, and the
"rules" are: stepmothers are evil, princesses are victims, and princes and princesses have to
marry. Whatever details or added elements you supply, the basic structure of this story is

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always the same. And that's exactly what structuralist analyses of literature (or myth or other
forms of narrative) are analyzing.

Structuralists believe that the underlying structures which organize units and rules into
meaningful systems are generated by the human mind itself, and not by sense perception. As
such, the mind is itself a structuring mechanism which looks through units and files them
according to rules. This is important, because it means that, for structuralists, the order that we
perceive in the world is not inherent in the world, but is a product of our minds. It's not that
there is no "reality out there," beyond human perception, but rather that there is too much
"reality" (too many units of too many kinds) to be perceived coherently without some kind of
"grammar" or system to organize and limit them.

So structuralism sees itself as a science of humankind, and works to uncover all the
structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel in mathematics,
biology, linguistics, religion, psychology, and literature, to name just a few disciplines that
use structuralist analyses.

Structuralist analysis posits these systems as universal: every human mind in every
culture at every point in history has used some sort of structuring principle to organize and
understand cultural phenomena. For instance, every human culture has some sort of langauge,
which has the basic structure of all language: words/phonemes are combined according to a
grammar of rules to produce meaning. Every human culture similarly has some sort of social
organization (like a kind of government), some sort of system for who can marry whom
(usually referred to as a kinship system), and some sort of system for exchanging goods
(usually referred to as an economic system). All of these organizations are governed,
according to structuralist analyses, by structures which are universal.

For a more formal definition: a structure is any conceptual system that has the
following three properties:

 Wholeness. This means that the system functions as a whole, not just as a
collection of independent parts. With the tinkertoy set, it's hard to play with just the individual
items; you need the whole set, with all the rods and holes, and the rules they follow, in order
to make stuff at all.

 Transformation. This means that the system is not static, but capable of
change. New units can enter the system, but when they do they're governed by the rules of the
system. With the tinkertoys, I can substitute a blue wheel for a yellow one, or an orange rod
for a purple one, but rods still go into holes in order to create something. With tinkertoys, you
could add any rods (of the right diameter) and any holes (ditto) and the system still works.
Another example is the word "office"--normally it's a noun, but a Kinko's commercial has

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made it a verb, as in "a new way to office." The commercial creates a new word, "to office,"
and we know what it means because the structure it fits into hasn't changed.

 Self-Regulation. This is related to the idea of transformation. You can add

elements to the system, but you can't change the basic structure of the system no matter what
you add to it. The transformations of a system never lead to anything outside the system. We
can add things to the tinkertoy set and never alter the fundamental rule that rods go into holes.
(Stay tuned, though; poststructuralist theories will challenge this point).

Saussure, as a structuralist, is interested in language as a system or structure. His

ideas apply to any language--English, French, Farsi, computer languages--and to anything we
can call a "signifying system" (more on what this is later). He describes the structures within
any language which make meaning possible, but he's not interested in what particular
meanings get created. Like all structuralists, he's not interested in the details of what fills up
the structure, the specifics of speech or writing, but only in the design of the structure itself.

THE NATURE OF THE LINGUISTIC SIGN

Language is based on a NAMING process, by which things get associated with a

word or name. Saussure says this is a pretty naive or elementary view of language, but a
useful one, because it gets across the idea that the basic linguistic unit has two parts.

Those two parts Saussure names the "concept" and the "sound image". The sound
image is not the physical sound (what your mouth makes and your ear hears) but rather the
psychological imprint of the sound, the impression it makes. An illustration of this is talking
to yourself--you don't make a sound, but you have an impression of what you're saying.

The linguistic SIGN (a key word) is made of the union of a concept and a sound
image. The union is a close one, as one part will instantly conjure the other; Saussure's
example is the concept "tree" and the various words for tree in different languages. When you
are a speaker of a certain language, the sound image for tree in that language will
automatically conjure up the concept "tree." The MEANING of any SIGN is found in the
association created between the sound image and the concept: hence the sounds "tree" in
English mean the thing "tree." Meanings can (and do) vary widely, but only those meanings
which are agreed upon and sanctioned within a particular language will appear to
name reality. (More on this as we go on).

A more common way to define a linguistic SIGN is that a SIGN is the combination of
a SIGNIFIER and a SIGNIFIED. Saussure says the sound image is the SIGNIFIER and the
concept the SIGNIFIED. You can also think of a word as a signifier and the thing it represents
as a signified (though technically these are called sign and referent, respectively).

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 The SIGN, as union of a SIGNIFIER and a SIGNIFIED, has two main characteristics.

1. The bond between the SIGNIFIER (SFR) and SIGNIFIED (SFD) is ARBITRARY.
There is nothing in either the thing or the word that makes the two go together, no natural,
intrinsic, or logical relation between a particular sound image and a concept. An example of
this is the fact that there are different words, in different languages, for the same thing. Dog is
"dog" in English, "perro" in Spanish, "chien" in French, "Hund" in German.

This principle dominates all ideas about the STRUCTURE of language. It makes it
possible to separate the signifier and signified, or to change the relation between them. (This
makes possible the idea of a single signifier which could be associated with more than one
signified, or vice-versa, which makes AMBIGUITY and MULTIPLICITY OF MEANING
possible.)

Language is only one type of semiological system (the word "semiological," like the
word "semiotic," comes from the Greek word for "sign"). Any system of signs, made up of
signifiers and signifieds, is a semiotic or SIGNIFYING SYSTEM. Think, for example, of
football referee signals, baseball signs, astrological signs. Any time you make up a secret code
or set of signals you are making your own signifying system.

There may be some kinds of signs that seem less arbitrary than others. Pantomime,
sign language, gestures (what are often called "natural signs") seem to have a logical relation
to what they represent. The tomahawk chop used by Atlanta Braves fans, for example, seems
to imitate the action of chopping, and thus would be the most "natural" way to designate the
idea of chopping. But Saussure insists that ALL SIGNS ARE ARBITRARY; the tomahawk
chop only has meaning because a community has agreed upon what the gesture signifies, not
because it has some intrinsic meaning.

Saussure discusses whether symbols, such as the use of scales for the idea of justice,
are innate or arbitrary, and decides that these too are arbitrary, or based on community
agreement. He also dismisses onomatopoeia (words that sound like what they mean, like
"pop" or "buzz") as still conventional, agreed-upon approximations of certain sounds. Think,
for example, about the sounds attributed to animals. While all roosters crow pretty much the
same way, that sound is transcribed in English as "cock-a-doodle-do" and in Spanish as
"cocorico." Interjections also differ. In English one says "ouch!" when one bangs one's finger
with a hammer; in French one says "Aie!" (Curse words work the same way. Come up with
your own examples).

Admittedly, Saussure is not very interested in how communities agree on fixing or

changing the relationships between signifiers and signifieds. Like all structuralists, he focuses
on a SYNCHRONIC analysis of language as a system or structure, meaning that he examines

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it only in the present moment, without regard to what its past history is, or what its future may
be. (Analyses which do take time into account, and look at the history of changes within a
structure, are called DIACHRONIC).

2. The second characteristic of the SIGN is that the signifier (here, meaning the
spoken word or auditory signifier) exists in TIME, and that time can be measured as LINEAR.
You can't say two words at one time; you have to say one and then the next, in a linear
fashion. The same is true for written language: you have to write one word at a time (though
you can write over an already written word) and you generally write the words in a straight
line.

This idea is important because it shows that language (spoken language, anyway)
operates as a linear sequence, and that all the elements of a particular sequence form a chain.
The easiest example of this is a sentence, where the words come one at a time and in a line,
one after the other, and because of that they are all connected to each other.

LINGUISTIC VALUE

One of the questions philosophers have puzzled over for centuries is whether ideas
can exist at all without language. (Think, for example, about Helen Keller before she learned
language--did she think?) Saussure says no ideas preexist language; language itself
gives shape to ideas and makes them expressible. In other words, from Saussure's point of
view, thought cannot exist without language. (This leads to an important structuralist and
post-structuralist idea, which is that language shapes all our conceptions of ourselves and our
reality). Sound is no more fixed than thought, though sounds can be distinguished from each
other, and hence associated with ideas. Sounds then serve as signifiers for the ideas which are
their signifieds. Signs, in this view, are both material/physical (like sound) and intellectual
(like ideas). This is important to Saussure because he wants to insist that language is not a
thing, a substance, but a form, a structure, a system. His image is that thought and sound are
like the front and back of a piece of paper (and the paper is the linguistic sign); you can
distinguish between the two, but you can't separate them. Saussure (and other structuralist and
post-structuralist theorists) talk about the system of language as a whole as LANGUE (from
the French word for language), and any individual unit within that system (such as a word) as
a PAROLE. Structural linguistics is more interested in the LANGUE than in any PAROLE.
The arbitrary nature of the sign explains why language as a system (LANGUE) can only arise
in social relations. It takes a community to set up the relations between any particular sound
image and any particular concept (to form specific PAROLES). An individual can't fix
VALUE for any signifier/signified combination. You could make up your own private
language, but no one else would understand it; to communicate, two or more people have to

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agree on what signifiers go with what signifieds. (And again, Saussure as a structuralist is not
really interested in how this happens. Other theorists of language, such as 18th century
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, focus on how these agreements come about).

VALUE is thus defined as the collective meaning assigned to signs, to the

connections between sfrs and sfds.

The VALUE of a sign is determined, however, not by what signifiers get linked to
what particular signifieds, but rather by the whole system of signs used within a community.
VALUE is the product of a system or structure (LANGUE), not the result of individual sfr-sfd
relations (PAROLE).

Saussure distinguishes between VALUE and SIGNIFICATION. SIGNIFICATION is

what we commonly think of as "meaning," the relationship established between a signifier and
a signified. VALUE, by contrast, is the relation between various SIGNS within the signifying
system. As Saussure says "Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value
of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others."

VALUE is always composed of two kinds of comparisons among elements in a

system. The first is that dissimilar things can be compared and exchanged, and the second is
that similar things can be compared and exchanged. A good example of this is money. A dime
is a signifier connected to a signified of 10 cents of something. The VALUE of a dime is
established because it can be exchanged for something dissimilar--a piece of gum--or
something similar--ten pennies. (Coins are also good examples of the arbitrary nature of signs.
A dime is worth 10 cents because we all agree that it is, not because the materials in the coin
have some absolute value of 10 cents).

Words work the same way. A word can be "exchanged" for something similar--
another word, a synonym--or for something dissimilar--an idea, for example. In both cases
(coin or word), it is the system itself which creates value, and sets up the ways that exchanges
can be made. A signifier, such as a coin or a word, when considered alone, has only a limited
relation to its own signified; when considered as part of a system, a signifier has multiple
relations to other signifiers in the system.

The most important relation between signifiers in a system, the relation that creates
VALUE, is the idea of DIFFERENCE. One signifier has meaning within a system, not
because it's connected to a particular signified, but because it is NOT any of the
other signifiers in the system. The word "cat" has meaning, not because of the animal it's
associated with, but because that word is not "hat" or "bat" or "car" or "cut."

You might think about the letters of the alphabet in this context. The sound "t-t-t-t",
made with the tip of the tongue against the teeth, is represented in English with the symbol

8
"T." Because the connection between sound and concept, or signifier and signified, is
ARBITRARY, that sound "t-t-t-t" could just as easily be represented by another symbol, such
as "D" or "%". Further, within the alphabet, "T" has meaning because it is NOT "A" or "B" or
"X." Saussure calls this a negative value, wherein something has meaning or value because it
is NOT something else within a system. (Positive value, on the other hand, is established in
the sfr/sfd connection; a sign has positive value in and of itself because of the connection of
its two parts, but has negative value within a signifying system). Another good example of
this is the digital languages recognized by computers, which consist of two switch positions,
off and on, or O and 1. O has meaning because it is not 1, and 1 has meaning because it is not
0.

The system of linguistic units depends thus on the idea of DIFFERENCE; one unit
has VALUE within the system because it is not some other unit within the system. As the
computer example shows, this idea of DIFFERENCE depends upon the idea of
BINARY OPPOSITES. To find out what a word or sign is not, you compare it to some other
word or sign. (And because language exists in time and space, you can only do this
comparison one word at a time, hence always forming binary pairs, pairs of two.) A binary
pair shows the idea of difference as what gives any word value: in the pair cat/cats, the
difference is the "s"; what makes each word distinct is its difference from the other word.

SYNTAGMATIC AND ASSOCIATIVE RELATIONS

In this section, Saussure says more about how he thinks the structure of language, or
of any signifying system, operates. Everything in the system is based on the RELATIONS
that can occur between the units in the system. These relations, as we've already noted, consist
mainly of relations of DIFFERENCE. In this section Saussure talks more about the rules that
may connect units together.

The most important kind of relation between units in a signifying system, according to
Saussure, is a SYNTAGMATIC relation. This means, basically, a LINEAR relation. In
spoken or written language, words come out one by one (see above, the second characteristic
of the linguistic sign). Because language is linear, it forms a chain, by which one unit is linked
to the next.

An example of this is the fact that, in English, word order governs meaning. "The cat
sat on the mat" means something different than "The mat sat on the cat" because word order--
the position of a word in a chain of signification--contributes to meaning. (The sentences also
differ in meaning because "mat" and "cat" are not the same words within the system).

English word order has a particular structure: subject-verb-object. Think of this

sentence: "The adjectival noun verbed the direct object adverbially." Other languages have

9
other structures; in German, that sentence might be "The adjective noun auxiliary verbed the
direct object adverbially main verb." In French it might be "The noun adjective verbed
adverbially the direct object ." In Latin, word order doesn't matter, since the meaning of the
word is determined, not by its place in the sentence, but by its cases (nominative, ablative,
etc.)

Combinations or relations formed by position within a chain (like where a word is in a

sentence) are called SYNTAGMS. Examples of SYNTAGMS can be any phrase or sentence
that makes a linear relation between two or more units: under-achiever; by the way; lend me
your ears; when in the course of human events.

The terms within a syntagm acquire VALUE only because they stand in opposition to
everything before or after them. Each term IS something because it is NOT something else in
the sequence. Again, think of coins: a dime is a dime because it's not a quarter or a nickel or a
penny or a $100 bill.

SYNTAGMATIC relations are most crucial in written and spoken language, in

DISCOURSE, where the ideas of time, linearity, and syntactical meaning are important. There
are other kinds of relations that exist outside of discourse.

Signs are stored in your memory, for example, not in syntagmatic links or sentences,
but in ASSOCIATIVE groups. The word "education", for example, may get linked, not to
verbs and adjectives, but to other words that end in "-tion":education, relation, association,
deification. You may store the word education" with other words that have similar
associations: education, teacher, textbook, college, expensive. Or you may store words in
what looks like a completely random set of linkages: education, baseball, computer games,
psychoanalysis (things I like). The idea of ASSOCIATIVE groups or linkages makes me think
of pigeonholes, and what pigeonholes I put certain words or ideas in; when I pull out that
word or idea, all the other things in that pigeonhole come tumbling out with it.

ASSOCIATIVE relations are only in your head, not in the structure of language itself,
whereas SYNTAGMATIC relations are a product of linguistic structure.

Think of the columns of a building (or the rods in a Tinker-Toy "building"). The
columns form syntagmatic, or structural, relation when you think about where in the building
the columns are, what they support, what they're connected to. The columns form associative
relations when you think of what else the columns make you think of: phallic symbols,
rockets, popsicles, or whatever. Syntagmatic relations are important because they allow for
new words--neologisms--to arise and be recognized and accepted into a linguistic community.
"To office," for example (now used in a Kinko's commercial) has meaning because the noun
"office" can be moved to the position of verb, and take on a new syntagmatic position and

10
relation to other words. Associative relations are important because they break patterns
established in strictly grammatical/linear (syntagmatic) relations and allow for metaphoric
expressions.

Some of the ideas about structuralism in this lecture were inspired by Lois Tyson,
Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide (New York and London: Garland Publishing
Inc., 1999) pp. 197-200.

All page references in this lecture refer to Ferdinand de Saussure's "Course in General
Linguistics" in Adams and Searle, ed., Critical Theory Since 1965.

All materials on this site are written by, and remain the property of, Dr. Mary Klages,
Associate Professor of English, University of Colorado at Boulder. You are welcome to quote
from this essay, or to link this page to your own site, with proper citation and attribution. For
more information on citing electronic sources, see Citing Electronic Sources

THE TRANSFORMATIONAL MODEL OF GRAMMAR

Transformational-generative grammar, TG for short, is a theoretical approach in

linguistics, first advocated by Noam Chomsky in his book Syntactic Structures (1957). Since
then there have been many changes in the descriptive analysis of TG. But common to all
changes is the view that there is a distinction between a person’s knowledge of language:
competence and the use of it performance. Performance contains slips of the tongue and false
starts, and represents only a small sample of possible utterances : I own two-thirds of a dog is
a good English sentence, but it is unlikely to occur in real life. Noam Chomsky stressed the
need for a generative grammar that mirrors a speaker’s competence and captures the creative
aspect of linguistic ability. Later on Chomsky replaced these two terms with I-language
(internalised language) and E-language (externalised language). These two concepts
resemble the dichotomy proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure, langue and parole, who stressed
the social aspect of language, regarding langue as the shared knowledge of the speech
community, whereas Chosmky stressed the individual nature of competence.

Chomsky’s classic transformational model of grammar (Aspects of the Theory of

Syntax 1965), states that a few syntactic rules in the base of the grammar provide a syntactic
deep structure which is then elaborated by processes known as transformations in order to

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produce a surface structure. Semantics or meaning is dependent on the deep structure, while
phonology or sound is dependent on the surface structure. (See diagram)

Therefore, from an early stage of its history, TG has stipulated two levels of syntactic
structure: deep structure (an abstract underlying structure that incorporates all syntactic
information required for the interpretation of a given sentence) and surface structure (a
structure that incorporates all the syntactic features of a sentence required to convert the
sentence into a spoken or written version). TG, then, has the view that some transformational
rules are necessary so that one structure can change into the other according to such
prescribed conventions as moving, inserting, deleting and replacing items. Transformations,
then, link deep with surface structure. A typical transformation is the rule for forming
questions, which requires that the surface structure of Can I see you later? Differs in order of
element form that of I can see you later. The theory postulates that the two sentences have the
same order in deep structure, but the question transformation changes the order to that in
surface structure. Sentences that are syntactically ambiguous have the same surface structures
but different deep structures: Visiting relatives can be a nuisance is ambiguous in that the
subject visiting relatives may correspond to To visit relatives or to relatives that visit. The
ambiguity is dissolved if the modal verb can is omitted, since the clausal subject requires a
singular verb (Visiting relatives is a nuisance), whereas a phrasal subject requires a plural
verb (Visiting relatives are a nuisance)

Chomsky’s new theoretical ideas also influenced other fields of studies, such is the
case of the use of the term ‘communicative competence’ applied in sociolinguistic for the
speaker’s underlying knowledge of the rules of grammar (understood in its widest sense to
include phonology, orthography, syntax, lexicon, and semantics), and rules for their use in
socially appropriate circumstances. Speakers draw on their competence in putting together
grammatical sentence, but not all such sentences can be used in the same circumstances: Close
the window and Would you mind closing the window, please? Are both grammatical, but they
differ in their appropriateness for use in particular situations. Speakers use this communicative
competence to choose what to say, as well as how and when to say it.

Applied Linguistic is another field of study, which has been influenced by Chomsky’s
theories. In his book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, (1965) he argues that a large proportion
of language is genetically in-built, and that this is due to some universal property of languages
called language universals. Initially, he hoped to find universals of two types: substantive
universals, which specify the substance out of which languages are made, such as a universal
set of possible sounds, from which different languages select a subset; formal universals,
which specify that all languages must be arranged in accordance with fixed principles: for
example, words can only be combined in certain prescribed ways.

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 When abstract properties common to all languages proved hard to identify,
researchers gradually moved to a search for universal constraints, in an attempt to discover the
bounds within which human language operates. More recently this failure has led to an
upsurge of interest in linguistic typology, the attempt to find properties common to groups of
languages. Chomsky has also revised his ideas about what may be universal. He argues that a
genetically inherited Universal Grammar (UG) involves some fixed principles, supplemented
by options, which have to be selected after exposure to a particular language.

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

The genetic mechanism that makes possible language acquisition is given the name of
Language Acquisition Device, in short form LAD. It is supposedly ‘wired’ with language
universals and equipped with a mechanism which allowed children to make increasingly
complex guesses about what they hear around them, aided by an in-built evaluation measure
that enables them to select the best grammar consistent with evidence. It has, however, proved
difficult to specify and test this theory, and Chomsky has abandoned it in favour of
parametric theory (Knowledge of Language, 1986) which suggests that children are pre-
programmed with some universals but only partially ‘wired’ with others. They have advance
knowledge of certain language options, but have to discover by experience which occur in the
language they are exposed to. In Chomskyan terminology, they know the parameters along
which language can vary, but have to fix their values, perhaps by setting a ‘switch’ in one of
two possible positions. According to this theory, languages are similar at an underlying level,
even though on the surface they appear different.

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 Linguistic Schools
STRUCTURALISM
 De Saussure, Bloomfield, Sapir, Fries
 Describes human language and identifies
its structural characteristics. Language can be
dismantled into small pieces or units and those
units can be described scientifically, contrasted
and added up again from the whole.
 It is axiomatic that 1-‘languages can
differ from each other without limit’ and 2-‘
only overtly observable responses could be
subject to investigation’ there is no assumption
that another human being might have cognitive
processes that resemble his own
 De Saussure’s distinction between
langue and parole is not taken into account as a
complete idea because structuralists ignored
langue and only studied parole
GENERATIVE
 Chomsky
 It is interested not only in describing
language or achieving the level of description,
but also in the explanatory level. Language
(not languages) cannot be scrutinised into
simple terms of observable stimuli and
response or raw data gathered by field
linguists.
 1-It distinguishes the overtly observable
surface level of language and the deep level
structure, the hidden level of meaning and
thought. And 2- it tries to show that there are
language universals underlying all linguistic
systems.
 It distinguishes competence from
performance. Langue = competence, parole =
performance.
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 Approaches to educational psychology
“The successful educator must be one who understands the complexities of the
teaching –learning process and can draw upon this knowledge to act in ways which empower
learners both within and beyond the classroom situation”

Williams and Burden (1997)

The Positivist school

The positivist school works with the premise that knowledge and facts exist within the
real world and can be discovered by setting up experiments in which conditions are carefully
controlled and where hypotheses are set up and tested.

Skinner

Behaviourism explained learning in terms of operant conditioning: an individual

responds to a stimulus by behaving in a particular way. Whatever happens subsequently will
affect the likelihood of recurrent behaviour.

Skinner argued that instruction could be improved by adopting four simple

procedures:

1. Teachers should make explicitly clear what is to be taught.

2. Tasks should be broken down into small sequential steps
3. Students should be encouraged to work at their own pace by means of
individualized learning programs
4. Learning should be programmed and immediate positive reinforcement should
be provided for 100% success.
Skinner’s theory of verbal learning was consistent with the prevailing beliefs of many
applied linguists of the 1940’s and 1950’s, which in conjunction with the structuralist views of
language provided the foundations for audio-lingual language teaching methodology. This
method maintained that second languages should be learned through extensive drill and
practice without recourse to rationalistic explanation. Subsequent studies into second language
learning produced a critique to this method by showing a number of limitations:

1. The role of the learner is fairly passive.

2. There’s little concern for what goes on inside student’s head or his cognitive
process.
3. Procedures (drills) can be carried out with little attention to meaning.
4. There’s no room for actual interaction
5. Mistakes should be avoided at all cost- there is no learning from mistakes!

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 6. It has been seen as a form of ‘manipulation’ and therefore an anti-ethical form
of instruction.
Cognitive school

In contrast to behaviourism, the cognitive school is concerned with the way in which
the human mind thinks and learns. Cognitivists are interested in the mental processes that are
involved in learning.

There are two different approaches to cognition within cognitivist psychology:

Information processing theory

These theorists draw the analogy of the brain as a highly complex computer. They
seek to explain its working in terms of rules and models and are concerned in the way people
take in information, process it and act upon it, for example in models of memory and the
reading process.

They claim to be able to predict the kind of mental process that will be necessary for
effective learning to take place and to identify precisely how and where any malfunctioning is
occurring when a person is displaying learning difficulties. Their main areas of research are:
attention, memory, intelligence, intelligence testing.

Constructivism.

Within this stream there are many important authors representing different schools of
thought: Piaget within Cognitive Constructivism, Vigotski as Socio-Cognitive Constructivist
and Jerome Bruner who was interested in Educational Psychology.

There are certain characteristics attached to these theories:

1- There’s an emphasis on the subject as one who acts, constructs and plans, opposing
behaviourism and innatism. They acknowledge a close relationship between the subject as a
constructor of knowledge and the stimulus. Such complete understanding of human cognition
would require then, an analysis of strategies used for thinking, understanding, remembering
and producing language

2- There’s an emphasis on cognitive development, which they explain as the building

of structures from other previous structures. There’s a difference in the importance each
author focuses on this cognitive development, for example: Piaget focuses on the development
of psychological structures within ontogenesis whereas Vigostki focuses the historic- cultural
phenomenon.

3- There’s an epistemological interest that gives rise to the following questions: Who
knows? How does he/she know? What does he/she know? What does it mean to know?

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 Piaget.

Piaget’s first hypothesis was: there are certain tasks a child cannot do even if he is
instructed; therefore the solution of these tasks depends on the development of cognitive
structures. His main underlying assumption is, then, that individuals are actively involved
right from birth in constructing personal meaning from their experiences. In this way everyone
makes their own sense of the world and the experiences that surround him/her. This cognitive
development has a genesis on simple structures, which, by a series of transformational
processes are incorporated into higher, more complex structures.

We ‘come to know’ things as a direct result of our personal experiences but we make
sense of those experiences at different stages of our lives. The most important way a child has
of exploring the environment is through the basic senses, as such, cognitive development is
essentially a process of maturation within which genetics and experience interact.

Piaget’s work can be synthesized in three questions: 1- How does a subject adapt to
the environment? 2- What forms of knowledge are necessary for adaptation? 3- What kind of
knowledge do humans possess and how do they acquire it?

In order to approach the answers to these questions Rosas and Sebastian (2001)
summarize Piaget’s theory by defining the following categories: ‘cognitive structures’,
‘cognitive functions’ and ‘content of cognition’.

Cognitive structures

Each piagetian stage is considered a cognitive structure, which is abstract, logic-

mathematical in nature. They are psychological constructs that tend to define a stage of human
cognition so they cannot be measured by direct observation but through varied and different
behaviours. Each structure, as a whole, is not the sum of its elements; it is the result of the
relationship of its elements. As such structures are transformational systems.

Cognitive structures have three properties: wholeness, transformation and self-

regulation.

Piaget distinguishes structures of two types: schemata and operations.

Schemata.

They are the basic units of cognitive structure. Schemata are a series of cognitive
concepts (perceptions, remembrances, symbols, actions), which are closely related and tend to
trigger one another. They are not static, but flexible systems ready to adapt to new situations
and to coordinate with other cognitive structures.

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 Schemata can be understood in two ways: as figures (schema) -the image of the father
that an eight month baby can perceive while the father is in any position, standing, sitting,
from far away or from behind-or plans (scheme) –coordinated actions needed to perform a
task. They are guided by mechanisms of self –regulation, specially positive or negative
‘feedbacks’, like a growing plant searching for the sun.

Operations.

Operations are not actions but ‘mental images’ of those actions, which allow the
subject to make adjustments or revert actions. So a child can mentally manipulate an action
before performing it. These are called ‘concrete operations’. ‘Formal operations’ are mental
images that operate over other ‘mental images’, as in mathematics.

Cognitive functions

Human cognition is in constant development bringing about a qualitative change. The

challenge to the researcher is: how is identity kept along with development and change? How
can we solve the paradox of calling the same to an organism which is in constant change?
Piaget offers two functional invariants: organization and adaptation.

Organization.

Due to the principle that any living organism must keep an organization proper to its
own class- a conservative function- human cognition is an open system that exchanges
elements with the environment at the same time as it renews its organization through re-
construction. Similar to the organization of everyday language, each new utterance is a
creative action- words are combined in different ways but they are always used to convey an
idea.

Adaptation.

Adaptation is the condition that allows an organism to keep alive in a given

environment. This implies that there is a close relationship between both in such a way that
the organism can manage any change without modifying its organization.

Human cognition is qualitatively different from other biological organisms in that

humans are able to anticipate more to diverse events and reach higher levels of development.
What is crucial to this theory is the notion that each level is built over the bases of the
previous one, through a qualitative evolution. This developing in stages involves a re-
structuring of the previous stage. In this way the subject is the same –keeping his/her identity
while being different.

Equilibrium.

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 All through this process there is a constant equilibrium between the two forces that
generate adaptation: assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation implies incorporation of a new element to the set structure “every

assimilatory scheme looks for feedback, that is, to incorporate into itself external elements
which are compatible with its own nature” (Piaget in Vuyk, 1984, in Rosas and Sebastian,
2001)

Accommodation is any modification within the structure to adjust to the

characteristics of the new external element.

The relationship between the two poles of assimilation and accommodation is a

dialectic process called equilibrium.

This usually happens when we have learnt to do things in one way, let’s say opening
the door by pulling down a handle, but suddenly one day you discover there is another way to
do so, by turning it round. After a moment of uncertainty between the previous schema of
pulling down and the next one of turning round we arrive to equilibrium and the incorporation
of a new schema that is richer and more flexible.

Contents of cognition

These are perceptions, remembrances, concepts, operations and actions linked to one
another by different modes, spacio-temporal, causal or by implicatures. Contents and
structures tend to be confused because what is a structure in a given stage becomes the content
of the next.

Piaget proposes four stages of cognitive development marked by the success of its
development.

1- Sensor motor: (0-2 years) its success is the acquisition of the symbolic function or
ability to represent the world by means of symbols.

2- Pre-operational: (2-7 years) its success is the preparation, by means of the use of
symbols, to the acquisition of ‘mental operations’ that will allow the subject to operate with
the environment through a logical and reversible manner.

3- Concrete operations: (7-12 years) is characterized by the exercise of logic with the
surrounding objects.

4- Formal operations: (from 12 onwards) the individual is able to operate through a

hypothetical-deductive reasoning even in absence of practical experimentation.

Although Piaget’s was not interested in providing a rational for educators, he was
unfairly criticized because it seems from his views that there is no place for instruction. This

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led many teachers to feel insecure about their role but this also brought a positive effect in that
many were encouraged to place more emphasis upon their classroom environments.

There is still one critical point to this theory; it is clear that Piaget “underestimated the
fundamental part played by language in the development of thought.” (Williams and Burden,
1997, p. 24)

Now let’s try to see which significant implications we can draw from Piaget’s theory
to apply to our classrooms:

1. When learners learn they’re actively involved in constructing meaning, making

sense of language input as well as the tasks. Thus it is important for teachers to encourage
learners in this process.

2. The development of thinking and its relationship to language and experience is

central; therefore language teaching based on memorization will not lead to deeper
understanding.

3. There must be a match between the requirements of any task to the cognitive
level of the learner, so tasks should be neither too abstract for the stage of development of the
children nor too simple with a conceptual level below the learner’s ability.

4. The notions of ‘assimilation’ and ‘accommodation’ help us understand how the

linguistic system operates gradually when learning a second language. This is in keeping with
‘interlanguage theory’, which we will see next unit.

Jerome Bruner

Although Bruner is a follower of Piaget, he takes a broader view of education as

involving the whole person. To Bruner, “the development of conceptual understanding and of
cognitive skills and strategies is a central aim of education, rather than the acquisition of
factual information” (Williams and Burden, 1997, p. 25) therefore the challenge to educators
is to find ‘optimum conditions’ for learning.

We might ask, as a criterion for any subject taught in primary school, whether,
when fully developed, it is worth an adult’s knowing, and whether having known it as a
child makes a person better adult. If the answer to both questions is negative or
ambiguous, then the material is cluttering the curriculum. (Bruner, 1960 in Williams
and Burden, 1997)

The most general objective of education is the cultivation of excellence, which can be
achieved by challenging learners to exercise their full powers. Bruner emphasized the need to
allow learners to discover principles, concepts and facts for themselves. In order to do that,
teachers have to be able to ask the right sort of questions:

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 Given particular subject matter or a particular concept, it is easy to ask trivial
questions or to lead a child to ask trivial questions. It is also easy to ask impossibly difficult
questions. The trick is to find the medium questions that can be answered and that take you
somewhere. (Bruner, 1960 in Williams and Burden, 1997)

Bruner extended Piaget’s theory to suggest three different modes of thinking that
should be taken into account by educators who need to be aware of the ways in which learning
can be enhanced:

1- enactive mode: learning takes place by direct manipulation of objects and

materials. At this level it is important the use of drama, play, total physical response, and the
handling of objects.

2- iconic mode: objects are represented by visual images one step removed from the
real thing. This is enhanced by the use of pictures or words in colour.

3- symbolic mode: symbols can be manipulated in place of objects or mental images.

Language becomes increasingly important as a means of representing the world. At this level
it is important the use of the target language to express ideas and thought in context.

In general, criticism to the cognitive school includes several statements:

1- “conceiving of language learning as a ‘complex cognitive skill’ is not enough”

(Omaggio Hadley, 1993) therefore, some researchers believe, cognitive theory needs to be
linked to linguistic theories so that a more powerful theory might help to explain language
acquisition.

2- “Ellis (1990) adds that although Cognitive Theory is much more convincing than
Behaviourism, it is not able to account satisfactory for the fact that there are quite a number of
regularities in the way in which second-language knowledge is acquired in classroom
learning.” (Ibid)

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 Schools of Psychology

BEHAVIOURISTIC COGNITIVIST

 Pavlov, Skinner  David Ausubel

 It focused on overtly observable
responses that could be objectively perceived,
recorded and measured.
 Consciousness , thinking, concept
formation or acquisition of knowledge were
impossible to examine (ex. Pavlov’s dog)
 It had a strictly empirical approach.
 Descriptive as the structuralists, they
were interested in answering WHAT questions
about human behaviour.
 Conclusion: it is a very rigorous and
exact approach, it allows no flaw.
 It focused on discovering psychological
principles of organisation and functioning.
 Meaning, understanding and knowing
are significant data.
 Like generative linguists, they used a
rationalistic approach to discover motivations
and deeper structures of human behaviour.
 Descriptive and explanatory. They are
interested in the WHAT questions but they’re
far more interested in WHY . What underlying
reasons, thinking and circumstances caused a
particular event.
 Conclusion: it is a riskier but richer
approach. It gets a more profound insight about
human behaviour

LINGUISTIC-PSYCHOLOGICAL PARALLELS

Schools of Schools of Characteristics

psychology linguistics
Behaviourism Structural Repetition and reinforcement
Neo-behaviourism Descriptive Learning, conditioning.
Publicly observable responses
Empiricism.
Scientific method
Performance
Surface structure
Description – “What”

Cognitive Generative Analysis and insight

Process Transformational Acquisition, innates
States of consciousness
Rationalism

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 Mentalism, intuition
Competence
Deep structure
Explanation – “Why”

REFERENCES

Armendáriz, A. (2002) Apuntes de cátedra. Seminario adquisicion del lenguaje. UNL/UNAM.

Brown, D. (2000) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York, Addison
Wesley Longman. Chapters 1, 4 and 5.
Bruner, Jerome (1995) El habla del niño. Buenos Aires, Paidós. (traducción del original)
Ellis, Rod (1997) SLA Research and Language Teaching, Oxford University Press
Lois Tyson (1999) Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. New York and London:
Garland Publishing Inc.
Omaggio Hadley, A. (1993) Teaching language in context. Boston, Heinle and Heinle.
Rosas, R. y Sebastián, C. (2001) Piaget, Vigotski y Maturana, Constructivismo a tres voces.
Buenos Aires, Aique.
Widdowson, H. (1984) Explorations in Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Williams, M. and Burden, R. (1997) Psychology for language teachers. Cambridge UK, CUP.

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