LINGUISTICS AND ITS OBJECT OF

STUDY
• DEFINITION OF LINGUISTICS
• It is the science that is dedicated to the study of
languages.
• It is the science of human language.

• Disciplines are subdivided according to which languages

or which aspects of the language constitute their object of
study.
• According to the first criterion ( the languages/the
languages ): Hispanic studies ( Hispanic philology ), English
( English philology ), Romance studies ( Romanesque
philology ), Indo-European ( Indo-European philology ).
Disciplines that study a language or a group of languages
that belong to the same family or territory. They generally
include non-linguistic studies ( literary, ethnographic or
other )
 LINGUISTICS IS A SCIENCE
• Etymology: from the Latin verb scire (to know).
• It is systematized knowledge; a systematized set of
knowledge around an object of study.
• How to get to that object? Through specific paths
called methods (set of theoretical and practical rules).
• Linguistics as a science aspires to describe a language,
observe and understand its manifestations and predict
its behaviors and evolution.
• Since when is Linguistics a science?
 LINGUISTICS IS A SCIENCE
• For some, since man reflected on language both in
the East (Hindus) and in the West (Greeks).
• For the modern concept of science, Linguistics has
been since it defined its object of study and its
methods. This happened throughout the s. XIX and
culminated with the definitions of Ferdinand de
Saussure at the beginning of the s. XX.
 DEFINITION OF LINGUISTICS
• Following the second criterion, linguistics is usually
divided according to the aspect of language it studies
into:
• Phonetics and phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax
• Semantics, semiotics and semiology
• Pragmatics
• Lexicology and lexicography
• Dialectology
• Stylistics
 RESEARCH METHODS
LINGUISTICS
• DESCRIPTIVE OR SYNCHRONOUS METHOD: the
description of a given language is made at a certain
moment in its evolution, making a “cut” in time.
• HISTORICAL OR DIACHRONIC METHOD: studies the
evolution of a language:
• COMPARATIVE METHOD: languages from the same
group or family are compared.
• CONFRONTATIVE OR TYPOLOGICAL METHOD: they
compare language categories without taking into
account the relationship between them.
 GENERAL LINGUISTICS
• Summarizes and generalizes the knowledge
obtained by the study of particular languages
or groups or families of languages.
• It tries to formulate laws that govern a
language or its evolution, looking for
phenomena that are common to all languages
( linguistic universals ).
• He studies the methods of his discipline and
their evolution.
 LINGUISTICS AND OTHER
•
SCIENCES
Language is a social phenomenon, therefore,
Linguistics is part of the social sciences.
• First of all, it is closely related to literary sciences. The
interrelated studies have been called Philology.
• In addition, it is related to other related social sciences
such as Psychology, Sociology, History, Ethnography
and Philosophy.
• In some cases “interdisciplines” or interdisciplinary
fields emerged (Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics,
Ethnolinguistics, Philosophy of Language).
• There are also approaches to the natural
 LINGUISTICS AND OTHER
SCIENCES
sciences, due to the intersection of fields in
which language can be studied. An example is
Neurolinguistics.
• On the other hand, Linguistics takes advantage
of methods from other sciences such as Physics
(especially Acoustics), Mathematics and
Information Theories and Cybernetics.
 MAIN FEATURES OF THE LANGUAGE
• It is customary to distinguish three components of
language:
• LANGUAGE (langage): is the human ability to
communicate through language.
• LANGUAGE (langue): in the strict sense, it is the
system of signs and rules that a speaker uses.
• SPEAKING (parole): is the concrete
communication that occurs based on knowledge
of the language.
• LINGUISTICS deals with all three components.
Especially the LANGUAGE in the strict sense.
 LANGUAGE
• There are as many definitions of language as
there are linguistic schools (see, for example,
Coseriu, p. 31 et seq.). We take the one proposed
by Jírí Černý:
• “Language is the universal instrument of
communication, of a social nature, the
instrument of thought, which serves to store
human experiences and to develop the
traditions of national culture; It is a system of
signs.”
 FUNCTIONS OF THE
• TONGUE function of language is
The fundamental
communicative (other linguistic schools have
proposed different functions as fundamental, for
example, representation).
• Language is a social phenomenon , and also a
national one . It constitutes the property of the
entire linguistic community (some linguistic
schools emphasize the individual character of
the language, emphasizing the idiolect - the
language of each individual -).
 FUNCTIONS OF THE
• TONGUE
Language is an instrument of thought .
• Brain activity intervenes by mediating
between perception and cognition; Language
is the instrument that allows thought to be
generalized and transmitted.
• Language and thought are two different but
closely related phenomena.
• Language fulfills another function: storing the experiences
of the linguistic community and of man in general.
 FUNCTIONS OF THE
• This isTONGUE
related to another function of language: the
transmission of experiences to subsequent generations .
• Both oral language and written language constitute the
memory of the community and are instruments for its
transmission. It is one of the main means of progress for
humanity, since it allows the development of knowledge,
creation and the cultural traditions of people.
• Likewise, it is one of the most powerful means to influence
the behavior and ideology of people.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
TONGUE
• Structuralism defined language as a system of signs.
• Coseriu says: “In the consciousness of each one of us,
language exists as a system, as a model, and the same
model also exists, although not in a completely identical
form, in the other people who belong to our
community.”
• To understand other characteristics of language, Jírí
Černý proposes comparing it with communication
between animals, with the so-called primitive
languages and with that of children.
 COMMUNICATION IN ANIMALS
• Animals communicate with each other and several disciplines
tried to decipher their “language.”
• Animal means of communication are usually very developed
but the difference that exists between human language and
any other means of communication is very significant.
• Among animals there are signals related to vital situations
such as the presence of food, danger, environmental
conditions, the need to preserve the species. For example:
“dances” of bees, olfactory signals of ants, light signals of
certain fish, acoustic signals of mammals and other species.
• We can compare the human language with the
 acoustic signals of animals . Dogs, birds, apes,
communicate through more or less complex systems.
For example: the chimpanzee has about 25 to 30
acoustic signals.
• The fundamental difference between animal media
and human language is based on the close relationship
between thought and language . It has not been
proven that animals can “think” about the past or the
future; Its signals are related to the immediacy of a
situation
• From a specifically linguistic aspect, human
language is unique, due to its articulate nature .
• André Martinet formulated the theory of the
double articulation of language , which
maintains that the language system has
elements that can be reused in the formation of
new constructions that give rise to infinite
meanings.
 THE DOUBLE ARTICULATION OF
LANGUAGE
• The first articulation (or segmentation) is made up of
a number of larger units (words, monemes,
morphemes), which can be reused in infinite
messages without changing their form or meaning.
• The second articulation is formed by minimal
segments (phonemes) that are also reusable. They
have no meaning of their own, but they serve to
distinguish meanings.
• This double articulation of human language provides
economy to the system: with few elements infinite
meanings are obtained.
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMAL
LANGUAGE
• AND THE HUMAN
The possibility LANGUAGE
of animals understanding human
language was studied. In dogs it was established that
it is a rather emotional phenomenon. There are
animals that can imitate human language, such as
certain birds or dolphins.
• In no case was it proven to be related to thought
(with the exception, perhaps, of apes, who can
maintain minimal conversations with humans).
• The comparison between the means of
communication of animals with language
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMAL
LANGUAGE
AND THE
shows HUMAN
that LANGUAGE
they differ fundamentally because:
• The human language has an incomparably
greater number of units;
• Because of the close relationship between
thought and language; and
• Due to its doubly articulated character.
• Perhaps it would be better to call them “languages of
communities that live in harmony with nature.”
• Even today there are communities in the world that
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMAL
LANGUAGE
AND THE
live in theHUMAN
conditionsLANGUAGE
of the Paleolithic or other
rudimentary stages of evolution.
• The languages of these communities have been
studied with the aim of understanding the origin of the
language. The expected results have not been
achieved, but other issues have been clarified.
• Their lexicon is very poor compared to modern
languages, but they are very rich in relation to the
environment in which their activity takes place.
Ex: sand among the Bedouins, snow among the
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMAL
LANGUAGE
AND THE HUMAN LANGUAGE
Eskimos.
• The kinship lexicon is also highly developed.
• Abstract terms are often missing and
comparisons are used for adjectives.
• Grammar is also usually less developed: the
system of tenses is simpler; differences
between noun, adjective and adverb are scarce;
the plural can be expressed by repetition.
• There are notable differences with modern
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMAL
LANGUAGE
AND THE HUMAN
languages LANGUAGE
in the pronoun system (possibly due
to different worldviews about man's being in
the world).
• The phonetics of these languages are also studied. Although they
have a greater number of non-articulated interjections and
exclamations, no language was found that is composed of
inarticulate sounds.
• Conclusion: no matter how primitive a language is, it always has
a system of sounds and phonemes , it is always based on the
double articulation of language.
• The importance of gestures and mimicry that allow us to
 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMAL
LANGUAGE
AND THEmeanings
distinguish HUMAN in theLANGUAGE
same words has been proven. From
this, some linguists deduced that gestures and mimicry are at
the base of language and in its primary stages.
• Among the most primitive languages are the Bushman and
Hottentot (African people) dialects.
• The language of the Bushmen has a very limited vocabulary,
there is practically no morphological inflection, most of their
sentences maintain the structure: SV-OD.
• Its phonetics differ from any other language: it has a large
number of clicks (sounds formed when air enters the oral
cavity, instead of being emitted when the air escapes).
• Other languages, such as the Bantu, developed very
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMAL
LANGUAGE
AND THEgrammatical
complex HUMAN systems
LANGUAGE
and representation
systems such as ideograms, before being colonized
by the Portuguese, who introduced their writing.
• Some musical instruments also served as
communication channels (drums and whistles for
long-distance communication), with messages
probably facilitated by the rhythmic structure of the
languages.
 STUDY OF CALLED LANGUAGES
THE LANGUAGE OF
PRIMITIVES
CHILDREN
• They provide data to clarify the evolution of
languages, but they could not clarify the origin of the
language.
• No matter how primary a language may be, it always
has all the characteristics of human language: it is
closely linked to thought and is based on the
principle of double articulation.
• A community could never be found in a “pre-
linguistic” stage.
• Conclusion: there are no men without a tongue ,
because this is one of their fundamental
characteristics.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
CHILDREN
• These studies observe the language
development of children from birth to 5 years
of age, their gradual development from
scratch until they master all the rules of the
mother tongue.
• Some linguists studied this evolution with the
aim of clarifying the origin of the language.
 THE LANGUAGE OF CHILDREN
• When the child is born, he screams in an inarticulate manner.
Later, their cries begin to differentiate, they express a certain
situation and the mother interprets them.
• At around 6 weeks, the child begins to make reflexive
vocalizations and “chirps.”
• Around 6 months he begins to babble. Emit the vowels first
and then the consonants. This babbling is different depending
on the mother tongue that surrounds the child.
• Around 9/10 months he imitates sounds from the
environment and the people around him.
• Around 10 months he says his first words.
• He continues to use words of one or two syllables, in
cooperation with the family around him.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
CHILDREN
• At one year of age, the child masters about ten words. Shortly
after, he begins to form sentences, first with a single word
and accompanied by gestures.
• In the second half or at the end of the second year of age he
is able to construct two-word sentences.
• A two-year-old child already has approximately 300 words. At
three years, 1000 and at four years, 2000.
• Between the ages of two and five, the process of successive
mastery of morphology and syntax takes place. It is
considered that the original evolution process of the
language is repeated in this way.
• The child uses only simple sentences for a long time.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
CHILDREN
Then, master the conjunction and introduce
coordinated copulative sentences.
• Finally, learn the subordinate clauses, most usually
those introduced by the conjunction because, and later
those introduced by even though.
• Children experiment with language, creating
neologisms or mixing languages if they are raised in a
bilingual environment.
• Around the age of five, the child enters society through
schooling. He builds conceptions about life and the world and
about himself. It is a process of cognitive development,
specific to the human being.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• From thisCHILDREN
age (without any physical or cognitive difficulty
involved) the child's language evolves only quantitatively.
• The study of children's language allowed us to understand the
evolution of language but not its origin. Because the child
learns a ready-made system, while humanity evolved over
millions of years.
• The large number of natural languages was a cause of
difficulties in international relations. For this reason, a long
time ago the idea arose of creating an artificial language,
simple and easy to learn, to serve as a means of international
communication.
• In the 18th and 19th centuries, several artificial languages
were created. In 1887, L. Zamenhof created Esperanto.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• CHILDREN
Its grammar has only 16 rules and its vocabulary has its
origins in the Romance and partly Germanic languages.
• Magazines, newspapers, websites are published in Esperanto
and it is protected by UNESCO.
• In the 20th century, other artificial languages emerged but
they did not have greater diffusion or international
acceptance, such as Esperanto.
• All these artificial languages are very simple, but markedly
Eurocentric.
• None of the artificial languages is capable of replacing
natural languages , both in diplomacy and in commerce; even
less so in the daily life of societies.
• This is due to the lack of a homogeneous linguistic
 THE LANGUAGE OF
CHILDREN
community that uses it as a living language systematically in
all communication situations.
• Natural languages must satisfy the communicative
needs of the community in any circumstance and
under any conditions.
• Living conditions are constantly changing, human
knowledge is continually growing. And natural
languages reflect these changes: they evolve.
• Artificial languages are simple, but incapable of
satisfying all communication needs.
• On the other hand, natural languages are linked to the
cultural heritage of their community and keep it cohesive.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• CHILDREN
It is even proposed that if everyone decided to give up natural
languages to adopt an artificial language, it would begin to
evolve (due to trends motivated by living conditions, due to
different levels of cognition, due to the influence of languages
spoken with anteriority). That is to say, in a short time
different languages would exist again.
• The only creator of the language is the respective community.
Institutions can only follow and legalize changes and
eventually predict future ones.
• However, the need for international relations increases the
importance of some natural languages called “universal”.
They are the widely spread languages, with which one can
communicate in much of the world: Chinese, English, Russian,
 THE LANGUAGE OF
CHILDREN
Spanish, French, Arabic. They are the official languages of the
UN.
• It will always be more usual and common for a subject to
master, along with his or her mother tongue, one or more of
these “universal” languages. Especially English, the language
in which most scientific production is published and is used in
the naming of computer components and processes.
• Today, artificial languages are built for the logical analysis of
language: programming languages (to give instructions to
computing devices), languages for automatic translation.
There is even an attempt to construct languages that allow
human beings to communicate with living beings from other
planets.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• All theseCHILDREN
artificial languages are created with the help of
methods developed within mathematics and formal logic.
• All artificial languages are characterized, then, by emerging at
once and by their stable nature (they do not evolve).
• Science has not yet been able to explain the
origin of the language. It is a problem linked to
the origin of man himself, since what can be
speculated is that the language was formed
simultaneously with him. It constitutes one of
its characteristic features (if not the main one)
that distinguishes it from the rest of the species.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• CHILDREN
It is a problem that concerns Anthropology,
Paleontology, Psychology, Biology and others.
• The oldest written documents are barely between
4000 and 5000 years old, while man appeared at an
indeterminate moment, 3 or 5 million years ago.
• Man's interest in knowing his origin and the lack of
data caused the emergence of numerous theories to
explain the origin of man and language. None of
them has been able to explain in a reliable and
convincing way the long process of language
formation.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• The oldestCHILDREN
opinion is in religious doctrines. It was generally
considered that a god created man and gave him the ability to
speak. Or it was a later gift from the gods. Or was it a teaching
from aliens...
• The Greeks speculated whether there was an intelligent man
who invented language or whether it emerged naturally.
• Several theories try to derive the origin of language by
analyzing living and dead languages, primitive languages,
children's language or that of animals, as we have seen.
• None of these theories managed to unravel the origin of the
language.
• There are two opposing theories that propose:
1. A monogenetic origin: the language emerged in a single place
 THE LANGUAGE OF
and from CHILDREN
there it spread to the rest of the world.
2. A polygenetic origin: the language originated in several places
independently. The latter is the most accepted theory today.
• The two theories have their supporters since in languages
there are both differentiation tendencies (e.g.: the evolution
of Romance languages derived from Latin), and integration
trends (e.g.: the progressive disappearance of dialects in
languages). modern). But these theories contribute more to
the evolution than to the origin of the language.
• A whole series of theories supposes that in the beginning
there were sounds with which man expressed his emotions
(surprise, pain, joy, fear, disgust). They are called
“interjection theories” since they conclude that these were
 THE LANGUAGE OF
what firstCHILDREN
appeared in languages; With them, objects and
phenomena related to the respective emotions were later
designated.
• These theories are supported by the fact that so-called
primitive languages have a large number of interjections with
a precise meaning.
• Another group of theories assumes that man
first imitated the sounds that surrounded him
(those of animals, those of nature). They are
called “onomatopoeic theories” since they
maintain that onomatopoeia later designated
 THE LANGUAGE OF
CHILDREN
the respective objects and phenomena.
• Its supporters find support in the development
of children's language.
• The importance of gestures in primitive
language and the existence of a first stage
formed by gestures, prior to oral language, is
also noted.
• Other theories propose that the origin of the
language is found in the calls (or orders). These
would be what first appeared in the language,
 THE LANGUAGE OF
CHILDREN
responding to the need for communication in
group tasks.
• Černý proposes that it is possible to have an
approximate idea about the origin of
language, resorting to the combination of
Darwin's theory on the Evolution of Species,
Engels' theory on the Hominization Process
and Hockett's theory on the phase initial of
the language. However, he warns that it is
only a possible and unproven evolution.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• CHILDREN
About 5 million years ago, man's ancestors lived in trees, ate
vegetables, and were capable of handling food and some
primitive instruments.
• At the end of the Tertiary period, climatic changes were
recorded in East Africa that resulted in the decline of the tropical
forest and the adaptation of hominids to life on land.
• These adaptations included moving on the hind limbs (walking
upright), the liberation of the forelimbs to transport food and
instruments (weapons, tools) and to gesticulate, the liberation of
the mouth for the communicative act.
• Adverse conditions required hominids to stick together in the
face of danger and to obtain more food through hunting and
gathering.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• CHILDREN
For this they needed fundamental means of communication
(probably more similar to those of animals than to human
language).
• The evolution of work skills and later the division of labor
required the use of such means of communication that would
have already been a primitive form of language.
• According to Hockett (American linguist), the origin and
formation of this prelinguistic stage can be described as
follows:
• It must be assumed that man's ancestors had several sounds
that served to signal vital situations (food or danger).
• It often happened that in the same situation both “food” and
“danger” had to be pointed out. In these situations, a
 THE LANGUAGE OF
CHILDREN
composite signal probably arose, with which both
phenomena were reported at the same time.
• From this composite signal, the original signals were
differentiated into partial components that could be
combined.
• ABCD= food
• EFGH= danger
• ABGH=food and danger
• Combinable partial meanings
• AB= food
• CD= no danger
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• CHILDREN
GH=there is danger
• EF= no food
• This combination of meanings and sounds could appear in
other situations.
• In this way, an articulated system emerged, whose
components could be combined with each other.
• Its characteristic feature is productivity, since with the
combination of elements the possibility of growth of the
system increases.
• Articulated character and productivity are precisely the
fundamental properties of language and cannot be
compared in any communication system of other species.
 THE LANGUAGE OF
• CHILDREN
The entire process of language formation probably
lasted several million years.
• The size of the Neanderthal man's skull (he lived
between 700,000 and 400,000 years ago) proves that
he used a relatively developed language.
• Homo sapiens (in the last 30 or 40,000 years) had a
language that changed and continues to change only
in the amount of communications transmitted.
 LINGUISTIC EVOLUTION

• In the evolution of languages it is possible to observe a

series of regularities referring to certain groups of
languages and others that are general and refer to all
languages without exception.

• The most general of the laws that govern linguistic

evolution is the one that says that every living natural
language undergoes changes and that all its parts
(phonetics, vocabulary or grammar) are exposed to
these changes.
 LINGUISTIC EVOLUTION
• The different levels of the language do not evolve at the same
speed. The most profound changes occur in the lexicon
(where we can find very marked differences in two
consecutive generations of speakers).
• The most conservative level is grammar. Over a period of
several centuries, its changes are minimal.
• The speed of changes is not constant. We can see this
inequality in related languages (e.g.: Portuguese, Spanish,
French). This speed is linked to political and cultural changes.
• The evolution is also different in different linguistic
communities that are distant (e.g., peninsular Spanish,
American and currently North American).