语言学讲义缩略版.docx

1、语言学讲义缩略版Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics1.1Why study language? (p. 1)Language is an integral part of our life and humanity. Many people take it for granted and they dont think it is worthy of study and they just think it is a tool for access to other fields. There are plenty of academic and pers

2、onal reasons to study language. On the academic level, the study of language can provide a deeper understanding of the social studies and humanities. Knowledge about language is important to understand social studies on topics such as education, intelligence, personality, memory, group interaction,

3、and cognition. Language plays an important role in studies of logic, composition, literature, history, international relations, religion, and philosophy. On a personal level, we grow up in a language-rich environment that provides a basis for our psychological development and cultural awareness. Lan

4、guage is our tool for self-awareness, identity development, social interaction, problem solving and intellectual and psychological growth.Not many people would stop and think what meanings the ordinary word “language” has. In fact, it involves several different senses which we need to distinguish in

5、 linguistics.First, language can mean what a person says or said, as in “what he said sounds reasonable enough, but he expressed himself in such bad language that many people misunderstood him”. In this sense, language simply refers the concrete act of speaking n a given situation, or the expression

6、 one uses in speech.Secondly, a person does not speak in a particular way only on one occasion; he often has a consistent way of speaking or writing. So “language” is sometimes used to refer to the whole of a persons language, as in “Shakespeares language”, “Luxuns language”. In this case, it is an

7、individuals personal dialect called “idiolect”.Thirdly, “language” also means a particular variety or level of speech or writing, such as “scientific language”, or “language for special purposes”, “trade language” and many others.Fourthly, when we speak of “the English Language”, “the Chinese Langua

8、ge” or “first language”, we are using “language” to refer to the abstract system underlying the totality of the speech / writing behavior of a community. It refers to everything in a language system. This is what we mean when we say “Do you know French?” Finally, there is an even more abstract sense

9、 of “language”, referring to the common features of all human languages. It means a defining feature of human language behavior as contrasted with animal systems of communication, or any other artificial language. When we say “He studies language”, we mean that he studies the universal properties of

10、 all speech / writing systems, not just one particular language.1.2 What is language?This may at first sound like a nave and simple question. Yet to this extremely familiar, everyday phenomenon, it is difficult to give a satisfactory definition. Some people may say “language is a tool for human comm

11、unication”. Far from a definition, this only tells us what language does, or what it is used for, i.e. its function. Others may say “language is a set of rules.” Then this tells nothing about its functions, and there are actually other systems that are also rule-governed. The first three definitions

12、 of language of the following were proposed by some modern linguists. Each of them has its own special emphasis, and is not totally free from limitations. However, there are some important characteristics of human language linguists have agreed on.1. Language is a purely human and non-instinctive me

13、thod of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols (Sapir, 1921)Language is the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols. (Hall, 1968)From now on I will consider language to

14、 be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set elements. (Chomsky, 1957)language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Short as it is, the fourth definition has captured the main features of language. First, langu

15、age must be a system, since elements in it are arranged according to certain rules; they cannot be combined at will. In English, “skde” is not a possible word; “table he is cleaning a” will not be an acceptable sentence. Second, language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no intrinsic connectio

16、n between a linguistic symbol and what the symbol stands for. For example, the thing we write with is called “pen” in English and “bi” in Chinese and “stylo” in French. The fact that languages have different words for the same object is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of language. This a

17、lso explains the symbolic nature of language: words are just symbols; they are associated with objects, actions, ideas, etc. by convention. This conventional nature of language is well illustrated by a famous quotation from Shakespeares play Romeo and Juliet: “ A rose by any other name would smell a

18、s sweet.” Third, language is vocal because the primary medium for all languages is sound. All evidence points to the fact that writing systems came into being much later than the spoken forms and that they are only attempts to capture sounds and meaning on paper. The fact that children acquire spoke

19、n language first before they can read or write also indicates that language is primarily vocal. Fourth, the term “human” in the definition is meant to specify that language is human-specific, i.e., it is different from the communication systems other forms of life possess, such as bird songs and bee

20、 dances. This brings us to a question of great interest: In what ways are human languages different from systems of non-human communication? This is what we concern about in the next section. 1.3 Design features of languageDesign feature: the defining properties of human language that distinguish it

21、 from any animal system of communication.1.3.1 Arbitrariness By saying that “language is arbitrary”, we mean that there is no logical connection between meaning and sound. (1) Arbitrary relationship between the sound of a morpheme and its meaning. Two points have to be clarified. On one hand, we sho

22、uld be aware that while language is arbitrary by nature, it is not entire arbitrary; certain words are motivated. The best examples are the onomatopoeic words, such as rumble, crash, bang in English. Besides, some compound words are also not entirely arbitrary. For example while “photo” and “copy” a

23、re both arbitrary, the compound word “photocopy” is not entirely arbitrary. On the other hand, a good example is the fact that different sounds are used to refer to the same object in different languages.(2) Arbitrariness at the syntactic level Syntax refers to the ways that sentences are constructe

24、d according to the grammar of arrangement. Accordingly, syntax is not so arbitrary as words. This can be shown in the examples on page 5.(3) Arbitrariness and conventionWe say that language is arbitrary. But why do people choose this kind of linguistic signs instead of others? This is out of convent

25、ion. It is the arbitrariness that makes language creative and it is conventionality that makes the research into the language possible. As language learners, we have to pay more attention to the conventionality of languages.1.3.2 DualityLanguage is a system, which consists of two sets of structures,

26、 or two levels. At the lower level, there is a structure of sounds, which are meaningless by themselves. But the sounds of language can be grouped and regrouped into a larger number of units of meaning, which are found at the higher level of the system. For example, the grouping of the three sound /

27、k/, /a:/, and /p/ can mean either a kind of fish (carp), or a public place for rest and amusement (park). Then the units at the higher level can be arranged and rearranged into infinite number of sentences. This duality of structure or double articulation of language enables its users to talk about

28、anything within their knowledge. No animal communication system has duality or even comes near to possessing it.1.3.3 Creativity Language is creative in the sense that users can understand and create sentences they have never heard before. Every day we send messages that have never been sent and und

29、erstand novel messages. Much of what we say and hear for the first time, yet there seems no problems of understanding. Creativity seems peculiar to human language. A gibbon call system, for example, is not creative, for gibbons draw all their calls from a fixed repertoire which is rapidly exhausted,

30、 making any novelty impossible. The bee dance, however, does have a limited creativity, as is used to communicate about food sources in any direction. But food sources are the only kind of messages that can be sent through the bee dance; bees do not “talk” about themselves. Note:Recursiveness: accor

31、ding to some linguistic theories, the capacity that enables the grammar of a language to produce an infinite number of sentences. This view of grammar was emphasized in Chomsky early grammatical theories. Many linguists today argue that language use is in fact characterized by the repeated use of fi

32、xed expression and collocation. Recursive rule: a rule which can be applied repeatedly without any definite limit. For example, a recursive rule for the addition of relative clauses could produce: The man saw the dog which bit the girl who was stroking the cat which had caught the mouse which had ea

33、ten the cheese which 1.3.4 DisplacementLanguage can be used to refer to things which are not present: real or imagined matters in the past, or future or in far-away places. In other words, language can refer to contexts moved from the immediate situations of the speaker. This property of language provides speake