INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS

Assignment

1. Make comprehensive commentaries/discussions on the following:

Language is a very important aspect in our everyday life. Ever since we were just a
little kid it already played a great role in our growth, through language we were able
to communicate, make friends, earn knowledge and understanding the things that
happens in our society. A language can seem as a normal and natural thing but it is
very essential in our daily living. We always say that no man is an island, this
thought is also very related to our language, without language we are nothing.
Linguistics is the systematic study of the structure and evolution of human language,
and it is applicable to every aspect of human endeavor.Linguists investigate how
people acquire their knowledge about language, how this knowledge interacts with
other cognitive processes, how it varies across speakers and geographic regions,
and how to model this knowledge computationally. They study how to represent the
structure of the various aspects of language (such as sounds or meaning), how to
account for different linguistic patterns theoretically, and how the different
components of language interact with each other. Many linguists collect empirical
evidence to help them gain insight into a specific language or languages in general.
They may conduct research by interacting with children and adults in schools, in the
field, and in university labs.
Linguistic is the body of science that deals with language.
 What is language? Why is it important?
 What is linguistics?
 Definitional properties and universals of human language.
There are six properties of language, these are arbitrariness, cultural transmission,
discreteness, displacement, duality, and productivity.
Cultural transmission: Infants are born without an ability to use the language of
their societies. By observing and listening carefully for the first few years, those
children learn the unique usages of the language of their culture. This is why it is
crucial to talk often to even the youngest children and to engage them as much as
possible in conversation.
Arbitrariness: Arbitrariness of language is the fact that the symbols we use to
communicate meaning to not have any natural form or meaning in and of
themselves. Why is a kiss called a kiss in English? There is nothing that connects this
group of letters and sounds to the thing we recognize as an act of affection. In
Swedish, this same combination of letters can mean urine. Human language is
formed around arbitrary combinations of sounds to create meaning. So now, why
does a kiss have different meaning in different places? It is because we give it a
meaning, we call a certain thing or happening as a kiss because we implied a
definition to it.
Displacement: Human language isn't simply limited to describing what is tangible in
the present. It can be used to describe or imagine things by people who are not in
that immediate situation. This allows for humans to discuss history and to imagine a
future. Displacement of language refers to the ability of human language to
communicate throughout time and across space. In animals, language is primarily an
exchange between stimulus and response — the meaning conveyed by animal
 language only works in context. When a dog barks, it is in response to whatever
prompted the barking, and that bark can't really be used to express its meaning
before or after the event. In human language, however, we are able to talk about
things that happened a long time ago or have not yet happened. We might even read
books produced hundreds of years ago and be able to make sense of them.
Productivity: Humans can use combinations of sounds to create an infinite number
of new words, expressions, and sentences. As their worlds and experiences shift,
humans can adapt and create new ways to use language to communicate those
changes.Productivity is a feature of human language which enables us to combine
symbols (words, sounds, phrases) in new ways to express particular ideas. In my
studies of the evolution of language, I heard an example that I think really expresses
the nature of productivity. The form of language for our closest evolutionary cousin,
the chimpanzee, is very fixed. Only one meaning can be conveyed at a time and it is
in response to stimuli. If a chimpanzee were to come across a very tasty-looking
bunch of bananas that were unfortunately on fire, instinct would determine how the
chimp would call to its troop. The chimpanzee would either have to produce the call
which implies food is available for eating, or the call to warn others of danger. The
chimp might be able to create the "food" call immediately before or after the
"danger" call, but they cannot combine them to express the idea that food is on fire.
If we, as humans, came across the same flaming bunch of bananas, we would be
using productive language in telling our friends that there are some flaming but
otherwise tasty-looking bananas nearby.
Discreteness: All of the sounds we use in language are distinct, and those sounds
create meaning. In the word pig, there are three distinct sounds, and each one is
needed to fully convey the meaning of the pink farmyard animal. The way language
combines distinct sounds in ways to create meaning is a human feature of language
usage. Discreteness in language describes the fact that human language is composed
of sets of distinct sounds. One sound on its own may convey one meaning, multiple
sounds combined in a particular order convey a different meaning. Even repeated
sounds have a particular meaning!
Duality: Language is organized at two levels simultaneously. There are particular
sounds of a language which users understand, such as the sounds for w, i, n, and d.
This is the phonological function of language. At the same time, the way those letters
are arranged creates meaning. If we arranged the letters wdni, there is no meaning.
Yet if we rearrange them to create wind, the syntax is clear (and actually differs
depending on the way the i is pronounced). Both the sounds of the symbols and the
way they are arranged create the organization that brings meaning to language.
Duality describes the human ability to produce language in multiple forms. We can
both write the word table and say it out loud, with both evoking the same idea of a
table.
 Features of llanguage
The five main components of language are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax,
and context. Along with grammar, semantics, and pragmatics, these components
work together to create meaningful communication among individuals.
Grammar is a set of rules for generating logical communication. All languages have a
grammar, and native speakers of a language have internalized the rules of that
language’s grammar. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that may cause a
change of meaning within a language but that doesn’t have meaning by itself. A
morpheme is the smallest unit of a word that provides a specific meaning to a string
of letters (which is called a phoneme). There are two main types of morpheme: free
 morphemes and bound morphemes. A lexeme is the set of all the inflected forms of a
single word. Syntax is the set of rules by which a person constructs full sentences.
Semantics is the study of sentence meaning; pragmatics is the study of sentence
meaning in context.

2. Give at least five (5) giants in the field of Linguistics citing their
significant contributions that have significant bearing in the existing
corpus of knowledge.

. Roman Jakobson: Distinctive features

Russian-born linguist and literary theorist Roman Jakobson had many

influential ideas about language; most remarkably, he changed the way
scholars studied phonology, the sound structure of language. Specifically,
he proposed the idea of distinctive features, which suggests that all sounds
of speech are marked by binary contrasts which can be described and
quantified. The difference between “p” and “b”, for instance, is that “b”
uses our vocal chords (it’s voiced), whereas “p” does not (it’s unvoiced).
Similarly, “b” and “m” are the same, except in “m”, air comes out of the
nose (it’s nasal), whereas in “b”, it does not (try it!). Though the idea of
distinctive features has been questioned in recent years, it allowed
linguistics to classify the sounds of languages in an organized, hierarchical
structure, which had previously been impossible.

Edward Sapir (1884 - 1939): Linguistic relativity

Edward Sapir was a linguistic anthropologist whose thorough classification

of indigenous American languages is still widely used today. Sapir is most
famous, however, for a concept known as linguistic relativity, which he
developed with his student, Benjamin Whorf. This hypothesis, in its
strongest form, claims that the language one speaks drastically influences
the way in which one perceives the world. This hypothesis has been largely
dismissed by modern linguists, but caused significant discussion and
consideration about the link between language and culture.

Noam Chomsky (1928 - ): Universal grammar

linguists_image5
Image of Noam Chomsky via Andrew Rusk/ Wikipedia

Probably the best-known name on this list, Noam Chomsky is famous for
many things. But within the realm of linguistics, he’s most famous for his
idea of universal grammar, which poses that all languages have the same
underlying structure, and simply use different words and sounds on the
surface. Humans, Chomsky claims, are biologically equipped with a
language acquisition device, which endows us with the innate ability to
learn language.

Eve Clark (1942 - ): First language acquisition

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Image of Eve Clark via Stanford University

Users of Immersia are most likely interested in learning a second (or third,
or fourth!) language. However, in order to understand how it’s best to learn
a second language, we must also understand how we acquire our first
language. Eve Clark is a pioneer in the field of first language acquisition,
and has revolutionized the way in which we understand how children pick
up language. From babbling to coherent conversation, Eve Clark proposes
theories and cites evidence that sheds insight into the mystifying topic of
how children learn their first language so successfully and efficiently.
Ultimately, this information will help us understand how to maximize
efficiency in second language acquisition, too.

Steven Pinker (1954 - ): Popularizing linguistics

Steven Pinker, Psychologist/Cognitive Scientist, Cold Spring Harbor, NY

6.1.09

Image of Steven Pinker via Simon Fraser University / flickr

In his wildly popular books such as The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker
argues for a biological basis of language acquisition. As the title suggests,
he proposes that language is an instinct — a behavior which, like any other
 instinct, was formed by natural selection, and has adapted to suit humans’
communicative needs throughout time. His accessible, fun-to-read books
have made great strides in popularizing the field of linguistics, and making it
accessible to those outside the realm of academia.

Note:

Kindly email your answers at hazeljoaquin1977@gmail.com not later than

March 7, 2021.
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