Introduction To Linguistics. Step 2 - The nature of Linguistics and Language.

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Code: 1081516681

Course Name: Introduction To Linguistics

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Group: 58017_28

UNAD

Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia

2019
 Task 1: individual activity

1. Read the following two documents “An Introduction to Linguistics and Language Studies”
pages 1-13, by McCabe A, and “Linguistics”; and also, read the document ‘Linguistics’ by
Bauer, Laurie. Pages 10-18, found in UNIT 1, in the Knowledge Environment.

2. Based on the first document, do Exercise 1.4 in page 13. You have six phrases and you
have to identify them to whom the phrases might belong, “Attribute each of the…phrases
to Ferdinand de Saussure, Noam Chomsky, or Michael Halliday.

 ‘If we could embrace the sum of word-images stored in the minds of all individuals,
we could identify the social bond that constitutes language. It is a storehouse filled
by the members of a given community through their active use of speaking, a
grammatical system that has a potential existence in each brain, or, specifically, in
the brains of a group of individuals. For language is not complete in any speaker; it
exists perfectly only within a collectivity.’

I attribute this phrase to Ferdinand de Saussure, since in its initial structuralism he

projects language as a system of elements and permissible combination rules by the
community of speakers who use it to communicate and also he explained that
language is linked to the potential of each individual and cerebral potential of each
one, also, the point of view on the study and analysis of language has a certain
relationship with the words in the phrase.
he projected language as a system of signs, which allow individual speakers to share
their knowledge through linguistics, the study of the system of a language to articulate
the elements that distinguish one functional form from another.

 ‘It seems clear that we must regard linguistic competence – knowledge of a

language – as an abstract system underlying behavior, a system constituted by rules
that interact to determine the form and intrinsic meaning of a potentially infinite
number of sentences.’

I attribute this phrase to Noam Chomsky, because he introduced the concept of

linguistic competence in his elaboration of generative grammar, where it has been
widely adopted and competence is the only level of language that is studied. There are
some kind of characteristics and elements which determine a specific human
language, some general universal elements, and conditions on the form and
association of any human language, where form the topic matter for the study of
general grammar.

According to him; everyone has a syntactic experience in terms of a set of finite rules.
For Chomsky, the actual use of language, or performance, is just the tip of the iceberg
 of linguistic competence, or the underlying mental processes that we carry out in our
language production

 ‘Every text – that is, everything that is said or written – unfolds in some context of
use; furthermore, it is the uses of language that, over tens of thousands of
generations, have shaped the system. Language has evolved to satisfy human needs;
and the way it is organized is functional with respect to these needs.’

I attribute this phrase to Halliday, who points out that functional grammar is so-called
because its conceptual framework is a functional one rather than a formal one. It is
functional in three distinct senses: in its interpretation 1. of texts, 2. of the system, and
3. of the elements of linguistic. To Halliday there are also three ways, where make it a
system of choices.
Interpersonally: establishing and maintain relationships between people. Ideationally:
construing the world weather real, invited, or abstract. Textually: organizing the
interpersonal and the ideational into coherent texts.
It teaches us that language is constantly changing because some rules are added and
deleted, thus language has lasted for generations. For this reason, we sometimes say
or imply ourselves with some words and the result is another.

 ‘Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-hearer, in a

completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and
is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations,
distractions, shifts of attention and interest, errors (random or characteristic) in
applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance.’

This phrase I attribute to Noam Chomsky, since linguistics in this sense is concerned
with an idealized model of the grammar a speaker has in his/her head. The natural
speaker has its own knowledge about the grammatical laws; when we are a child, we
can learn some kinds of grammar. linguistics is concerned with the "laws behind" the
concrete use of language in a particular situation.
According to Chomsky Each of the mental introductions has a mental repository of the
rules by which our language or dialect organizes linguistic elements in well-formed
strings;
And also says that these ideas are formed on the basis of two types of linguistics, the
one that is possessed during the first years and the one fosters through technology.

 ‘Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term

results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others … [for example]. To
determine what a five-franc piece is worth one most know: (1) that it can be
exchanged for a fixed quantity of a different thing, e.g. bread; and (2) that it can be
compared with a similar value of the same system, e.g. a one-franc piece, or with
coins of another system (a dollar, etc.). In the same way a word can be exchanged
for something dissimilar, an idea; besides, it can be compared with something of the
 same nature, another word. Its value is therefore not fixed so long as one simply
states that it can be ‘exchanged’ for a given concept.’

I attribute this phrase to Saussure, because, for Saussure, there are no objects
(words / texts / others) that have an inherent, autonomous, "positive" meaning: there
are only points of view whose meanings depend on their interrelation. For Saussure,
the relationship between a given signified and signifier in the rough is arbitrary. Thus,
for example, we can say something that could have a different meaning; There is other
evidence that language is not a system, whose name already exists.

 ‘Spoken and written language, then, tend to display different KINDS of complexity;
each of them is more complex in its own way. Written language tends to be lexically
dense but grammatically simple; spoken language tends to be grammatically intricate
but lexically sparse’ … ‘The value of having some explicit knowledge of the grammar of
written language is that you can use this knowledge, not only to analyze the texts, but
as a critical resource for asking questions about them.’

This phrase is from Halliday, for him, alternative grammar characteristic are much more
assumed processes of grammatical complexity in advance academic writing. The written
language and spoken language has its own lexical and grammatically meaning depends how we
can understand the words or sentences that we are learning or getting.

3. ‘Based on the second text ‘Linguistics’ in “Bauer, Laurie; The Linguistic Student's
Handbook” Answer the following question: why is Linguistics definitely considered a
science? In your answer, involve the other language areas such as semiotics, philology
and literature.

According to the document “linguistics”, linguistics it’s a science because it studies the human
essence, or how Noam Chomsky said: “The individual abilities of our mind” and According to the
definition of science: science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic
study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and
experiment. Definitely linguistic fall into this category. As the authors before studied reveal on their
works, linguistic is a complex system built by the observation of many experts and masters who
gave it a structure and sense. The linguistic argument ranges from observed data to potentially
explanatory theories to provide a description of the data, as in many sciences does. There are
several good reasons to call linguistic science. Like the biological sciences, linguistics deals with
observing and classifying natural phenomena such as speech sounds, words, languages, and ways
of using language. Because it manifests itself in human behavior, it can be studied in the same way
that any human behavior is studied in psychology or medical sciences. Like many scientists,
linguists construct hypotheses about language structures and then test them through
experimentation. For the linguist, to say that linguistics is a science is a matter of seeking
explanations for the phenomenon of language and constructing theories that help explain why
they occur. Language ranges like semiotics where explain theory of sign systems, where weus
vocabulary of signs related to specific meaning for decades, it has been assumed that every sign
system in nature, one-way to let us understand when the people has some problems to say what
they want. The philology study of language in oral and written historical sources is more
commonly, defined as the study of literary texts as well as oral and written records. Either the
study of languages and literatures, as well as the corresponding culture of its speakers, it shows us
how the old civilizations could manage the language, its own way to communicate. The literature
was seen, as a form of knowledge and process of creativity and the entire body where the people
can manifest some feels and thoughts written on histories.

4.1. The concept of ‘double articulation’ is a classic one at identifying language, please, explain
it, and give examples.

Double articulation refers to the twofold structure of the stream of speech, which can be
primarily divided into meaningful signs (like words or morphemes), and then secondarily into
distinctive elements (like letters or phonemes).

Morphemes: It is the first articulation unit endowed with signifier and meaning, whose
linguistic sign is smaller.
Example:
antedate prehistoric unhealthy disregard
• Phonemes: It is considered the second smallest linguistic unit that has significant, but it has no
meaning, it is not a linguistic sign in Spanish there are 22 phonemes

Examples: Kid  K,I,D

Home  H,O,M,E

Table  T,A,B,L,E

4.2. Human language is different from other semiotic systems, explain at least three
characteristics, that according to Linguistics, are unique to human language (give
references).

Structure (Language + Speech)

Language as a communicative structure is composed of two different resources: language (or

language), which is a general and constant model of communication common to all members
of a linguistic collective, and speech, which is the momentary materialization of the language
through an individual action of phonation or writing.

Verbal and nonverbal

The type of language can be both verbal and nonverbal, being the verbal language constituted
by words that are formed from phonemes, and that includes both speech and writing, while
non-verbal language is composed of images, drawings, symbols, gestures, voice tones, among
others. It consists of signs The signs that make up a language can be divided into two parts:
the meaning, which is the mental image of the concept being represented, and the signifier,
which is the material form of the sign, be it a word or an image.

Innate and developed

The language is at the same time innate and learned, since people are born with a hereditary
linguistic ability, which consists of a universal grammar common to all human beings, which
will be transformed into a particular grammar (with its own structure) to as the person
develops in a social and family context.