Appunti Lingua Inglese 1 - English Language 1

English Language

What is linguistics?

Linguistics can be classified as the scientific study of language. We can study language in different ways, according to different perspectives, so by observable and verifiable observations and with reference to a particular theory.

How does linguistics work?

Regardless of their differences (English is a Germanic language, Italian is a Romance language), even though languages may differ in the alphabet, writing style, pronunciation or structure, they have universal properties. Languages can be translated into one another; otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to communicate and learn other languages. At a higher hierarchical level, we suppose that we can find common properties that enable languages to be translated (e.g., all languages have pronouns, verbs such as to be, to have, to do, basic verbs); overall, despite their differences they share some universal properties.

There are some languages that risk extinguishing, and there are efforts to preserve them. Language is a dynamic entity that is always evolving. We can analyze a language at a particular stage, but we cannot presuppose that the language of today will be the same as the language that there will be in 50 years. We cannot say that the language of today is the same as the one that was spoken 50 years ago. A language is always evolving in many different ways (pronunciation, creation of new words).

Social class differences, age differences, and gender differences are also reflected in language, for example, slang or linguistic varieties in the same language. When we study a language, we can rely on different elements, we can rely on our introspection and intuitions, but it is not sufficient because we can be influenced by our social and individual background and our own language (idiolect: the way each one of us speaks, the particular properties and characteristics that each one of us uses in one’s own speech). In linguistics, we deal with data and observations; with a hypothesis in mind, we observe the data to formulate hypotheses and see if our hypotheses are verified, and then we theorize in abstract our generalization (corpora: linguistic databases, that we can find on the internet, are very useful to analyze language).

Crucial distinctions in linguistics

• Speech vs. Writing: Before the invention of writing, language was only spoken, so spoken language is what comes first. The first writing system that was introduced is Sumerian cuneiform (3200 BC). Spoken language is what comes first; changes in the language come from spoken language first. When we write, we have more time to formulate our thoughts, we can be more careful and correct mistakes, we can decide to rewrite everything. Writing allows us to carefully think about what we want to say, to organize and arrange our ideas before putting them into words; it is more planned than spoken language. Spoken language is something that goes on instantly, following a direction, quite spontaneous; there are pauses, false terms, moments in which speakers overlap one another, messages are not always formulated as the speaker would have wanted. It is more spontaneous, less planned. Usually, spoken language tends to be richer than written language because it is the domain in which linguistic change happens; it can come from the realization of something, a mistake, or something that is considered strange, which is then adopted later by the linguistic community.
• Descriptive vs. Prescriptive: Descriptive linguistics is the majority of linguistic studies today; it involves describing observed linguistic facts based on data. The crucial difference between a descriptive study and a prescriptive study is that a descriptive study looks only at the data, simply describing what is seen, while a prescriptive study looks at language to dictate what is correct and what is incorrect. Prescriptivism has been the predominant way of looking at linguistics in earlier centuries, and it has been adopted to try to say what is right and what is wrong from a grammatical and lexical point of view (e.g., prescriptive authorities: Accademia della Crusca, RAE; in the UK there is not an authority like these). However, there needs to be a balance between the two, because some order, some notions of correctness are necessary to communicate; if not, everybody would use the rules they want.
• Synchronic vs. Diachronic: Language is an entity that is always changing. We can study language from a synchronic perspective that studies language at a theoretic X point in time and describes a state of the language at a current moment, describing a particular state of appearance at our time, the current moment. Diachronic linguistics deals with the historical study of language: the variation of language through time, within the same linguistic community or language; we can talk about the changes that happened in a language, this difference can be considered from various perspectives such as phonological, grammatical, and semantic.
• Langue vs. Parole: These are linguistic terms introduced by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the fathers of modern linguistics. Langue refers to the language system shared by a community of speakers, tending to be an abstract, impersonal phenomenon; it is the property, the ability that is possessed by all speakers of a particular language. Parole is the concrete act of speaking in actual situations by an individual speaker, dealing with the subjective concrete act of speaking. His idea was to treat language as an exact science, to develop a study of language as an exact science, so that people could be sure about the language. He believed that the right study of language should be the one about langue rather than parole, which is easy to lead to creativity, ambiguity, and different possibilities. On the other hand, langue seems to be something very abstract, ideal to study, which might lead to fewer problems.
• Competence vs. Performance: Another way to intend langue and parole, developed by another linguist, Chomsky. Competence refers to a person’s knowledge of their language, the system of rules of the language, so that they are able to produce and understand an indefinite number of sentences and recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities; it is the person’s abstract knowledge of the language. A speaker might be able to produce an indefinite number of sentences or words. Performance is the actual realization of language knowledge in concrete situations; language is seen as a set of specific utterances produced by language speakers, as encountered in a corpus (repertoire of linguistic data). It is what allows people to distinguish between correct and incorrect usage.
• Formalism vs. Functionalism: Formalism is the study of the abstract forms of language and their internal relations. It focuses on the forms of languages as evidence of universals, without considering how these forms work in communication and the ways of social life in different communities. Formal linguistics looks at language universals. All languages share some properties; it prefers the use of introspection and intuition, rather than looking at specific data of the language. It tries to produce rules for the formulation of correct sentences rather than looking at language in specific domains of usage or language as it is used in the real world. Language is viewed from the point of view of an abstract entity or as language used by an ideal speaker that wants to communicate to an ideal addressee. (Main representatives: Noam Chomsky with transformational/generative grammar) Functionalism refers to the study of the forms of languages in reference to their social function in communication. It considers the individual as a social being and investigates the way in which they acquire language and employ it to communicate with others in their social environment. Functionalism looks at language embedded in the social content; it considers the individual as a social being embedded in a context, a linguistic community, and analyzes language looking at the data. It examines language from the social function in communication and deals with the study of corpus data and pragmatic situations of language usage.

Reference grammar

• It includes almost all the rules in a language.
• It is used for getting specific details of a language, learning a language, and understanding how particular features are used (sound patterns, morphological, syntactic rules, etc.).
• Randolph Quirk (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. These grammars are meant to provide a picture of a particular language at a given time, giving a description of the language.

Pedagogical grammar

• Designed for teaching purposes, in order to teach correct usage in the easiest way possible, teaching what is right and what is wrong.
• For syllabus designers and language teachers.
• Based on usefulness and ease of learning.
• Exercises, explanations, descriptions.
• The contents and priorities change from one context to the next as different needs arise, prescribing the teaching of the most learnable aspects of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary.

Theoretical grammar

• Primary concern: answering the question ‘what is language?’, with reference to any language.
• Identifying and determining the basic constructs common to all human languages.
• Developing models of language to present an efficient explanation.
• Linguistic universals are sought in phonology, grammar, and semantics.
• Examples for universals: all languages have vowels such as /a/, or every language has pronouns like I, you, etc. This grammar compares different languages and looks at multiple languages together.

Symbolicity of language

Language is a semiotic system: semiotic is the broad domain which is called the science that studies signs, all signs. Language involves signs (i.e., entities standing for other entities). Signs are stable symbolic associations between a meaning and a form; whenever we give a name to an object this is not necessarily motivated, it is an arbitrary association (a sound is associated with a particular object). Signs in a language are represented by sequences of sounds, which can be transferred into visual signs or the gestural language of the deaf. Language can be considered as a symbolic entity, it is symbolic and semiotic. Signs are an association between a meaning and a form; De Saussure spoke of ‘signifiant and signifié’, ‘form and meaning, content’—two parts of the same linguistic sign. The signs of a language are represented by sequences of sounds that can be transferred into visual representation or encoded in other signs.

Basic concepts about language

• Language is symbolic: there is an arbitrary association between a sound or linguistic form and the meaning, not necessarily motivated.
• Every language is extremely complex: not that they are difficult, but they are the product of the interaction of multiple properties together.
• Despite its complexity, language is systematic.
• It is systematic on many levels: language has different levels all dependent on each other.
• Language varies systematically (from person to person, area to area, etc.); there is variation at every level of its structure.
• Languages are diverse.
• Despite their diversity, they have many universal properties.
• Languages change through time and in a systematic way; variation pervades every aspect of language (person to person, an area to another area), variations that we can find at different levels of the linguistic structure.

Variation in language

Variation in space

In a single speech community, sociolinguistics examines this variation. English can be considered as one language, but there are also various linguistic varieties (UK, USA, Australia, etc.); common properties but also differences in pronunciation, spelling, some words. Language spoken by different people, for example, slang spoken by young people; different pronunciation even in the same country, different dialects. Across languages, typology examines differences in linguistic families, in word order, in the way different languages form words.

Variation in time

In a speech community/language, historical linguistics studies how language varies through time in the same linguistic community and the changes that happen in a language in different periods. In an individual, language acquisition studies how children learn their mother tongue, giving an idea of what comes first, what is more basic for communication, but also the learning of a foreign language.

Language and creativity

Language has a great creativity potential. There is nothing in principle that cannot be encoded, provided no limit is placed on the complexity of utterances. Language creativity also triggers a potential for ambiguity; this creativity can lead to ambiguity, as some words can have more or less the same meaning, or one word can mean different things.

• Biuniqueness: one word=one meaning. The ideal for linguistic communications would be to have one word having exactly one meaning, making communication easier, but this would also be problematic from the point of view of the number of words that we have to know to communicate.
• Polysemy: one word=many meanings. Language used in a figurative way, that may be ambiguous but it’s easier to communicate because we can use fewer words. An example of polysemy (meanings related): See—Verb of Perception: I saw the car coming OR Verb of Cognition: I see your point / I do not see the problem; visual perception or cognition but the two meanings are related together.
• An example of homonymy (no clear relation among meanings): Bank—The rising ground bordering a lake, river, or sea forming the edge of a cut or hollow OR An establishment for the custody, loan, exchange, or issue of money OR A place where something is held available, esp. a depot for the collection or storage of a biological product (blood bank); same spelling, same word, same pronunciation, but completely different meanings.

What is language?

A language is a system of communication consisting of a set of sounds and written symbols used by the people of a particular country or region for communicating, a speech community to exchange information. Any act of verbal communication, be it oral or written, involves six basic elements. We have a speaker/addresser that wants to tell something to someone, so at the center of this schema, there is the message, the content which is communicated. On the other side, we have the hearer/addressee of the communication; the transfer of a content from a speaker to a receiver. We communicate through a channel that is the mode of communication (oral or written communication), for example, the telephone. The parts involved in the communication must share a code, the language they speak, a kind of norm or starting point for the communication, to understand each other. The model: we have the passage of sound waves from a speaker to a listener, represented by oral communication. We communicate to express something; the process begins with a speaker that wants to communicate something. The communicated content is the message, which must be converted into a signal. This signal is the articulation of words and the transfer of sound to the hearer, meaning is encoded into sounds, the speaker verbalizes their thought reproducing sounds through their articulatory organs; in this case, the channel is oral, the sounds arrive to the ears of the listener, who has to decode the meaning, understand what the other has said. When we communicate, we produce words; the sounds travel to the ear of the other person, who hears these sounds and decodes the meaning that the other person has produced, presupposing to understand the original message.

A basic model of communication

Meaning makes little sense except in a context of linguistic communication. The process begins with a speaker, who has something to communicate. Since messages cannot be transmitted directly in their initial form (or at least not reliably), they must be converted into a signal. Meaning is encoded in sounds produced by speakers by means of articulatory organs. Every mode of communication has a channel, through which the signal travels. Sounds are then transmitted through the air to the hearer, who perceives them through auditory processes. Once the signal has been received by the hearer, it has to be decoded to retrieve the original message.

Meaning and communication

The communication of a meaning is not necessarily the same thing as the exact words that we use, because, for example, we can be indirect, or the other person may not understand what we want to say. The same sentence can be used to affirm something, to ask a question, to deny, etc. The sentence also reveals the speaker’s attitude to, or the relationship, to the sentence they expressed.

Levels of linguistic organization

In the model, it seems that the speaker and the hearer play a marginal and instrumental role; actually, they are more important: they are the “leading actors” of any communicative situation. Also, saying something does not mean that the hearer always understands what we said. Giving words to the content doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the other person understands exactly the same thing that we have wanted to say. Communication should be considered a bi-directional activity, which is also deeply related to the social system in which we live, involving what the speaker said but also the interpretation that the listener gives to that message.

Linguistic subfields

Today’s language is a complex system presupposing the interaction of multiple levels of analysis and organization. How can we analyze language? Different fields and levels of analysis, but all linked together:

• Phonetics: It refers to the sounds of a language, as they are actually realized: how they are produced, their physical properties, how they are perceived (articulatory and auditory/acoustic phonetics) (phones).
• Phonology: It refers to the sound system of a language and how sounds are organized and differentiated.