Introduction to language synopsis De Saussure’s linguistic theories
Ferdinand de Saussure conceptualized language as a system of differences. Each element of a language, according to de Saussure, is defined by its difference from other elements within the same language. For example, the primary manner of recognizing the letter “A” is through recognizing its difference from all the other letters in the same alphabet. Language, according to de Saussure is a system of signs, and each sign, then, can be understood as a combination of a form (which is the “signifier”) and a particular meaning (which is “the signified”). The signified”). The relationship which occurs between the signified and the signifier, then, is based upon an agreed on convention, rather than some sort of natural resemblance. For example, I am writing this piece on de Saussure’s theories of linguistics on what is called a “computer”, but which might as easily have been called a “car”. It is only because of an agreed upon convention of langua ge that I call this object a “computer”. You understood just what I mean when I offer the word “computer” to you. A language, then, according to de Saussure can be best understood as a system of signs that organizes the world and renders it comprehensible to us. Different languages, however, divide the world in different ways. Langue is the whole system of language that makes the speech possible, it is the basic unit of language,
(learning language, mastering the grammar, syntax spelling, and punctuation are all elements of a langue). Parole is Parole is the concrete use of the language, it is the external manifestation of language, it is the usage of
the system, but not the system.
De Saussure was interested in langue more than parole because it was the system by which the
meaning is created… Signifier is the pointing finger, the word, the sound image, a word is just a jumble of letters, the
pointing finger is not the star, it is th e interpretation of the signifier that the meaning is created. Signified is is the concept, the meaning, the thing indicated to the signifier that gives it the meaning, it
does not need to be a real object, but is some referent to which the signifier refers. The signifier is more stable, the signified varies between people and contexts. The relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.
analysis is the study of language at a given point of time. Synchronic analysis is Diachronic analysis is the study of the linguistic system through time.
Chomsky’s theory of language
Chomsky says that normal children everywhere are born with a kind of hard-wired syntax that enables them to grasp the basic workings of language. The child then chooses the particular grammar and language of the environment from the available options in the brain.
Competence is the knowledge you (subconsciously) possess about how to speak a language.
Performance is your real world linguistic output. Performance may accurately reflect competence, but it may also include speech errors due to slips of the tongue or, as Chomsky points out in the quote above, external factors such as memory problems, etc.
As a proficient speaker, it is not that you don’t know that the past tense of swim is swam, you have just mistakenly applied the regular rule to an irregular verb. You are unlikely to make this kind of error more than a small portion of time, and may never say “swimmed” again. Your competence is fine - you know how to conjugate irregular English verbs, it is your performance that has let you down.
Functions of language
The general function of language: is the way we express our ideas and exchange opinions with each other. This use of language is called referential.
Emotional expression function: this use of language is related to the emotions. We use it to get rid of our nervous emotions…
Interactional function: we use this kind of language to keep good rapports and relationships between each other, also, to strengthen the bond among people. For example saying “happy birthday, have a nice day… etc”.
The power of sound : this function of language is related to the repetitive rhythm. It helps people to get close to each other.
The control of reality : it is used to control some forces that some believers think that they are controlled with. It is the use of magic against supernatural things.
Recording facts: is used to record facts and events that happen in order to keep them for the coming generation.
The instrument of thought: is used when people start performing a mathematical calculation in the mind.
The expression of identity : is used to show the sense of identity by belonging to a group of people.
Properties of language
Displacement : is the act of referring to objects or events that are remote in time or space and does not have to be present or even exist. It can be used to express one’s ideas and feelings, and to exercise one’s influence on the other people. Arbitrary : human language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no natural relation between the objects and the name that are given to it. Discreteness: it involves the use of specific signals and numbers of situations, it consists recurring units, sounds, words and sentences of a language.
Productivity : it allows new signals to be produced. Productivity makes it possible to create and understand new forms which have not been produced before, which implies that human language is unpredictable and spontaneous. Duality : human language is associated with two levels: a physical level and interpretive level .
Origins of language
1. Divine source of language: It is believed by different religions that language is created by god, according to many religious beliefs and traditions all over the world, language has divine origins. For example, for Muslims, Allah provided Adam with the ability to name things. For Hindus, the human faculty of language is a gift from the goddess Sarasvati… 2. Natural sounds sources: A. “Bow/wow ” is originated from the imitation of sounds that human beings heard around them in early ages such as splach,… they use sounds to refer to the subjects, for example when a bird makes the sound “coco”, they would call it coco B. “Pooh-pooh”: human’s first words were derived from spontaneous expressions of anger, dislike, hunger, joy…etc.
C. “Yo heave ho”: originated from the grunts of people involved in a physical effort; like carrying a tree or mammoth. 3. Oral- gesture source: This theory goes further back in time when people used physical gestures to communicate their ideas. It is thought that over time they started to use not only their hands, but also movements of mouth, lips and tongue which subsequently developed into speech as we know it.
Sociolinguistic Sociolinguistic is the study of the relation between language and society, it is the descriptive study of the effects on many aspects of society including cultural norms, expectations and context; the way language is used, and how does language affects on the society.
Language varieties
A pidgin: is nobody’s native language, it is when two speakers of different language, with no common language try to hold conversation; it is developed between people whose mother language is different, in order to facilitate communication between them… A Creole: is a variety of language that developed from a pidgin and which is used as a first language by a population of native speakers Inter-language: is a leaner of L2 who has not become fully proficient yet, but is approximating the target language… by preserving some features of first language, making some overgeneralizations and some mistakes. Standard language: is a variety of language which forms the basis of the (English for ex) in news papers, books and which is used in the mass media, and which is also thought in schools. Dialect VS accent : A dialect is a version of a language that is special to a particular region or group. Dialects of the same language are different from each other, but still understandable to speakers of another dialect of that language. For example, American English and British English are two dialects of English. They have some differences, such as in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, but they are still understandable to each other. On the other hand, accent refers to the sounds that are present in a person’s language. Pronunciation is basically a synonym of accent. Therefore, if I pronounce differently from someone, I have a different accent.
Regional dialect: is a variety of language in terms of geographical boundaries. Bilingualism: means that there are two official languages in a country. For example, Canada has English as a first language and French as a second language. Register : is a variety of language that is spoken by people who have the same job, same interests…/ or the range of vocabulary, grammar…, used by speakers in particular social circumstances or professional contexts. Style: is a manner of writing that is characteristic of a particular writer, historical period or type of literature. Diglossia: refers to a person who speaks two dialects of the same language and switch between them based on social situation. Isoglosses: is a line across the map, that is separating areas, this line is called isogloss, and represents the boundary between the areas which regard to that particular linguistic item. An idiolect : is an individual’s own personal language. Some people have a varied vocabulary. Some people are very repetitive. Some people are long winded. Some are straight to the point. Language planning: is the government’s deliberate effort to change a language or its functions. It has five steps; 1-selection stage (which language..). 2- Codifications (creating dictionaries). 3Elaborating (use of the language in everyday’s situations). 4- Implementation (the government’s encouragement of the language). 5- Acceptance.
The scientific characteristics of linguistics are: 1) Explicitness 2) Systematicness 3) Objectivity
The term: first language acquisition This term refers to children’s natural acquisition of the languages they hear from birth. It is distinguished from second language acquisition, which begins later, and from foreign language learning, which typically involves formal instructions. It is the first basic requirement for language acquisition. If we take a child born of Moroccan parents and put him in another social environment, such as Italy for example, he will speak the language spoken there (e.i. Italian) not Moroccan Arabic. This is called; cultural transmission, not genetic transmission. If the child was not exposed to a human language, “the language faculty” (that is the ability to acquire language); with which he is born, cannot be activated. Physical fitness:
There is no output if language faculty was not activated. This leads us to say that language acquisition requires both the auditory and the acoustic input The critical age:
The critical age, called also puberty, occurs in the area where language is developing. Language acquisition has to be activated before this age. If the language is not activated on time that is before this age; language acquisition will certainly fail. Stages of language acquisition:
1. Pre-linguistic period: A- Cooing During their first moth, children cry many times in a day. These cries are accompanied by producing some sounds.
B- Babbling Babies all over the world produce the same sounds and they may produce sounds that are never used in their environment. Babbling is an internal behavior, not a response to external stimulation. Children around the sixth to the ninth month begin to differentiate between the sounds and select the sounds that exist in their environment.
2. The linguistic period: A. The holophrastic stage:
After one year. Children have learnt that so unds are related to meanings; they begin to go through the one-word which is considered for them as one-utterance. The words in this stage serve three major functions. First, they are linked with a child’s own action or desire for action. Second, they are used to convey emotions. Third, they serve a naming function.
B. The two-word utterances:
Babies begin to produce two-word utterances which can show different combination of word order. In this stage, the words lack morphological and syntactic markers, but we can notice tha t there is a word order. C. Telegraphic stage:
At this stage, the word forms are beginning to vary; inflectional morphemes begin to appear in addition to the use of simple prepositions. The child’s pronunciation is closer to the adult’s one.
3. Morphology: Some inflectional morphemes will appear, indicating functions of the nouns and verbs. This child is going to use all the verbs he knows is “ing” form, in the same way, all nouns with plural. This is referred to as the process of Generalization. For the past inflection, the child is going to use for example, the verb “go” with (ed) and say “goed”. By the time the baby learns further rules, he is going to over generalize them.
4. Syntax: The child’s speech shows strong evidence against imitation, because his own production remains different on morphological and syntactic levels. Many studies about the development of syntax in the child’s language have shown that the use of the child’s language never violates the English syntactic rules. In the two-word stage, the baby either begins his utterance with a wh-word, or only uses a rising intonation. By the telegraphic speech, he may not use inversion; he would use negation, and may use double negation regularly.
Acquisition barriers of the second language
Children have few time in the week… they have other occupations, so they do not have enough time to st
learn and acquire the second language. Moreover, they have their mother language (1 L) by which they communicate every day.
st
Concerning adults, their tongues got stiff from pronunciation of the 1 language; so they find difficulties and cannot cope with other languages or speech sounds.
There is a strong unwillingness or embarrassment concerning the pronunciation of some speech nd
sounds of the other language (2 L). The language faculty (which means the biological ability to learn and use the language) has been
taken over by the first language to there is less flexibility to receive the second language Some are good at writing, but when it comes to oral communication, they cannot manage it…
nd
Methods of learning the 2 language: *the grammar method : (set of grammatical rules that have to be memorized, the emphasis is on the written st
language rather than the spoken language); it focuses on the grammar vocabulary and translation from the 1 nd
language to the 2 language. Students who apply this approach leave with a goo d grammar and vocabulary skills, but a loss in the communication and oral.
*the direct method : it is approximately the opposite of the first one.., the emphasis was placed on the spoken and the oral language. The grammar and vocabulary were avoided. (no use of the mother tongue and no translation..)
*the communicative approach: it is against the belief that learning grammar will result in an ability to use the language. This approach is characterized by lessons organized around concepts; like asking for things… in different social contexts rather the forms of the past tense… Variety of language skills are involved, development of a communicative competence and interaction, and
focus on the meaning…
*audio-lingual process: by using new material..; listening, speaking, reading and writing are developed. They focus on the repetition and the inflection and replacement. The belief that the fluent use of language was essentially a set of habits which could be developed into
practice.
