LINGUISTIC PARADIGMS

1. STRUCTURALISM: It is a theory about language that analyses the language

as a system. It is a fixed system comprising many different units connected.
Saussure (Europe) says that it is a system of signs. The ‘input’ is very
important to develop the language because it fills the empty mind (tabula
raza). It is also a social institution because it's created by outside people.

2. GENERATIVISM: It studies the meaning of words, phrases and full

sentences. It's more concerned with the meaning words convey when used.
This theory suggests language is made up of certain rules that apply to all
humans and all languages. Generativism aims to explain how humans
generate and understand an infinitive number of grammatically well-formed
sentences. So the function of the brain is crucial, if someone can not develop
language, it is because something happened in his/her brain.
*Chomsky thinks that language is an instinct and the brain has all the
information, so people are led by input to decide which language to learn.

3. PRAGMATICS: It concerns how we use language to communicate and how

we use words. It means in which context the language is used, so it depends
on the intention of the speaker.

LANGUAGE AND THE EVOLUTION OF COGNITION

(GARDENFORS)

“Communication” is the meaning of what we say and it´s represented in our minds:

➔ DIFFERENT KIND OF MENTAL REPRESENTATION

(All the mental representation of our organism is connected with our environment)

1. CUED REPRESENTATION: is the representation of meaning, something is

represented in the current external situation of the representing organism. In
general, the represented object need not be present in an actual situation.
Animals can have only this type of representation.
Example: when an animal sees food.

2. DETACHED REPRESENTATION: objects or events not present in the current

situation that are not activated by some recent situation.
Example: Memory of something.

1
 The connection between these two types of representation is the ‘INNER
ENVIRONMENT’ which are all things the organism can actively think about.

➔ TOOLS OF COMMUNICATION
- SIGNAL: It´s a reference to cued representation because is something in the
outer environment. (No convention)
Example: A bad smell in the fridge means that something is rotten.
- SYMBOL: It´s a reference to detached representation because the inner
environment has not things but concepts. At the same time, it depends on the
culture. (Convention arbitrary)
Example: The colour ‘black’ means or refers to ‘death in the Western World.
- ICON: It references detached representation and is quite similar to what it
represents. (No convention and there is a choice of representation/not
arbitrary)
Example: onomatopoeia.

➔ THE EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION

The language implies an advanced kind of inner environment:
1st Step: it represents an organism that has a theory of mind. Other agents
are seen as having an inner environment of their own.
Example: Publicity, deceiving someone.
2nd Step:

A→B
(You - awareness)
‘A’ recognises that ‘B’ inner environment.

A↔B
(Self-awareness)
‘A’ realizes that ‘B’ may contain a representation of A´s inner environment.

➔ SIN KINDS OF COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

SINGLE ELEMENTS COMPOSITION GRAMMAR

(STRUCTURED
SYSTEM)

CUED TYPE 1 TYPE 2 TYPE 3 (Ø)

REPRESENTATION ANIMAL SIGNS BEE´S DANCE The function of
It uses only signals and They have a limited grammar is to make
representation can be vocabulary of signs. composed sequences
either innate or acquired. less ambiguous.

2
 DETACHED TYPE 4 TYPE 5 TYPE 6
REPRESENTATION ONE-WORD LANGUAGE PROTOLANGUAGE FULL LANGUAGE
It's based on single icons Combination of two Both detached
or symbols words, but with no representation and
grammatical grammatical
elements. structure compromise
full natural language.

HISTORY OF LINGUISTICS

1. NON-WESTERN TRADITIONS:
- Mesopotamian, Chinese, and Arabic grammatical learning had
virtually no impact on the Western linguistic tradition until recently.

- The non-Western grammatical tradition is that of India, which dates

back at least 2,500 years and culminates with the grammar of Panini.
Sanskrit tradition has had an impact on modern linguistic scholarship.

- The Sanskrit tradition has had an impact on modern linguistic

scholarship that helps with the foundations laid for the whole 19th-
century edifice of comparative philology and historical linguistics.
Indian phonetics was superior to Western knowledge because of the
growth of phonetics in the West. The Indian grammatical work has
held great fascination for 20th-century theoretical linguists.

2. GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY:

- Greek philosophy was divided into existence by ‘nature’ and
‘convention’.

NATURE LANGUAGE CONVENTION LANGUAGE

It was natural to account for words and forms, Words and forms from social convention.
so it imitated natural sounds. Anomalies believed that language had
Analogists believed that language had an irregularities derived from irregularities derived
essential regularity derived from nature, and from irregularities of nature. The anomalist study
is very similar to the modern school of structural looked for deeper regularities underneath the
grammatical theorists. Then, showed surface surface irregularities and so showed similarity to
regularities. the modern transformationalist school.

3
 - The Romans were transmitters rather than originators.

3. THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES:

Very little is known of linguistics or its precursors in their period.

4. THE RENAISSANCE
Two new sets of data:
- VERNACULAR: Languages of Europe for protection and cultivation, were
in danger of distinction.
- EXOTIC LANGUAGES: Africa, the Orient, the New World, and, later,
Siberia, Inner Asia, Papua, Oceania, the Arctic, and Australia.
In grammar, the Renaissance did not produce notable innovation or
advance because it was a strong rejection of speculative grammar. And
the uncritical resumption of Roman views stated by Priscian.
Prescriptive grammar was the same one that was taught in modern
schools and most educated people understood it.

5. THE 19TH CENTURY

DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMPARATIVE METHOD: A set of principles could be
systematically compared to languages concerning their sound systems,
grammatical structure, and vocabulary and shown to be “genealogically”
related.
At the end of the 18th century, the Neogrammarians made the thesis that all
changes in the sound system of a language through time were subject to the
operation of regular sound laws. They recognized analogy as inhibition of
regular operation of sound laws in particular word forms.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
- OUTER: The raw sounds are the forge of language (what we say).
- INNER: The pattern of grammar (words) meaning imposed upon the raw
material and differentiated languages.
- PHONETICS AND DIALECTOLOGY: They were promoted by the
neogrammarians' concern with sound change and by their insistence that
kinds of change are uniform over history.

6. THE 20TH CENTURY

STRUCTURALISM IN EUROPE:
- Saussure's structuralism can be summed as two dichotomies:
LANGUAGE VS PAROLE
FORM VS SUBSTANCE

4
 Langue is the totality of regularities and patterns of formation that
underlie the utterances; by parole means the actual utterances. Two
utterances can be identical in the form that is in principle independent of
the variant substance or “raw material.”
- “Structuralism,” in the European sense is the view that there is an
abstract relational structure underlying and different from actual
utterances and that this is the primary object of study for the linguist.

STRUCTURALISM IN AMERICA
Tended to emphasize the structural uniqueness of individual languages.
➔ FRANZ BOAZ: He was less concerned with a general theory of the
structure of language because he was focusing on prescribing sound
principles for the analysis of unfamiliar languages. He was also
concerned about distortion by analysis in categories from analysis of
Indo-European languages.

➔ BENJAMIN WHORF: Language determines perception, thought and

knowledge.

➔ LEONARD BLOOMFIELD: Adopted a behaviourist approach to the study

of language including a behaviourist theory of semantics in which
meaning is the relationship between stimulus and verbal response.
Chomsky criticized the formulation of a set of ‘discovery procedures’ that
could be applied mechanically to texts and could be guaranteed to yield
an appropriate phonological and grammatical description of the
language of the texts.

➔ TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR: In Chomsky's view, linguistics should

aim lower and more pragmatically: develop standards for comparing
various accounts of a language. These standards should be framed in the
context of a much more accurate theory of grammar that is expressed in
terms of modern mathematical concepts.
He had adopted a “mentalist” theory of language, meaning that proper
concern is with a speaker’s creative linguistic competence and not
performance.
Chomsky believed that language is rooted in biology, not behaviour…in a
universal grammar that humans are born knowing that underlies all
languages despite the superficial variations that appear large.

➔ In the 1980s Chomsky formulated a more streamlined framework called

Principles and Parameters.
In the 1990s, the basic point was that language is a system of connecting
sound and meaning. Minimalism speculates.

FUNCTIONAL SYSTEMATIC GRAMMAR

Michael Halliday - Systemic Functional Linguistics

5
 Michael Halliday was a British linguist who developed the theory of systemic
functional linguistics in the 1960’s. According to Halliday , language is not just a set
of arbitrary rules and structures , but a tool that we use to create meaning and
interact with the world. “For Halliday, language can only be understood in context ,
and he believed that every instance of language use has three components: the
ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions.”

IDEATIONAL Refers to the way language is used to convey information about the
world. It encompasses both the experiential meaning of a sentence , or
what is being talked about , and the logical relationships between
different parts of a sentence.

INTERPERSONAL Is concerned with the way language is used to interact with other people
. It includes the speaker’s attitude towards what is being said, as well as
their relationship with the listener.

TEXTUAL Is the way language is used to create coherent and cohesive texts. It
includes the use of grammar and syntax to create clear and meaningful
sentences, as well as the use of cohesive devices like pronouns and
conjunctions to link different parts of a text together.

➔ Language structure and language function

For Halliday, grammar is described as systems not as rules, on the basis that
every grammatical structure involves a choice from a describable set of
options. So it represents pragmatics because it defines language in use for
communication.
CLAUSE STRUCTURE MANIFEST
- Ideational Meaning: What we want to say (the context).

- Interpersonal Function: The relationship that takes part in

communication.

- Textual Function: Organization of the text.

These aspects have a relation with to the subject that have different types of
classification:
- Logical Subject: Transitivity role (actor, experiences, representations,
etc.) (Ideational meaning.)
- Grammatical Subject: It has to do with the roles taken on by the
performer and receiver in a communication situation; an element that
precedes the verb in an affirmative sentence. (Interpersonal function.)

- Psychological subject: It is concerned with the organization of the

clause as a message, within a larger piece of discourse; it has to do with
what I want to focus my attention on. It prepares the listener
psychologically for what is to come. (Textual function)

6
 “THESE BEADS I WAS GIVEN BY MY MOTHER”

↓ ↓ ↓
Psychological Grammatical Logical
Subject Subject Subject

➔ MOOD (Interpersonal Function)

Language has to provide for interaction between people's expression of status,
attitudes, assessments, judgements, etc. And defines roles which people may
take in communication, and options for the speaker to vary his communication
role.

Example:
● Grammatical Subject: Define mood and define the communication role
adapted by the speaker. E.g.: Grammatical subject in the imperative:
Meaning: “I request you to…”
+Speaker: “Let's go home”
-Speaker: “(You) go home”
Listener: Addressed person.
- Can obey or disobey (makes meaning come true or not)
- Modal entity/model subject

➔ TEXTUAL FUNCTION
Textual Components are a set of options of means by which a speaker or
writer can create texts. Language is used in a relevant way to the context.
A clause is organized as a message (thematic structure). The English clause is
formed by rhemes (new information) and themes.
The theme is
A psychological subject.
An element is put in the first position.
Point of departure for the message.

7
The information structure is the organization of a text in terms of the functions
(given/ new), expressed by intonation and connected speech.
The connection speech has an unbroken succession of “tone groups”, each tone
group represents what the speaker decides to make into one unit of
information. The information can be:
1. Obligatory new element:
- New: marked by tonic nucleus.
- Non-recoverable information: information that the listener is not
expected to derive for himself from the text or the situation.
- Link with transitivity: new lexical content has to be supported by
grammar, and new information should be grammatically explicit.

2. Optional given element:

- Point of contact with what the listener knows (not tied to elements
in clause structure)