LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

1. Language – system of signs used for communication.
   Features:
   system – not a loose collection of elements, highly organised, all parts are interconnected
   arbitrariness – there’s no logical connection between object and it’s name
   e.g. onomatopoeia
   discreteness – linguistic units consist of distinct parts, they are discrete, language can be segmented
   duality – form of language are organised by two lines: the SOUND SYSTEM LEVEL and the GRAMMATICAL LEVEL
   productivity – creative aspect of language
   cultural transmission – how language is transmitted from one generation to another and how we inherit it from the immemorial
   uniqueness – language can combine all its features
   redundancy – every message contains more signals than essentially needed

2. Components of language:
   phonology
   morphology:
   -inflection: writewrites
   -derivation: writewriter (change in grammatical category)
   a cook a cooker (no change in grammatical meaning)
   -compounding: black + board = blackboard
   Two different words composing another one with separate meaning.
   
   
   prefix UNFIRENDLY suffix
   affix
   syntax – word order in sentences: SVO = subject + verb + object
   semantics – the meaning of the words and the relationship between word meanings and the way such meanings are combined to give meanings of sentences
   pragmatics – influence of situation of the interpretation of utterances

3. Functions of language
   referential – transmission of actual information
   conative – addressee is expected to fulfil addresser’s wishes
   emotive – when message shows speakers emotional attitude
   phatic – it’s utterances are highly conventionalised and accompanied by e.g. gestures
   metalinguistic – language we use to talk about language
   poetic – language use such as: catch phrases etc. We focus on message.

4. Linguistics – a scientific study of language
   sociolinguistics – language & society (age, gender, social class)
   applied linguistics – application of linguistic knowledge in teaching etc.
   neurolinguistics – how linguistic knowledge is presented in the brain
   historical linguistics – how language changes over time
   psycholinguistics – how the mentally represented grammar is employed in the production & comprehension of speech
   developmental linguistics – language development

5. Language perspectives:
   Synchrony – the state of language at any moment
   Diachrony – historical evolution of language

6. Descriptive grammar – attempts to describe language
   Prescriptive grammar – sets up and defends standards

7. Competence – knowledge of grammar that we have in our brains
   Performance – usage of linguistic knowledge in practise

8. Phonetics:
   -how sounds are produced, transmitted & perceived
   1) Articulatory = sound production
   2) Acoustic = sound transmission
   3) Auditory = sound perception
   
   Phonology:
   -how speech sounds function in language in contrastive way
   system of sounds we have in language
   vowels & consonants have a contrastive function
   e.g. – phoneme
   tom =/= dom
   Phonology can be divided to:
   1) Segmentals
   2) Suprasegmentals = Prosody
   e.g. stress, rhythm, intonation