SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

BACHELOR OF SECONDARY EDUCATION

Major: ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS
COURSE MODULE COURSE UNIT WEEK
2 2 2
Introduction into the Study of Language and Basic Linguistic Principles

 INTRODUCTION
Language plays a very important part in our lives. The vital need for humans to
communicate makes language at the center of every social and cultural communities. It
has been said that language directly influences in the Western intellectual history
specifically in the aspects of philosophy, cognition, and transmission of ancient culture.
This module will provide you an orientation to the study of language—linguistics, its
branches and sub-branches and the basic principles employed in the study of
linguistics.
In this module you are to:

have a deeper understanding about language;

know the different functions of language; and

gain a deeper sense of understanding about the study of
linguistics and its main branches.
 UNIT EXPECTED OUTCOMES
At the end of this module, the learners will be able to:

Cognitive Define language its design features and functions

Affective Appreciate the difference in human language vs. animal communication
Device efficient mind mapping tools for effectively understanding the study of
Psychomotor
language and its basic principles through concept maps.
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 PRE-TASK

Think of what language is, kindly write at least 4 definitions of language and explain
each in 2-3 sentences. Write your answers on the space provided.

Definition 1:

Definition 2:

Definition 3:
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Definition 4:

STUDY GUIDE

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
There are various definitions of language from different linguists and
scholars among them are the following:

According to Sapir (1921), language is purely human and it is a non-instinctive

method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desire through voluntarily produced
symbols.

According to Finocchiaro, (1965) language is a system of arbitrary vocal

symbols that permit all the people belonging to a particular culture or people who
have learned the system of the culture to communicate or interact.

Pei (1966) stated on the other hand that language is a system of

communication by sound, operating through the organs of speech, among
members of a given community, and using vocal symbols possessing arbitrary
conventional meaning.
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All these being said, Wardhaugh’s (1972) definition has been the generally
accepted definition of language. Language according to Wardhaugh’s definition is a
system of arbitrary vocal symbols which are used for human communication.
The rules regulate the use
rhythm

To explain these concepts, it has been said that language is a system since
necessary language elements are always combined and rules are always followed
whenever we produce language. For example, “ytvn” would not be understood as
something which conveys a meaning since this word is just a mere combination of
consonants and does not prompt any of our vocabulary knowledge. On the other hand
the phrase “where childrens the” would automatically be perceived as both
syntactically and grammatically wrong. First, since our knowledge on plural forms will
tell us that children is already the plural form of the word “child” and that there is no
such word as “childrens”. Secondly since we know that the arrangement of words in a
phrase was not followed which makes it incomprehensible

Secondly, the fact that different language have different words for the same
object is a good illustration of the arbitrary nature of language. This also explain the
symbolic nature of language: words are just symbols; they are associated with objects,
actions, ideas, etc, by convention.
This could be better understood through a famous line from Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet saying:

“A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.

It explains how the language we know shapes the way we see and perceive
things. Since the way we call things are commonly dictated by how it is conventionally
used in context. Perhaps in the statement, it will be useful to say that since the word
“rose” may be called differently in other languages, but nevertheless, this terms of
naming does not make the sweet smell of a rose different from the other.
Oral Culture “Orality”
Third, the language is said to be vocal since sound acts as the primary medium
for all languages to be produced and conveyed no matter how well developed their
writing systems are. All evidence points to the fact that writing systems came into
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being much later than the spoken forms and that they are only attempts to capture
sounds and meaning on paper. “children – spoken language – read and write”

DESIGN FEATURES OF A LANGUAGE

These refer to the quintessential characteristics of human language, which can
distinguish any human language system from any non-human language system.

1. Arbitrariness
- It is the feature proposed by Saussure which states that the forms of
linguistic signs bear no natural (logical, intrinsic) relationship to their meaning.
It takes into account the fact that different sounds are used to refer to the
same object in different languages.

At the lexical level language is arbitrary but at a syntactic level, the language is
not arbitrary.

Example situations proving that language is not arbitrary at a syntactic

level:
(a) He came in and sat down.
(b) He sat down and came in.
(c) He sat down after he came in.

The concept of arbitrariness and conventionality of language are

commonly interrelated.
2. Duality
- This pertains to the property of languages having two levels of structure.

First Level : Sounds ( Lower/ Basic Level/ Secondary Level)

Second Level: Meaning (Higher Level/ Primary)
Phonemes /b/ /a/ /g/
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Duality explains that when sounds are combined with one another they
perform meaningful units called “words”. The secondary unit sounds are
meaningless while the primary are distinct and have identifiable meaning.
The dictionary defines “word’ as “a unit of language”, while Crystal (1997,
p. 440) defines a word as “the smallest unit of grammar that can stand on its
own as a complete utterance, separated with spaces in written language.”

3. Creativity
Creativity as a design feature of a language, explains how languages can
be used to send messages we might never heard or said before. This design
feature is unique to human language as it makes the possible construction as
well as interpretation of new signals by its users.
Moreover, it explains how users can use words in new ways to mean
new things, and can be instantly understood by people who have never
come across that usage before. Under creativity, language is also described to
be resourceful because of the combination of its recursive and dual nature.
These two, being recursive and dual in nature provides the potential to create an
infinite/ endless number of sentences.
This is very well explained in the context of Chomsky’s (1958) statement
“Limited rules can produce unlimited sentences”.
The concept of creativity could be better explained through the following
sentences:
1. This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house
that Jack built.
2. He bought a book which was written by a teacher who taught in a
school which was known for its graduates who are competent.
There are so many information provided in the sentence when in fact in
the first sentence it could be just “This is the cat that killed the rat” or in the
second sentence could be as simple as , “He bought a book”. Through the
creativity in the language that we are using, we are able to inject as many
information that we want to convey
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Users can understand and produce words or sentences they have never heard
before. Every day we sent messages that have never been sent before and
understand novel messages. Much of what we say and hear for the first time; yet
there seems no problem of understanding.
4. Displacement
This design feature explains the process by which human languages enable
their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present
(in time and space) at the moment of communication.
Example: We can refer to Confucius, or the North Pole, even though the first
has been dead for over 2550 years and the second is situated far away from us.
 This explains how human language is different from the animal
communication.
Animal communication is normally under “immediate stimulus
control.

Example: a warning cry of a bird instantly announces danger.

Human language is stimulus-free. What humans are talking about need not be
triggered by any external stimulus in the world or any internal state. It is being said that
human language enables us to communicate about things that do not exist or do not yet
exist.
Displacement benefits human beings by giving us the power to handle
generalizations and abstractions.

5. Discreteness
Speakers can identify the sound segments in the words of their language. It is a
structural feature of language that words are made up of elemental sounds combined
through rule governed ways. In the same way, larger and complex messages can be
broken down into its smaller and discrete parts.
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This property tells us the each of the languages we are using are composed of
sounds in its primary level. These sounds form words and sentences and the fact that
we hear the speech as a sequence and combination of individual sounds, words and
sentences are what sets us apart from any other form of organism.

Example: beat - /b/-/e/-/a/-/t/

6. Productivity
The human capacity for linguistic inventiveness makes repeated sentences
unlikely, and an English speaker is capable of understanding all the English
sentences in a lifetime’s reading. It is through productivity that out of the relatively few
elements and rules in a language system, humans can produce and understand a
limitless number of sentences by combining and recombining the same relatively few
elements in relatively few patterns.
Thus, through this it is being said that the great hallmark of the human
language lies in the ability of its users to generate and understand infinite number
of sentences through continuous combination and recombination of few elements and
structures.
Examples:
Beauty -- Beautiful -- Beautifully

7. Cultural Transmission
Language is culturally transmitted as it is passed on from one generation to
another through teaching and learning rather than instinct.

Aside from the following, Hockett (1960) have also enumerated additional design
features of a language.

1. Vocal-Auditory Channel
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- Communication occurs by the producer speaking and the receiver hearing.

2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception

- signal travels out in all directions from the speaker but can be localized in
space by the hearer. It is being perceived by receiving listeners as emanating
from a particular direction and point of origin.

3. Rapid fading
- Once spoken, the signal rapidly disappears and is no longer available for
inspection. This is sometimes referred to as the “transitoriness” of language.
This explains the temporal nature of signals by which humans immediately
perceive and interpret it immediately at their time of utterance sicnet they are
not recoverable.

4. Interchangeability
- The interlocutory roles of ‘speaker’ and ‘listener’ to alternate between the
conversation’s participants via turn taking within the context of linguistic
communication.

5. Total Feedback
- Speakers can access everything about their productions. This allows them to
continuously monitor their actions and output to ensure they are relaying what
they are trying to express.

6. Specialization
- The amount of energy in the signal is unimportant; a word means the same
whether it is whispered or shouted. Language signals are intentional, and not
just a side effect of another behaviour.

7. Semanticity
- Specific language signals represent specific meanings; the associations are
‘relatively fixed’.

8. Learnability
- The speaker of one language can learn another.
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LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS
This refers to an action that a language actually does rather than their literal
meaning. The functions that a language play is inseparable from the context these are
used at.
For example:
If you came late and your teacher asks you “What time is it?”, this question does
not mean that you have to tell the exact time but it tells that you are late and it entails
that you need to explain to your teacher.

According to Halliday, there are three social-functional needs to which the

language responds to:
1. To be able to construct experiences in terms of what is going around us and
inside us.
2. To interact with the social world by negotiating social roles and attitudes.
3. To be able to create messages with which personal meanings are packed with
including themes, as well as new or given information.

From these three, Halliday (1978) constructed the three metafunctions of

language.
1. Ideational Function- This refers to a model of relationship or logical relations that
users of the language can establish upon using the language.

2. Interpersonal Function - Used in order to establish and maintain social

relationships.

3. Textual Function – To create relevance to the context.

Seven Language Functions

1. Informative
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Language is used to convey messages, which is to inform somebody of
some information. Declarative sentences are employed to realize the function.
One of the features of this function is the proposition has the true or false value.
e.g. Water boils at 90ºC. Water boils at 100ºC
2. Interpersonal
By far the most important sociological use of language, and by which
people establish and maintain their status in a society, “polite expressions,
humble words”, expression of identity. For example, the ways in which people
address others (Dear Sir, Dear Professor, Johnny), and refer to themselves
(yours, your obedient servant ) indicate the various grades of interpersonal
relations.

3. Performative function
This concept originates from the philosophical study of language
represented by Austin and Searle, whose theory now forms the back-bone of
pragmatics. For example,
I now declare the meeting open.
I bet you two pounds it will rain tomorrow.

It is to change the social status of persons, as in marriage ceremonies,

the sentencing of criminals, the blessing of children, the naming of a ship at a
launching ceremony, and the cursing of enemies. (formal and ritualized)

4. Emotive function
To change the emotional status of an audience for or against someone or
something: swear words, obscenities, involuntary verbal reactions to beautiful art
or scenery; conventional words/phrases.
5. Phatic communion
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It refers to the social interaction of language. Small, seemingly
meaningless topic to maintain a comfortable relationship between people without
involving any factual content, “health, weather”. Expressions that help define and
maintain interpersonal relations, such as slangs, jokes, jargons, ritualistic
exchanges, switches to social and regional dialects.

6. Recreational function
To use language for the sheer joy of using it, such as a baby’s babbling, a
chanter’s chanting, verbal duelling, poetry writing.
7. Metalingual function
Language can be used to talk about itself. It is sometimes called
“reflexivity”.
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Linguistics
Linguistics can be defined as the scientific or systematic study of language. It is a
science in the sense that it scientifically studies the rules, systems and principles of
human languages.
Linguistics has two main purposes
One is that it studies the nature of language and tries to establish a theory of
language and describes languages in the light of the theory established.
The other is that it examines all the forms of language in general and seeks a
scientific understanding of the ways in which it is organized to fulfill the needs it serves
and the functions it performs in human life.
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Scope of linguistics
Microlinguistics includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and
pragmatics.
Macrolinguistics includes sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, stylistics,
discourse analysis, computational linguistics, cognitive linguistics, applied linguistics,
etc.

PHONETICS
Phonetics studies speech sounds, including:
 Articulatory Phonetics- Production of speech that is how speech sounds
are actually made.
 Acoustic Phonetics- Transmission and receipt of speech :
 Auditory Phonetics- Perception of the transmitted sound by human brain.
PHONOLOGY
 Studies the sound system of languages.
 Distinctive sounds within a language,
 Nature of sound systems across the languages.

Phoneme (from the Greek:, phonema, "a sound uttered") is the smallest segmental unit
of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances.

MORPHOLOGY
 Studies the formation of words from smaller units called morphemes.
 Morpheme: minimal meaningful language unit.
 Graphemes: written symbol to represent speech.

SYNTAX
 Rules that govern the formation of sentences from words.
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 Syntactic phrases include:
 Noun Phrase : a tall man, the bus
 Verb Phrase : roam around, hit the ball
 Prepositional Phrase : in the class, at the club

 Adjective Phrase : Very good, nice girl

SEMANTICS
 Study of language meaning.
 Concerned with not only the meaning of words, but also that of morphemes and
of sentences.

PRAGMATICS
 Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.
 How language is used to communicate rather than how it is internally structured.