INTRODUCTION TO

LANGUAGE AND
LINGUISTICS

FIRST LECTURE

Dr. Sara Kamal Othman

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
⦿ Whatever else people do when they come
together-whether they play, fight, or make
automobiles,- they talk. We live in a world of
language. We talk to friends, teachers,
family, lovers media and even enemies. We
use different media for talking. We also talk
when there is no one to answer.
WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
⦿ According to many myths and religions ,
language is the source human life and power.

⦿ To some people of Africa, a new born child is

a kintu,’ a thing’ not yet a ‘muntu’, a
person’. It is only by the act of learning a
language that the child becomes a human
being.
⦿ So, to understand our humanity, we must
understand the nature of language that
makes us human.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO KNOW A
LANGUAGE?
⦿ When you know a language, you can speak
and be understood by others who also know
the language. You can produce strings of
sounds or interpret the sounds produced by
others.
⦿ When you know a language you have
several types of knowledge:
KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOUND
SYSTEM
⦿ We know what the sounds (or signs) are in
that language and what sounds are not.
⦿ When you pronounce words of other
languages , that the sounds do not exist in
your language, then you know what are the
sounds of your language.
⦿ Knowing the sound systems of a language
includes also the inventory of sounds.
⦿ Which sounds my start a word, end a word,
and follow each other.
⦿ No words in English start with nk.
KNOWLEDGE OF WORDS
⦿ A conventional link there is between the
form and the meaning of a word.
⦿ Why the word ’boy’ means boy not girl.
⦿ Except for onomatopoeic words, where
there is similarity between the sounds and
their meanings, like buzz, murmur,
⦿ Many English words that start with gl..,
relate to sight, such as:
⦿ glare, glint, gleam, glitter, glossy, glance,
glimmer, glimpse, and glisten. (but such
words are small in number).
CREATIVITY OF LINGUISTIC
KNOWLEDGE
⦿ If you know a language, you are able to combine
sounds to form words, words to form phrases and
phrases to sentences.
- knowing a language means being able to produce
and understand new sentences never spoken before.
This is the creative aspect of language.
⦿ For example:

⦿ This is the house.

⦿ This is the house that Jack built.
⦿ This is malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
⦿ This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the
rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that
Jack built.
CREATIVITY OF LINGUISTIC
KNOWLEDGE
⦿ We are also creative in understanding
utterances haven’t been said or uttered
before.
⦿ ‘Daniel Boone decided to become a pioneer
because he dreamed of pigeon-toed
giraffes and cross-eyed elephants dancing
in pink skirts and green berets on the
wind-swept plains of the Midwest’.
KNOWLEDGE OF SENTENCES AND
NON-SENTENCES
⦿ Our knowledge of language not only allows
us to produce and understand an infinite
number of well-formed sentences, it also
permits us to distinguish between
well-formed from ill-formed
(ungrammatical )sentences.
⦿ 1. John, who was a student, flunked his
exams.
⦿ 2. Exams his flunked student a was who
John.
LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE AND
PERFORMANCE
⦿ There is a difference between our
knowledge of words and grammar, which is
our linguistic competence , and how we
use this knowledge in actual speech
production and comprehension, which is
our performance,

Our linguistic knowledge permits us to form

longer and longer sentences by joining
sentences and phrases together or by adding
modifiers to a noun.
LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE AND
PERFORMANCE
⦿ However, there are psychological and
physiological reasons that limit the number
of adjectives, adverbs, clauses, and so on
that we actually produce and understand.
⦿ We may be tired, feel sick or cannot catch
up to continue etc…
⦿ You know all the types of knowledge of the
language but there are factors outside that
affect you to perform or produce or
understand sentences and utterances.