The Origins and Development of the English Language Chapter 1: Language and the English Language

1. The Origins and Development of the English Language Chapter 1: Language and the English Language John Algeo Michael Cheng National Chengchi University

2. A Definition of Language • Language is a system of conventional vocal signs by means of which human beings communicate. • System • Signs • Vocal • Conventional • Human • Communicate

3. Language as System • Language is not a collection of words, like a dictionary • There are rules or patterns that relate the words to one another • Duality of patterning • Meaningful units: Words and words parts • Adam liked apples. • Meaningless components: Sounds of letter • About 35 basic sounds in English

4. Language as System • Duality of patterning lets people build an immensely large number of meaningful words out of only a handful of meaningless sounds. (p. 2) • Meaningless Components: sound system or phonology • Meaningful Units: lexis or vocabulary; grammatical system or morphosyntax

5. Language as System • Patterns in the sound system: • mb never occurs at the beginning or end of words in Modern English • Lexis is least systematic, but there are collocations. • mild and gentle vs. lenient • mild weather; gentle breeze; severe case of the flu; severe judgment; lenient judgment; lenient case of the flu • More stuff can be added to bridge to next slide

6. Language as System (Elaborate) • Grammatical Signals: The grammatical system of any language has various techniques for relating words to one another within the structure of a sentence. • Most important: • 1. Parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb • 2. Affixes: prefixes, suffixes, inflectional suffixes • 3. Concord or agreement • 4. Word order • 5. Function words • 6. Prosodic signals

7. Language as System

8. Language Signs • The system organizes signs • Signs stand for something else • apple stands for the actual object • Tell me a really long word. • Linguistic signs can be smaller or larger than whole words.

9. Language Signs • The smallest linguistic sign is a morpheme, which is a meaningful form that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts (p. 5) • Free morphemes: can be used alone as words • Bound morphemes: must be combined with other morphemes to make words. • Reactivation: re-act-ive-ate-ion (again) (adj)(v) (n)

10. Language Signs • Morphemes can have more than one pronunciation or spelling • Plural noun ending: -s/-es ; [s],[z],[әz] • Spoken variations are allomorphs

11. Language Signs • Base morphemes and affixes • Affix is a bound morpheme that is added to a base morpheme • Affixes can be prefixes or suffixes • reactivation • Base morphemes are usually free • Insulate (insula + ate) insula = lat. island • Compound: word with more than one base morpheme • firefighter

12. Language Signs • Language signs can be larger than words • Idioms: a combination of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from those of its constituent parts (p. 6)

13. Language as Speech • Language is basically oral-aural • Produced by the mouth and received by the ear • Sounds follow one another sequentially • Language is one dimensional • Other ways of expressing language: • writing, sign language • What are the advantages and disadvantages of other ways of expressing language?

14. Language as Speech • Writing vs. Speech • Which is primary and which is secondary?

15. Language as Speech : Writing as Speech • Humans have been writing for 5000 years • Writing developed from speech and is meant to represent speech • Some spoken languages have no written form • We talk before we write • We have to take special effort to learn to write • Many people who can speak are unable to write

16. Language as Speech • “If speaking makes us human, writing makes us civilized.” • Advantages of writing: • Permanent • Indicates pauses more clearly: • Grade A vs. gray day • Pretty hot day vs. pretty, hot day

17. Language as Speech : Writing as Speech • Deficiencies of writing: • Can’t indicate pitch • Why did you do it? (rising vs. falling) • sound quality (tone vs. quality) • incense (enrage vs. stuff to burn) • sewer (tailor vs. conduit)

18. Language as Speech: Writing as Speech • Homonyms: homographs, homophones • Transliteration • Translation • Orthography: Writing system

19. Language as Speech: Gestures and Speech • Gestures can communicate also • Speech may have developed from gestures • Gestures can be unconscious • Kinesics: study of communicative body movement • Tone of voice • Paralanguage: parallel communication that accompanies language

20. Language as Convention • Language is mostly conventional and arbitrary • There is usually no reason we connect the sounds we make with a particular meaning, but each language agrees on what particular sounds mean • Exception: echoic words/onomatopoeia • Bow wow, gnaf-gnaf, wau-wau

21. Language as Convention: Language Change • Language changes because it is culturally transmitted • Causes of language change: • Syntagmatic change: nearby elements influence one another within the flow of speech • sandwich

22. Language as Convention: Language Change • Paradigmatic or Associative Change • Words can be affected by other words that are not immediately present but with which they are associated

23. Language as Convention: Language Change • Starboard = Right • Ladeboard = Left • Ladeboard  Larboard  Port

24. Language as Convention : Language Change • Social Change • Language changes because of the influence of events in the world • New technology: google • New forms of behavior: suicide bomber, sexting • Contact with new people and cultures

25. Language as Convention : The Notion of Linguistic Corruption

26. Language as Convention : Language Variation • Language exists in many varieties • Historical or diachronic variation • Contemporary or synchronic variation • Dialects – mutually intelligible forms of language associated with particular regions or groups • Dialect: Language associated with a certain place, social level, ethnic group, sex, age • Registers – Variations according to participants, settings, and topics • Register: Variety of language used for a certain purpose: sermon, restaurant, telephone, postcard

27. Language as Convention : Registers

28. Language as Convention : Registers • Joos (1961) cited in Wikipedia • Frozen: Printed unchanging language such as bible quotations; often contains archaisms. • Formal: One-way participation, no interruption. Technical vocabulary; "Fussy semantics" or exact definitions are important. Includes introductions between strangers. (This is the standard for work, school, and business.) • Consultative: Two-way participation. Background information is provided — prior knowledge is not assumed. "Backchannel behaviour" such as "uh huh", "I see", etc. is common. Interruptions allowed. (Formal Register used in conversations.) • Casual: In-group friends and acquaintances. No background information provided. Ellipsis and slang common. Interruptions common. (Language used in conversation with friends.) • Intimate: Non-public. Intonation more important than wording or grammar. Private vocabulary. (Language between lovers (and twins).)

29. Dialects and registers provide options • Alternate ways to communicate depending on the circumstances

30. Language as Convention : Correctness and Acceptability • Correctness: Idea that some form of English is pure or correct. • Language isn’t so clean cut • Acceptability: Degree to which users will judge an expression to be OK, or will not notice anything out of the ordinary • How acceptable? To whom?

31. Language as Convention : Correctness and Acceptability • If I were in your shoes… • If I was in your shoes… • If we was in your shoes… • ate • et • εt

32. Language as Human • Gestures may have preceded language • Ability to learn language is innate • Children below 9 can learn a new language better than their native language • Children of about 5 have mastered comprehension of most grammatical forms of a language (but still continue to improve)

33. Language as Human: Animals in the wild, do they communicate? • Informative behavior vs. Communicative behavior • Do you intend an action to inform? • Alarm cries are signaling behavior but not intentionally communicative • Do animals display deceptive behavior? • Innate, involuntary, limited in number

34. Language as Human • Conditioning vs. Intentionality • Clever Hans • Some birds can mimic human sounds

35. Language as Human • Closest human relatives are apes • Teaching apes to talk has been a complete failure • Problem is anatomical • Alternatives to speech include signing and “writing” • Apes are capable of forming paired associates: linking an object with an arbitrary symbol (Holzman, 1997)

36. Language as Human • Sarah: used plastic tokens to communicate • Lana typed messages • Washoe used Ameslan • Kanzi used lexagrams • Is this real communication?

37. Language as Communication • Relationship between language and thought • Language is clothing for thought and thought is quite independent of the language used to express it • Thought is merely suppressed language, and when we are thinking, we are just talking under our breath

38. Language as Communication • Whorf hypothesis • The language we speak influences the way we think about the world and the way we perceive it • Sorting colored chips into piles • Usually make as many piles as basic color terms in your language • Australian Bushman give directions by NWSE

39. Other Characteristics of Language • Open: you can make up new combinations of words that no one has made before • Displaced: you can talk about things that are not present; abstract, lie, • Entertaining: it is not just utilitarian, you can joke, tell stories, etc.

40. Why Study the History of English? • To understand how things are, it is often helpful … to know how they got that way (p. 18) • Many of the irregularities of English are remnants of earlier regular patterns • Clarify literature written in earlier periods

41. Keats description of sculptured effigies on tombs: The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seemed to freeze Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails.

42. Exercises