Language
Basic Principles
Communication Systems
• All communication systems share 3
features:
Communication Systems
1. Mode —
a means of communication,
signals or signs
Communication Systems
2. Semanticity —
The signal means something to users
Communication Systems
3. Pragmatic function —
Language is a communication system
that is used to produce a useful result
Communication Systems
• Many communication systems share the
following 4 features:
Communication Systems
4. Interchangeable —
all users can emanate or receive signals
equally
Communication Systems
5. Cultural Transmission —
acquired from associating with a
community
Communication Systems
6. Arbitrariness —
relation of signal to its meaning is arbitrary
Communication Systems
7. Discreteness —
utterances (messages) are made up of
distinct units
Communication Systems
• True language — human language —
is characterized by the following two
features
Communication Systems
8. Displacement —
may communicate about things not
present in space or time
Communication Systems
9. Productivity —
•
open-ended
•
can make an infinite number of
sentences
•
can make sentences never made
before
Human
• Understanding the category ‘human’
means recognizing the faculty for
displacement and productivity in language
• It is these which distinguish human from
other forms of life
Linguistics signs
Linguistic sign —
• A spoken form with a conventional
meaning
– These are the signals that make up a
language
Iconicity and arbitrariness
• Iconic signs—
Language: Sound like the thing named by
the word
Graphemes: Look like the thing/meaning
of the word
Linguistics signs, iconicity, and
arbitrariness
Non-arbitrary signs include the following:
a. Words such as barnyard sound words
or words for natural noises —
Such words sound like the thing they
represent (iconic)
Linguistics signs, iconicity, and
arbitrariness
These words are adjusted to the phonetics
of the language using the word
p. 17 (barnyard sound words)
Non-arbitrary words
These words are Onomatopoeic:
their meaning associated with the sound
(cats meow; doors creak)
These are iconic
Non-arbitrary words
• b. baby words and kinship words —
baba, mama, dada, etc. —
have a reasoned relation between the
words and the neuromuscular
development of infants and small children
Non-arbitrary words
• Many languages have similar or identical
kinship words because these words relate
to the simplicity and ease of production of
sounds in the developing child
Iconicity and arbitrariness
• Arbitrary —
A. No natural relation between sound and
thing
B. No reasoned relationship between
sound and thing
Linguistic signs
• Linguistic signs, with a small number of
exceptions, are arbitrary.
table, mesa, zhuozi
dog, perro, gou
Iconic written signs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Written signs can be iconic
人
‘person’
日
‘sun’
月
‘moon’
內
‘inside’
肉
‘meat’
坐
‘sit’
Iconic written signs
• secondary iconicity
(now that the association is conventional)
threw vs. through
their vs. there
Comm. Systems and Animal
Language
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Mode
Semanticity
Pragmatic function
Interchangeability
Cultural transmission
Arbitrariness
Discreteness
Displacement
Productivity
(LF 27 – 37)
Linguistic signs and meaning
• What does it mean for a sign to mean
something to us?
• What is meaning in human language?
Basic principles
• What do you know when you know a
language?
[We hope that by the end of the course we can answer that
question]
Basic principles
• Phonetics, phonology —
you can use the sound system of the
language
Basic principles
• Morphology —
you know and can make words
Basic principles
• Syntax —
you know how to form utterances
Basic principles
• Semantics —
you understand meanings of words and
items in the language
Basic principles
• Styles & Pragmatics —
you know how to use the language in
different types of situations
you know what utterances in the
language are used to do