Transcript LINGUISTICS

LINGUISTICS
May,2004
惠州学院外语系 曾方本 副教授
Chapter one INTRODUCTION







1.What is linguistics?
the scientific study of language
2.What is language?
a system whose parts can and must be
considered in their synchronic solidarity (de
Saussure,1916)
a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in
length and constructed out of a finite set of
elements(Chomsky,1957)
a purely human and non-instinctive method of
communicating ,ideas, emotions and desires by means
of voluntarily produced symbols(Sapir,1921)
a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human
communication(Wardaugh,1977)
3.(Design)Features of Human Language
creativity (productivity)创造性: provides opportunities for sending
messages that have never been sent before and for understanding
novel messages.
duality二重性: language as a system with 2
subsystems/structures/levels---meaningless sounds and units of
meaning grouped and regrouped with sounds
arbitrariness任意性: no natural/motivated/logical relationship
between the sign and what the sign stands for [A rose by any other
name would smell as sweet]
displacement:传递性 can be used to refer to things real or
imagined, past, present or future [no matter how eloquently a dog
may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.]
4.The functions of Language
the ideational function表意功能: language as a medium that links a
person with the world
the interpersonal function人际功能: as a medium to get along in a
community
the textual function篇章功能: create relevance to context

5.Some Important Distinctions

5.1 prescriptive vs. descriptive规定与描述: aims to describe and
analyze the language people actually use; aims to lay down rules to tell
people what they should say and what they not say.
5.2 synchronic vs. diachronic共时与历时: the description of a
language at some point of time in history is a synchronic study ; the
description of a language as it changes through time is a diachronic
study.
5.3 Langue vs. parole语言与言语: by F. de. Saussure索绪尔. French
words. Langue refers to the abstract linguistic system shared by all the
members of a speech community, and parole refers to the realization of
a langue in actual use. Langue is the set of conventions and rules which
language users all have to abide by, and parole is the concrete use of
the conventions and the application of the rules. Langue is abstract ;it
is not the language people actually use. Parole is concrete; it refers to
the naturally occurring language events. Langue is relatively stable, it
does not change frequently; parole varies from person to person, and
from situation to situation.


5.4 Competence vs. performance语言能力与语言应用: by
N. Chomsky. The former is the ideal users knowledge of
the rules of his language while the latter the actual
realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication.
COMMENT: Saussure's distinction and Chomsky's
distinction are very similar. They differ at least in that
Saussure took a sociological view of language and his
notion of language is a matter of social conventions, and
Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of
view and to him competence is a property of the mind of
each individual.
6.Branches of linguistics:
intra-disciplinary divisions:as introduced in the charter
behind.
inter-disciplinary divisions: sociolinguistics;
psycholinguistics, etc.
Chapter 2
PHONETICS
1.What is phonetics语音学? The study of speech sounds
2.Organs of speech: the pharyngeal cavity---the throat,
the oral cavity—the mouth,
the nasal cavity—the nose
3. Classification of English speech sounds: vowels and consonants---the obstruction
of air-stream
3.1 classification of vowels: they are differentiated by a number of factors:
the position of the tongue in the mouth: the front---[]
the central--the back--the openness of the mouth: the close --the semi-close --the semi-open--the open--the shape of the lips:
the rounded---all the back vowels with the exception of [a]
the un-rounded—all the front vowels and central vowels
3.2 classification of consonants;
in terms of manner of articulation: stops---[ p, b, t ,d, k, g ]
fricatives---[f ,v, s, z, ts, dz,
affricates---[]
liquids---[l, r ]
nasals---[n, ]
glides---[w, j ]
bilabials---[p, b, m, n]

dental—[]

alveolar---[t, d, s, z, n, l, r ]

palatal---[ ]

velar---[k, g, ]

glottal---[h]
h]
Chapter3 PHONOLOGY




1. What is phonology音位学?
The study of sound systems and patterns. focuses on three fundamental
questions: What sounds make up the list of sounds that can distinguish
meaning in a particular language? What sounds vary in what ways in what
context? What sounds can appear together in a sequence in a particular
language?
2. Phonology vs. phonetics: concerned with the same aspect of language--the speech sounds, but differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is of a
general nature . It is interested in all the speech sounds in all human
languages. Phonology aims to discover how speech sounds in a language
form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in
linguistic communication. The conclusion we reach about the phonology
of one language is very often language specific and should not be applied
to another language without discretion.
3. Phone音素, phoneme音位, and allophone音位变体:
3.1 A phone is a phonetic unit or segment. The speech sounds we hear
and produce during linguistic communication are all phones. But a phone
does not necessarily distinguish meaning.








3.2 A phoneme is an abstract unit. It is not any particular sound, but rather it is
represented or realized by a certain phone in a certain phonetic context.
3.3 An allophone: The different phones which can represent a phoneme in
different phonetic context are called the allophones of that phoneme.
In words” feel” and” leaf”, there are four phones [f, i:, l, ł], but three phonemes/f,
i:, l/, and phonemes, the dark [ł ]and clear[ l ]are the allophones of the phoneme/ l
/.
4. minimal pair最小音位对立体: A basic way to determine the phonemes of a
language is to see if substituting one sound for another results in a change of
meaning. If it does, the two sounds represent different phonemes. An easy way to
do this is to find the minimal pairs. When different forms are identical in every way
except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings , the
two sound combinations are said to form a minimal pair. e.g. pill and bill, till and
kill.
5. some rules in phonology
5.1 sequential rules
5.2 assimilation rule
6. suprasegmental features超切分特征---stress, tone, intonation. They function in
conveying meaning.
Chapter4 MORPHOLOGY
1.What is morphology形态学?
The study of the internal structure of words and the rules by which the words
are formed.
2.morpheme: the minimal meaningful unit of language.
3.Classification of morphemes语素:
3.1 free morphemes: roots, morphemes as words
3.2 bound morphemes: affixes ,morphemes attached to free morphemes to form
new words
3.3 inflectional morphemes: morphemes indicating case and number of n.s,tense
and aspect of v.s, and degree of adj.s and adv.s
3.4 derivational morphemes: bound morphemes added to existing forms to
construct new words
4.Formation of English words
4.1 derivation
4.2 compounding
4.3 others: conversion, clipping, blending, backformation, acronyms and
abbreviations, etc.
Chapter5 SYNTAX








1.What is syntax句法学?
How words are combined to form words and the rules that govern the
formation of sentences.
2.Different approaches to syntax: Knowledge of sentence structure is the
object of study of all schools of grammar. One school of grammar is
comparatively more successful in dealing with certain aspects of syntax.
Among all grammars, four appear to be well recognized, namely,
traditional grammar, structural grammar, T.G grammar and systemicfunctional grammar.
2.1 traditional G.: initially based on European languages, particularly on
Latin and Greek. termed pedagogic grammar. In analyzing sentences, the
method adopted is called parsing切分法.
1) identifying elements of the sentence,
2) identifying part of speech of each word
3) pointing out the inflection of the words,
4) describing the relationship between the words,
5) generalizing the order of the words. (3 weaknesses)
2.2 structural grammar: (p.47) the early 20 century.
American anthropologists and linguists. dying American
Indian language. 2 concepts: form class形式类, immediate
constituent直接成分.
A sentence can be cut into sections. Each section is its
immediate constituent. Then each section can be further
cut into constituent. This on-going cutting is termed
immediate constituent analysis. This way of syntactic
analysis adds a new dimension to the analysis of sentence
structure. IC analysis can accounting for the linearity and
the hierarchy of sentence structure, and, therefore,
structural ambiguity .(but no pedagogic grammar of a
language has been written following this approach )



2.3 T.G grammar转换生成语法: TO Chomsky, a grammar as the
tacit shared knowledge of all speakers is a system of finite rules by
which an infinite number of sentences can be generated. The task of
the linguist is to describe adequately this system of rules and explain
how they wok.
2.3.1 The model of the standard theory 标准理论based on
Chomsky1965 :
According to the model, we select words from the lexicon (our
mental dictionary) and string them together, following P.S rules. The
sentence structure at this stage is the deep structure, which will be
further manipulated according to transformational rules. The actual
form of the sentence is the surface structure, which is represented
phonetically in speech or orthographically in writing. If this model
is right, then writing a TG grammar of a language means working
out 2 sets of rules which are followed by speakers of the language.












2.3.2 P.S rules短语规则: rules that specify the constituents of syntactic
categories. They are part of speaker's syntactic knowledge. Such knowledge exists
in the mind of speakers. 4 tentative ps rules:
A)S → NP VP
B)NP → [(Det) (Adj) N
[Pron
C)VP → (Aux) V (NP)(PP)
D)PP → P NP
2.3.4 tree diagram: c.f.tree diagram by structural grammar----there are no
syntactic categories in latter. And it fails to reveal ambiguous structures in some
cases. E.g. They can fish(P.52).
2.3.5 transformational rules转换规则:
deep structure/surface structure深层结构/表层结构:DSs are the basic
structures generated by ps rules. S.ss are derived from deep structures, the
structures of sentences that we actually speak.
p.s rule has provided explanations of how different phrases are formed but it
cannot satisfactorily describe some other language phenomena such as yes-no
question, wh-question and passive voice, which involve a syntactic movement, such
as particle movement, replacement, insertion, deletion and copying.
2.3.6 At last ,T.S grammar is a theoretical grammar (not a pedagogic grammar)
which attempts to account for this aspect of speakers knowledge of sentence
construction. It is, therefore, psychological in nature.
“1957年以后,语言学理论的几乎全部进展,都是对乔姆斯基理论的重新认识或补充,更不用说乔姆斯基自己对他的理论
所做的修改了”.(罗宾斯.简明语言学史.中国社会科学出版社,1998(247)).

2.4 systemic-functional grammar系统功能语法:

2.4.1 two perspectives of syntactic analysis: chain and choice


(syntagmatic relations and paradigmatic relations组合关系与聚合关系)
S.F grammar starts from the perspective of function and meaning in
analyzing sentences. It views language as a system of meaning potentials
and sentence structure as the result of a process of selection. The
grammatical system of any language is a system of selections. The form of
language is the realization of function.The task of functional grammar is to
account for the intricate relation of function to form.
2.4.2 the three metafunctions :the general roles language plays are terms
metafunctions. A metafunction is a more abstract one, which is capable of
describing innumerable specific functions.According to Halliday,languaage
plays 3 metafunctions 元功能simultaneously.
Chapter 6 Semantics




1.semantics语义学: the study of meaning
2.some views concerning the study of meaning
2.1 The naming theory命名说: one of the oldest notions and also the
primitive one, proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. According to it,
the linguistic forms or symbols or words used in a language are simply
labels of the objects they stands for. So words are just names or labels for
things.
2.2 The conceptualist view概念理论: This view holds that there is no
direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to; rather, in the
interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts
in the mind. This is best illustrated by the semantic triangle suggested by
Ogden and Richards:
thought\reference\concept
symbol\form\word
referent\thing




2.3 contextualism语境论: During the period roughly from 1930
to1960,linguists gave preeminence to the empirical or observable
aspect instead of the theoretical aspect in their scientific study of
meaning. They hold that meaning should be studied in terms of
situation, use, context—elements closely linked with language
behavior. J.R.Firth费斯.2 kinds of context are recognized: the
situational context and the linguistic context.
2.4 Behaviorism行为主义: This theory, somewhat close to
contextualism, is linked with psychological interest. This view of
meaning proposed by Bloomfield is illustrated by his story about
Jack and Jill. Bloomfield布龙姆屝尔德 argued that meaning
consists in the relation between speech indicated by the small letters
r…..s and the practical events represented by the capitalized letters S
and R that precede and follow them respectively:
Jill
Jack
S______________ r…….. s_____________ R






3. sense/reference意义和所指: 2 related but different aspects f
meaning. Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the
linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the
linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. It is the
aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are interested.
Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real,
physical world; it deals with the relationship between the
linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.
“morning star”, “evening star”.
4.Major sense relations:
4.1 synonymy 同义（词，现象）
4.2 polysemy多义（词，现象）
4.3 homonymy 同音异义(homophones同音异义
/homographs同形异义)
4.4 hyponymy上下义 5.antonymy
Chapter7 Pragmatics





1.Pragmatics语用学 and semantics: Since Saussure, the meaning of
language was considered as something intrinsic and inherent, i. e, a
property attached to language itself. Therefore, meaning of words,
meaning of sentences were all studied in isolation from language use.
What essentially distinguishes semantics and pragmatics is whether
in the study of meaning the context of use is considered.
2.four back-bone theories:
2.1 context语境(constituted by the knowledge shared by the
speaker and hearer ): co-text上下文, Malinowski—the context of
situation情景语境, Firth---linguistic context and non-linguistic
context (situational context), encyclopedic context百科知识语境.
monism→dualism →trinalism→plurality
2.2 speech act theory言语行为理论: proposed by John Austin奥斯
汀in the late 1950s.
2.2.1 constatives陈述句/ performatives施为句: “I do.” (promising)
“I name this ship Elizabeth” (naming) “I give and bequeath my
watch to my brother” ( bequeathing ) “I bet you sixpence it will rain
tomorrow” (betting).
2.2.2 locutionary act言内行为, illocutionaryact言外行为,
perlocutionaryact言后行为
2.2.3 Searle's classification of illocutionary acts: there are
five general types of things we do with language. Specific acts
that fall into each type share the same illocutionary point/force,
but differ in their strength: representatives/ directives/
commissives / expressives / declarations.
2.3 C.P合作原则: proposed by Paul Grice格莱斯: “Make your
conversational contribution such as required at the stage at
which it occur by the accepeted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which you are engaged”(使你的话语，在其所发生
的阶段，符合你参与的谈话所公认的目标或方向) to be more
specific,4 maxims准则: quantity, quality, relation, manner,
2.3.1 conversational implicature会话含义: Conversation
participants nearly always observe the CP, they do not always
observe these maxims strictly. If the maxims are violated, or
flouted , to use Grice's term , conversational implicatures
occur.





2.3.2 The politeness principle礼貌原则: Grice didn't explain
why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean.
This is where Leech's P.P comes.
2.4 The Principle of Relevance关系原则: Sperber and
Wilson(1986)attemp to show that verbal communication
involves both coding and inferential processes. Relevance is a
relative notion. It is determined by two factors: contextual
effect and processing effort. Their relation can be represented
by a fraction:
contextual effect语境效果
Relevance关联性= -----------------------processing effort处理所付出的努力
In Verbal communication, the speaker must attract the
hearer's attention. To succeed, the communicator
necessarily choose the most relevant utterance from a
range at his/ her disposal that fits best to the context, the
one that will call for the least processing effort. This is
summarized as the principle of relevance:
Every act of ostensive凸显[-inferential] communication
communicates the presumption of its own optimal
relevance(任何明示性的交际行为都意味着本交际行为所传
递的假设，具有最佳关联性)
Sperber and Wilson's theory further develops the idea
of implicature as proposed by Grice. According to CP and
implicature, violation of the maxims produces implicature.
The theory of relevance accounts for the fact that
implicature and cooperation are not incompatible. This is
one of the merits of the theory that make it influential in
cognitive exploration into language use.
Chapter8 Language and Society



1.varieties变体 of a language：It is the label given to the form
of a language used by any group of speakers or used in a
particular field.4 types: the standard variety, regional
(geographical) variety, sociolects (social dialects) and registers
语域( functional dialects).
2.pidgin 皮泾语and creole克里奥语: A pidgin is a special
language variety that mixes or blends languages and it is used
by people who speak different languages for restricted
purposes such as trading. When a pidgin has become the
primary language of a speech community, and is required by
the children of that speech community as their native language,
it is said to have become a creole.
3. Bilingualism双语现象 and diglossia双言现象:
4.Language and culture---the Sapir-whorf hypothesis萨皮尔-沃尔夫假说
German scholars like Wilhelm von Humbolt(1762-1835) first put
forward the notion that different people speak differently because they think
differently and that they think differently because their language offers them
different ways of expressing the world around them, This notion was picked
up by American linguist and anthropologists Franz Boas(1858-1942),
Edward Sapir(1884-1939) and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf(1897-1941)
in their study of American Indian languages. The view on the
interdependence of language, culture and thought has been succinctly
expressed by what is called the Sapir-whorf hypothesis .
The hypothesis has been interpreted in two ways. One is known as
determinism. In this view our language determines our thinking. This strong
version has been rejected as it runs counter to the fact people of different
cultural background can understand each other. The other interpretation,
known as relativism, has drawn more attention in the late 1990s. This view
holds that culture affects the way we think through language, esp. in our
classification of the experienced world. Speakers of different languages
may not share the same way of viewing and interpreting experienced world.
Nevertheless, they have the same cognitive capacity, which makes
intercultural communication possible.
Chapter8 Second Language
Acquisition二语习得




1. Theories of child language acquisition
1.1 the behaviorist view: language is simply a matter
of imitation and habit formation.
1.2 the innatist view天生观: N. Chomsky claims
that human beings are biologically programmed for
language and that the language develops in the child
just as other biological functions such as walking.
1.3 the interactionist view互动说: it holds that
language develops as a result of the complex
interplay between the human characteristics of the
child and environment in which the child develops.
base
P.S rules lexicon
Deep structure
Semantic components
Semantic interpretation
Transformation rules
Surface structure
Phonological
components
Phonetic representation
Language as a
system
sound
Phonetics
phonology
structure
Morphology
syntax
meaning
Semantics
pragmatics
Ferdinand de Saussure
Noam Chomsky
需掌握的基本概念

Linguistics,creativity(of language),duality,arbitrariness,displacement,
descriptive/prescriptive,synchronic/diachronic,langue/parole,syntagmatic/p
aradigmatic,F.D.Saussure,phonetics,vowel,consonant,phonology,phone,pho
neme,allophone,suprasegmental feature,morphology,morpheme,free
morpheme,bound morpheme, derivation,compounding,conversion,
clipping, blending, backformation, acronym ,abbreviation,
syntax,N.Chomsky,I.C analysis,T.G grammar,surface
structure,deep structure,systemic-functional

grammar,semantics,Bloomfield,sense/reference, synonymy
polysemy homonymy ,homophone/homograph，
hyponymy,antonymy,pragmatics,context,speech act theory,Grice and his
C.P,Leech and his P.P,conversational implicature,relevance theory,varieties
of language,pidgien,creole,bilingual,the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,second
language acquisition
“我国英语教学法的发展及其語言學基礎探究”




一、機械語言學---翻譯法
二、美國結構主义语言学---听说法
三、英国結構主义语言学---情景法
四、语言的交际观---交际法