Linguistic

AN INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL LINGUISTICS

What is linguistics? Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist.
Theoretical (or GENERAL) linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields, such as the study of language structure (GRAMMAR), and meaning (SEMANTICS). The study of grammar encompasses MORPHOLOGY(formation and alteration of words) and SYNTAX (the rules that determine the way words combine into phrases and sentences).PHONOLOGY, the study of sound systems and abstract sound units, and phonetics, which is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones) as well as those of non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived, also form part of this field.
Linguisticscompares languages (COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS) and explores their histories, in order to find universal properties of language and to account for its development and origins (HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS).
How does a discipline become a science? It needs an OBJECT of study, an OBJECTIVE, and a METHOD.
THREE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PARADIGMS AND HOW THEY HAVE AFFECTED LINGUISTICS
What is EPISTEMOLOGY? The branchof philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.
What is a PARADIGM? The generally accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a given time. A mode of viewing the world which underlies the theories and methodology of science in a particular period of history.
POSITIVIST paradigm → STRUCTURALISM
RATIONALIST paradigm →GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
CONSTRUCTIVIST paradigm → SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS
I. STRUCTURALISM
OBJECT: language as a semiotic system (a system of signs)
OBJECTIVE: describe the language
METHOD: inductive
Several schools co-existed:
• In the USA: Bloomfield, Hockett
• The Circle of Prague: Jakobson
• The Danish school: Hjemslev
• The French school: Martinet, Balinger,Benveniste
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE (1857-1913), the father of modern linguistics
SAUSSURE’S CONTRIBUTIONS:
✓ Language is a system of arbitrary signs. Each sign is a marriage between
✓ SIGNIFIER (visual or acoustic perception) and SIGNIFIED (mental image).

✓ ARBITRARINESS of the linguistic sign (to know: savoir or connaître). Languages have differentsignifiers for the same concept.

✓ Two types of relationships between linguistic units: SYNTAGMATIC (related to the syntax or sequence, segment) and PARADIGMATIC (interchangeable forms, substitute).

✓ Distinction between the language system (LANGUE) and speech (PAROLE). LANGUE is a social construct that exists in its entirety in the collective mind of the speech community. It includesthe grammatical rules speakers use to combine the different linguistic forms into meaningful utterances. PAROLE is the realization of these combinations into spoken expressions of thought.

✓ Distinction between synchronic and diachronic studies. The former investigates the language system at a particular point of time, whereas the latter examines the historical evolution of language over aperiod of time. Saussure asserted the importance of the synchronic approach.

✓ Identification of a series of stages in VERBAL INTERACTION. In order for a communicative act to be successfully executed, a series of conditions have to be in place:
The SAPIR-WHORF hypothesis: A theory of linguistic relativity
Edward Sapir argued that thoughts require language in order to be thinkable. Whorfargued that different languages provide their speakers with radically different sets of conceptual categories (linguistic relativity), and that the character of one’s experience of the world depends on the nature of these interpretative categories (linguistic determinism)
The strong form: a speaker is a prisoner of his or her language and quite unable to think in other terms.
The weak form: the...