Language and Linguistic Knowledge

1. Language and Linguistic Knowledge

2. What is Language? • Any system of linguistic symbols used in a generally consistent way by people to communicate meaningfully with one another. • A systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of signs, sounds, gestures, or marks which have understood meanings. • Language is a system of arbitrary symbols which allows all people in a given culture, or other people who have learned the system of that culture to communicate, and it is the main vehicle of transmission of culture.

3. What does knowing a language mean? • It means having knowledge of the sound system and how sounds are produced in a specific phonological systems • How words are formed into phrases, clauses and sentences. • You cannot buy a dictionary of any language with all the sentences of the language, so you have to learn the ability to crease sentences to communicate meaning • Using language to express different language functions to respond to different situations, experiences and thoughts.

4. Levels of Language Description and Analysis • Phonetics & phonology: sound and sound system (Phonological analysis) • Morphology: Word forms (morphological analysis) • Syntax: sentence structures including word order (syntactic analysis) • Semantics: the ways in which meaning is constructed from words (semantic analysis)

5. Levels of Language Description and Analysis Discourse Sentence Clause Phrase Word Morpheme Phoneme

7. Linguistic Structuralism • A particularly influential approach to language during the 1960’s was the structuralistapproach. • The view of language as consisting of systems- phonological, morphological and syntactic systems and as rule-governed. • Language as a system consists of units (words or phonemes) and rules (grammar). • Morphology and syntax constituted the main areas of analysis (mainly single sentences) • Minimal attention to the social meaning of language

8. Langue:the system of language as a whole; a set of internalized, shared rules that govern a language’s vocabulary, grammar, and sound system. • Parole is the actual manifestation of Langue. It refers to the concrete use of language, i.e., performance, which describes actual oral and written communication by language users.

9. The basic linguistic unit or SIGN has the combination of a signifier (sound image) and a signified (concept), whose arbitrary association produces meaning. cat /kæt/ (sound image) Signifier (concept) Signified الدال المدلول

10. The basic linguistic unit or SIGN has the combination of a signifier (sound image) and a signified (concept), whose arbitrary association produces meaning. شجرةshajarah (sound image) Signifier (concept) Signified الدال المدلول

11. Chomsky’s Structural Linguistics • Each sentence in a language has two levels of representation, or syntactic structures: 1. Deep Structure is an abstract level of grammatical organization underlying the surface structure of sentences. 2. Surface Structure are the sentences generated by applying transformational rules to such structure. It is a language form derived from a deep structure.

12. Every language has a set of basic or kernel sentences: [Simple (one clause), active, declarative, positive sentences]. All other sentences in the language could be described as reflecting systematic changes or transformations of the structure underlying one of these basic sentences.] 1. Chris won the fellowship a. The fellowship was won by Chris. b. Did Chris win the fellowship? c. Chris did not win the fellowship. d. Wasn’t the fellowship won by Chris? 

13. Chomsky argued that language is innate to humans and has little to do with environmental variables. • Children could not learn their first language so quickly and effortlessly without the help of an innate language faculty to guide them. • A baby can have a large body of built-in knowledge about the structure of language in general (Universal Grammar), and need only actually ‘’learn’’ the particular features of the language(s) it is exposed to.

14. Knowledge of Language: Linguistic Competence • Linguistic Competence relates to the stored mental knowledge that enables the speaker to: • produce an unlimited number of grammatical sentences that he/she has not said or heard before 2. understand an unlimited number of sentences belonging to his/her native language never encountered before.

15. 3. pass grammaticality judgment on sentences which he/she encounters • Eight very lazy elephants drank milk. • Elephants eight lazy very milk drank • Eight very lazy elephants drank milk 4. identify ambiguous sentences and provide interpretations for such sentences. • They are hunting dogs • I saw the man with the binoculars. • Visiting relatives can be very boring

16. Chomsky insisted that the syntactic part of the linguistic system should be seen as independent fromthe semantic part. Grammaticality does not depend on the sentence being meaningful. • The young boys play in the playground happily. • *Colourlessgreen ideas sleep furiously • Chomsky was interested in studying linguistic competence which presents an idealized version of language, rather than performance which is affected by external factors, e.g., memory limitations, attention, distractions, etc.

17. The Linguistic Turn in the 1970’s • The formalist/structuralist approach to language came under sustained criticism during the 1970’s by proponents of a functionalist approach to language. Chomsky’s definition of linguistic competence was seen as too narrow. • Linguistic competence or knowledge about language structures could not explain the social and functional rules of language.

18. Linguistic Competence vs. Communicative Competence A: What is your name? B: Well, let us say you might have thought you had something from before, but you haven’t got it anymore. A: I am going to call you Sam. Language is as much a social product as much a mental ability or a set of structures and it is important that you are aware of the social functions of language

19. Linguistic Competence vs. Communicative Competence • Communicative competence:Dell Hymes (1974) introduced the concept of communicative competence as ‘the socially appropriate use of language’. It is the speaker’s ability to produce appropriateutterances not grammatical sentences since the basic function of language is “meaningful communication” amongst speakers of the same speech community.

20. There is no one-to-one correspondence between form and function. Utterances are concrete realizations of linguistic expressions on a specific occasion, e.g. • hello? • In here! • Any chance of a coffee? • Oh heck! • Ouch! • Appropriateness: whether and to what extent something is suitable and effective in some context.

21. Linguistic Competence vs. Communicative Competence • Consider the following conversations: Steve: What’s up with you? Tom: The beach is beautiful. Steve: I haven’t learnt to use computers yet. A: Can you tell me the time? B: Well, the milkman has arrived. Adam:It does not look like 140 students. Basil: It’s Friday.

22. Linguistic Competence vs. Communicative Competence The analysis of language in use cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic structures independent of the purposes and functions which those forms are designed to serve in human communication.

23. Context of Culture Context of Situation Language

24. Linguistic Competence vs. Communicative Competence • For each of the following, suggest one possible context and who might be speaking to who. What might be the speaker’s purpose?

25. Textual Competence • Textual Competence: The ability to produce and interpret contextually appropriate texts. To do this, we draw on our linguistic, textual, and pragmatic knowledge of what typically happens in particular text, and how it is typically organized and how it is typically interpreted. • For example, using MSN Messenger/text messaging involves learning a set of abbreviations and symbols [ BRB, BTW, FYI, OIC, TY,, ]that are commonly used as well as how they are interpreted, and you would need to keep your messages short so as to be easily read.

26. Generic Competence • Generic Competence: It describes how respond to repeated and new communicative situations by using, interpreting and exploiting conventions associated with specific text types or genres. • For example, writing a business email or letter requires certain knowledge and conventions different from writing a news report. If you write business letters, you will have to know how to start your letter, what to say, how you organize what you say in a particular organizational pattern, and what language you should use in such type of texts.

27. Social Competence • Social Competence: It refers to how we use language to take part in social and institutional interactions in a way to allow us to express our social identity, within the limitations of a specific social situation and communicative interaction. • For example, how I present myself at a meeting at work, or how I talk to my professor or my close friend, or how I use language in a conversation to show that I am in control of the situation, etc.

28. Exercise • Think of examples of how people recognize your social identity through your use of language? In other words, how does your use of language reflect your age, social class, gender, religion, or nationality? • Think of rules of communication that people seem to follow when they are using language? For example, are there rules to be followed when students talk to their professors? What level of formality is used? What typical topics are talked about? What forms of address are used, etc.? Think of other examples?

29. We have to pay attention to: • The social uses people make of language • The relationship between culture and language • How language is related to social contexts

30. So, • What is discourse? • What do we mean by discourse analysis? • What are approaches to discourse analysis? • Try to find answers to these questions next class!!!

31. Thank You