Lecture One:

General Linguistics, its Objects and Tasks. The Origin and Development of Linguistics.

The outline of the lesson: 1. What is Linguistics? 2. Subject Matter and Scope of Linguistics. The Object of Linguistics. 3. Some definitions of language. 4. A glance at the history of Linguistics - Historical Background. 5. Branches of Linguistics (Synchronic and Diachronic Linguistics, Theoretical linguistics etc.).

General Linguistics, its Objects and Tasks.

Bertrand Russell: No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest. Language - is a uniquely human behavior. Human language is characterized by its hierarchical structure. The message is divisible into smaller units of analysis.

Linguistics is the discipline that describes the structure of language, including its grammar, sound system, and vocabulary. Linguistics is the study of language in its various aspects. Its primary concern is the structure of a particular language or of languages in general. Structure - the rules for forming acceptable utterances of the language. In this sense, linguistics is descriptive, rather than prescriptive.

The goal of Linguistics is not to ensure that people follow a standard set of rules in speaking, but rather to develop parsimonious models to explain the language that people actually use and appreciate as well formed.

Language is a complex system that can be considered

at multiple level of analysis. Analyzed in terms of its:

Phonology Morphology Lexicon Syntax Semantics Pragmatics

The subject matter of linguistics comprises all manifestations of human speech

The scope of linguistics should be:
a) to describe and trace the history of all observable languages; b) to determine the forces that are permanently and universally at work in all languages; c) to deduce the general laws to which all specific historical phenomena can be reduced; d) to delimit and define itself.

What is both the integral and concrete object of linguistics?

French: nu bare Latin: nudum

The linguistic phenomenon always has two related sides, each deriving its values from the other E.g.:
1.
Articulated syllables are acoustical impressions perceived by the ear, but the sounds would not exist without the vocal organs; an n, for example, exists only by the virtue of the relation between the two sides. 2. But suppose that sound was a simple thing: would it constitute speech? No, it is only the instrument of thought; by itself, it has no existence. 3. Speech has both an individual and social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other. Besides: 4. Speech always implies both an established system and an evolution; at every moment it is an existing institution and a product of the past.

Speech is many-sided and heterogeneous; straddling several areas simultaneously physical, physiological, and psychological it belongs both to the individual and to the society

Language, on the contrary, is a self-contained whole and a principle of classification

Some definitions of language.

Sapir : Language is a purely human and noninstinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols. Bloch and Trager: A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates. Hall: the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols. Chomsky: From now on I will consider a language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.

According to Chomsky:

a) each natural language has a finite number of

sounds in it; b) although there may be infinitely many distinct sentences in the language, each sentence can be represented as a finite sequence of these sounds (or letters).

The given definitions of language

quoted have taken the view that languages are systems of symbols designed for the purpose of communication.

The science that has been developed around the facts of language passed through three stages before finding its true and unique object.
First something called - grammar; Second appeared - philology; Third - comparative philology (discovery that languages can be compared with one another) [Iber das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache, Franz Bopp compared Sanskrit with German, Greek, Latin, etc.]

Franz Bopp realized that the comparison of related languages could become the subject matter of an independent science. To illuminate one language by means of another, to explain the forms of one through the forms of the other, that is what no one had done before him Jacob Grimm, the founder of Germanic studies (Deutsche Grammatik); Pott - etymological studies; Kuhn - works dealt with both linguistics and comparative mythology; Max Miiller, G.Curtius, and August Schleicher deserve special attention - comparative studies. Max Miiller - Lessons in the Science of Language. G.Curtius - Grundziige der griechischen Etymologie. August Schleicher - Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen. (embraced only Indo-European languages)

Linguistics proper, which puts comparative studies in their proper place, owes its origin to the study of The Romance and Germanic languages. Romance Studies (begun by Diez his Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen (1836-38)) - were instrumental in bringing linguistics nearer to its true object.

American scholar Whitney - Life and Growth of Language (1875). Neogrammarians: K. Brugmann and H. Osthoff; the Germanic scholars; W. Braune, E. Sievers, H. Paul; the Slavic scholars Leskien, etc.
Their contribution was in placing the results of

comparative studies in their historical perspective and

thus linking the facts in their natural order.

Thanks to them, language is no longer looked upon as an organism that develops independently but as a product of the collective mind of linguistic groups.

Modern Linguistics: Ferdinand de Saussure - General course of linguistics (1916) His systematic structural approach to language has been foundation for virtually all of linguistics since that time. The central continuing notion: Language is a closed system of structural relations; meanings and grammatical uses of linguistic elements depend on the sets of oppositions created among all the elements within the system.

e.g. Slush Rain and snow

De Saussure introduced distinctions such as synchronic (at a single specific time) vs. diachronic (historical) analyses of language De. Saussures work had a powerful impact on various structural-linguistic groups that emerged across Europe

London School of Linguistics Geneva School of Linguistics Copenhagen School of Linguistics Prague School of Linguistics.

Branches of Linguistics: General linguistics Descriptive linguistics Historical linguistics Theoretical linguistics Applied linguistics Macrolinguistics Microlinguistics

theoretical linguistics - the goal is the formulation of a satisfactory theory of the structure of language in general. applied linguistics - it is clear that it draws on both the general and the descriptive branches of the subject; microlinguistics - is concerned solely with the structure of language systems; macrolinguistics - concerned with everything that pertains in any way at all to language and languages.

Technical terms: diachronic and synchronic diachronic description - traces the historical development of the language and records the changes that have taken place in it between successive points in time; synchronic description - is non-historical: it presents an account of the language as it is at some particular point in time.