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Linguistically relevant films Animal communication

– all animals appear to have some means ofcommunication

– communication vs. language(oral presentation)

– types of animal communication(oral presentation)

– systems for comparing animal and humancommunication (group work)

Communication

– the passing on or exchange of information– distinguishes living from non-living in

nature

Views of animal communication

– little arbitrariness, iconic– not deliberate and conscious in intent– stimulus-bound– communicative systems are devoid of

learning and experience– limited by genetic inheritance– => radically unlike human language

“ No matter how eloquently adog may bark, it cannot tellyou that his parents werepoor but honest.�

(Bertrand Russell, philosopher)

Why study animal communication?

– curiosity about animal mentality– comparability of human and non-human

cognitive and intellectual capacities– understanding of the nature of language and

evolution of language– questioning of the uniqueness of human

language and thought– awareness and appreciation of neglected

features of communication

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Investigating animal communication systems

– search for the most appropriate communicationmedium

– first scientific efforts to teach chimpanzeesspoken English were unsuccessful

– because of anatomical rather than cognitivefactors (vocal organs)

– investigators using American Sign Language(ASL) were very successful

Animal communication

– animals have a variety of non-vocal meansto carry out communication‘ scent (=> pheremones; e.g. dogs, moths)‘ light (e.g. firefly)‘ ultrasound (e.g.bats)‘ gestures/ facial expressions‘ colour (e.g. octopus)‘ electricity (e.g. eels in the Amazon River basin)

Some chimpanzee facial expressions Research on animal communication

– ongoing– controversial– difficult

Problems of comparibility

– features of human communication arearrived at through introspection

– introspection not available in the case ofanimal communication

– context seems to be an important feature ofanimal communication and humancommunication

Problems of investigation

– human hearing system– segmentation problem– anthromorphism– the Clever Hans phenomenon

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The Clever Hans phenomenon

– might infect the primate languageexperiments

– subtle and unintentional cueing of thesubject by the experimenter

– probably no experiment can be free of it, asphenomenon occurs in all experimentalsituations were there is any contact betweenexperimenter and animal

Systems for comparing human andnon-human communication

– design feature framework (Hockett andAltmann, 1968)

– functional/structural approach (McNeill,1970)

– message model (Akmajian et al., 1984)

Design feature framework– stress on physical aspect of language– design features are not defined carefully– e.g. openess/productivity– bee dance is productive, because it can

communicate an infinite number of foodsources

– human language is open in two ways:‘ infinite number of well-formed sentences‘ lexical openess

McNeill„s comparative system

– based on two cross-classifying features– structural:

‘ grading and combining– functional: meaning related

‘ nominal‘ expressive‘ predicative

Grading and combining

– grading systems are systems in which newmessages are created by changing somesignal along some uniform, physicaldimension (e.g. honeybee)

– combining systems are systems in whichnew messages are created by arrangingelements from a set in new ways

Nominal, expressive, predicative

– Nominal systems function to pick out someobject, event, situation external to thesender

– expressive systems reflect the internal stateof the sender

– predicative systems function to comment oneither or both external events and internalstates

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Criticism of McNeill„sframework

– Features are not differentiated enough todifferentiate significant properties of allanimal communication systems

– all communication systems includemessages of both expressive and nominaltypes, and some are both grading andcombining

The Message Model

“A speaker has some message in mind that he or she wantsto communicate to the hearer. The speaker then producessome expression E from the language that encodes themessage as its meaning. Upon hearing the beginning of E,the hearer begins a decoding process that sequentlyidentifies the incoming sounds, syntactic categories, andmeanings, and then composes these meanings in the formof the successfully decoded message.‚

(Akmajian et al., 1984)

From animal communication to theorigin of language

– lateralisation of the brain– plosives (/b/ vs. /p/; /g/ vs. /k/)– ,overqualification„

(u berschu ssige Baustruktur)– homology– differences between human and primate

communication are gradual

The origin of language– the question of the origin of language was

one of the 18th c. major philosophicalquestions

– linguistics and anthropology– little or no concensus on the question

The origin of language

– in 1866, the Socie te de linguistique de Parisforbade the question of the origin oflanguage from its agenda

– linguistics considered to be a science thatshould not speculate about prehistoricbeginnings

– since then (until recently) very fewlinguistic studies on the topic

The origin of language– life sciences have increased knowledge

about the natural history of humans andabout natural aspects of language

– even today one of the most controversialscientific topics

– confluence of linguistics, psychology,biology, paleanthropology

– new linguistics integrates insights from thenatural sciences

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The origin of language

– “unscientific question‚? - as in Morton/Page– the origin of language is mimicry/imitation

(Charles Darwin) => imitating what?– the origin of language is more social than

functional?

The origin of language

– the origin of language are gestures?– language, thought and communication are

interdependent as are other non-linguisticskills

– i.e. symbolic capacity emerged from acombination of of cognitive andcommunicative capacities that werepreadapted in the service of other functions(Miles)

The origin of language

– cultural question– relationship between language and culture

‘ tools‘ music/dance/rhythm‘ art‘ trade

First language acquisition

– L1 (vs. L2) acquisition– rapid and commonplace; taken for granted– language acquisition involves primarily the

acquisition of a grammar/grammatical rules– => cf. forms such as *doed, *leaved, *goed

in analogy to ,washed„, ,walked„...

Linguistic development

– the emergence of rules takes place inorderly sequences

– all layers of linguistic description‘ phonological development‘ morphological development‘ syntactic development

The development of speech sounds

– children can separate non-speech noisesfrom speech sounds from birth

– from around 1 month of age: ability todistinguish among certain speech sounds(e.g. /p/ vs. /b/)

– emergence of articulatory skills at around 6months: onset of babbeling

– cross-linguistic similarities

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The development of speech sounds– at ~12 months: first understandable words– vowels are acquired before consonants– new phonemic contrasts manifest

themselves first in word-initial position– in general, the relative order in which

sounds are acquired reflects theirdistribution in languages of the world

The development of speech sounds

– early phonetic processes:‘ syllable simplification:

– consonant cluster reduction: stop > [t], desk > [k]– final consonant deletion: boot > [bu:]

‘ substitution:– stopping: fricative >corresponding stop– fronting: moving forward of place of articulation

‘ assimilation:– modification under influence of neighbouring

sounds: self > [felf]; baby > [bibi]

The development of speech sounds

– production vs. perception– children„s perceptual abilities seem to be

more advanced than their articulatory skills

The development of morphologicalstructure

– Example:– the development of affixes:

‘ Stage 1: case-by-case learning‘ Stage 2: overuse of general rule‘ Stage 3: mastery of exceptions to general rule

The development of morphologicalstructure

– development of bound morphemes andfunctional categories (det., aux.) takes place inan orderly sequence

– developmental sequence largely unrelated tothe frequency of occurrence

– several factors involved: e.g. frequentoccurrence in utterance-final position,syllabicity, one form one meaning,allomorphic invariance

Syntactic development

– emergence of syntactic rules takes place inan orderly sequence

– beginning with one-word utterances nearthe end of the first year of life

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Syntactic development: one-word stage

– between 12 and 18 months– holophrases, i.e. utterances express meaning

that corresponds to an entire sentence inadult speech

– ,More„ > ,Give me more juice„– ,Up„ > ,I want up„

Syntactic development: two word stage

– between 18 months ans 2 years– appropriate word order– children have possibly acquired syntactic

categories– ,doggie bark„ > ,the dog is barking„– ,hit doggie„ > ,I hit the dog„

Syntactic development: telegraphic stage

– 2 - 2,5 years– longer, more complex grammatical

structures– no word order errors– emergence of phrase structure– ,Car make noise„

Syntactic development: later developments

– 2,5 years up– emergence of non-lexical categories– rapid language development

Determinants of language acquisition

– imitation– correction– linguistic experience/ exposure– motherese– cognitive development– LAD (Language Acquisition Device)

L1-acquisition and ,Nell„

– twin communication/ twin language(student oral presentation)

– maturational constraints:Is there a critical period?(student oral presentation)

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Dialectal variation in the US:Historical Perspective

– dialect - dialect boundary - isogloss– ,American English„:

‘ ,English„: not a separate language‘ ,American„: language has changed

– reflection of cultural history, institutionaldevelopment, and physical environmentwhich are peculiar to the English-speakinggroups on the North American continent

Dialectal variation in the US:Historical Perspective

– innovative vs. conservative features:‘ phonological‘ lexical‘ morpho-syntactical

Dialectal variation in the US

– the lexicon gives evidence of regional orlocal distribution

– here especially: home and farm terms– e.g. pail/bucket

Dialectal variation in the US

– e.g. earthworm: angleworm (North),fishworm (Midland), fishing worm (South),mud worm (local: N. Hampshire), rainworm(Pennsylvania German)

– =>local terms: survivals of Brit. dialectusage, jargon or loan translations

Different dialects in England atthe time of colonisation

– East Midland/„London„ English:‘ standard spoken at court, law, church...

– Kent, Southwest, West Midlands, North:‘ spoken by the gentry and common folk

– standardisation took place after separationof the two varieties

Language of the colonists

– language of colonists:‘ derived from middle and lower classes‘ reflected dialectal features from many parts of

Britain– Early Modern English/Elizabethan English– heterogeneity: dialect differences

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Linguistic process

– ,American English„ was formed after thecolonists settled on the continent

– changes in BrE and AmE– language contact:

‘ influence from many different language groups– state of immigrant„s English

Changes through languagecontact: before colonisation

– addition of words through language contactwith American natives via Spanish (e.g.tomato)

– superficial– no deep changes in syntax and

pronunciation– reflects casual mingling of the cultures

Changes through languagecontact:American natives

– loan words connected with American nativeinstitutions and civilisation

– place names, pants, animals, food– Chicago, woodchuck (<wuchak), wigwam– coumpounds with ,Indian„: Indian summer– loan translation of real (fire water)

or imagined native compounds (paleface)

Changes through languagecontact:through settlement

– from non-speaking colonists:– Dutch– Pennsylvania Dutch– Acadians– African slaves

Settlement groups: Dutch

– 1624: establishment of New Netherland– yielded to England in 1664 => New York– Yankee– pot cheese

Settlement groups:PennsylvaniaDutch

– Palatine German settlement in 1638– still notable in PDE– Are you coming with?– want in, want off, want out:

‘ Ich will raus/„rein... >German‘ also preserved in Scottland‘ =>Germans probably learned their English

from the Scottish settlers

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Settlement groups: Acadians

– 1755 deportation from Canada to Louisana– French colonists in Mississippi and

St.Lawrence area– French substrate in today„s speech– some earlier French borrowings which were

archaic or obsolete, became a highlyspecialised sense: dime

Settlement groups: Spanish

– contact with Spanish settlements (Golf ofMexico)

– largest group of words reflects haciendaculture

– avocado, banana, potato– later borrowings represent period of genuine

bilingualism– rodeo

Southern Dialect(s)

– only in the South an area with speech formsapproaching the character of a traditionaldialect is to be found

Important southern dialect features

– rhoticity– southern drawl:

‘ strong tendency to weaken the glide, often to apoint of monophthongisation with vowellengthening

‘ /aI/ realized as [a] before voiced consonants:time

‘ /au/ realised as [a]: down, out‘ /OI/ realised as [O]: boil

Important southern dialect features

– initial inter-dental fricative realised asplosive‘ /T/> /t/, /D/ > /d/: thing, then

– deletion of final consonants

Important southern dialect features

– double modals: might could, might can– past tense forms: heern (heard), seed (saw),

holp (helped)

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Creole Genesis Theories

Substratists Universalists

Monogenesis Polygenesis

SabirNautical jargon...

Afro-GenesisAfrican SubstrateRelexification

Bioprogram

L2-acquisition

Universal features of Creoles– Creole languages resulted from a number of

forces– their features reflect the influences of:

‘ superstrate languages‘ substrate languages‘ universals of adult L2-acquisition‘ borrowing from adstrate languages‘ creole internal innovations‘ convergence of these factors

– degree of continuity from superstratelanguages is difficult to determine asdetailed information about the particularEuropean dialect involved is missing

– also almost total lack of documentation ofthe African languages of this period

– phonology is believed to retain mostsubstrate influences

Phonological features

– UNIVERSALS:– contact languages are built on those features

common to the languages in contact;phonemic inventory based on sounds foundin all languages

– /T/ + /D/: highly marked,non-universal sounds; not found in Creolelanguages

– also not part of substrate languageconsonant system

– L2 sound non-existent in L1 usuallysubstituted by sounds of L1 that comeclosest

– /T/ > /t/; /D/ >/d/

– i.e. also SUBSTRATE influence

– SUBSTRATE: phonotactics– CV syllable structure in WA languages– breaking up of consonant clusters in

European words‘ stand > tan‘ desk > des‘ stone > siton‘ dog > dagu

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Predominat vowel pattern inWest African languages

front central back

high

high mid

low mid

low

i

e

E

a

u

o

O

– seven or five vowel system– e.g.: RP vowel system consists of 13 vowels– seven vowel system is the basic system of

many Atlantic creoles– a number of English vowels did not survive– SUPRASEGMENTALS:– distinctive intonational pattern– syllable-timed

Morpho-syntactical features

– surface vs. deep structure– structure of VP distinguishes creole

varieties from non-creole varieties– Tense - Mood - Aspect– Pidgins lack a grammaticalised TMA– Creoles have a radically different system– preverbal marking

– preverbal markers might have outer form oftheir etymological sources/ superstratelanguages (e.g. English auxiliaries)

– semantically and syntactically closer topreverbal markers found in Africansubstrate languages

– BUT: also found in Ocean and PacificCreoles => ? Language Universal ?

– unmarked verb form refers to time in focus,defined by context (e.g. time adverbial)

The Creole TMA Prototype– unmarked verb form carries own specific

meaning:‘ past (or anterior) meaning for action verbs‘ present meaning for state verbs

– three member inventory of preverbalmarking‘ anterior‘ imperfective‘ posterior

– sometimes additional completive marker– relative vs. absolute tense– transitive verbs can have active as well as

passive meaning

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Serial Verb Constructions– verbs can come in series without a

conjunction (e.g. and) or complementiser(e.g. to)

– also found in English: Go get it!– but more frequent in West African

languages– also more complex

– ron go lef him (run away from him)– a teke nefi koti a meti (I took knife cut the

meat = I cut the meat with the knife)– i tall pass mi (he is taller than I)– a sabi se yu bisi (I know that you are busy)

Forms of ,to be„– Predicative adjectives:

‘ no copula‘ de bebi bin sik (The baby was sick)

– equative copula ,be„:‘ form of ,to be„ before a noun in e.g. StE‘ a bi ticha (I am a teacher)

– locative copula ,be„:‘ indication of a location‘ i de fo gaden (he is in the garden); God de

The Noun Phrase– no inflection for plural or possisive– usually expressed via determiners or other

particles and word order– PLURAL: often 3. P. Pl. pronoun dem

‘ postposition‘ only marked where necessary‘ numerals‘ reduplication

The Noun Phrase– POSSESSION:– juxtaposition: di wuman bebi– pronouns: mi dadi im buk– preposition: na fu mi

Semantics and the Lexicon– P and C share much of their lexicon with

respective lexifier/superstrate languages; atleast with respect to the form of the words

– but P+C are similar with regard to the kindof words retained (archaic, regional)

– also with regard to kind of changes wordsunderwent, partly because of Africansubstrate

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– CALQUES: word for word translations ofan idiom: big eye (greedy); eye water,mouth water, strong head

– SEMANTIC SHIFTS: changes in thesemantic range of a word: e.g. stick =>stick but also ‘tree� and ‘wood� ;

– REDUPLICATION: repetition of a wordresults in a distinct lexical item with aslightly different meaning: big-big (huge) ,small-small (tiny)

– DIRECT AFRICAN SOURCES:– under 5% African-derived words– retention of basic terms– nyam, fufu– a number of African terms referring to

objects, actions, concepts– vooddoo

English in the Caribbean– Diglossia

‘ Haiti‘ (Surinam)

– The (post-) creole continuum‘ Guyana‘ Jamaica‘ Trinidad

Diglossia– Ferguson (1959)– stable language situation– two distinct (and genetically related)

varieties of the same language are used ina community‘ superposed ,high„ (H) variety‘ primary dialects, low (L) varieties

– distinct functions; complementarydistribution

The (Post-)-Creole Continuum– DeCamP (1971)– extreme variability in some speech

communities– varieties cannot be classified as either

Creole or Standard– ,life-cycle of a creole„ (Hall (1962, 1966)

Life cycle– pidginisation– stabilisation and expansion– creolisation– creole continuum with lexifier language

present– decreolisation: change towards lexifier

language

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– Creole continues without substantialchange: Diglossia (e.g. Haiti)

– Creole becomes extinct (e.g. Negerhollands,?Gullah)

– Creole develops into a normal language– Creole gradually merges with

corresponding standard language,decreolisation: Continuum (e.g. Jamaica)

Alternatives for final stage– acrolect (Jamaican Standard English)– mesolects– basilect (Jamaican Creole

– difficulty of drawing a line– implicational hierarchy

Continuum

I am eating

I is eatin„

I eatin„

me eatin„

me a eat

mi a nyam

Multilingual Britain

– the majority of the world„s population isbilingual or multilingual

– bilingualism as a concept has variousdefinitions

– vague definitions:‘ degree of perfection‘ speaking, writing, reading, or listening abilities

Bloomfield (1935)

– “In ... cases where ... perfect foreign-language learning is not accompanied byloss of the native language, it results inbilingualism, native-like control of twolanguages. After early childhood few people... Reach perfection in a foreign language; ...Of course one cannot define a degree ofperfection at which a good foreign speakerbecomes bilingual: the distinction isrelative.‚

Mackey (1957)

– “It seems obvious that if we are to study thephenomenon of bilingualism we are forcedto consider it as something entirely relative.We must moreover include the use not onlyof two languages, but of any number oflanguages. We shall therefore considerbilingualism as the alternate use of two ormore languages by the same individual.‚

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Weinreich (1953)

– “The practice of alternatively using twolanguages will be called hereBILINGUALISM, and the persons involvedBILINGUAL. Unless otherwise specified,all remarks about bilingualism apply as wellto multilingualism, the practice of usingalternately three or more languages.‚

Aucamp 1926

– “Bilingualism is the condition in which twoliving languages exist side by side in acountry, each spoken by one national group,representing a fairly large population of thepeople.‚

– definitions can provoke confusion– definition difficult as many disciplines are

involved in analysing the phenomenon‘ psychology‘ sociology‘ pedagogy‘ linguistics

– each discipline approaches the phenomenonfrom a different perspective

Linguistic approaches tobilingualism/multilingualism

– Linguistics tries to account for the presence of twoor more languages within one and the samespeaker

– the ability may be or may not be equal– significant is the the way the two languages are

used– no evidence to suggest that the fundamental

principles affecting language use are any differentwhether two or more languages are being used byone and the same speaker

– major question: Are the principles affectinglanguage usage any different from caseswhere only one language is being used?

– rather than defining bilingualism, mostspecialist work within the framework of atypologyof bilingualism

– this typology allows for for a cleardelimitation of the particular area ofinvestigation within a larger field

Types of bilingualism

– societal bilingualism– individual bilingualism– horizontal bilingualism– vertical bilingualism (diglossia)– diagonal bilingualism

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– ambilingualism– natural bilingualism

(primary bilingualism)– secondary bilingualism– balanced bilingualism (equibilingualism,

co-ordinate bilingualism)– functional bilingualism– receptive bilingualism

(passive bilingualism)– productive bilingualism

Second language acquisition

– definitions:‘ Second language acquisition‘ second language(s)‘ foreign languages‘ learning‘ acquisition

The language learning process

– ,nature and nurture„‘ complementary mechanisms‘ implications for L2 acquisition?

– modularity‘ logical possibilities for L2 acquistion

– systematicity and variability‘ L1 influences‘ developmental stages

‘ interlanguage and variability– creativity

‘ ,prefabricated chunk„– incomplete success/ fossilisation

‘ psycholinguistic explanation‘ sociolinguistic explanation

– language transfer/interferences– language input vs. language output

‘ positive vs. negative evidence

The language learner– differences between learners– cognitive factors

‘ intelligence: language aptitude, learningstrategies; learning styles

– affective factors‘ language attitudes: motivation, language

anxiety– personality: extroversion vs. inhibition– learning opportunities– age

Application: “Nirgendwo inAfrika‚

– differences of success between‘ Walter‘ Jettel‘ Regina

– in learning the various languages needed inKenya