The theory of Language

Lecture 1
Linguistics is a set of fields involving the scientific study of language; a battleground for anthropologists,
philosophers etc. all of whom seek to describe language & how it works from their own perspective.
3 approaches:
1. Highlights the relations between the language & thought. Language is “the constant activity of the
mind aimed at turning sounds into means of expressing thoughts” & feelings. (O. Jespersen)
2. Communicative nature of language. Language is the most frequently used & most highly developed
form of human communication we possess (D. Crystal)
3. “Languageis a system of inderdependent signs in which the value of each sign results solely from the
simultaneous presence of the others.” (F. Saussure)
MIXED: “Language is a specifically human way of transmitting ideas, feelings & desires with the help of a
system of arbitrary signs” (E. Sapir)
“language is inventory of human experience” (L. W. Lockhart)
Without experience of other people speaking we would never learn language.
Without experience of written texts & visual media we would never learn about the world beyond our
immediate environment.
Language shapes cognition & is being shaped by it.
It can be seen as a structure & as a process of communication: as an instrument of gaining experience & as a
reflection of this process.
Functions of language (R. Jacobson)
1. Addressee – regulative
2. Addresser – emotive
3. Context – communicative
4. Message – cognitive
5. Contact – phatic
6. Code – metalanguage – language works as a code (a set of words used for describing language). It
indicates the ability of language to explain, name & criticize its own features.
Metafunctions of any semiotic system (G. Kress, T. van Leeuween):
1. Ideational – to represent aspect of the experiential world outside its particular system of signs.
2. Interperson – to project the relations between the producer of the sign & the receiver of that sign.
3. Textual – to form texts which cohere both internally & within the context in & for which they were
produced.

Language is a system of signs & a structure

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Dichotomies of Saussur:
1. Langue (the language system) & parole (the act of speaking). Langue is a storehouse, the sum of
word-images stored in the minds of individuals. It’s a social phenomenon. Parole is the actual,
concrete act of speaking on the part of an individual. It exists at a particular time & place & is
opposed to langue, which exists apart from any particular manifestation of speech. It is langue as a
vast network of structures & systems.
System is an ordered set of elements or a group of interrelated parts; it can be applied only to the
state of language at a certain moment of its development.
2. Synchronic & diachronic approaches to language. They don’t exclude one another, because language
is dynamic.
3. Syntagmatic (linear relations between the signs in the sentence) & paradigmatic relations between
language units. Paradigmatic – Systemic relationships between linguistic units within the system of
language.
Zvegintsev – the term “structure” is more adequate.
Benvennist – a structure is a certain arrangement of interconnected elements which can substitute for each
other. Each element of the structure is defined by the whole, i.e. by all its connections with the other
elements. Taken in isolation any element loses its essential characteristics. Change in any part of a structure
triggers off a series of changes in other parts & changes the whole.
Stepanov – “system” is a whole that consists of elements & relations among these elements. The wholw
determines each element.
Alefirenko – language is an aggregate of units that has a certain order. Units unlike elements are relatively
independent & each of them displays the main features of the whole system. Structure is an aggregate of
links & relations between language units.
Language is a strictly coherent system of systems (the system of pronouns, inflections, etc.)

SIGN
Aristotle – a means of manifesting the impressions a human being gets when perceiving objects of the
outside world.
Potebnya – a sign substitutes for the corresponding images or concepts: it represents them in the flow of
thoughts & can be called as a representation.
Pierce – “we think only in signs”. “nothing is a sign unless it’s interpreted as a sign.” They can take the
forms of words, images, sounds etc.
The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified (Saussure)
The relationship between the signifier & the signified – signification.
Signs only make sense as a part of a formal, generalized & abstract system.
Saussure’s conception of meaning was purely structural & relational rather than referentional: “within the
language system everything depends on relations”.
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The value of the sign is determined by the relationships between the sign & other signs within a system as a
whole (Saussure).
Saussure’s conception of signs
Signs are arbitrary: there’s no necessary relationship between the signifier & the signified.
Signs are conventional.
Signs are intentional: they’re sent by a sender who wishes to communicate & understandable only by those
who understands what is coded in the sign.

Ch. Pierce
3 types of signs:
1. Icon – a sign that has a direct link with the objects it stands for. The signifier is perceived as
resembling or imitating thу signified (sound effects in radio drama, imitative gestures)
2. Index – a sign which would lose the character which makes it a sign if its object were removed. The
signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way to the signified (natural sings: smoke,
thunder, echoes, interjections etc.)
3. Symbol/symbolic – a sign which would lose the character which renders it a sign if there were no
interpretant (words). The signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally
arbitrary or purely conventional – so that the relationship must be learnt.
Linguistic sign & their specific features
1. In most semiotic systems signs are not emotionally colored, they are neutral in terms of emotions
or evaluations. The word as the central linguistic sign is usually loaded with some connotative
meaning. In most semiotic systems can have only one meaning signs but the majority of words
are polysemantic.
Being arbitrary by nature, the word can still become motivated as a result of some word formation process
(derivatives, compound words etc.). if linguistic signs were to be totally arbitrary, languahe wouldn’t be a
system & its communicative function would be destroyed.
While a sign is not determined extralinguistically, it is object intralinguistic determination.
Unlike signs in other semiotic systems, linguistic signs (words & morphemes) are productive elements,
because they can be used to create new signs (word formation).
Conclusion: language is a unique & very complex semiotic system.
R. Jacobson: 3 ways of interpreting a verbal sign:
1. translation into other signs of the same language (barchellor – an unmarried man)
2. translation into another language
3. translation into another non-verbal system of symbols (gestures)
Conclusion: the meaning of every word/phrase is a semiotic fact.

Lecture 2
Language & thought

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All the theories range between identification of language & thought & their segregation. Language provides
names for thoughts that exist independently. The relationship between language & thought is a mechanical
connection between 2 distinct processes.
E. Sapir: language is an outward facet of thought on the highest , most generalized level of symbolic
expressions.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: the language we speak determines what we can think. “Language acts as a
polarizing lens on a camera in filtering reality – we see the world only in the categories of our language.”
The Hopi language vs. standard European time, number & duration: english uses nouns to refer to phrases in
a cycle of time, such as summer or morning. Hopi treats phrases as continung events. Words like “morning”
are translated into Hopi as kinds of adverbs such as while morning phrase is occuring. English tenses divide
time into 3 distinct units: present, past, future, whereas Hopi verbs do not indicate the time of an event as
such, but rather focus on the manner of duration of the event.
Where do language & thought meet?
Word meaning is an integral part of word as such & thus it belongs to the realm of language as much as to
the realm of the thought. Word meaning is a unit of language as a system of signs & it is a unit of speech.
Generalization is a verbal act of thought. Every word is already a generalization. To become communicable
a human experience must be included in a certain category. The higher forms of human intercourse are
possible only because man’s thought reflects the results of categorization.
Conclusion: language is not a nomenclature that provides labels for pre-existing categories. It generates is
own categories.
Word meaning is a unit of both generalizing thought & social interchange & it is of great value for the study
of thought & language. In word meaning thought & language unite into verbal thought.
Language & thought
Thought is not merely expressed in words: it comes into existence through them. Every thought moves,
grows, develops, fulfils a function, solves a problem. This flow of thought occurs in an inner movement
through a series of planes.
A series of planes:
1. the plane of external speech
2. the word meaning plane
3. the plane of inner speech
4. the plane of thought itself
The plane of external speech – in mastering external speech the child starts from sounds & words, than 2-3
words, he processes from the part from the whole. The 1 st word of a child is a whole sentence. Semantically
the child starts from the whole & later begins to master separate linguistic units & to divide his
undifferentiated thoughts into differentiated units. The external & semantic aspects of speech develop in the
opposite directions – one from the particular from the whole, from word to sentence, & the other from the
whole to the particular, from sentence to word.
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The plane of inner speech – inner speech is not “speech minus sound”. It has an entirely separate speech
function. It is a specific formation with its own laws & complex relations to the other forms of speech
activity.
Special characteristics & functions of inner speech:
1. Egocentric speech is a stage of development preceding inner speech. Both fulfill intellectual
functions: their structures are similar: one changes into the other. The main distinguishing trait is its
peculiar syntax: compared with external speech, inner speech appears disconnected & incomplete.
With syntax & sound reduced to a minimum meaning is in the foreground. Inner speech is to
language extent thinking in pure meanings. The specific semantic structure of inner speech
contributes to abbreviation. Inner speech works with semantics & not phonetics.
Semantic peculiarities of inner speech
1. Superiority of the sense of a word over its meaning: the sense of a word is the sum of all the
psychological events aroused in our consciousness by the word. It is a dynamic, complex whole,
which has several zones of unequal stability. Meaning is only one of the zones of sense, but the most
stable & precise one. A word acquires its sense from the context in which it appears; in different
contexts it changes its sense. As for meaning, it remains stable throughout the change of sense. The
dictionary meaning of a word is no more that a stone in the edifice of sense, a potentiality that finds
diversified realization in speech. A word in context means both more & less than the same word in
isolation: more, because it acquires new content; less: because its meaning is limited & narrowed by
the context. The sense of a word is a complex, mobile phenomenon; it changes in different minds &
situations & is almost unlimited. The word derives its sense from the sentence. The sentence gets its
sense from the paragraph, the paragraph – from the text, the text – from the book, the book – from all
the works of the author. Words in a sentence are relatively independent from each other. The
predominance of sense over meaning, of sentence of a word, of context over sentence is the rule.
2. Word combination is a kind of agglutination. As egocentric speech of the child approaches inner
speech the child uses agglutination more as a way of forming compound words to express complex
ideas.
3. The way in which senses of words combine & unite: the senses of different words flow into one
another – literally “influence” one another – so that the earlier ones modify the later ones. The title of
a literary work expresses its content to a much greater degree than the name of a work of art or the
title of a music track. The words appear throughout the book, but, through the ultimate relationship
these words acquire simpli-significance.

Inner speech
Inner speech is a function in itself. It still remains speech. But while in external speech thought is embodied
in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought. It is to a large extent thinking in pure
meanings. It is a dynamic, shifting, unstable thing, fluttering between word & thought.
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 Thought
Thought creates a connection, fulfils a function, and solves a problem. The flow of thought is not
accompanied by a simultaneous unfolding of speech. The two processes are not identical & there is no rigid
correspondence between the units of thought & speech. It has its own structure & the transition from thought
to speech is no easy matter. Thought does not consist of separate units. In the mind of the speaker the whole
thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed successively. The transition of the thought to
word leads through meaning. Thought is engendered by motivation. Behind every thought there is an
affective-volitional tendency. To understand another’s speech it’s not sufficient to understand his/her
thought & thus means we must know the motivation.
Conclusions:
1. Verbal thought is a complex, dynamic entity.
2. The relation of thought & word is a movement through a series of planes.
3. In reality, the development of the verbal thought takes the following course: from the motive which
engenders a thought to the shaping of the thought, first in inner speech, then in meanings of words &
finally in words. The development may stop at any point.

Language & thought from the point of view of cognitive linguistics

Language can reveal the mechanisms of cognition. It is a channel to penetrate into our minds. The world
around us is not meaningful but rather acquires meaning through human mind. Meaning-construction is
inferential process. Meanings are cognitive structures embedded in our patterns of knowledge. Our complex
conceptual structures are manifested in language use & comprehension. Meaning is a mental representation
may be structures & organized in different ways:
 Schemas
 Frames
 Scenarios etc.
Schema is any cognitive structure that specifies the general properties of a type of object or event & leaves
out any specification of details that are irrelevant to the type. It is an abstraction that allows particular
objects or events to be assigned to general categories.
Frame is a data-structure for representing a stereotyped situation. Like being in a certain kind of living room,
or going to a child’s birthday party. It is a collection of slots & fillers that describe a stereotypical item. It
has slots to capture different aspects of what is being represented.
Scenarios are situation specific. The scenario-based approach is used in interpreting written texts. The
success of scenario-based comprehension is dependent on the text-producer’s effectiveness in activating
appropriate scenarios.

Lecture 3
Language & Culture
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Language does not exist apart from culture, i.e. from the socially inherited assemblage of practices &
beliefs that determined the texture of our life.
Culture may be defined as a selected inventory of experience.
Language is a particular manner in which the society expresses all experience.
Aborigines that had never seen or heard about a horse were compelled to invent or to borrow a word for the
animal when they made acquaintance with it. So, the vocabulary of a language more or less reflects the
culture.
The complete vocabulary of language may be looked upon as a complex inventory of all the ideas, interests
& occupations that take up the attention of the community.
Objects & forces in the physical environment become labeled in language only if they have cultural
significance.
The link between form & meaning is a matter of convention & conventions differ radically across
languages. Words are arbitrary in form but they are not random in their use.
Linguistic forms do not resemble what they signify & that is why they can be used to encode what is
significant by convention in different communities.
The fact that there is no natural connection between the form of words & what they mean makes it possible
for different communities to use language to divide up reality in ways that they suit them.
Bedouin Arabic has a number of terms for the animal which in English means ‘camel’. These terms are
convenient labels for differences important to the Arabs, but none of them actually resembles a camel.
In English there is a whole host for terms of different kinds of dog & each will call up different images.
Sapir’s understanding of language
Language is a purely human & non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions & desires by
means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.
To speak is to communicate ideas according to the traditional system of a particular society.
Speech is an acquired, cultural function. Speech is a human activity that varies from social group to social
group, because it is a purely historical heritage of the group. It is the product of long continued social usage.
It varies as all creative effort does: religion, customs, beliefs, arts.
Language has its psycho-physical basis, but it wrong to say that language is localized in frames.
We have no organs of speech – there are organs that are used in the production of speech sounds.
Language is a fully formed functional system within man’s psychic constitution.
The essence of language consists in the assigning of conventional, voluntarily articulated sounds to the
diverse elements of experience.
To be communicated experience has to be referred to a class which is accepted by the community as an
identity.
The single significant element of a speech is the symbol of a ‘concept’ – a convenient capsule of thought
that embraces thousand of distinct experiences.
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The actual flow of speech is a record of the setting of these concepts into mutual relations. Sapir is strongly
on the opinion that feeling that people can think without language is an allusion. Thought may be a natural
domain apart from the artificial domain of speech, but speech would seem to be the only road we know that
leads it. All of this does not mean that language works before thinking. On the contrary, thinking is a kind of
psychic overflow sets in at the beginning of linguistic expression. The birth of a new concept is predicted by
a more or less extended use of old linguistic material. As soon as the word is at hand, we feel that the
concept is ours for handling. Not until we own the symbol do we hold the key to the understanding to the
concept.
Whorf: Whether grammatical structures provide frame work for orienting speaker’s thoughts & behavior.
The influence of language can be both through the vocabulary & through more complex grammatical
structures.
In the following English sentences Hopi people would use a different word for “that”:
1. I see that it is red – the speaker makes a conclusion by direct sensory awareness
2. I see that it is new – the speaker makes inferences
3a I hear that it is red – the speaker reports a fact providing by someone else.
3b I hear that it is new – the same
Conclusion: Hopi people are directed by grammatical requirements of their language to notice underlying
causes of their knowledge of things: through direct senses, through inferences, through reported facts.
Speakers of English need not to pay attention to such differences (it does not mean that they are never aware
of these differences)
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The weak version: some elements of language, e.g. in vocabulary & grammatical system, influence
speakers’ perceptions & can affect their attitudes & behavior.
The strong version: language is ultimately directive in this process.
“We see & hear & otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language & the language habits
of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation”
It is believed that language & speakers’ perceptions of experience are intertwined (Bakhtin). “There is no
such thing as experience outside the embodiment in signs… It is not experience that organizes expression,
but the other way around – expression organizes experience”. An Individual’s thought is guided by
possibilities offered by his/her language.
E.G. English speaker – I must go there. Navajo speaker – It is only good that I shall go there. English
speaker – I make the horse run. Navajo speaker – The horse is running for me.
English & Navajo have different use of events, different attitudes about people’s rights & obligations.
Navajo speakers give all being the ability to decide for themselves without control from others.
Cognitive linguistics
It emphasizes the idea that culture results from sharing of individuals’ lived experience.
Culture provides us with cultural presuppositions.
Cultural presuppositions are culture-specific background assumptions against which an action, theory,
expression or utterance makes sense.
They are expressed & transmitted through language. The participants in speech interaction have may have
different cultural presuppositions.

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 Types:
1. Shared knowledge of facts, events, objects that are significant for this culture;
2. Culture-specific perception of universal concepts such as time, space, etc.;
3. Culture-specific understanding of appropriate attitudes, relations between people, goals & wishes,
etc. (e.g. joking or insulting);
4. Culture-specific ideas of appropriate verbal behavior;
5. Culture-bound values & evaluations;
6. Associations caused by common historical experience, way of life, everyday routine, etc.
All these cultural presuppositions are manifested with the help of some verbal means.
Verbal means
1. Semantic fields: degree of specification in designation of this or that sphere of reality.
2. Prototypical categories
3. Images used for building new words & new meanings in polysemes (use of metaphor)
4. Collocations & idioms
5. Modality
6. Cultural scenarios for stereotypical situations.
Prototypical categories
According to theory of prototypes, there are more prominent & typical members of a category & less central
members.
Some members of a conceptual family will be very typical because they share many features with many
other family members. Some members may have only a few features.
A prototype combines all the most typical features
Prototype categorization stems from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thesis that many concepts are based not on a
collection of properties, but on family resemblance. One game shares some properties with another game &
so on. It is based on family resembles.
Social stratification
It is the hierarchical structuring of groups within a society, reflecting inequalities among sectors of
population (income, occupation, education & access to social, economic & political power). Speakers of
different social groups exhibit differences in frequency of use of certain sounds, words & grammatical
structures. The members are consciously or unconsciously aware of speech style characteristic of various
social strata & they use this knowledge in accessing their own & people’s speech.
Khalapur in a North Indian village with some 5, 000 inhabitants. The population is divided into 31 castes.
Higher castes use the sound system of the local dialect of Hindi, India’s official language. Lower castes use
variants of standard forms. In the USA the most people use upper & lower class features but it is frequency
of usage that identifies speakers.
Pronouncing the postvocalic – r –
Lower class – 50 %
Working class – 53 %
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Lower middle class – 86 %
Upper middle class – 75 %
Lecture 4
Language, Mind, Culture & Society
The purpose of linguists is to explain language.
Language is so intricately & intimately bound up with human life that its essential nature is not easy to
discern.
Language signs, being arbitrary, provide for abstraction: enable to set up conceptual categories to define
our own world.
Language does not just reflect reality, but creates it. In this sense, it provides us with an explanation of
experience.
The languages of different communities will represent different variants of reality, so the explanation of
experience is a matter of cultural custom & linguistic convention.
The essential nature of language is cognitive. It is seen as psychological phenomenon. The form of language
reveals a lot about the human mind. This is the only one aspect of language. The language also functions as
a means of communication & social control. It is internalized in the mind as abstract knowledge, but in order
for this to happen it must also be experiences in the external world as actual behavior. The 2 nd aspect of
looking at language would see in terms of social functions it serves.
It is fashioned as a system of signs to meet the elaborate cultural & communal needs of human societies.
The focus of attention is on ‘language as social semiotic’ (Michael Halliday), that is on language as a
system of signs which are socially motivated.
Language not as genetic endowment, but as generic accomplishment.
Are human beings absolutely alone & unique in their use of systems of signs to express social
meanings?
We all know that animals use signs of various kinds & they use the signs to communicate. No animal
signaling system displays the creative potential & complexity of structure which we have noted in human
language. The signs animals use are hardly comparable to the subtleties of the semiotic systems that have
been developed in language to service the complex social organization & communicative requirements of
human communal life.
Sociolinguistics
It is the study of the way in which language’s structure changes in response to its different social functions
& the definition of what these functions are. Society here is used in its broadest sense to cover a spectrum of
phenomena to do with race, nationality, regional, social & political groups & interactions of individual
within these groups. Different labels have sometimes been implied to various parts of this spectrum. E.g.
‘Enthnolinguistics’ is referred to the problems of ethnic groups & race relations. The term
‘anthropological linguistics’ is referred to study of primitive cultures. ‘Stylistics’ is referring to the study
of the distinctive linguistic characteristics of smaller social groupings. More usually, stylistics is the study of

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literary expression of a community, using linguistic methods. None of these labels has any absolute basis.
The subject matter of ethnolinguistics gradually merges into that of anthropological linguistics that into
sociolinguistics & that into stylistics & the subject matter of social psychology. The kinds of problem are
many & various 7 they are concerned with the role of language in society. They include:
1. The problems of communities which develop a standard language & the reactions of minority groups
to it.
2. The problems of communication which exist between nations or groups using a different language
which affects their ‘world-view’.
3. The problems caused by the need for individuals to interact with others in specific linguistic ways
(language as an index of intimacy or distance, of solidarity, of prestige or power & so on).
Sociolinguistics by itself cannot solve problems such as these, but it can identify precisely what the
problems are & obtain information about the particular manifestation of a problem in a given area. To
analyze a problem sociolinguistically implies being able to analyze it linguistically.
Basil Bernstein made the point that plus-based styles of speaking lead to differences in styles of thinking &
how one experiences the world. He argues that middle-class speech is characterized by use of an “elaborate”
code (use of nouns, adjectives & verbs having explicit referents). Working-class style tends to employ a
restricted code, expressing particular meanings by use of words that are more context-bound.
Conclusion: the use of explicit reference in elaborated codes can allow speakers to think about meanings &
relationships separate from immediate context. Restricted codes allow speakers to understand their
experience primarily in relation to a specific context. This field echoes the Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis.
People use different types of English in different situations: when are old or young, upper or lower class,
male or female. Educated people in Britain will be more likely to speak with the fairly neutral accent, than
with one dominated by regional overtones. The mark of an educated person is that while listening to him/her
you cannot tell which part of the country he/she comes from. It would frequently observed to expect
someone with a very broad regional accent to make a success on a high court judge. It does not follow from
all of this that because one accent used in GB carries more social prestige that others. The socially restricted
accents are undesirable. An accent is not ugly or beautiful, it depends on what we are used to.
The local words are beginning to be used at the senior or most fashionable levels of society as politicians.
Using local words is no longer to be seen as ignorant. It is respectable. It is a feature of increasing diversity
in English, moreover regional, national varieties in English are increasingly being used with prestige on the
international scene. New Englishes are becoming standardized as markers of educated regional identity.
Social plus differences are not exactly exhibited in speech. It is not lower class members who attempt to be
closer to the higher strata, but more educated people. It is people with a higher social status who attempt to
model speech on more prestigious local norm.
Language & gender
Men & women are socialized to express themselves in different ways in accordance with cultural norms.
The interrelationship between language & gender can be approached from different prospective
(Pronunciation, grammatical variants, choices of vocabulary, discourse strategies).
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Pronunciation: in the USA the percentage of postvocalic –r– is higher among women & men drop
interdental sounds at the end of words. Women use more dynamic intonation contours, a wider range of
pitches, more varied rhythmic patterns. Men employ a more monotonous style. Some scholars believe that
women’s behavior is negatively evaluated in relation to men. Because women are viewed as more emotional
& unpredictable while men are perceived as being in control of their emotions.
Grammar: research among school students in England shows that the speech of adolescent girls is
grammatically slightly more correct. Men make these mistakes more often – multiple negation, nonstandard
–s: we goes. The thing is that men & women also differ in the use of some grammatical constructions. E.g.
women use tag questions more often. R. Lakoff: they are reluctant to make direct assertions. Though some
scholars believe that the difference is absolutely insignificant & women in rather powerful in society as
lawyer, doctors do not differ much from men in using grammatical constructions.
Vocabulary: there are certain domains of vocabulary that are more elaborated by each gender. Men &
women are expected to know meaning of words within domains reflecting culturally stereotyped areas of the
assumed expertise (cooking for women, sports for men). Women are intensifiers, such as “very”, “so” etc.,
adjectives (wonderful, lovely). Women use hedge words, i.e. words that covertly comment on assertions in
one’s statements: e.g. perhaps. I’ve been wondering whether… well. The indecisive, imprecise or mitigated
speech is perceived as more typical of women.
Discourse strategies: men use communicative strategies that assert their control & prerogatives. Women
employ strategies that are differential, conciliatory & sensitive to other’s face. Women: ask question, to
encourage responses, make positive minimal responses, allow interruptions. Men: interrupt & challenge,
ignore the speech of interlocutors, introduce & control topics, make direct assertions & opinions. Boys &
girls are treated differently & they talk different. This point of view is criticized, other scholars believe that
power in society is distributed unequally & it reflects everyday interaction.

Lecture 5
Language as a means of communication. Discourse analysis.
The words ’communicate’ & communication are used in a wide range of contexts in their everyday sense.
We can talk of the communication of feelings, moods, attitudes & communication of factual information.
Lyons: “communication is the intentional transmission of information by means of some established
signaling-system.”
The process of communication is organized, standardized & culturally patterned. The structure of the
communication process can often be presented as a model. Different authors present different ones.
S. L. Tubbs & S. Moss’ model:
1. Input includes all the stimuli, both past & present, that give us information about the world
2. Verbal message
Intentional verbal messages are conscious attempts we make to communicate with others through speech.
Unintentional verbal messages are things we say without meaning to.
3. Non-verbal messages

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 4. Interference (noise) is anything that distorts the information transmitted to receiver or distracts
him /her receiving it. Technical interference: factors that cause the receiver to perceive distortion:
speech impediment, mumbling, loud music etc. Semantic interference when the receiver does not
attribute the same meaning to the signal that the sender does.
5. Feedback is the return to you of the behavior you have generated: communication is effective when
the stimulus as it was initiated & intended by the sender corresponds closely with the stimulus as it is
perceived & responded to by the receiver.
6. Perceptual filters (culture-bound). Culture is afraid of reference.
7. Roles: work roles, student roles, gender roles, marital roles, etc.
8. An inference is a conclusion or judgment derived from evidence or assumptions.
The characteristic features of the communication process:
1. Inferential (we derive implicit meanings)
2. Intentional
3. Conventional
4. Jointly negotiated between speakers & hearers
5. Varied according to context & language user, according to the participants’ relationships
6. Involves commonsense knowledge
7. Is sequential (retrospective & prospective)
8. Is accomplished in real time & space
9. Is interpretative
The process of communication is organized, standardized & culturally patterned. It consists of 2 reciprocal
processes: verbalization (speech production) & understanding.
Both processes can be viewed as multilevel activities.
Verbalization
It starts with the level of motive & intention. They emerge in a definite communicative situation as part of
some practical activity. On the 2nd level the sender’s thought is shaped first as a topic-comment structure &
then as a propositional structure (functional relations between the sentences). On the 3 rd level the speaker
chooses lexical & grammatical units which are combined with each other in the form of inner speech. On the
4th level the utterance is finally shaped as a verbal expression of thought.
Understanding
It is also a set of levels, but in fact it does not take place in this way. Experiments proved that we process all
types of information simultaneously. But for the purposes of some research we can identify the level of
motivation, the level of initial text processing & the level of more profound text processing. Other
scholars study the process of understanding as a series of strategies implied by the receiver. According to
Lyons, the successful communication depends not only on the receivers research of the signal, but also in his
recognition of the sender’s communicative intention & upon his making an appropriate behavioral or
cognitive response to it.
Two kinds of language as objects for study:
1. One abstracted in order to study how the rules of language work.
2. The other one which has been used to communicate something & is felt to be coherent. This kind of
language (language in use) is called discourse; & the search for what gives discourse coherence is
discourse analysis.
The origins of discourse analysis

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It is not accurate to regard it as something totally new. The 1 st known students of language in the Western
tradition, the scholars of Greece & Rome divided grammar from rhetoric. Grammar is concerned with the
rules of language as an isolated object & rhetoric deals with how to do things with words to achieve effects,
communicate successfully with people in particular contexts. Nowadays some schools of DA employ terms
from classical rhetoric. In 20th-century linguistics alongside sentence linguistics, there have also been
approaches which studied language as part of society & the world. In Britain this tradition developed in the
work of some scholars, who saw language, not as autonomous system, but as part of a culture, which is in
turn is responsive to the environment. Ironically it was a sentence linguist who both coined the term “DA” &
initiated a search for language rules which would explain how sentences were connected within a text by a
kind of extended grammar (Zellig Harris “Discourse Analysis” 1952). He analyzed the article about hair-
tonic. He worked out a set of rules, explaining why one sentence followed another.
Pioneers in the field of DA (Labov, Grice, Sinclair)
These scholars set out a number of questions which DA had & has to answer.
1. What is the basic unit of interaction? How can it be characterized & labeled?
2. What are communicative functions of discourse units? How many functions are there?
3. How are these functions realized lexico-gramatically?
4. What structures do the basic units combine to form?
5. What are the relations between the discourse & the speakers & the hearers?
Up to the late 60s there were very few books on DA. It took some time & effort to understand that discourse
cannot be described in terms of formal grammatical units, discourse is different because it presupposes on-
line processing of a verbally presented message as a constituent part of a speech event.
Up to the 70s all linguistic units were described as arranged on a rank scale. That is small units combine to
form larger ones.
Phoneme – morpheme – word – phrase – sentence – paragraph.
On the level of the paragraph this approach cannot be applied, because though there are cohesive links
between sentences a paragraph depends on content & stylistic decisions, not grammatical ones. In a
conversation there are no grammatical constraints on the choice of answer. That is why Sinclair proposed
the term discourse as a new level with its own rank scale of units & its own type of relations among these
units.
Text (product)/discourse (process) is the largest unit of verbal communication.

Differences between text & discourse

Text can defined in different ways:
It’s any utterance which consists of one or more sentences & which is complete in terms of meaning …..
(Moskalskaya)
Text is a written result of some creative process which consists of a title & a number of paragraphs united by
all kinds of lexical, grammatical, logical & stylistic links. (Galperin)

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It is a more or less complete fragment of verbal interaction which is structured according to certain rules &
which manifests the cognitive, psychological & social aspects of communication… it has a structure & gives
information. (Kolshansky)
It is a means of transmitting & getting information which is presented by the speaker in some form
providing for its adequate understanding. (Cognitive linguists)
Linguistic features of text – the product of the process of discourse
1. Cohesion: the elements of the text are tied together (lexical cohesion: repetition of words, use of
sense relations, use of words belonging to the same semantic fields, etc. grammatical cohesion:
conjunctions, grammatical substitution (one, do), co-reference (pronouns))
T.A. Van Dijk: discourse is coherent when it has a topic, when its sentences are sequentially coherent, &
when the addressee is able to imagine a situation in/for which the text could be true or when it has a mental
model. Discourse is coherent when we can single out some functional relations between the sentences. E.g.
sentence B can be a generalization, specification, example, consequence, presupposition of sentence A.
2. Informative: factual information (information about facts & events), conceptual information
(information about the author’s attitude to these events) & implied information (Galperin).
Implications are inferred from the meaning of actually expressed words, phrases, sentences. They
can be also our assumptions about the intentions of the speaker/writer. (Van Dijk).
3. Continuous (the sequence of facts & events occurs in time & space)
4. Complete (the speaker’s intention is fulfilled)
Types of links which connect all parts & elements of the text: topic – comment relations, thematic nets.

Lecture 6
Levels of analysis
Sound-spelling correspondences in English: the lack of congruence between its phonological &
graphological systems. One graphological element ‘i’ has 2 different phonological values (time, if, still, ride)
& 3 graphological elements, ‘i’, ‘ui’ & ‘y’ which have the same phonological value (if guilty).
The structure of words: thing, building, walking – morphology – this sequence of letters (-ing) is actually a
unit of meaning but it is a dependent unit of meaning. It cannot occur on its own, only when attached to
some word & when attached it brings about various changes. E.g. the verb ‘to build’ – the noun ‘building’.
‘Thing’ does not have the same status. All these observations are simple statements about the morphology of
English words.

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Words as lexical items. E.g. ‘bike’ is an informal variant of a word “bicycle”. We can contrast the occurance
of a common, ready-made sequence like ‘time stands still’ & the same sequence ‘time seems to hang as if
judged guilty’ which plays on an association of the words ‘hang’, ‘judge’ & ‘guilty’.
Syntax. We pay attention to the structurally equivalent sentences: In Oxford, people still ride bikes. [In
Oxford, people still] wear gowns. [In Oxford, people still] have servants. We can use these examples to
discuss the difference between overt sequence & the covert structures. In Oxford people ride bikes, wear
gowns / People ride bikes, wear gowns in oxford. The structure is manifested as ASVO/SVOA – adverbial
modifier, subject, verb, object.
At different levels we analyze different data & the focus attention on different features of language. We use
the data as different kinds of evidence. The larger the units we deal with the less we idealize the data & the
closer we get to the actuality of people’s experience of language. On the whole the more comprehensively
we try to describe language the more controversial the description becomes.
To go beyond the linguistic text to the social context to which it relates is to seek to infer the communicative
activity or discourse. At this level, analysis approximates to interpretation & we ask not just what the text
means in respect to its formal properties, but what the writer might mean by the text & what the text might
mean to a reader. We move into the domain of pragmatics (what we mean by language).
J. L. Austin: theory of speech acts or speech events.
The central tenet: the uttering of a sentence or is a part of an action within the framework of social
institutions & conventions. Saying is part of doing; words are parts of deeds. At first Austin distinguished
between:
 Statements
 Ethical propositions, which are intended to show emotions, prescribe the conduct or to influence in
a certain way
 Performatives, in which the saying of the words constitutes the performing of an action.

Performatives vs. Statements

I name this ship “The Queen Elizabeth” (if uttered when smashing the bottle against the stern = the act of
naming)
My daughter is called Elizabeth – no act.
Explicit performatives contain a performative verb (surrender immediately).
Implicit performatives do not contain a performative verb (how about going to NY on Saturday? The ice
over there is thin.)
Later this distinction was rejected by Austin in favor of a general theory of speech acts.
In saying anything one performes some kind of act. All utterances are performative in fact. While saying
something the speaker can perform speaker may performs 3 acts simultaneously:
1. A locutionary act of saying something in the full sense SAY (the production of meaningful
linguistic expression)

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 2. An illocutionary act: saying something for attaining a certain communicative goal (the
communicative force is added). The meaning of a sentence consists in its having a certain
illocutionary potential (force) that is closely & conventionally associated with its form. Different
locutionary acts can be used to realize the same illocutionary force (at the ticket-office: a day return
ticket to Oxford. Please/can I have a day return ticket to Oxford/I’d like a day return ticket to
Oxford.)
3. A perlocutionary act which means producing an impact on the hearer’s feelings, thoughts &
conduct, causing a change in the mind & behavior of the listener (to bring about effects on the
audience through the utterance).
What governs the linguistic realization of these speech acts?
Searle: regulative & constitutive rules.
All interaction has regulative rules which govern greetings, choice of topics, interruption & so on. These
rules may vary from community to community. Constitutive rules control the ways in which an utterance of
a given form realizes its illocutionary force. E.g. the constitutive rules for promising. Searle argues that we
can classify the illocutionary verbs as semantic complexes. Each verb carries some additional meaning. E.g.
the verbs ‘request, beg’ are concerned with the differences in the relative status of the speaker & the hearer.
‘Boast, congratulate’ – the differences in the way the utterance relates to the interests of the speaker &
hearer.
The parson may object to it: the pragmatic meaning of the utterance
The parson – the definite article – it points us in the direction of a clergyman assumed to be known by the
speaker & the hearer. The noun phrase takes on appointing function & as such becomes communicatively
active as reference.
Illocutionary force: the speaker is talking about something, expressing a proposition by using the symbolic
conventions of the code to key us to a context of shared knowledge. But the speaker is not just talking about
something, but is doing so in order to perform some kind of illocution of communicative act. These
pragmatic possibilities are not signaled in the language itself. They have to inferred for the context in which
the utterance is made.
Perlocutionary effect: in making an utterance, the person expresses a certain intended meaning designed
not just to be understood as such, but to have some kind of effect on the second person: to frighten, or
persuade, or impress, or establish a sense of common purpose of shared concern.
When we talk about propositional reference, illocutionary force & perlocutionary effect, we are dealing
not with the semantic meaning, as encoded in the language itself, but the pragmatic meaning which people
achieve in speech acts.
Pragmatics is the study of what people mean by language when they use it in the normal context of social
life.
Speech arts & culture
 Cross cultural variation
 Different speech acts may be present only in certain cultures, given a particular situation
 Permanent speech acts are carried out differently in different languages/cultures
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  In different languages/cultures the same speech acts may meet with different typical responses
 Speech acts differ in directness/indirectness in different cultures
According to Van. Dijk
 Text/talk is read/heard & interpreted on line, unit by unit (e.g., word by word)
 On the basis of world knowledge, as well as knowledge of words, syntactic structure, overall
meaning (topics), discourse structures & aspects of context (goals etc.) such units are assigned
provisional meaning.
Parallel to this understanding of the respective units of the text language users activate an old, or construct a
new (mental) model of the events or situation the text is about.
Models are both personal (featuring individual knowledge, beliefs, opinions of language users) as well social
(applying general, socially shared knowledge), but each model is unique.
The whole process of understanding is coordinated by the model language users have of the communicative
situation, namely their context model. The context model tells the language users what the aims of the
discourse are, who are the participants & what are their roles, what they know & do not yet know, in what
setting the discourse is being understood & so on. It is necessary to understand such diverse properties of
discourse as its intonation, lexical & syntactic style, which meanings are expressed or left implicit & what
speech acts are being performed. The process of discourse production may be characterized in a similar way
but in a different direction starting with a mental model that is something you know or having an opinion
about, is gradually (step by step) transformed in the meanings of a discourse & then expressed word for
word, following the constraints of the context model.

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