Lingua e traduzione inglese II

Module 1 – Language, mind and social interaction

Definition of linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It regards the way people use that code in social interaction. The linguist Edward Sapir asserts: «Language is a guide to ‘social reality’». This explains why the systematic study of language necessarily regards both the way in which language structures thoughts in the human mind and the way in which language serves social interaction.

Language and the human mind (Noam Chomsky)

The most compelling reason to study language is that it is tempting to regard language as a ‘mirror of mind’. We may discover abstract principles that govern its structure and use. A human language is a system of remarkable complexity. A normal child acquires this knowledge effortlessly. The language is a mirror of mind in a deep and significant sense. It is a product of human intelligence, created anew in each individual by operations that lie far beyond the reach of will or consciousness.

A synonym is a word that is similar in meaning to another word. It expresses a sense relation of equivalence between the meanings of two lexical words. Example: attempt – try.

Language as cognition

In Chomsky’s Transformational-Generative Grammar, the aim of linguistics is principally interested in understanding more about language in order to understand more about the process of the human mind. Chomsky starts from the observation that although different groups of people speak different languages, all human languages are similarly governed by common rules, or principles, that are universal. This means that languages differ from each other only at the level of their surface structure, but their deep structure is the same, reflecting the general rules of a universal linguistic system typical of the human species. Chomsky defines it as an innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD) programmed in the human brain. The LAD provides a series of common grammatical principles, or Universal Grammar (UG), and their realizations as variable parameters to be adapted to the varying settings of the different languages. In Chomsky’s perspective, language is a cognitive, abstract knowledge developing in the human mind completely detached from the social contexts in which it is used.

Language and the human society

Halliday on ‘Language Functions’

Language serves for the expression of ‘content’: that is, of the speaker’s experience of the real world, including the inner world of his own consciousness. We may call this the ideational function. Language serves to establish and maintain social relations, by means of the interaction between one person and another. Through this function, which we may refer to as interpersonal, social groups are delimited, and the individual is identified and reinforced, since by enabling him to interact with others’ language also serves in the expression and development of his own personality.

Language as communication

In Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar, the purpose of linguistics is the study of language as social semiotic, as a system of signs that have been developed to serve the communicative needs of people living in a social context. Halliday intends language not as a biological evolution of human beings’ need to communicate with each other within their own communities. This means that language has evolved within a specific community, which fulfils three main functions:

• Ideational Function - People thinking with language in order to interpret experience.
• Interpersonal Function - People acting with language in order to achieve interpersonal communication.
• Textual Function - The linguistic organization of a message.

The experientialist perspective

A more recent Cognitive-Functional approach to grammar, informed by the Experientialist view in Cognitive Linguistics, has to some extent succeeded in bringing together these two theories under a common rationale. To Cognitive-Functional linguists, language is systematically grounded in human cognition since it is a conceptual system that emerges from people’s everyday experience of their own physical and sociocultural environments.

Module 2 – Synchronic and diachronic studies of languages

Saussure vs. Sweetser

There are two principal trends in linguistic studies:

• Synchronic linguistics - It studies the present state of a language. It supports the concept of arbitrariness. Saussure said “an auditory image becomes associated with a concept”. This view brought Saussure to formulate his theory of the sign that “results from associating a signified with a signifier, but the bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, is unmotivated.
• Diachronic linguistics - It studies the evolution of a language over time and maintains that the sounds of languages originated from a non-arbitrary ‘common root’ reproducing people’s initial physical experience of the world through the five senses: hearing, touch, taste, smell, and sight. (The noise of a dog in various languages derives from the same original root sound /b/. Cognitive linguist Eve Sweetser argues: “Generative grammar has rigidly separated synchronic semantic structure from historical change.

The nature of English phonetics

An experiential view of speech sounds

Saussure maintained that «an auditory image [signifier] becomes associated with a concept [signified]», he believed such an association is totally arbitrary. Experientialism, instead, would take as an example of non-arbitrary auditory image-schemata the case of onomatopoeic words. These are words that reproduce the sound of the thing or action they stand for, they evoke first an auditory schema of that thing or action and the mental image, or visual schema of that very thing or event. English is a typical onomatopoeic language. The cognitive and communicative advantage of onomatopoeic sounds is that they require minimal mental effort for:

• Speaker - To represent this in his/her mind the thing he/she indicates by producing a word.
• Hearer - To perceive and understand the meaning of that word.

This onomatopoeic quality helps interlinguistic communication; when the meanings of words are not known, they will be understood thanks to sounds.

English phonetics

Phonetics is the area of linguistics that studies the articulatory and acoustic properties of the sounds of a language, the way in which sounds are produced by speakers and perceived by hearers. There are specific graphical symbols used to represent the sounds of any language. There are some characteristics in the English language:

• A single letter of the alphabet is used to represent different sounds.
  E.g.: Letter s = sounds of /z/ (dogs) and /s/ (cats)
  Letter t = sound of /t/ (tin) and /ʃ/ (nation)
• A single sound is represented by different letters of the alphabet.
  E.g.: /k/ sound orthographically represented in four ways:
  1. Letter k (kit)
  2. Letter ck (back)
  3. Letter c (cat)
  4. Letter ch (choir)
• Gaps between written and pronounced words. There are:
  1. Homophonic words (written differently but pronounced in the same way)
  E.g.: rain (pioggia) and reign (regno) pronounced as /reIn/
  Night (notte) and knight (cavaliere) pronounced as /naIt/
  2. Homographic words (written in the same way but pronounced differently)
  E.g.: live /liv/ (vivere) and live /laiv/ (dal vivo)
  Lead /li:d/ (condurre) and lead /led/ (piombo)

To solve these kinds of problems, linguists have elaborated the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that contains one symbol for each sound or phoneme. These sounds make part of the Standard English, represented by phonemic symbols graphically enclosed in oblique strokes //. Allophones are different realizations of the same phoneme, depending on the different varieties of the same language.

The embodiment of English consonant sounds

We shall start by examining the way in which English consonant sounds are physically produced in the human vocal tract. We articulate consonant sounds when we partially or completely obstruct in some point of our vocal tract the airflows out of our mouth. If the air flows without obstruction, then we articulate vowel sounds.

Consonants can be:

• Voiced – when the vocal cords vibrate (b)
• Voiceless – when the vibration of the vocal cords is inhibited (p)

Consonant sounds are described in terms of:

• Places of articulation, regarding the anatomical parts of the vocal tract involved in the articulation of a sound (bilabial, interdental, alveolar, lateral, alveopalatal, velar, or glottal parts)
• Manners of articulation, regarding the way in which sounds are articulated (stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids, and glides)

Consonant sounds are represented by phonemic symbols:

Stops

Stops are consonant phonemes produced when the flow of air from the lungs is completely obstructed at some points in the vocal tract.

Minimal pairs

• Voiceless:
  Bilabial: /p/ as in pin /pin/
  Alveolar: /t/ as in tin /tin/
  Velar: /k/ as in coal /kəʊl/
• Voiced:
  Bilabial: /b/ as in bin /bin/
  Alveolar: /d/ as in din /din/
  Velar: /g/ as in goal /gəʊl/

Fricatives

Fricatives are consonant phonemes produced when the airflow passes through a narrow aperture of the vocal tract. The noise is like a friction.

• Voiceless:
  Labiodental: /f/ as in fast /fa:st/
  Interdental: /θ/ as in thin /θin/
  Alveolar: /s/ as in sink /sɪŋk/
  Alveopalatal: /ʃ/ as in she /ʃi:/
  Glottal: /h/ produces an aspiration
• Voiced:
  Labiodental: /v/ as in vast /va:st/
  Interdental: /ð/ as in this /ðis/
  Alveolar: /z/ as in zinc /zɪŋk/
  Alveopalatal: /ʒ/ as in pleasure /pleʒə*/

Affricates

Affricates begin as stops and continue as fricatives.

• Voiceless:
  Alveopalatal: /tʃ/ as in chin /tʃin/
• Voiced:
  Alveopalatal: /dʒ/ as in gin /dʒin/

Nasals

Nasals are all voiced. The flow of the air is conveyed into the nasal cavity.

• Bilabial: /m/ as in make /meɪk/
• Alveolar: /n/ as in name /neɪm/
• Velar: /ŋ/ as in song /sɒŋ/

Liquids

Liquids are sounds articulated with the tongue-tip raised between the teeth ridge and the hard palate.

• Voiced:
  Lateral alveolar: /l/ as in let /let/
  Nonlateral alveolar: /r/ as in red /red/

Glides

Glides are semivowel sounds since they are considered half-way between consonants and vowels.

• Voiced:
  Alveopalatal: /j/ as in yes /jes/
  Labialized velar: /w/ as in well /wel/

Consonant allophones

The consonant sounds produced by ‘physically’ and ‘vocally’ are not phonemes, but allophones.

• The phoneme, representing the idealization of a sound, and
• Its allophones, representing various realizations of the same sound.

Chomsky and Halle notice that this distinction between an idealized representation of a sound and its actual speech realizations are connected with Chomsky’s distinction between competence (an idealization of language) and performance (the actual use of language). We prefer to consider this distinction in the light of Halliday’s Functionary theory of language, as a way of:

• Representing speech sounds to our mind in terms of phonemes, as an expression of the ideational function of English, developed as part of the social semiotic of this language;
• Analysing speech uses as actual uses of language in terms of allophones, as an expression of the interpersonal function of the English language.

The allophone is the realization of a phoneme according to:

• The phonetic environment in which the phoneme occurs;
• The different varieties of the same language;
• The different languages when acoustic sounds are coded as distinct phonemes in one language and as allophones of the same phoneme in another.

The embodiment of English vowel sounds

Vowels are articulated with the vocal tract more or less open to regulate the emitted sound. The vocal tract is never obstructed because we would produce consonant sounds. Vowel sounds are classified as:

• Short (or lax), long (or tense), and reduced (depending on the shape of the opening in the vocal tract);
• High, mid, or low (depending on their more or less closeness of the tongue to the hard palate);
• Front or back (depending on the position of the tongue-tip; toward the front of the mouth, or the back);
• Rounded (the lips are protruded);
• Pure vowels or diphthongs.

A. Pure vowels

Short (lax) Vowels

In these vowel sounds, the centre of the tongue is more or less close to the palate:

• /ɪ/ as in bit /bɪt/
• /e/ as in bed /bed/
• /æ/ as in bad /bæd/
• /ʊ/ as in full /fʊl/
• /ʌ/ as in but /bʌt/
• /ɒ/ as in shot /ʃɒt/

Long (Tense) Vowels

These vowels are longer in sound than the short vowels. Length is phonetically signalled by /:/

• /i:/ as in beat /bi:t/
• /a:/ as in bar /ba:r/
• /ɔ:/ as in short /ʃɔ:t/
• /u:/ as in fool /fu:l/
• /ɜ:/ as in bird /bɜ:d/

Reduced Vowel

/ə/ (called schwa) is the unstressed variant of stressed vowels.

• /ə/ as in admit /əd’mɪt/, never /’nevə*/

B. Diphthongs

These sounds begin with a vowel and end with another vowel.

• /eɪ/ as in day /deɪ/
• /aɪ/ as in my /maɪ/
• /ɔɪ/ as in boy /bɔɪ/
• /əʊ/ as in go /gəʊ/
• /aʊ/ as in loud /laʊd/
• /ɪə/ as in here /hɪə*/
• /eə/ as in air /eə*/
• /ʊə/ as in cruel /krʊəl/

Module 3 – Language in socio-cultural context

Language as a social identity

Diatopic and Diastratic Variations

Language variation is classified into varieties, dialects, and accents.

• Varieties - General variations occurring within the code of the same language (British and American varieties of English).
• Dialects - Local, regional varieties that differ from the standard language code in relation to morphology, lexicon, syntax, and phonology.
• Accents - Regional varieties of a language that differ from the standard code only in relation to phonology. Variation in accent also has a social dimension. In England, for example, the prestige accent is the Standard English also called Received Pronunciation.

Language variation can be summarized into two main types:

• Diatopic Variation, depending on the place when it occurs.
• Diastratic Variation, depending on the social status of its speaker.

Therefore, we can say that allophones mark the speaker’s identity.

Pidgin and Creole Varieties

A pidgin variety is a simplified version of a non-native language that developed in colonial contexts and is used by indigenous populations in situations of trade or official/bureaucratic contacts. A creole variety is a language developed from a pidgin by acquiring a more complex grammar. Pidgin and creole speakers refuse to conform to the standard-language variety because they consider it as ‘the language of the colonizers’, whereas they perceive pidgin and creole varieties as expressions of their own national and socio-cultural identities.

In the two examples of pidgin/creole varieties of English, it is possible to notice that the Nigerian woman’s pidgin accent is rendered by substituting all the interdental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ with their corresponding stops /t/ and /d/, and by eliminating all the reduced vowels, phonetically signalled by the indefinite schwa /ə/ sound. In the Sierra Leonean man’s Krio (creole) accent, it is principally reproduced by the aspiration recurring in almost every word-transcription, and signalled by the glottal fricative /h/. The characteristics of the Krio dialect are reproduced both lexically and syntactically.

Acculturation: is the process by which people get adapted to a new culture by ‘internalizing’ its system of thought and beliefs together with its system of communication through its language. People who acculturate to a new language have an integrative motivation. If they want to mark their socio-cultural and psychological distance from the dominant social group who imposes its own language on them, then pidginization and creolization processes prevail. Acculturation processes, however, often may become real fixations for people who feel the urge to identify themselves with the dominant culture for economic and social reasons. Acculturation is part of a larger phenomenon called Passing, which occurs when people represent themselves differently from the way they actually appear to be.

English prepositions

Prepositions: Physical/Experiential Interaction with the Spatial Environment

The basic meaning of prepositions is spatial – it has evolved during the pre-linguistic stage of cognition, when the earliest human beings became conscious of their physical interaction in space with the concrete, natural environment. From this interaction, human beings developed their own cognitive schemata of movement and position.

Standard English has the semantic categories of ‘movement’ and ‘position’ linguistically realized by prepositions.

Prepositions of Movement

• From (indica provenienza ‘da’)
• To (destinazione – ‘a’)
• At (‘a’ – giungere a destinazione) Usually, I arrive at the station early.
• On (‘su’ – breve movimento in salita)