Basic concepTS  in LinguisTICS

 Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, of the systems and principles underlying human languages. It is called a scientific study because it follows the methodology of science, i.e., analysis of the data and formation of all theory to explain it. A linguist studies his subject matter in all its aspects. Since language is made up of speech sounds, words, and sentences used for meaningful communication and expression, a linguist analyses linguistic data at all these different levels.

Level of linguistic analysis

●      Phonetics is the study of speech sounds in general, the articulation, transmission and reception of speech sounds.

●      Phonology is the study of the selection and organization of speech sounds in a language

●      Morphology is the study of the internal organization of words, the way morphemes are organized into words.

●      Syntax deals with the organization of words into phrases.

●      Semantics is the study of meaning in all its aspects.

 

 

 

Phonology

 Phonology or phonemics deals with the distinctive sounds and their specific patterning in a particular language, i.e., their functional behaviours, their combinatory possibilities or syllabic structure, and the nature and use of such prosodic features as stress, pitch, intonation, etc. Each language has its own system of sounds and also its own specific ways of organizing them into larger units, which together constitute its phonology.

 Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest distinctive unit of sound in the sound system of a language. The phonemes of a language are distinctive or contrastive, they stand in contrast with one another in the phonological system of that language. Units that can be substitute for one another in the same environment are said to be in contrastive or parallel distribution and those which do not occur in the same linguistic environment are said to be in non- contrastive or complementary distribution.

     

      Allophones

Each phoneme may have a number of variant forms called allophones, occurring in different contexts. The allophones of a phoneme have considerable phonetic similarity between them as well as differences and they do not occur in the same phonetic environment.

Example: pin -/p/ is aspirated

                : Spin-/p/ is unaspirated

The two /p/ are the allophones of same phoneme /p/.

 

 

The Syllable

At a level higher than individual sound segments or phonemes, we have the unit called syllable. In every word made up of more than a single sound, at least one sound is heard to be more ‘prominent' than the neighbouring sounds. If there is one such prominent sound, the sequence is said to consist of one syllable. E.g.: tree, hit, bell. They are called monosyllabic words. Words like calmer, letter, sister have syllables each and they are called disyllabic words. Words with more than two syllables are called polysyllabic. Examples are civilization, cultivation, humanity, etc.

 

Suprasegmentals

Certain additional speech features, such as stress, pitch, length, etc., affecting speech sounds which may hence be called sound attributes or suprasegmentals.

Word Stress: All the syllables in a polysyllabic word in English are not articulated with the same force. Some are uttered with greater force than the others. Stress may be described as the degree of force with which a sound or syllable is pronounced.

Rhythm: one of the important characteristics of stress in English is that it is a language with a stress timed rhythm. This means that in English stressed syllables tend to occur at regular intervals of time. Such a phenomenon of certain features occurring at regular intervals of time is called isochrony. Stress in English is isochronous.

Juncture or Transition: Juncture refers to the phenomenon of pauses in speech, the pause that we make between two words to make out meaning.

Pitch and Intonation: The term intonation is used to cover both the pattern of changes in the pitch of the voice and the terminal contour. Utterance bound pitch is called intonation.

 

 

ASSIMILATION

The way in which sounds influence each other is called assimilation. It is a process by which a certain sound is replaced by another under the influence of a third one which is adjacent to it.

/nju:z / + / print / - / nju: sprint /

ELISION

When a sound which exists in a word pronounced in isolation or in connected speech is dropped or elided in a compound or connected phrase, it is called elision.

Eg: bed time = / betaim /

      Last time= / la:staim /

 

MORPHOLOGY

The part of linguistics that deals with the study of the structure of words is called morphology or morphemics. It is the study of how morphemes are put together or organized to form words.

THE MORPHEME

The smallest unit of form that has meaning in a given language is called a morpheme. Thus a morpheme may further be described as a meaningful phoneme or series of phonemes which is not further divisible without destruction or alteration of meaning in a given language.

ALLOMORPHS

An allomorph may be defined as a variant concrete realization of a morpheme, which occurs in certain definable environments.

 

 

CONDITIONING

A phenomenon is said to be conditioned when it occurs in certain definable context or environments, i.e., when certain conditions are fulfilled. The occurrence of allomorphs is not always phonologically conditioned; they may be morphologically conditioned also.

 

 

SYNTAX

The rules and principles governing the arrangement of words into such higher units is technically called syntax.

Approaches to the Study of Grammar

●      The grammar of a language can be studied diachronically or synchronically. A diachronic study deals with the evolutionary stages of grammar. Synchronic study describes it as it exists at a point of time.

Traditional Grammar

The term traditional grammar is rather vague and it is difficult to pin point its definite features. Traditional English grammars are mainly an inheritance from the Latin based grammar of the 18 th century. But those early grammarians forgot that Latin is Latin and English is English and tried to fit English grammar in the framework of Latin grammar.

Structural/Descriptive Linguistics and Grammar

The most influential school of linguistics from the early to mid-20th century was structural or descriptive grammar. Structural grammar was in fact a reaction against notional grammar of the traditional kind. The vagueness of the notions, the inexplicitness in the criteria of definitions, and the use of meaning for the establishment of grammatical categories were anathema to the structuralists of the time. They vehemently opposed semantic criteria and concentrated on formal criteria.

Phrase Structure Grammar

A more sophisticated model of grammar is called phrase structure grammar. Phrase structure grammar contain a set of rules called phrase structure rules or rewrite rules. Rewrite rules are capable not only of generating strings of linguistic elements, but also of providing a constituent analysis of the string. They provide a set of directions, which, if followed mechanically, will generate the abstract framework of Basic English sentences. A rewrite rule is a replacement rule in which the symbol to the left of the arrow is replaced by the expanded form written to the right of the arrow. Phrase structure grammar have an advantage over IC model in that labels are in built the rewrite rules, and the rules themselves can be arranged in a sequence so that each rule can be used to rewrite the output of the previous one.

Transformational Generative Grammar

 Transformational generative grammar is one of the most influential of modern linguistic theories, introduced through Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures in 1957. He questioned some of the basic principles of the structural approach. Transformational generative grammar comprises – syntactic, semantic, and phonological.

 

SEMANTICS

Semantics or semiotics is the philosophical and scientific study of meaning in natural and artificial languages. The word semantics has ultimately prevailed as a name for the doctrine of meaning, of linguistic meaning in particular. Semiotics is still used, however, to denote a broader field: the study of sign-using behaviour in general.

 

The notion of linguistic meaning, the special concern of philosophical and linguistic semantics, must be distinguished from other common notions with which it is sometimes confused. Among them are natural meaning, as in smoke means fire or those spots mean measles; conventional meaning, as in a red traffic light means stop or the skull and crossbones means danger; and intentional meaning, as in John means well or Frank means business. The notion of linguistic meaning, in contrast, is the one exemplified in the following sentences:

 

The words bachelor and unmarried man have the same meaning (are synonymous).

The word bank has several meanings (is ambiguous).

The string of words colourless green ideas sleep furiously is meaningless (anomalous).

The sentence all bachelors are unmarried is true by virtue of its meaning (is analytic).

 

The complex expressions generated by these devices are not only grammatical (assuming that their constituents are grammatical) but also meaningful (assuming that their constituents are meaningful). An adequate semantic theory, therefore, must account for this fact. In other words, it must explain how the meanings of complex expressions are determined by and predictable from the meanings of their simpler constituents. The fact that complex meanings are determined by the meanings of their constituents is often referred to as the compositionality of natural languages.

 

THEORETICAL BASE OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

Language is a source of communication. We share our ideas and thoughts with others using languages. There are thousands of languages in this world. Countries have their own national languages in addition to a variety of local languages spoken and understood by their people. Some languages are spoken by millions of people, others by only a few thousand.

 

English was originally the language of England. Due to historical reason it has become the primary or secondary language of many former British colonies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and India. Now It is the language of Hollywood and the language of international banking and business. As such, it is a useful and even necessary language to know. There are several factors that make the English language essential for communication. First of all, it is the most common foreign language. When two people who come from different countries meet usually they use English as a common language to communicate. That’s why everyone needs to learn the language in order to get in touch on an international level. Speaking it will help us to communicate with people from countries all over the world.

 

English enriches the field of education. In many countries, children are taught and encouraged to learn English as a second language. It is the dominant language in the sciences. Most of the research and studies we find in any given scientific field will be written in English. At the university level, students in many countries study almost all their subjects in English in order to make the material more accessible to international students. It is the application of an integrating approach for the development of communicative skills in the classroom, in which the four skills in the acquisition of knowledge of a foreign language can be taught in a coherent way, and practiced together, with a distinction of the importance of one upon the other.

 

Teaching English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) is possible when the instructor’s teaching style address the learning style of the learner, the learner must be motivated, and the setting must provide resources and values that strongly support the teaching of the language. Four primary skills – listening, reading, speaking, and writing also includes related skills such as knowledge of vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation, syntax, meaning, and usage. English communication improves when the skills are interwoven during instruction. This is known as the integrated-skill approach.