What is linguistics? Introduction and basic terms
Test your knowledge of language .Mark the following statements true or false.
a.Every native speaker of a language knows exactly what is correct and what is incorrect in that language.
b.The more you are exposed to a language, the faster you will learn it.
c.A language which does not change is a dead language.
d.Dialects are substandard deviations from a standard language.
e.A language is weakened when it borrows large numbers of words from other languages.
f.Some languages are more beautiful than others.
g.Regardless of how many people use ain't, it is still incorrect in English.
h.The rules of a language can be explained because they are logical.
i.Writing is more perfect than speech.
j.Correct spelling preserves speech.
k.International relations would get better if everybody spoke the same language.
l.Sloppy speech should be avoided whenever possible.
What is linguistics?
•Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It endeavours to answer the question what is language and how it is represented in the mind?
•Language vs. a language
•Linguists focus on describing and explaining language and are not concerned with the prescriptive rules of the language (descriptive vs. prescriptive approach to the study of lg)
•The underlying goal of the linguist is to try to discover the universals concerning language. That is, what are the common elements of all languages.
•The linguist then tries to place these elements in a theoretical framework that will describe all languages and also predict what can not occur in a language.
Linguistics is a broad term covering a wide range of different disciplines
•the traditional 'core' areas of the subject deal with the structure of human languages in terms of how speech sounds combine to form syllables and words (phonetics and phonology),
•how words combine into meaningful utterances such as sentences and phrases (morphology and syntax),
•and how we extract meaning from utterances we read or hear used by other people (semantics and pragmatics)
Linguistics is a broad term covering a wide range of different disciplines linguists are also interested in matters such as
•how languages evolve and change over time,
•how they are learned by children and by adults,
•how languages are used in social settings,
•the historical and contemporary relationships between languages,
•the roles of language in nation-building and identity marking,
•the development of writing systems,
•how the brain processes speech and language,
•how communication is possible when speech and language are impaired,
•and documenting endangered languages before they disappear
General conceptual goals:
•Every lg is enormously complex.
•Despite this enormous complexity, every lg is systematic, often in ways that are hidden, not obvious. (General statements of the systematic relationships in a language are called rules.)
•Not only is lg systematic, but it is systematic on many levels, from the system of sounds to the organization of discourses.
•This systematicity is sometimes hard to see, for at least 2 reasons:
-the very complexity of lg obscures that patterns and regularities;
-in actual speech, there are hesitations, errors, changes in midstream, interruptions, confusions, and misunderstandings.
•Lg varies systematically from person to person, area to area, situation to situation. There is variation at every level of structure. Much of it is unconscious.
•Lgs are diverse, often astonishingly so. There are surprising differences in the way different lgs are organized.
•Despite this diversity, there are a great many universal properties of lgs: there are characteristics shared by all lgs and, also characteristics no lgs can have.
•Some properties of a lg are arbitrary, in the sense that they cannot be predicted from other properties or from general principles.
•Speech is almost entirely unconscious, so that it is not easy for speakers of a lg to reflect on it; although we speak according to a great many complex rules, we are no more conscious of them than
we are of the principles that govern ball-throwing or bicycle-riding.
•The attitudes that people hold about lg and other lgs, or about their speech and other people's, can be very different from the facts about them. These attitudes make an important field of study on their own.
•Speech is primary to writing in many important ways.
•Although children learn their first lg, they cannot really be said to be taught it; they intuit the rules of their lg from what they hear, plus certain implicit assumptions about what lg is like.
•All lgs change as time passes, again systematically, whether speakers desire change or not; often they are not aware of it.
•Linguists try to give accounts of the properties of a lg that are both precise and as complete as possible.
•In particular, they try to say what is common to all lgs and how lgs can differ.
Reference
•Fromkin, V. & Rodman, R. (1998) An Introduction to Language. Harcourt Brace College Publishers. 6th edition. - Chapter 1 „What is language?”