Iberian Languages and Linguistics
Dr. Aengus Ward
a.m.m.ward@bham.ac.uk
Ashley Building 115
Tuesday 2-4 Law LT2
Course Outline
Week Topic
1. Introduction to Linguistics/Principles of linguistics
2. Native speaker's competence
3. Language change over time: the Indo-European group/Romance languages
4. Language change over region: Dialectology
5. Language change in society: Sociolinguistics
6. Reading Week
7. Principles of language planning/Language planning in Spain
8. Catalan
9. Galician
10. Basque
11. Conclusion
Assessment of Linguistics: One 2 hour examination in May/June
Year 1 Linguistics: Reading List
April MacMahon, Understanding Language Change
Clare Mar Molinero, The Politics of Language in the Spanish-Speaking World
Clare Mar Molinero, The Spanish Speaking World
David Crystal (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal, Linguistics
David Crystal, What is Linguistics?
David Graddol et al., Describing Language
Edward Sapir, Language: an introduction to the study of speech
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics
Guillermo Rojo, El lenguaje, las lenguas y la lingüística
H G Widdowson, Linguistics
Ian Mackenzie, A linguistic Introduction to Spanish
Jean Aitcheson, The Seeds of Speech
Jesús Tusón, Linguística : una introducción al estudio del lenguaje
JMY Simpson, A First Course in Linguistics
John Lyons, Chomsky
Julia Kristeva, Language the Unknown
Leonard Bloomfield, Language
Maitena Extebarria, Bilingüísmo en el estado español
Maitena Extebarria, La diversidad de lenguas en España
Mark Abley, Spoken Here
Paul Lloyd, From Latin to Spanish
R.A. Hudson, Sociolinguistics
Rajend Mesthrie et al., Introducing Sociolinguistics
Ralph Penny, Variation and Change in Spanish
Ralph Penny, A History of the Spanish Language
Roger Lass, Historical linguistics and Language Change
Stephen Pinker, The Language Instinct
William J. Entwhistle, Las lenguas de España
Week 1
What is Linguistics? Introduction to course

Language as Social Activity
Cognitive beings depend on language
Language structures society

What can language do?

Language and reality
Language recreates reality
Language represents that which has no reality
Language frames reality

Branches of linguisics
Empirical Studies
Language Change
Theoretical linguistics
Debate: “What is language for? What do we know about language? How do
we learn it?
Reading:
David Crystal, Linguistics
David Crystal, What is Linguistics
Week 2
Native speaker’s competence
Abilities of speakers:
Grammaticality
Formulation of sentences
Number of sentences
Awareness of similarity and difference
Ferdinand de Saussure and the Linguistics sign
See http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/Saussure.htm
Lexis
Inherited
Borrowed
Phonetic
Translated
Semantic
Created
Spanish borrowed lexis
Catalan and Portuguese: buque, nao, muelle, rape, calamar, butifarra,
almeja, mejillón, ostra
French:
cartucho, coronel, bayoneta, jefe
Arabic:
algebra, cero, almanaque, naranja, albaricoque,
aceituna
Basque:
urraca, zurdo, boina, García, Íñigo, Javier, Sancho
Debate:
What does it mean to be a native speaker?
How do you identify other native speakers?
How do we agree that a word is appropriate?
Mesthrie et al. Introducing Sociolinguistics, Chapters 8 and 9.
Week 3
Language change over time
Indo-European and Romance Linguistics
Sir William Jones, Third Anniversary Discourse
The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a
wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious
than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet
bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of
verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have
been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer
could examine them all three, without believing them to have
sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer
exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for
supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended
with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the
Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family,
if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the
antiquities of Persia.
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/books/read01.html
1. Anatolian
2. Tokharian
3. Indo-Iranian
4. Greek
5. Celtic
6. Slavonic
7. Baltic
8. Albanian
9. Germanic
10. Italic
Sound changes
Assimilation
Dissimilation
Apocope
Syncope
Epenthesis
Metathesis
SEPTIMANA
VINDICARE
HOSPITALE
ANIMA
SANGUINE
CATENATU
CUMULU
HUMERU
FEMINA
semana
vengar
hospital/hostal
alma
sangre
candado
colmo
hombro
hembra
FILIU
FORNU
FARINA
FONTE
FORTE
FRONTE
hijo
horno
harina
fuente
fuerte
frente
Ralph Penny, Variation and Change in Spanish
Ralph Penny, A History of the Spanish Language
Roger Lass, Historical linguistics and Language Change
Week 4
Definitions of dialect and language?



Ideolect
Dialect
Supralect


Mutual intelligibility
Dialect continuum
Standard language
Dialect
Accent
Patois
Vernacular
Koiné
Pidgin languages
Creoles
Non-standard ≠ Substandard
Ralph Penny, Variation and Change in Spanish
Mesthrie et al. Introducing Sociolinguistics, Chapters 2
Week 5
Sociolinguistics
What is a language community?
Appropriateness in language
Principles of sociolinguistics
1.
2.
3.
4.
Style-shifting
Attention
Vernacular principle
Formality
Mesthrie et al. Introducing Sociolinguistics, Chapters 1 and 3
Trudgill, Sociolinguistics