Unit 1 - 02 Branches of Linguistics
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Transcript of Unit 1 - 02 Branches of Linguistics
Unit 1
Moisés A. Bittner
Phonetics and Phonology
Autumn Term
What is Linguistics?
It is the scientific study of human language.
Aims of linguistic theory: What is knowledge of language? (Competence)
How is knowledge of language acquired? (Acquisition)
How is knowledge of language put into use? (Performance/Language Processing)
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Language ‘Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.’
Edward Sapir (1884-1939)
Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921)
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‘From now on I will consider language to be a set ( finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.’
Noam Chomsky (1928-)
Syntactic Structures (1957)
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Importance of Language
The most important tool ever invented. Distinguishes us from other creatures. Provides a medium to think effectively, communicate
interpersonally and collaborate with other people in work.
Impossible to imagine a world without language.
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Languages of the World
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Hierarchy of Language
Texts/discourses
Sentences/utterances
Clauses
Phrases
Words Morphemes
Syllables
Phonemes
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Main Branches of Linguistics
Phonetics
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics
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Semiotics*
* the study of sign and symbol systems.
Phonetics
Phonetics is about the physical aspect of sounds. It studies the production, transmission, and perception of speech sounds called phones in all living languages, including:
Production of speech, that is how speech sounds are actually made: Articulatory Phonetics
Transmission of speech sounds (physical characteristics such as colour, loudness, amplitude, frequency): Acoustic Phonetics.
Perception of the sounds by human brain: Auditory Phonetics.
Phonetic transcriptions are done using the square brackets [ ].
φonos (phonos: sounds) and ikos (ikos: treatise, science, or study).
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Phonology
Phonology studies the sound system of specific languages. It is about the abstract aspect of sounds and it studies
the phonemes.
Phonemic transcriptions adopt the slash / /.
Phonology is about establishing what are the phonemes in a given language, i.e. those sounds that can bring a difference in meaning between two words.
φonos (phonos: sounds), and logos (logos: study)
Phoneme (from the Greek: φώνημα, phōnēma, ‘a sound uttered’) is
the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances in spoken language. /tS/
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Morphology Studies the formation of words from smaller units
called morphemes.
Morpheme: minimal meaningful language unit. (-ed, -ing)
Grapheme(s): written symbol to represent speech. <ch>
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Syntax
The syntax of a language deals with the grammatical structure of a language.
Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves.
Descriptive grammar: structure actually used by speakers and writers.
Prescriptive grammar: structure that should be used.
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Rules that govern the formation of sentences from words.
Syntactic phrases include: Noun Phrase : a tall man, the bus
Verb Phrase : travel around, hit the ball
Prepositional Phrase : in the class, at the club
Adjective Phrase : Very good, nice girl
The Grammatical Rules: SVO: eg. English
SOV: eg . Hindi
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Semantics
Study of language meaning.
The study of conventional, ‘compositional meaning’.
Concerned with not only the meaning of words, but also that of morphemes and of sentences.
Lexical semantics study how and what the words of a language denote.
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Semantic Relations
Exempli gratia:
Pretty and attractive are synonyms.
Good and bad are antonyms.
Animal is a hypernym of mammal which is a hypernym of dog.
Dog is a hyponym of mammal which is a hyponym of animal.
Bark is a meronym of tree which is a meronym of forest.
Forest is a holonym of tree which is a holonym of bark.
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Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.
Pragmatics pays heed to social conventions and cultural norms – such as those of politeness, formality, and familiarity – and also to prosody, intonation, facial expressions, and gestures, all of which can vary considerably from one context to the next.
Pragmatics, then, is a very broad and multifaceted field concerned with the communicative functions of language.
Essentially it is the study of language meaning and use in context: interpersonal, social, cultural. It takes into account what a speaker means, implies, and aims to communicate with an utterance. So it is a particularly important area for language learners.
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References Adapted from: Verma, Apurv & Prasad, Ashish, 2012. Branches of Linguistics. Available at:
http://es.slideshare.net/dapurv5/branches-of-linguistics-11652624
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Linguistics
http://linguistics.wfu.edu/Some_basics.html
https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/all-about-linguistics/what-is-linguistics
http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/a-pragmatic-note
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