Definition
of
Linguistics
• Linguistics is the scientific study of human
language. As such, it regards the ways in which
members of a particular discourse community
conceptualize their experience, encode it in a
linguistic form, and then use that code in social
interaction. Language powerfully conditions all
our thinking about social problems and processes.
This explains why the systematic study of a
language necessarily regards both cognition (the
way in which language structures thoughts in the
human mind) and communication ( the way in
which language serves social interaction).
• Indeed, as we acquire language during
childhood, we also discover: a) our identity as
individual ( when we use it to refer to
ourselves and our ideas or options) and, b) our
identity as social beings ( when we
communicate with other people).
Focus on Language as Cognition
• In Chomsky’s Transformational-Generative Grammar
the aim of Linguistics is not simply to focus on how
language is structured. In fact, he is principally
interested in understanding more about language in
order to understand more about the processes of the
human mind. Chomsky starts from the observation that
although different groups of people speak different
languages, all human languages are similarly governed
by common rules, or principles that are universal.
Every language has rules that govern pronunciation,
word formation and sentence construction, providing a
means for making assertions or request, asking
questions, and so on.
• This means that languages differ from each other only
at the level of their surface structure, but their deep
structure is the same, reflecting the general rules of a
universal linguistic system typical of the human
species. This universal linguistic system is a genetic
endowment of all human beings. Chomsky defines it as
an innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
genetically programmed in the human brain. The LAD
provides a series of common grammatical principles, or
Universal Grammar (UG) and their realizations as
variable parameters to be adapted to the varying
“settings” of the different languages.
• The presence of the LAD in the human brain would explain
why language development in children occurs so easily and
spontaneously, and does not requires any explicit teaching
of the grammar rules on the part of the adults. Moreover,
children are extremely creative in their use of language,
because they can say and understand words that they have
never heard before. In Chomsly’s perspective, therefore,
language is exclusively a cognitive, abstract knowledge
developing in the human mind completely detached from
the social context in which it is used. This, in fact,
represents another way of looking at language- that is, as a
socially motivated system developed to allow social
communication. Let us analyze this different point of view
on language as it is expressed by Michael Halliday.
Language and the human society.
• Focus on Language as Commnication
• In Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar the
purpose of Linguistics is concerned with the study of
language as social semiotic, that is to say, as a system
of signs that have been developed to serve the
communicative needs of people living in a social
context. In other words, Halliday intends language not
as a biological evolution of the human beings’ brain (as
in Chomsky’s theory, but as a sociocultural evolution
prompted by the human beings’ need to communicate
with each other within their own communities. This
means that language has evolved within a specific
community in such a way that it fulfils three main
functions:
• the Ideational Function, concerned with
people thinking with language in order to
interpret experience;
• the Interpersonal Function, concerned with
people acting with language in order to achieve
interpersonal communication;
• the Textual Function, concerned with the
linguistic organization of a message.
• These functions, in Halliday’s view are realized
differently in different languages because they are
coded into semantic and syntactic structures that
reflect the different “social semiotic” of different
communities. Within each community, this
semantic and syntactic code (representing the
“grammatical system” of its language) allows the
expression of the social behavior of people using
it in various situational contexts, Within the
grammatical resources of their code, people are
free to choose those structures that best convey
their expressive and communicative intents.
Perspective on Competence
• Chomsky states that Linguistics should regard
exclusively an abstract knowledge of language
which he defines as competence. Then, he
dissociates competence from the actual use of
language, or performance. Contrary to this
view, Dell Hymes argues that language is not
simply an abstract, idealized knowledge of
rules, but it is also the use of these rules to
achieve communication (communicative
competence).
• Gumperz and Levinson claim that the rules of
use in the various language are different
because they reflect the different socio-cultural
experiences of their users (linguistic
relativity).
The Experientialist Perspective
• A more recent Cognitive-Functional approach
to grammar, informed by the Experientialist
view in Cognitive Linguistics have to some
extent succeeded in bringing together these
two theories under a common rationale. To
Cognitive-Functional linguists, language is
systematically grounded in human cognition
since it is a conceptual system that emerges
from people’s everyday experience of their
own physical and sociocultural environment.
Synchronic and diachronic studies
of language.
• Saussure vs Sweetser
• We have previously defined language as
species-specific because it has evolved only in
human beings to represent our views of the
external world to our mind (cognition), and to
communicate our views to the other people
(communication). Now we shall begin by
briefly examining two principal trends in
linguistic studies.
• Synchronic linguistics studies the present state of
a language. As such it generally ignores language
evolution and supports the concept of
arbitrariness. The Swiss linguist Ferdinard de
Saussure, the leading scholar of this synchronic
current, maintains that words are only arbitrarily
associated with the real things they refer to. This
is demonstrated by the fact that different words in
different languages indicate the same thing.
Saussure asserts that language is “organized
thought coupled with sound”.
• In other words, an auditory image becomes
associated with a concept. This view brought
Saussure to formulate his theory of the sign
that result from associating a signified with a
signifier, but the bond between the signifier
and the signified is arbitrary. For example, the
same concept of a tree (signified) is arbitrarily
associated with different words in different
languages (signifiers).
• Diachronic Linguistics studies the evolution of
a language over time and maintains that the
sounds of languages are originated from a non
arbitrary common root reproducing people’s
initial physical experience in the world through
the five senses: hearing, touch, taste, smell,
and sight. This is demonstrated by the fact that
words indicating, for instance, the noise of a
dog in various languages derive from the same
original root-sound.
•
•
•
•
•
/b/
It. abbaiare,
Ingl. bark,
Ted. bellen,
Fr. aboyer.
• Cognitive linguist Eve Sweetser argues that
Generative grammar has rigidly separated
synchronic semantic structure from historical
change: most formal-semantic analyses to data
have thus treated meaning change as inherently
irrelevant to analysis of the synchronic system,
therefore the theory is constructed without
reference to diachrony.
LANGUAGE IN SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXTS
Language as Social Identity
Diatopic and Diastratic Variations
• Varieties are general variations occurring
within the code of the same language ( for ex.
British and American variety of English).
• Dialects are local, regional varieties that differ
from the standard language code in relation to
morphology, lexicon, syntax, and phonology.
Accents are regional varieties of a language that
differ from the standard code only in relation
to phonology ( various America, British,
Australian accents). Variation in accent has
also a social dimension, and this is often
defined in terms of social status and prestige of
the speakers.
In Britain, for example, the prestige accent is the
Standard English, the variety developed and
spoken in the South- East of England, that is to
say, in the area that includes London and the
prestigious university towns of Oxford and
Cambridge. Standard English is also called
Received Pronunciation and codified in the
phonemes of the International Phonetic
Alphabet.
• Language variation, therefore, can be
summarized into two main types:
• Diatopic variation, depending on the place
where it occurs. For ex:
• English spoken as the first, native language in
England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland….
• English spoken as a second language in the ex
British colonies of Africa, Middle East, SouthEast Asia….
• English spoken as a second language within
communities of immigrants living in Englishspeaking countries.
• English spoken by people living in nonEnglish-speaking countries, who use or learn it
as a foreign language or as a lingua franca in
intercultural or international communication.
• Diastratic variation, depending on the social
status of its speakers. For ex: English spoken
by London working classes ( Cockney); by
New-York Jews ecc.
• Therefore we can say that the allophones mark
the speaker’s identity, because they reveal the
human group the speaker belongs to. In other
words, our pronunciation-of both language-1
(L1, our native language ) and language-2 (L2,
our second or foreign language)- reveals a
complex system of social meanings that we
acquire in the course of our life. Indeed, a
spoken language can be perceived as refined or
vulgar depending on different socio-cultural
contexts that reflect specific values and roles.
So, for example, the so-called Cockney
pronunciation in British English, used by the
working classes of London, is normally
perceived in Britain as the low-status and
vulgar. This diastratic variety of English is
principally characterized by an accent marked
by the diphthong (ai) that is an allophone of
the phoneme (ei). Ex day
Pidgin and Creole varieties
Another source of diastratic assessment of social
status on diatopic basis is represented by the
pidgin and creole varieties of English. These
are varieties spoken by people from the ex
British colonies. A pidgin variety is a
simplified version of a non-native language
that developed in colonial contexts.
As such, it often contains many lexical and
grammatical features transferred from
indigenous languages. A creole variety is a
language developed from a pidgin by acquiring
a more complex grammar and it can have
native speakers.
Often, pidgin speakers refuse to conform to the
standard language variety because they
consider it as the language of the colonizers,
whereas they perceive pidgin and creole
varieties as expressions of their own national
and socio-cultural identities.
Indeed, in many cases, pidgin and creole
speakers have even rejected the conventional
orthography of the standard language,
preferring instead transcriptions made
according to their own indigenous spelling.
Differently from the majority of people from the
ex British colonies, who value their ethnic
origins reflected in their English accent, many
educated people from the ex British colonies
of India and South-East Asia are generally
very eager to drop their local-English accent
and acquire a Standard-English pronunciation.
Shumann defines this phenomenon as
acculturation.
Acculturation is the process by which people get
adapted to a new culture by internalizing its
system of thought and beliefs together with its
system of communication through its
language. People who acculturate to a new
language have an integrative motivation,
which involves their use of language to mark
them as members of the particular social group
they want to belong to.
If, on the contrary, they want to mark their sociocultural and psychological distance from the
dominant social group who imposes its own
language on them, then pidginization and
creolization processes prevail. In sociological
terms, Acculturation is part of a larger
phenomenon called Passing, which occurs
when people represent themselves differently
from the way they actually appear to be.
Movement and Position Schemata:
a Cognitive view of English
Preposition
Preposition: Physical/Esperiential Interaction
with the Spatial Environment
The basic meaning of preposition is protoptypically
spatial- that is to say, it has evolved during the prelinguistic stages of cognition, when the earliest
human beings became conscious of their physical
interaction in the space with the concrete, natural
environment. From this interaction, human beings
developed their own cognitive schemata of
movement and position, which were subsequently
conceptualized into specific semantic categories in
their languages.
Standard English, (being a language of IndoEuropean origin- that is to say, derived from
the proto-language that is supposed to be at the
origins of today’s European and some MiddleEastern languages) has the semantic categories
of “movement” and “position” linguistically
realized by prepositions. Prepositions,
therefore, generally indicate a spatial
schematic relationship of some sort between
two entities.
Let us examine the nature of these cognitive
schemata and how they are semantically
conceptualized into English prepositions. We
shall start from the “prepositions of
movement”.
• Prepositions of movement:
• The primary movement schema, underlying all
the prepositions of movement in English, is the
Image Schema constituted by a Container
(prototypically represented by s circumscribed
environment and a Force-Dynamic Subject
(prototypically represented by an animate
being) self determining its movement
trajectory through space.
• From (It. da - provenienza)
• I come from Liverpool.
• To mentally represent the specific image of
from, visualize the Force-Dynamic Subject (a
person, for ex.) who has left the Container
previously containing him/her and now moves
away.
• To ( It. a – destinazione )
• Every day I go to London.
• The image schema of to is represented be the
Force-Dynamic Subject moving in the
direction of a Container.
• At (It. a – giungere a destinazione)
• Usually, I arrive at the station early.
• At is schematically visualized as the ForceDynamic Subject that stops his/her trajectory
when s/he reaches a Container.
• On (It. su – breve movimento in salita)
• I get on the train.
• The image schema of on is visualized as the
Force-Dynamic Subject that is initially outside
the Container, but then s/he climbs a low steps
and stops its trajectory when s/he is in contact
with the Container’s floor.
• Into (It. dentro – movimento dall’esterno
all’interno di un luogo)
• I get into the second class compartment.
• The image schema of into focuses on the
Force-Dynamic Subject that is initially outside
the Container and then moves towards it and
enters it.
• Off ( It. fuori, via- movimento in discesa o in
ascesa)
• At Euston Station I get off the train.
• At Heathrow airport the plane took off.
• Off is schematically visualized as the ForceDynamic Subject leaving its initial contact
with the Container’s surface.
• Up (It. su – movimento continuo verso l’alto)
• I walk up the Underground escalator.
• Up is visualized as an image schema
representing the Force-Dynamic Subject
moving from a lower to a higher (or the
highest) level inside the Container.
• Down (It. giù – movimento in discesa)
• Then, I walk down the stairs.
• Down is visualized as an image schema
representing the Force-Dynamic Subject
moving from a higher to a lower level inside
the Container.
• Across ( It. attraverso –attraversamento)
•
I walk across the station lounge.
• The image schema of across represents the
Force-Dynamic Subject crossing the surface at
the bottom of the Container from one side to
another.
• Out (of) (It. fuori – movimento dall’interno
all’esterno di un luogo)
• I go out of the station.
• The image schema of out represents the ForceDynamic Subject as s/he leaves the Container
previously enclosing him/her.
• Along (It. lungo – percorrenza)
• I go along Gower Street.
• Along has an image schema representing the
on-going linear movement of the ForceDynamic Subject covering his/her linear
trajectory, with no focus on destination.
Preposition of Position (stato in luogo)
The primary position schema, underlying all the
preposition of position in English, is
constituted by a Container (or, alternatively,
by a Surface), and by a Static Subject (either
an animate being or an inanimate object) that
determines the standpoint in the cognitive
visualization of the schematic image.
• In (It. in, a)
• I study in London.
• The image schema of in is represented by the
Static Subject enclosed by the Container.
• At (It. a, presso)
• I study at the Institute of Education.
• At as an image schema that represents the
Static Subject standing by or within the
Container.
• Inside (It. dentro)
• I attend classes inside the main university
building.
• The image schema of inside focuses on the
internal part of the Container, where the Static
Subjects stands.
• Outside ( It. fuori)
• Gordon Square is right outside the building.
• Outside has an image schema focusing on the
external part of the Container, where the Static
Subject stands.
• On (It. sopra – sovrapposizione con contatto)
• During the coffee-break, I leave my books on
the desk.
• The image schema of on represents the Static
Subject standing with its basis in contact with
the Surface.
• Above (It. sopra, al di sopra, più in alto –
sopraelevazione)
• The cafeteria is just above my classroom.
• Above is represented by the image schema of
the Static Subject standing at the higher level
with respect to the Surface and having no
physical contact with it.
• Over (It. sopra, attraversamento da sopra –
sospensione o totale copertura con contatto)
• This is a very modern place, with futuristic
lamps hanging over coffee-tables, and colorful
cloths spread over them.
• The image schema of over represents the Static
Subject standing at a level that is higher than
the Surface level, with no contact at all with it,
or conversely, totally in contact with it, for ex.
Covering it.
• Under (It. sotto – indica contatto)
• The plush carpet under my feet is pleasant.
• The image schema of under focuses on the
Surface in contact with the Static Subject
standing on it.
• Below (It. sotto – assenza di contatto)
• Someone always stands by my books in the
classroom below!
• Below has an image schema focusing on the
Surface, situated at a lower level with respect
to the position of the Static Subject, with no
physical contact with him/her.
Phrasal Verbs and Compound
Words:
Metaphorical/Experiential
Interaction with the Social
Environment.
In Standard English, the spatial meanings
evolved from the physical interaction with the
environment constitute the basis for the
development of more abstract, figurative
meanings of prepositions. This means that the
same prepositions that indicate concrete,
physical movements or positions can be used
to indicate abstract (cognitive or affective)
movements or positions of the mind (e.g.
thought movements and points of view).
Lakoff and Johnson defined the physical image
schemata used to represent abstract concepts
as the metaphors we live by the conscious
extension of literal meanings to abstract
categories of experience.
This is so because human beings have
transferred their perception of the natural
environment as a Container enclosing them to
their perception of their bodies and mind as
Containers enclosing their thoughts and
emotions in reference to the social reality in
which they live.
For ex. The basic, physical meaning of up and
down indicates the Force-Dynamic Subject’s
movement from a lower to a higher level (up)
and from a higher to a lower level (down)
within a Container. It is the Subject’s physical
experience of raising to a higher level and
acquiring a better and dominating view over
things standing below, or being physically
obliged to keep an upright,
healthy body posture which makes the
preposition
up
acquire
the
derived
metaphorical meaning of “wellbeing”. By
contrast, the basic physical experience of being
down acquires the metaphorical sense of being
psychologically and even socially down.
Likewise the perception of more is up and less
is down. Indeed, these metaphorical use of
prepositions is particularly evident in the
meanings of
phrasal verbs and some
compound words.
ESEMPI DI METAFORE DI
ORIENTAMENTO
• MORE IS UP: “His draft number is high”; “My
income rose last year” - LESS IS DOWN: “His
income fell last year”; “He is underage”;
• CONSCIOUS IS UP: “Wake up”; “Get up” UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN: “He’s under hypnosis”;
“He sank into a coma”.
• RATIONAL IS UP: “We had a high level intellectual
discussion of the matter”; “The discussion raised up
to the rational plane” - EMOTIONAL IS DOWN:
“The discussion fell to the emotional level”; “He
couldn’t rise above his emotion”.
• HIGH STATUS IS UP: “He has a lofty position”; “He’s
climbing the ladder” - LOW STATUS IS DOWN: “He is at the
bottom of the social hierarchy”; “She fell in status”;
• VIRTUE IS UP: “He is high-minded”; “She is upright” DEPRAVITY IS DOWN: “He fell into the abyss of depravity”;
“That was a low-down thing to do”;
• HAPPY IS UP: “I’m feeling up tomorrow”, “You’re in high
spirits” - SAD IS DOWN: “I’m feeling down”, “I fell into a
depression”.
GRAMMAR DIMENSIONS OF PRESENT SIMPLE
AND PERFECT
• Dimension of the verb grammar: semantics,
syntax, and pragmatics.
• Focus on the cognitive implications underlying
the uses of English tenses and aspects in actual
discourse. Our emphasis is not on the syntax of
the verb, but on the social semiotic dimension
of the Verb Phrase
The grammar of a language is not a
decontextualized set of rules to be learned, but
it reflects the mental categorization of the
experience of the world developed over time
by a specific community of people. This
mental, internal grammar is internalized
through language as external language every
time the same community of people needs to
use it in social interaction.
Semantics is the area of Linguistics that explores
the internal grammar of a language. Semantics
is the study of how sense relations are
organized into mental propositions which
conceptualize
linguistic
microstructures
(sentence
structures)
and
textual
macrostructures (text grammar). It focuses on
the cognitive dimension of language.
Syntax is the area of Linguistics that studies the
how internal grammar is actualized into
language structures. Syntax, therefore, studies
how sentences are linguistically structured into
their component parts ( clauses, phrases…)
and then connected with each other into a text
to express the underlying mental sense
relations. Syntax focuses on the structural
dimension of language.
Pragmatics is the area of Linguistics that
investigates the social, external grammar o a
language. Pragmatics is the study of what
people mean when they actualize sentence
structures into utterances and a whole text into
discourse in actual contexts of social life. It
focuses on the communicative dimension of
language.
These are the three components of a language
grammar which, in turn, is informed by the
Social Semiotic Schemata developed within
the native speech community using that
language as the first language. Accordingly, a
semantic proposition is at the basis of a
syntactic sentence which, in turn, is at the
basis of a pragmatic utterance.
• Verb semantics: present tense and
simple/perfect aspects
• Now we analyze the semantics of tense and
Aspect of Verbs. Verb semantics concerns with
the mental representation of experience, we
will refer to the Ideational Function of
language ( Halliday).
• Tense: Processes
• Verbs are grammar classifications indicating
processes of the real world. These processes
can be principally mental ( and express inner
experience, as the verbs to think, to imagine,
etc) material (expressing outer experience, as
to go, to come, to eat), and verbal (to speak, to
tell..) others are behavioural, relational and
existential.
Processes occur at a particular time: in the past,
present, or future. The semantic category of
time in reference to a process ( the way we
conceive in our mind a process that takes place
at a certain period of time is called Tense.
• Now we consider the Present Tense, which
represents a process occurring during a period
of time that include also the present time in
which we are speaking.
• The Present Tense principally indicates:
• A process that is habitual during the current
period of time
• A process that started in the past and
continues in the present
This means that the process indicated in the verb
( to study…) occurs in a time that is perceived
as present by the speaker.
• Aspect: Perspectives
• In the two cases above there is a different
perspective of the speaker on the process:
• in the first case it is considered the regularity
of its occurrence, in the second case it is
considered the duration.
• Examples:
• I travel to London every week to attend an
English course (Regular, habitual process)
• I have travelled to London during the last two
years to attend an English course ( A process
that has persisted for two years and continues
also in the present time)
These two sentences show that though the
speaker refers to the same action in the two
statements his/her perspective on the process is
different, because s/he emphasizes two
different aspects of the process: In the first
sentence, the regularity, in the second its
duration, so we can say that:
• A) the aspect of the Present Tense that
indicates the regularity is the Simple Aspect;
• Present Simple focuses on the current time in
which the process occurs regularly. It can
include also the past time, but the speaker’s
perspective is that of considering the period of
time – including the present time- as present.
This period can consider “this morning”( but not
if not if it is said in the afternoon, because they
are temporal concepts that do not include the
present time) “this week” “this Year” but not
“Yesterday”.
The Speaker’s perception of a process as regular
may induce to consider it as regular or
universal, as reflected in the metaphorical use
of the Present Simple indicating processes that
are considered as timeless, universal truths.
• B) the aspect of the Present Tense that
indicates duration is the Perfect Aspect.
• Present Perfect focuses on a process that
started in the past and still continues in the
present. The Speaker’s perspective is also that
of the present time, while the Perfect Aspect
points to the past, completed part of the
process.
The Present Perfect expresses a perspective on
the process as a whole, a complete period of
time that includes also the present time and is
perceived by the Speaker as present.
The emphasis of Present Perfect is on the
duration of the process and it is normally
signaled by the following prepositions (used in
metaphorical way because referred to the
movement of abstract entity of time, rather
than to concrete force-dynamic subjects:
Over (indicating “covering” the whole period
under consideration, including the present
time). Ex. Over the last 20 years, Europe has
faced important social changes.
For (indicating the duration of the period under
consideration, extending into the present time.
Ex. For the last 20 years, Europe has faced
important social changes.
• Since (indicating the starting point in time in
the period under consideration, which
continues up to the present time. Ex. Since
1980, Europe has faced important social
changes.
• Also in this case there is a metaphorical use of
the Present Perfect and it occurs when the
process took place in the past and has a current
relevance.
• Ex. I have travelled to London.
This sentence indicates that the Speaker travelled
to London quite recently and this event is still
relevant at the time of his/her speaking.
Duration, in this case, is not chronological but
metaphorically psychological, because
depends on the Speaker’s subjective
perception of past action as relevant to the
present time.
Present Perfect is conventionally translated into
Italian as Passato Prossimo, indicating that the
Italian language emphasizes the past
perspective of the period of time considered, in
this way it overlooks the duration of the
process into the present time.
• VERB PRAGMATICS: PRESENT SIMPLE
AND PERFECT IN DISCOURSE
• Pragmatic Functions of Tense and Aspects
• Pragmatics concerns communication, that is, it
focuses on the kind of message a Speaker or a
writer intends to communicate to his/her
listener. In order to achieve their
communicative goals speakers manipulate
language to produce their intended effects.
This kind of manipulation often occurs
unconsciously when people are engaged in
everyday social communication. In some
cases, as in political, medical or other
discourses where power relations between
speakers are involved, language is manipulated
consciously.
The recent field in pragmatic studies that
explores the mechanisms of language
manipulation is called Critical Discourse
Analysis.
The most pragmatic meanings ascribed to
linguistic forms are socialized within a speech
community, thus, their sense implications, or
connotations (which are something more of
their semantic meanings, or denotations) are
automatically understood by most native
members of a speech community.
This occurs because such sense implications are
part of the sociolinguistic schemata that
members of the community have developed
over time by communicating with each other
within native sociocultural contexts of
interaction.
This occurs because such sense implications are
part of the sociolinguistic schemata that
members of the community have developed
over time by communicating with each other
within native sociocultural contexts of
interaction.
There are a number of cognitive issues to be
pragmatically understood when we come to
use the Tense and Aspect dimensions of the
English Verb Phrase. Now we focus on the
metaphorical uses of Present Simple and
Perfect and, in particular, on the question: Why
do Standard English Speakers use the Present
Simple when they want to express general
truth?
Present Simple semantically represents mere
facts. That is why it is the Tense and Aspect
dimension that can best express in discourse
the mere presentation of factual truth, without
any subjective comment, even without any
affective involvement from the speaker.
• In other words, the pragmatic function of the
Present Simple is primary that of expressing
objective facts with the speaker’s intervention
and involvement reduced to the minimum.
• Why do Standard English use the Present
Perfect when they what to indicate present
relevance of a past process?
It can’t be simply explained by a semantic rule,
because it is a question concerned with the
pragmatic use of the Present Perfect to express
the psychological, subjective involvement of
the Speaker in what s/he says, which marks the
difference from the mere statement of facts
implied in the use of the Present Simple. So,
a) When we use the Present Perfect, we focus
on the experience that the subject has built,
not simply on the relevance of the past
experience on the present, and because this
experience has been built up to the current
time, in the Present Perfect form two temporalexperiential components co-exist: Present and
Past.
• b) When we use the Present Simple, we focus
objectively on a present fact, with no direct
emotional involvement of the speaker in the
experience.
• Becoming aware of experiential-pragmatic
dimension underlying the use of English
Tense and Aspect structures of a text
intentionally patterned by a speaker/writer so
as to induce the receiver to perceive a
particular meaning in it.
• Past Simple and Perfect
• Semantics
• The English Past Simple is used for actions
completed in the past at a definite time and, in
particular, it is used:
a) For a past action when the time is given
I worked with him yesterday.
b)When the time is asked about
When did you work with him?
c)When the action took place at a definite time
even if this time is not mentioned
The train was ten minute late.
She lived in London some years ago.
• Let us see here the difference between the use
of Past Simple and Present Perfect
• I worked with Peter this morning (Past
Simple)
• I have worked with Peter this morning
(Present Perfect)
• In the first example, the sentence is said in the
afternoon or in the evening of the same day;
the morning has already passed and is
perceived by the speaker as Past.
• In the second example the sentence is said in
the course of the same morning: the morning
has not yet passed, so both the action and the
moment of speaking are perceived by the
speaker as Present.
• Past Perfect Semantics
• The past perfect is used for an action which
began before another action in the past, and
• was still continuing at that time or
• stopped at that time, or some time before it
• e.g. She had worked as a welfare officer in
the hospital for ten years; then she retired and
went to live in Rome.
• The verb in the Past Perfect indicates a time
in the past that is more remote than the time
signalled by another verb in the Past Simple
within the same sentence.
THE CONTINUOUS ASPECT
IN ENGLISH DISCOURSE
The Continuous or Progressive Aspect can be
associated to the Present and Past Tenses, and
to the other two Aspects, Simple and Perfect. It
indicates that the process represented by the
verb is taking place over an open and extended
period of time.
Semantics of Present Simple
Continuous
• The P.S. Continuous is used to indicate an
ongoing process happening in the present time.
• She is reading. ITA Sta leggendo (non Lei
legge). It indicates a process happening at the
moment of speaking.
• I’m reading a sociology text. ITA Sto leggendo
un testo di sociologia (in this period). It
indicates a process happening about this
present time but not necessarily at the moment
of speaking.
• I’m working tomorrow. ITA domani lavoro.
(South-Italy- Salento- diatopic variation:
Domani sto lavorando. It indicates a definite
plan in the near future.
• She is always loosing her glasses. ITA Perde
sempre gli occhiali ( South Italy Salento
diatopic variation: Sta sempre a perdere gli
occhiali. It indicates a process that is repeated
frequently which annoys the speaker, infact
here ALWAYS is used to add emphasis.
Semantics of the Past Simple
Continuous.
• The Past Simple Continuous is used to
indicate:
a) A developing process which started in the past
and continued for some time. The exact time
of the beginning and of the end of the action is
not specified. This because it isn’t known, is
uncertain or irrelevant.
• Ex. The patient was recovering.
b) A past process that began before a specific
point in the past and probably continued after
it.
• Ex. At eight she was sleeping.
• She was reading a book when I arrived.
Now we will examine how the
Continuous Aspect combines
with Present and Past Perfect.
Semantics of Present Perfect Continuous
• It is used to indicate:
a) An action which began in the past and is still
continuing without interruption:
• Ex I have been working for an hour. ITA
Lavoro da un’ora.
b) An action which began in the past and is still
continuing with periodical interruptions
ignored by the speaker to emphasize the sense
of constancy in doing it.
• Ex. I have been working on this project for
more than a year.
• If we consider the difference between these
two sentences
a)I have studied English for three years.
b)I have been studying English for three years.
• In the first sentence we have no emphasis
neither on the action of studying English nor
on its duration. In the second sentence we have
an emphasis on the action. Here the speaker
communicates a sense of frustration or a sense
of pride for his/her hard work.
Semantics of Past Perfect
Continuous.
The Past Perfect Continuous is used in a timesequence with the Past Simple to indicate:
a)A process that began before the moment of
speaking in the past, and continued without
interruption up to that moment or stopped just
before it.
• Ex At eleven p.m. she was tired because she
had been working all day.
b) A repeated process in the past that is
expressed as a continuous process to add
emphasis.
• Ex. She had been trying several times to pass
the exam.
Consider the difference between these two
sentences:
• I had studied English for three years before I
moved to London.
• I had been studying English for three years
before I moved to London.
• In the first sentence we have no emphasis on
the action of studying English, in the second
instead there is a pragmatic emphasis on the
assiduity of the speaker in carry out the
process.
MENTAL PROCESSES
• Mental vs Material Processes
• The Continuous Aspects of the verb is
principally used to express actions that are
intentional – in other words, actions that
people do deliberately, or actions that happen
deliberately. This explains why the Present
Continuous form syntactically constitutes the
unmarked Tense and Aspect for the semantic
representation of the Material Processes of
Doing.
These processes represent actions involving the
doing of things and, the semantic
representations, they are part of the Ideational
Function of Language. The prototypical
semantic representation of a Material Process
of Doing, according to Halliday, can be
represented by an Actor and, possibly, by the
Goal. (the objective of the Actor): ActorMaterial Process- Goal
• Material processes can be transitive or
intransitive in their representation of actual
actions.
• Some actions are not intentional, but simply
involuntary representing feelings, perceptions,
and states of mind that just happen
unintentionally, unconsciously. These actions
are usually expressed by the so-called verbs of
affection, cognition and perception.
The Present Simple form, syntactically
constitutes, in these cases, the unmarked tense
and aspect for the semantic representation of
thee verbs as Mental Processes of Sensing
which, again, are inherent in the Ideational
Function of language. Verbs representing
Mental Processes, therefore, are not normally
used in the Continuous Aspect.
• Moreover, they are always transitive, since
they involve both a Senser (the animate being
who feels and perceive) and the Phenomenon
(what the Senser feels, thinks, and perceives),
even when the Phenomenon s implicit in the
sentence.
• EX. John ( Senser) knows (Mental Process) the
whole story ( Phenomenon- transitive).
• John knows. (implicit phenomenon)
Mental Processes of Sensing
can be grouped as follows:
• Processes of affection – verbs of feelings and
emotions ( adore, desire, like, dislike)
• Processes of Cognition – verbs of mental
activity (know, believe assume, forget…)
• Processes of Perception – verbs of the senses
(feel, hear, see, smell, look, observe)
Pragmatic Dimension of Mental
Processes
Statives vs Performatives
We have been considering the semantic
dimensions of Mental Processes syntactically
rendered into English as verbs expressing
Affection, Cognition, and Perception. We have
pointed out that the unmarked Aspect of these
verbs representing internal states of mind is the
Simple Aspect, insofar as the Senser
experiences such mental processes as
permanent and static.
In Austin’s Pragmatic, the use of the Simple
Aspect with constative verbs indicates that an
utterance is true at a given time (present or
past), whereas a performative verb,
deliberately naming the act that is being
performed, should have as its unmarked
Aspect the Continuous Aspect. Applied to
stative sentences containing verbs of
perception, cognition, and affection, the use of
the Simple Aspect constitutes the stating of
instantaneous events, reflecting the special
immediacy of perception and mental
achievement.
• On the other hand, applied to performative
sentences with verb of perception, cognition,
and affection the use of the Continuous Aspect
signals a conscious reportive narrative of
mental processes as they occur. In this sense
performative verbs are self-referential in that
they describe their own action and execute
them at the same time as in:
• I’m listening to your words.
• In both cases, however verbs expressing
mental processes conjure the occurrence of
such processes as “processes” solely by their
utterance since there is no outside objective
action in progress interfacing the utterance.
• Ex: I hear the paying of a piano.
• (Constative verb expressing the Senser’s
immediate self-referential perspective)
• I’m listening to the playing of a piano.
• (Performative verb expressing the Senser’s
deliberate self-referential perspective)
TEXT
ONLINE EDUCATION
Read the following text and find all the verbs of
perception cognition and affection contained in
it. Then from their uses in the Simple or the
Continuous Aspect, identify their meanings.
Pearson, a large British media group, thinks that
this year two million people will be seeing
about a degree online and outside the campus.
That is why Pearson is looking for
opportunities in supplying universities with the
software and advice needed to put their lessons
and administration online.
Pearson believe that it has a trump card in the
competition for this market: a system that
provides a platform for delivering and
administering all sorts of electronic material,
but in particular Pearson assumes that this
platform can become a cornerstone of the Bush
administration’s education reform plan that
believes in e-learning, with a heavy emphasis
on comparative performance and
accountability.
The internet has undoubtedly encouraged
universities to lo for alternatives beyond their
campuses in order to offer more distancelearning. Yet universities seem to be losing
money especially those ones dealing with the
various fields of Medicine. Here students
touch hear, see and smell their work, so they
do not wish to subscribe online. Instead, they
want to go to a lecture and pay much, much
more to observe and listen to their professor.
However, people with full-time jobs like distance
learning, because they want to learn in the
evening, at weekend or whenever they can.
These people especially love platforms that put
course-material on the Internet and at the same
time build a student-community around the
material through chat-lines.
• This makes distant students feel as if they were
all together in a virtual classroom. Mark
Taylor, a sociologist at William College in
Massachussetts believes that this type of
interactive distance-education is a potential
market for vigorous online intellectual
stimulation because students that choose these
university courses want to personalize their
learning-experience by moving at their own
pace in it.
• Universities also understand the student’s
cognitive difficulties in the process of
distance-learning and how students respond to
ideas presented by a computer rather than by a
teacher or a book. The Learning Federation, a
consortium of American businesses, academic
institutions and government agencies, is
thinking about a coordinated research in a
range of scientific disciplines that will
accelerate progress in e-learning.
AGENTS AND CAUSATION
TRANSITIVITY AND
SYNTACTIC MOVEMENTS
• Transactional genres and interactional styles
• Now we will adopt an approach that integrates
Halliday’s Functional Grammar and the
Experientialist view of Cognitive Grammar
(Sweetser Langacker). The assumption is that
this integrated model of English Discourse
Analysis can enable us to focus on language
use as social action determined by experiential
cognition.
• A similar view was already proposed by
Halliday in his Social Semiotic construct
according to which using a language means
acting within its conventional semantic code
that has evolved over time in relation to the
changing socio-cognitive reality of its users as
well as their variable communicative
requirements. This semantic code determines
the fixed basis from which users can draw their
various pragmatic communicative meanings.
• In the light of such Cognitive-Functional
approach to language, we will also focus on a
notion of English as a Lingua Franca, that is a
language used to communicate intra-culturally
(within the same socio-cultural community)
and inter-culturally (between different sociocultural communities). A lingua franca is
normally used in specialized transactions, that
is, in situation of professional, technical
communication.
• The types of language used in these situations
are standardized into specific registers.
Registers are technical varieties of the
language, which have developed certain
identifying markers of linguistic structure, as
well as special vocabulary and language use
which are different from the language of other
communicative situations since they are
regularly employed by groups of experts to
communicate within established fields of
study.
• We can affirm that people from different sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds can learn
and use registers easily because they often
represent simplified varieties of a language
that are socially sanctioned to permit precision
in specialized transactions.
• Swales defines registers as linguistic variations
determined by the Halliday and Hasan
variables of Field, Tenor, and Mode.
• Field specifies the activity and subject of
discourse
• Tenor describes the status role relationships
among the participants
• Mode specifies the channel of communication
• These variables are used by members of
discourse communities to create genres.
Genres are classes of communicative events
sharing communicative purposes recognized
by experts members of specific discourse
communities and categorized by registers into
complete texts of a specialized type.
• Pragmalects, on the contrary, reflect personal
spoken styles which refer to a continuum of
speech formality depending upon the various
levels of formality required within specific
everyday situations in specific socio-cultural
contexts.
• We suggest that the difference between
registers and dialects ( between what we will
here define as transactional genres and
interactional styles can be cancelled if we take
a view of social contexts as cognitive
schemata, that is, as mental constructs of the
social reality and of the world in general.
• The assumption is that people have developed
such cognitive schemata in their minds while
interacting with each other within their native
speech community. We are stating that
registers are not totally standardized and
homogeneous discourse types used for supranational specialized interactions.
• In fact there is the possibility in them for the
expression of people’s different socio-cultural
ways of conceptualizing the world as cognitive
schemata and interacting with other people
with different world schemata and different
pragmalects. In this sense, the notion of
ethnography of speaking introduced by
Saville-Troike can help us to focus on a view
of speech community as a community with a
shared communicative competence of styles,
rules of speaking and interpretation of speech
performance, whose members frequently
interact.
• We include in this concept of speech
community also the supranational discourse
communities constituted by experts sharing a
communicative competence of specialized
registers and often introducing in them their
own culture-specific interactional styles.
•
PASSIVE AND ACTIVE VOICE
IN SPECIALIZED REGISTERS
• Passive voice and discourse depersonalization
in scientific registers
• The assumption at the basis of our discussion
is that a Speaker/Writer constructs his/her
argumentation in order to achieve his/her
persuasive purposes.
• This explains why in specialized texts of an
argumentative kind whose function is to
convince the Receiver that the
Speaker/Writer’s point of view is the right one,
the choice of Active/Passive Voice crucial
insofar it may signal, for example whether
processes are attributed to specific Agent or
are rather strategically viewed as “agentless”.
The Passive voice gives the possibility of
expressing or ignoring Agency.
• Passive, however, is only one way of ignoring
Agency in the English clause structure, and
omission of the Agent is only one reason for
using Passive or Intransitive forms. Other
ways of constructing agentless clauses include
(a) non specific subjects and impersonal
construction (somebody…there was….).
• Now we begin analyzing the use of the
Passive/Active voice in scientific texts. We
will argue that although scientific text are
generally considered as objective, descriptive
and non argumentative, actually they are
argumentative in the same way as politicaleconomic texts are, since in both cases the
reported facts are constructed by means of
rhetorical persuasion which often relies,
crucially, on Voice and Agency patterns.
• The use of the Passive forms of the Verb is one
of the typical characteristics of scientific
registers. In English, the Passive Voice
represents the principal way of expressing
depersonalization which, in other languages, is
expressed by means of impersonal forms.
• Gotti states that specialized writers principally
use the Passive Voice in scientific texts
because:
• They intend to depersonalize their discourse in
order to emphasize the scientific results of an
experimental process rather than the Agent of
such a process. This explain why the Agent of
Passive clauses is often omitted.
• They believe that the emphasis on the Agent is
superfluous because in a specialized text, often
the writers themselves represent the Agent of
the experimental process described in their
text.
• Gotti points out that the Passive Voice in a
Specialized text has also the important clausal
function of thematizing the experimental
processes (actions or facts) introduced by the
previous clause within the text. This is meant
to ensure an unmarked progression of
information, since the Passive Voice
foregrounds the new information (the
experimental process) introduced in the clause
in a Thematic position, rather than confining it
to its usual Rhematic position at the end of an
Active clause.
• In this way, the report of the experimental
process sounds wholly natural to the extent
that whenever the Writer intends to emphasize
the agent of such a process, rather than the
process, s/he has to opt for a marked
Thematization of the Agent, collocating it as
the syntactic Subject of an Active clause.
• Hence, the choice of Passive and Active forms
does not account for a mere syntactic
explanation, but it is determined by complex
pragmatic and textual motivation aimed at
achieving different communicative purposes.
Gotti assumes that the use of depersonalization
by means of agentless Passive forms, widely
observed in specialized texts, refers back to the
premises of objectivity typical of Positivistic
empirical approaches.
• The pragmatic implications of such approaches
are that the properties and principles of the
observed phenomena are suggested to the
scientist by the same phenomena, and Verbs
reflecting inductive processes typical of the
scientific enquiry, such as demonstrate,
suggest, indicate…