Introduction
Language and Linguistics
Preview
Introduction: importance of language
 Communication systems
 Functions of language
Universal properties of language
 Definitions of language
 Approaches to the study of language

Language
A means to pass a record of what has
happened from one generation to the
next through stories and sagas, even
before written records
 Development of tools to meet a broad
range of needs – impossible without
language

Language
Capacity for self-awareness and abstract
thought – dependent on language
 The ability to transfer complex
information, to discuss the meaning of
events and outcomes of alternative
actions, to share feelings and ideas –
impossible without language

Communication
Communication – transfer of information
 Sign – a basic unit of communication
 Sign – sth that stands for sth else to
communicate it (communicate = to make
sth common)

Communication
human
communication
sign
Passage of
information,
formulation of
inferences
animal
Communication
verbal
natural
human
artificial
(street signs)
non-verbal
(gestures, etc.)
Code
Sender intentionally produces a sign for
the recipient
 How can the recipient interpret the sign?
 Code – a set of signs, determined by
convention, that provides the rules of
interpretation
 All communication systems - codes

Semiotic triangle
Functions of language
R. Jakobson’s classification
Channel
(contact)
Phatic f.
Sender
(emotive or
expressive f.)
Message
(poetic f.)
Code
(metalinguistic
f.)
Receiver
(conative f.)
Context
Referential f.)
Language functions
Emotive (expressive)-expresses the speaker’s
feelings (“What a surprise!”)
 Referential – information about external reality
 Conative – making the recipient act in a particular
way (“Open the window!”)
 Phatic – establishing contact (“Hello!”)
Poetic function – focuses on the message (Carl
Sandburg: “The fog comes in on little cat feet”;
metaphor)
Metalinguistic – focuses on the code “What’s the
subject of this sentence?”

Properties of language
Freedom from stimulus
 Distancing
 Social transferability
 Transferability of medium
 Multifunctionality

Freedom from stimulus
Language – independent from stimuli, i.e.
external aspects of a situation
 Distinguishes human from animal language
 Human verbal messages – free, no
deterministic aspect

Distancing

The possibility to formulate messages
which are distant in space and time –
characteristic of human language as
opposed to animal communication
Social transferability
Anthropologically, any language is socially
and culturally transmitted
 Any human being acquires at least one
language (mother tongue) and can learn
other languages
 Innate language faculty: universal
properties of language – empty slots filled
by material provided by the environment

Transferability of medium: spoken
and written
Primacy of the spoken language:
 Ontogenetic (a child first learns to speak)
 Filogenetic (writing developed much later
in human history)
 Social primacy of the written language in
modern societies (higher cultural prestige;
science, education, law)

Multifunctionality of language
Expresses thought
 Transmits information
 Initiates, maintains and regulates
cooperative activities and social
relationships
 Expresses feelings and states of mind
 Resolves problems
 Creates possible worlds (literary
creation)

Universal properties of language
Although languages differ in many ways,
they are made possible by the same
genetic information, processed in the
brain in the same ways and they share
some fundamental features and structural
characteristics
 Understanding and explaining the
properties which are universal to all
languages, as well as those which vary
across languages – task of linguistics

Universal properties of language
Modularity
 Compositionality and recursion
 Discreteness
 Productivity
 Arbitrariness
 Reliance on context
 Variability

Modularity
Language – a modular system: produced
and interpreted by using a set of
component subsystems (or modules) in a
coordinated way
 Different regions of the brain – associated
with different aspects of language
processing

Modularity
Production and interpretation of speech
sounds – phonetics
 Words and their structure – morphology
 Structure of sentences – syntax
 Lexicon – interacting with these
properties
 Meaning – semantics
 Discourse - organization of language
beyond the sentence

Compositionality and recursion

Languages – organized into constituents,
allowing more complex units to enter
structures where simpler ones are also
possible
Compositionality: examples
She sat down.
 The smart woman sat down.
 The tall, dark-haired, smart woman with the
bright red sweater and pearl necklace sat
down.

Recursion

Property of language which allows
grammatical processes to be applied
repeatedly, combining constituents to
produce and infinite variety of sentences
of indefinite length
Recursion
Profound implications – noone can learn a
language by memorizing all the sentences
of that language, so there must be
another explanation for how human
beings are able to learn them
 The human brain – finite, but
recursiveness means that it is capable of
producing and understanding an infinite
number of sentences

Productivity
Language can always produce messages
that have never been produced before
 Infinite combinations of basic units whose
number is limited
 Rule-based creativity: infinite productivity
based on a limited number of principles
and rules

Discretness

Units of language are not continuous;
there is a limit between one element and
the next
Discreteness
Language – composed of sounds, words,
sentences etc.
 The fact that we hear speech as a
sequence of individual sounds, words and
sentences – incredible accomplishment
 Children in the first year or two learn to
pick out words from the stream of speech
with no instruction

Reliance on context
Pronounciation of one and won: the same
sequence of sounds can represent
different concepts in the same language
 The meaning of a sentence depends on
the context in which it is uttered
 The context: sentence or sentences
which precede it, or the broader physical
or social circumstances in which the
sentence is uttered

Reliance on context: examples
It’s cold in here – could be a complaint, a
request to close the window, or even a
compliment
 Languages rely on the connection
between form (what is said) and context
(when, where, by whom, and to whom it
is said) to communicate much more than
is contained in a sequence of words.

Variability
The language people use varies depending
on who’s speaking and the situation in
which they are speaking
 Variation – essence of information
 Variability of language – indexical
 Speakers vary the language they use to
signal their social identities (geographical,
social status, ethnicity, gender) and also to
define the immediate speech situation

Variability
People show who they are by the variety
of language they use - they reveal their
geographical origin and social status.
 They signal membership in a range of
overlapping social groups: male or female,
teenager or adult, member of an ethic
group, etc.

Variability

People also use language variation to
communicate the situation and purpose in
which they are talking, as well as the roles
they are playing in those situations
The descriptive approach
Language – universal characteristic of
human beings
 All languages (and language varieties) –
equal
 Language varieties differ because over
time they have adapted to differing needs
of their speech communities
 Each language – equally functional in
meeting the communicative needs of its
speech community

The descriptive approach
Sometimes when two or more speech
communities come into contact, one
group will have more power;
 the language variety of the dominant
group is often perceived as having higher
status as well, especially if speaking it
affords increased access to power or
wealth; language varieties spoken by the
less powerful groups – often stigmatized
as “incorrect” or “bad” language

The descriptive approach

Linguists take language as they find it,
rather than attempting to regulate it in
the direction of preconceived criteria
Language

A finite system of elements and principles
that make it possible for speakers to
construct sentences for particular
communicative functions
Grammatical competence

Knowing the meanings signified by
different sound sequences and how to
combine units of meaning into words,
phrases and sentences
Communicative competence

To be effective, speakers have to combine
grammatical competence with the
knowledge of how to use grammatical
sentences appropriately to the purpose
and context at hand
Defining language
the knowledge included in the grammatical
competence + the ability to use that
knowledge to accomplish a wide range of
communicative tasks – language
Definition of language
Language is
 a) a code
 B) which organizes a system of signs which
are
 C) primarily phonic-acoustic
 D) fundamentally arbitrary
 F) capable of expressing anything
 G) possessed as interiorized knowledge
which allows to produce infinite sentences
starting from a limited number of elements

General principles for the analysis
of language
Synchronic and diachronic approach
 Langue et parole
 Paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis
 Levels of analysis

Synchronic and diachronic study
Syn (‘with’) + chronos (‘time’)
 Dia (‘across’) + chronos
 Diachrony – study of language over time
(history)
 Synchrony – study of language at a
definite moment in time
 Two approaches - complementary

Langue et parole
Distinction between the abstract system
(langue) and its concrete realization
(parole): Ferdinand de Saussure
 System and use (Louis Hjelmslev)
 Competence and performance (Noam
Chomsky)

Langue et parole
Langue (system, competence) – a set of
interiorized rules of a language that
constitute our capacity to produce
messages in a certain language; abstract,
unconscious competence shared by all
members of a linguistic community
 Parole – individual linguistic act, concrete
realization of a message in a particular
language

Langue et parole

Langue et parole: opposition between the
abstract, social and constant on the one
hand (langue) and concrete, individual and
variable on the other (parole)
Paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis
Paradigmatic axis concerns relations on
the level of the system, syntagmatic axis
concerns relations on the level of
structures that realize the potentialities of
the system
 Paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimensions
constitute a double perspective according
to which the structures, combinations of
linguistic signs, function

Paradigmatic and syntagmatic axis
Syntagmatic axis
 Paradigmatic axis

Levels of analysis
Phonetics and phonology
 Morphology
 Syntax
 Semantics

Levels of analysis
Physical
reality
Phonetics and
phonology
Morphology Syntax
Lexicon and
semantics
External world
cognitively codified
Levels of analysis
Phonetics and phonology, semantics – link
with external reality
 Phonetics – physical support to
communication
 Semantics: conceptualisation and cognitive
categorisation of our world

Levels of analysis

Morphology and syntax – internal levels
on which the system is organised
according to the principles that govern
the language faculty
The diversity of linguistics
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General linguistics
Historical linguistics
Language acquisition
Sociolinguistics
Psycholinguistics
Cognitive linguistics
Computational linguistics
Corpus linguistics
Applied linguistics (foreign language learning,
LSP, translation studies, forensic linguistics
etc.)
Summary
Communication systems
 Functions of language
 Universal properties of language
 Study of language
