Sociolinguistic

Variation-Dependent and
Independent variables
What variation tells about society?
Variation-

► What we have learnt so far-

► Languages vary naturally
► Varieties of the same language also vary
► Variation can be due to geographical location of the speaker (region) or social
location of the speaker (social factors).
► What is variation?
Two or more alternative ways of saying the same thing. Different sounds, words,
varieties/dialects, or languages that people employ to convey the same thing.
What is a sociolinguistic variable?
► The Sociolinguistic Variables are, Fasold (1990) says, a set of alternatives that
can be employed as different ways of saying the same thing. However, the
alternatives or variants have social significance. More specifically, a
Sociolinguistic variable is a linguistic element that co-varies not only with
other linguistic elements but also with a number of extralinguistic
independent variables like social class, age, gender, ethnicity or contextual
style, etc.
► William Labov, a US Linguist, argued that language involved ‘structured
heterogeneity’. By this, he meant that language contained systematic
variation which could be characterised and explained by patterns of social
differentiation within speech communities.
► Social factors like class, age, education, gender, ethnicity, etc., are
independent variables.
► The linguistic items that vary due to social factors are dependent variables.
► `Example of Sociolinguistic variable- Post-vocalic /r/ in New York English.
Social Class-
► What is Social Class? Socio-economic condition i.e. social and economic
affluence or lack of it, and behavioural patterns, interests, and values
associated with it.
► Two most prominent theories by- Karl Marx’s and Max Weber’s
► Marx drew a fundamental distinction between those who produce capital or
goods/services and those who control the production of capital which others
produce. The former are the working class (Marx’s proletariat, derived from
a word meaning ‘worker’) and the latter, the middle class and upper class
(Marx’s capitalists). Though now, we mostly think of it as a function of a
person’s personal wealth and occupation.
► Substructure (base)-Superstructure-The one who dominates substructure
dominates superstructure.
► Standard and values given to different varieties of languages are determined
by superstructure
Social Class cont.….

► Max Weber’s theory of social class held that it was based on a person’s status,
measured in terms of their lifestyle, life choices and life chances in addition
to economic wealth and occupation (as per Marx).
► Weber defines class as a composite of economic wealth, lifestyle- linguistic
(and other social) behaviour, individual’s agency, attitudes, and aspirations.
These factors can be used to a varying degree in order to better understand
the social meaning of the patterns of variation we find.
Look up “genteel poverty” and “upstarts”
► Another important feature of social class that we inherit from the Weberian
tradition is that however we define class it allows for the possibility of
individual mobility.
How social class influences Linguistic
behaviour?
► Class is a very important factor that determines the variety of language that we
speak. Social class in terms of socio-economic condition/level determines our
chances of access to education, place of residence, different social institutions like
Bank, public Library, Universities etc. also, people from different field of interests
and professions e.g. doctors, academicians, artists, writers, laborers,
rikshaw-pullers etc. Thus, making our speech more like people from the same social
class in a different area or even in a different part of the world (if you speak
standard variety of the same language, variations are minor) than with people from
the same area but different social class. Thus, the speech, as you go lower in the
social strata will become more localized/ less standardized.
► In terms of Social science research, class is divided in four segments LC-Lower class,
WC-working class (can be sub divided into lower, middle and upper), MC- Middle
class (can be sub divided into lower, middle and upper), UC-upper class. These
segments are drawn keeping the income (in many researches it can be the only
parameter), profession, education, value of house of individuals into account.
Age as a Social factor in language
variation-
► Language tends to vary with age of speakers. In terms of standard/slangs, formal/informal, and
also in certain grammatical features e.g. using truncated forms like- in/ing, a’int etc.
► Real time study: when speech samples are taken from speakers of a speech community at an
interval of few years to study the variation over a period of time. In this type of study we can
also use archived speech data as data for comparison. It is diachronic study. It tells us about
historical changes in speech.
► Apparent time study: when at a given point of time speech samples are collected from different
age groups in a speech community. It is synchronic study. It tells us about variation in speech
due to age at a given time, It also tells us about change in progress at a given point of time.
E.g. in my study on CHB (contact Hindi of Bihar), out of total 64 respondents in age group of
15-30, 39 were young women and 25 were young men. Out of 39 young women 35 had fronted
/ə/ in there speech. Among young men 18 had fronted /ə/. In elderly speakers the number of /ə/
fronting takes a sharp dip, out of 31 women in the age group of 45-65 only 5 had fronted /ə/ out
of which 3 were speakers of Urdu, and out of 45 men in the same age group 9 had fronted /ə/
out of which 5 were speakers of Urdu.
► Apart from this study of language variation according to age of the speakers is an upcoming area
of study that includes language of youth.
Education as a social factor in language
variation-
► Education is another important social variable that determines the variety of
language that we speak to a large extent. Education or the lack of it
determines the variety to which we have access, whether we have access to
the standard language/variety through formal education or not (as education
is imparted in formal languages/varieties only), it also determines the peer
group that we form to a large extent, education is also a very important
factor that provide socio-economic mobility which itself can intern influence
speech variety of an individual. Education as a sociolinguistic variable is
studied to find the impact of education on the speech of individuals in a
community or speakers of any particular language e.g. it is more likely for
more educated speakers in Bihar to have the fricatives /ʃ/ and /z/ in their
speech than less educated speakers.
Points to remember-

► Linguistic exclusion (not having access to valued linguistic resources) lead to

marginalization and social exclusion.
► Socio-economic background determines access to linguistic resources and in
turn to availability of opportunities (for higher education, better employment
etc.) and life chances.
Language
Standard Vs
Dialect
Language & Dialect
What is Standardization?
Verbal Repertoire
Diglossia
 Variety: A set of linguistic items with similar social distribution.

Language: Sum total of all the varieties/dialects including “standard

Language”. E.g. English (Language) it contains Yorkshire English,
Cockney English, American English, Indian English etc.
Few Key Dialect: Variety of language according to the user i.e. user’s social
Terms….before location and geographical location. (everybody speaks a dialect).

we begin the According to Einar Haugen (1966), in English the term dialect was
borrowed in the Renaissance, as a learned word from Greek.

discussion- in popular understanding today a variety of a language which is not

used for literary purposes, is mostly unwritten. (-prestige),
(-standardization) is a dialect.

“A language is a dialect with an army and navy”…..Max Weinreich.

What is Standard Language?

► We can have following definitions given by different Linguists-

► Ferguson (1961) defines a standard as a single widely accepted norm, used
with only minor modifications or variations for all purpose of language use.
► Garvin and Mathiot (1963) defines a standard language as a ‘codified form of
a language accepted by and serving as a model to a larger speech community.
► Language Standardization can be regarded as the process of language
unification and norm setting in a given community, affecting written as well
as spoken norms.
► However we can say that standard is a variety of language, use of which is
unified in writing, grammar and lexicon. A standard is thus a set of widely
accepted rules serving as norms more particularly in the written form.
What makes a variety “Standard”

► Language Standardization activity involves preparing normative rules for

the guidance of the speakers and writers. In order to get a standardized
variety following process is followed-
► Selection - somehow or other a particular variety gets selected as the one to
be developed into a standard language. It may be an existing variety, such as
the one used in an important political or commercial centre, but it could be
an amalgam of various varieties. The choice is a matter of great social and
political importance, as the chosen variety necessarily gains prestige and so
the people who already speak it share in this prestige. However, in some
cases the chosen variety has been one with no native speakers at all - for
instance, Classical Hebrew in Israel and the two modern standards for
Norwegian (Haugen 1994).
Cont…

► Codification - some agency such as an academy must have written

dictionaries and grammar books to 'fix' the variety, so that everyone agrees on
what is correct. Once codification has taken place, it becomes necessary for
any ambitious citizen to learn the correct forms and not to use in writing any
'incorrect' forms that may exist in their native variety.
► Elaboration of function - it must be possible to use the selected variety in
all the functions associated with central government and with writing: for
example, in parliament and law courts, in bureaucratic, educational and
scientific documents of all kinds and, of course, in various forms of literature.
This may require extra linguistic items to be added to the variety, especially
technical words, but it is also necessary to develop new conventions for using
existing forms - how to formulate examination questions, how to write formal
letters, and so on.
Cont.…

► Acceptance - the variety has to be accepted by the relevant population as

the variety of the community - usually, in fact, as the national language.
Once this has happened, the standard language serves as a strong unifying
force for the state, as a symbol of its independence of other states (assuming
that its standard is unique and not shared with others), and as a marker of its
difference from other states. It is precisely this symbolic function that makes
states go to some lengths to develop one.
► “Standardization is triumph of written language over spoken
language”……written language is accessible to few, thus standard language is
a resource/commodity available for few, it has high value that makes it
coveted.
► Standard language in usage is indexical of carefulness, education, and social
status.
 ► Standardization is an ideological
process-be it of language or
community/nation……
► Standardized language has its roots in
the prescriptive rule bound grammars,
Weeding of speech of upper middle class and upper
class.
‘impurity’-setti ► Standardization is an inherently biased
phenomenon….it is always at advantage
ng boundaries of some and disadvantage of others i.e.
Mainstream Vs Periphery, Centre Vs
and standards Borders, Urban Vs Rural, Rich Vs
Poor…..
► At times “non-standard language” is
used as a mark of resistance in works of
art e.g. “we don’t need no
education”….Pink Floyd.
Dialect definition:-

► Dialect: Dialect is the term that is often used to distinguish between the
standard variety, which is considered to be “the Language” and other
varieties of a language.
► The term dialect also refers to varieties of a language that are not written or
even to languages that are not written, do not have literature, are not
uniform, standardized and are not used for official purposes.
► In a way we can say that we all speak dialect, as we have stated above that
all the varieties/ dialects of a language constitute the language, that ways all
of us even those who claim to speak the near standard variety- speak a
variety/ dialect.
► In terms of dialect geography a dialect is a variety of language which is
spoken in a particular region and is different from other varieties.
Types of Dialects-

► Sociolects- Dialect/variety according to social factors like socio-economic

class, age, gender, education etc.
► Regional Dialect- Dialect/variety according to region
► Genderlect- Dialect/Variety according to gender
► Idiolect-Dialect/Variety spoken by an individual, speech habits peculiar to an
individual.
Variation in Dialects-

► Sociolects- The variation that we see in language due to social factors like
age, gender, class, etc. are known as social dialects or sociolects.
► Regional dialects: Varieties of a language which are region specific are known
as regional dialect or regional variety e.g. Yorkshire English, Bihari Hindi etc.
► Dialects differ from each other on three major factors- Lexical (difference in
words), Phonological (difference in sounds and sound combinations allowed),
Grammatical (difference in sentence construction i.e. what may be
considered a grammatically correct sentence)
Isoglosses and Dialect Continuum

► The virtual (not physically existing) lines that define the geographic/regional boundary of a linguistic
item are known as isoglosses. Boundaries of major varieties/languages will have several isoglosses
on the boundary.
► When varieties of a language are spoken together in a geographical region so that they form a
continuum, this continuum is known as dialect continuum. In dialect continuum region any two
adjacent varieties are mutually intelligible but varieties on the farthest end or even those that are
far off from each other are not mutually intelligible e.g. German dialect continuum from Amsterdam
to Vienna.
► In the Indian case (now divided into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh), several distinct languages exist
with long traditions of literary production, including Sindhi, Kashmiri, Hindi, Rajasthani, Panjabi,
Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali and others (see Map). These autonomous, regional languages do show
sharp breaks in terms of their grammar, so that it is possible to differentiate one from the other.
However, in terms of everyday, informal speech at the village level there are no such sharp breaks.
Gumperz (1971: 7) speaks of a chain of mutually intelligible varieties from the Sind (in the
north-west) to Assam (in the northeast). These form the Indo-Aryan Language Continuum.
► The Indo-Aryan languages spoken from the East to the west of India- if we take two neighbouring
languages from this region, say, Magahi and Bhojpuri they will be mutually intelligible to a certain
extent but if we take Bangla and Sindhi from the far ends they will not be mutually intelligible.
Indo-Aryan
Language
Continuum-(u
nshaded area)
How do we define if it is a variety of a
language?
► Mutual intelligibility? Danish and Norwegian are pretty intelligible mutually but they are two
languages! So are Hindi and Urdu! Different varieties of Chinese are unintelligible to each other but
they are considered varieties of the same language!
► Shared Cultural and Historical features (both linguistic and non-linguistic)- Hindi and Urdu share a lot
of socio-cultural history also linguistic features but they are still two languages for most speakers!
► Acceptance of speakers (more than anything else)
► But the most important thing to remember is that whether a language is considered to be a variety
of another language or not depends on socio-political and to a certain extent economic situation at a
given time.
► Linguistic Nationalism/Assertion of Linguistic identity- When a group wants to assert their
independent identity after political independence they start using their dialect to assert that and do
away with the standard language. As in the case of Ukraine and Ukrainian which was considered to
be a dialect of Russian before independence but then it became the marker of the independent
identity of Ukraine.
► Dialectization- The phenomenon where a closely related language or variety or even a different
language is said to be the dialect of another more dominant language is called dialectization.
Diglossia:
► Diglossia: The term was coined by Charles Ferguson in 1959. Diglossia in the classical sense
describes a unique situation in societies where there are two distinct varieties of a language meant
for distinct usage i.e. one that is considered to be the ‘high variety is highly standardized &
codified, has respected literature and is learned by formal education. It is used for writing
literature, publishing textbooks, education, media, formal situations like speeches etc. and the
other that is considered to be ‘the low variety’ is acquired naturally and is used for general
conversations and informal situations with everyone. E.g. classical Arabic and colloquial Arabic in
Arab countries, sadhu Bhasha Bangla and cəlit Bhasha Bangla in Bengal or Standard Hindi and
Bihari Hindi in Bihar.
► By *extension Diglossia can also describe the situation where two languages that are not
linguistically varieties of each other are treated in this manner e.g. Bhojpuri and Hindi in Bihar. Or
to even situations where two languages that are not related* to each other (Bhojpuri is a variety of
Hindi in the census and is linguistically closely related to it) like Hindi and English in India have
unequal prestige attached to them and one is preferred over the other (English is preferred over
Hindi in this case).
► * Joshua Fishman (1967) gave an extension to diglossia to include unrelated languages e.g. Spanish
(H) and Guarani (L) in Paraguay.
► *Hindi and English belong to Indo-Aryan and Germanic families respectively but both families are
part of the larger Indo-European language family. Still, the languages are very different and
mutually unintelligible from each other.
Few examples of the use of
non-standard ‘L’ variety- Bihari Hindi
Register-
► The term register is often used in Sociolinguistics to refer to ‘varieties according to
use’ in contrast with dialects, defined as ‘varieties according to user’. The same
person may use different linguistic items to express the same meaning at different
occasions or contexts. E.g. Job Interview, speaking to your parents, talking to your
friends, football match commentary etc.
► Dialect shows who or what you are, Register shows what you are doing.
► Each time we speak or write we not only locate ourselves in relation to the rest of
society, but we also relate our act of communication itself to a complex
classificatory scheme of communicative behaviour.
► Remember three important aspects are used to determine the register-
1) Field- It is concerned with the purpose or the subject matter of the communication.
(Why and What?)
2) Mode- It refers to the means by which communication is taking place i.e
spoken/written. (How?)
3) Tenor- It refers to relation between the participants in communication.
(To whom?)
Some examples-
► Different registers are employed to show the relation between addressee and the
speaker i.e. whether they have the relation of power, hierarchy or of solidarity e.g.
when you write a letter to inform your friend about something and when you write a
letter to your teacher to inform about the same thing. Or when you talk to your
friends about something and you talk to your parents about the same thing
► I am writing to inform you…….”
► I just wanted to tell you.......”
See the following sentences as well- (Some people were missing from the hostel)
► From a friend: Where were you last night? I rang to see if you wanted to come for a
movie?
► In court from a lawyer: could you tell the court where were you on the night of
Friday the seventeenth of March?
► From a teacher: I know some of you went out after curfew hours last night, will you
tell me where were you?
Use of different Registers-
► In case of same information, use of different registers depends predominantly on
two factors- Addressee and context
► These relations can be of ‘power’ or hierarchy as in whether the addressee is
socially/economically or professionally subordinate/junior, equal or superior to
the speaker.
► Solidarity- what is the relation between speaker and addressee- from very
intimate to very distant.
► Apart from that what influences use of a certain register are age, and social
background of the addressee.
► One person’s dialect/variety can be other person’s register e.g. for a speaker of
a non-standard variety of a language, standard variety is a register that he/she
employs at certain occasions only.
Jargon-

► Every occupation, profession, science and trade have terms that are specific
to them or we can say specific professional slang term associated with that
particular area. Such terms are known as Jargons e.g. in Linguistics we have
terms like- diglossia, morpheme, ad stratum, restricted code etc. Jargons are
used for ease and clarity of communication and when the speakers want to
identify themselves with people they share interest with. Jargons are also
called argots.
Slangs-

► Slangs are mark of informal speech. Slangs are something that everyone uses
and recognises, but nobody can define accurately. It is a part of language that
is more metaphorical, vivid, playful, elliptical, and short lived than ordinary
language. It can introduce new words into a language by combining with new
meanings e.g. spaced-out, bang-on, rip-off, nuts, cool, stoned, rave etc.
those of you who know local Hindi will know many more in it…….one from
Bihari Hindi Garda!
► Slangs are often coined and used by young speakers.
Verbal Repertoire:
► Verbal Repertoire: Gumperz (1968:125) defines verbal repertoire as the
totality of dialects and superposed variants regularly used within a speech
community.
► The verbal repertoire must include the linguistic resources employed in the
community. The fact to remember here is that, just because a speech
community possesses certain varieties doesn’t mean that all those varieties
will be accessible to all the members of the community equally. The
accessibility of different varieties depends on the position of an individual
within the social system.
► We can define an individuals verbal repertoire as all the languages, varieties,
and registers that are used by the individual.
 Brain and Language 461

Brain and Language

The human brain is a most unusual instrument of elegant and as yet unknown capacity.
STUART SEATON

Attempts to understand the complexities of human cognitive abilities and espe-

cially the acquisition and use of language are as old and as continuous as history
itself. What is the nature of the brain? What is the nature of human language?
And what is the relationship between the two? Philosophers and scientists have
grappled with these kinds of questions over the centuries. But modern advances
in brain technology have enabled researchers to study the brain-language con-
nection in ways scarcely imagined in earlier times. The study of the biological
and neural foundations of language is called neurolinguistics. Neurolinguistic
research is often based on data from atypical or impaired language and uses
such data to understand properties of human language in general.

The Human Brain

The human brain is unique in that it is the only container of which it can be said that the
more you put into it, the more it will hold.
GLENN DOMAN

The brain is the most complex organ of the body. The surface of the brain is
the cortex, often called “gray matter,” consisting of billions of neurons (nerve
cells) and glial cells (which support and protect the neurons). The cortex is the
decision-making organ of the body. It receives messages from all of the sensory
organs, initiates all voluntary and involuntary actions, and is the storehouse of
our memories and the seat of our consciousness. It is the organ that most dis-
tinguishes humans from other animals. Somewhere in this gray matter resides
the grammar that represents our knowledge of language.
The brain is composed of a right and a left cerebral hemisphere, joined by
the corpus callosum, a network of more than 200 million fibers (see Figure 10.2
on the next page). The corpus callosum allows the two hemispheres of the
brain to communicate with each other. Without this system of connections,
the hemispheres would operate independently. In general, the left hemi-
sphere controls the right side of the body, and the right hemisphere controls
the left side. If you point with your right hand, the left hemisphere is re-
sponsible for your action. Similarly, sensory information from the right side
of the body (e.g., right ear, right hand, right visual field) is received by the
left hemisphere of the brain, and sensory input to the left side of the body is
received by the right hemisphere. This is referred to as contralateral brain
function. The following quote from the Bible suggests that the connection
between control of the right side of the body and speech has been suspected
for a long time.
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;
Psalm 137, King James Version
Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
 462 CHAPTER 10 Language Processing and the Human Brain

Front
Corpus Callosum

Left Right
Hemisphere Hemisphere

Cortex White
Matter

Back

FIGURE 10.2 | Three-dimensional reconstruction of the normal living human brain. The
images were obtained from magnetic resonance data using the Brainvox technique. Left
panel = view from top. Right panel = view from the front following virtual coronal section
at the level of the dashed line.
Courtesy of Hanna Damásio.

The Localization of Language in the Brain

“Peanuts,” United Feature Syndicate, Inc

An issue of central concern has been to determine which parts of the brain are
responsible for human linguistic abilities. In the early nineteenth century, Franz
Joseph Gall proposed the theory of localization, which is the idea that dif-
ferent human cognitive abilities and behaviors are localized in specific parts
of the brain. In light of our current knowledge about the brain, some of Gall’s

Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
 Brain and Language 463

FIGURE 10.3 | Phrenology skull model.

particular views are amusing. For example, he proposed that language is located
in the frontal lobes of the brain because as a young man he had noticed that
the most articulate and intelligent of his fellow students had protruding eyes,
which he believed reflected overdeveloped brain material. He also put forth
a pseudoscientific theory called “organology” that later came to be known as
phrenology, which is the practice of determining personality traits, intellectual
capacities, and other matters by examining the “bumps” on the skull.
A disciple of Gall’s, Johann Spurzheim, introduced phrenology to ­America,
constructing elaborate maps and skull models such as the one shown in­
Figure 10.3 in which language is located directly under the eye. Although
phrenology has long been discarded as a scientific theory, Gall’s view that the
brain is not a uniform mass, and that linguistic and other cognitive capacities
are functions of localized brain areas, has been upheld by scientific investiga-
tion of brain disorders, and, over the past two decades, by numerous studies
using sophisticated technologies examining both normal and impaired brain
function.

Aphasia
The study of aphasia has been an important area of research in understanding
the relationship between the brain and language. Aphasia is the neurologi-
cal term for any language disorder that results from acquired brain damage
caused by disease or trauma.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, significant scientific advances
were made in localizing language in the brain based on the study of people
with aphasia. In the 1860s the French surgeon Paul Broca proposed that lan-
guage is localized in the left hemisphere of the brain, and more specifically in

Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
 464 CHAPTER 10 Language Processing and the Human Brain

FIGURE 10.4 | Lateral (external) view of the left hemisphere of the human brain, showing
the position of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas—two key areas of the cortex related to
language processing.

the front part of the left hemisphere (now called Broca’s area). At a scientific
meeting in Paris, he claimed that we speak with the left hemisphere. Broca’s
finding was based on a study of his patients who suffered language deficits af-
ter brain injury to the left frontal lobe.
A decade later Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist, described another va-
riety of aphasia that occurred in patients with lesions in areas of the left tem-
poral lobe, now known as Wernicke’s area. Lateralization is the term used to
refer to the localization of function to one hemisphere of the brain. Language
is lateralized to the left hemisphere, and the left hemisphere appears to be the
language hemisphere from infancy on. Figure 10.4 is a view of the left side of
the brain that shows Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas.

The Linguistic Characterization of Aphasic Syndromes

Most aphasics do not show total language loss. Rather, different aspects of lan-
guage are selectively impaired, and the kind of impairment is generally related
to the location of the brain damage. Because of this damage-deficit correlation,
research on patients with aphasia has provided a great deal of information
about how language is organized in the brain.
Patients with injuries to Broca’s area may have Broca’s aphasia, as it is
often called today. Broca’s aphasia is characterized by labored speech and cer-
tain kinds of word-finding difficulties, but it is primarily a disorder that affects
a person’s ability to form sentences with the rules of syntax. One of the most
notable characteristics of Broca’s aphasia is that the language produced is often
agrammatic, meaning that it frequently lacks articles, prepositions, pronouns,
auxiliary verbs, and other function words. Broca’s aphasics also typically omit
Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
 Brain and Language 465

inflections such as the past tense suffix -ed or the third person singular verb
ending -s. Here is an excerpt of a conversation between a patient with Broca’s
aphasia and a doctor:
doctor: Could you tell me what you have been doing in the hospital?
patient: Yes, sure. Me go, er, uh, P.T. [physical therapy] none o’cot,
speech . . . two times . . . read . . . r . . . ripe . . . rike . . . uh
write . . . practice . . . get . . . ting . . . better.
doctor: And have you been going home on weekends?
patient: Why, yes . . . Thursday uh . . . uh . . . uh . . . no . . . Friday . . .
Bar . . . ba . . . ra . . . wife . . . and oh car . . . drive . . .
purpike . . . you know . . . rest . . . and TV.
Broca’s aphasics (also often called agrammatic aphasics) may also have
difficulty understanding complex sentences in which comprehension depends
exclusively on syntactic structure and where they cannot rely on their real-
world knowledge. For example, an agrammatic aphasic may have difficulty
knowing who kissed whom in questions like:
Which girl did the boy kiss?
where it is equally plausible for the boy or the girl to have done the kissing;
or might be confused as to who is chasing whom in passive sentences such as:
The cat was chased by the dog.
in which it is plausible for either animal to chase the other. But they have less
difficulty with:
Which book did the boy read?
or
The car was chased by the dog.
where the meaning can be determined by nonlinguistic knowledge. It is im-
plausible for books to read boys or for cars to chase dogs, and aphasic people
can use that knowledge to interpret the sentence.
Unlike Broca’s patients, people with Wernicke’s aphasia produce fluent
speech with good intonation, and they may largely adhere to the rules of syn-
tax. However, their language is often semantically incoherent. For example,
one patient replied to a question about his health with:
I felt worse because I can no longer keep in mind from the mind of the
minds to keep me from mind and up to the ear which can be to find
among ourselves.
Another patient described a fork as “a need for a schedule” and another,
when asked about his poor vision, replied, “My wires don’t hire right.”
People with damage to Wernicke’s area have difficulty naming objects pre-
sented to them and also in choosing words in spontaneous speech. They may
make numerous lexical errors (word substitutions), often producing jargon
and nonsense words, as in the following example:
The only thing that I can say again is madder or modder fish sudden
fishing sewed into the accident to miss in the purdles.
Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
 466 CHAPTER 10 Language Processing and the Human Brain

Another example is from a patient who was a physician before his aphasia.
When asked whether he was a doctor, he replied:
Me? Yes sir. I’m a male demaploze on my own. I still know my tubaboys
what for I have that’s gone hell and some of them go.
The linguistic deficits exhibited by people with Broca’s and Wernicke’s
aphasias point to a modular organization of language in the brain. Damage to
different parts of the brain results in different kinds of linguistic impairment
(e.g., syntactic versus semantic). This supports the hypothesis that the mental
grammar, like the brain itself, is not an undifferentiated system, but rather
consists of distinct components or modules with different functions.
The kind of word substitutions that aphasic patients produce also tell us
about how words are organized in the mental lexicon. Sometimes the substi-
tuted words are similar to the intended words in their sounds. For example,
pool might be substituted for tool, sable for table, or crucial for crucible. Some-
times they are similar in meaning (e.g., table for chair or boy for girl). These
errors resemble the speech errors that unimpaired speakers might make, but
they occur far more frequently in people with aphasia. The substitution of se-
mantically or phonetically related words tells us that neural connections exist
among semantically related words and among words that sound alike. Words
are not mentally represented in a simple list but rather in an organized net-
work of connections.
Similar observations pertain to reading. The term dyslexia refers to read-
ing disorders. Acquired dyslexics—people whose reading ability is im-
paired due to brain damage—make many word substitutions, such as the
following:

Stimulus Response 1 Response 2

act play play
applaud laugh cheers
example answer sum
heal pain medicine
south west east

The patient was unable to read the stimulus word presented on a card, though
his responses were semantically related to the target.
The omission of function words in the speech of agrammatic aphasics shows
that this class of words is mentally distinct from content words like nouns. A
similar phenomenon has been observed in acquired dyslexia. The patient who
produced the semantic substitutions cited previously was also agrammatic and
was not able to read function words at all. When presented with words like
which or would, he just said, “No” or “I hate those little words.” However, he
could read same-sounding nouns and verbs, though with many semantic mis-
takes, as shown in the following:

Stimulus Response Stimulus Response

witch witch which no!
hour time our no!

Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
 Brain and Language 467

eye eyes I no!

hymn bible him no!
wood wood would no!
These errors provide evidence that content words and function words are pro-
cessed in different brain areas or by different neural mechanisms, further sup-
porting the view that both the brain and language are structured in a complex,
modular fashion.
Japanese readers provide additional evidence regarding hemispheric
­specialization. The Japanese language has two main writing systems. One
­system, kana, is based on the sound system of the language; each symbol
­c orresponds to a syllable. The other system, kanji, is ideographic; each
symbol corresponds to a word. (More about this in chapter 12 on writing
­systems.) Kanji is not based on the sounds of the language. Japanese speak-
ers with left-hemisphere damage are impaired in their ability to read the
phonetically based kana, whereas ones with right-hemisphere damage are
impaired in their ability to read the ideographic kanji symbols. Also, experi-
ments with unimpaired Japanese readers show that the right hemisphere is
better and faster than the left hemisphere at reading kanji, and conversely,
the left hemisphere does ­better with kana, though the left hemisphere can
read both systems.
Most of us have experienced word-finding difficulties in speaking if not in
reading, as Alice did in “Wonderland” when she said:
“And now, who am I? I will remember, if I can. I’m determined to do it!”
But being determined didn’t help her much, and all she could say, after a
great deal of puzzling, was “L, I know it begins with L.”
This tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon is not uncommon. But aphasics who
suffer from anomia have constant word-finding difficulties.
Deaf signers with damage to the left hemisphere show aphasia for sign lan-
guage similar to the language breakdown in hearing aphasics, even though
sign language is a visual-spatial language. Moreover, in paradigms measuring
hemispheric activation (some of which we discuss below), one finds that it is
the auditory cortex of deaf individuals that is activated under certain condi-
tions—the very area we might expect to be the least responsive to language in
the deaf.
Deaf patients with lesions in Broca’s area show language deficits like those
found in hearing patients, namely, severely dysfluent, agrammatic sign pro-
duction. Likewise, those with damage to Wernicke’s area have fluent but often
semantically incoherent sign language, filled with made-up signs. Although
deaf aphasic patients show marked sign language deficits, they have no dif-
ficulty producing nonlinguistic gestures or sequences of nonlinguistic gestures,
even though both nonlinguistic gestures and linguistic signs are produced by
the same “articulators”—the hands and arms. Deaf aphasics also have no dif-
ficulty in processing nonlinguistic visual-spatial relationships, just as hearing
aphasics have no problem with processing nonlinguistic auditory stimuli.
The language difficulties suffered by aphasics are not caused by any general
cognitive or intellectual impairment or loss of motor or sensory controls of

Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
 468 CHAPTER 10 Language Processing and the Human Brain

the nerves and muscles of the speech organs or hearing apparatus. Aphasics
can produce and hear sounds and their other cognitive abilities may be intact.
Whatever loss they suffer has to do only with the language faculty (or specific
parts of it).
In addition to the evidence provided by deaf aphasics there is also consider-
able experimental evidence showing that sign language grammar—like spoken
language grammar—resides in the left hemisphere. These findings are impor-
tant because they show that the left hemisphere is lateralized for language—an
abstract system of symbols and rules—and not simply for hearing or speech.
Language can be realized in different modalities, spoken or signed, but will be
lateralized to the left hemisphere regardless of modality.
The kind of selective impairments that we find in people with aphasia has
provided important information about the organization of language and other
cognitive abilities in the brain, especially grammar and the lexicon. It tells us
that language is a separate cognitive module—so aphasics can be otherwise
cognitively normal—and also that within language, separate components can
be differentially affected by damage to different regions of the brain.

Brain Imaging in Aphasic Patients

Today we no longer need to rely on surgery or autopsy to locate brain lesions.
Noninvasive neuroimaging technologies such as computer tomography (CT)
scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can reveal lesions in the living
brain shortly after the damage occurs. In addition, positron emission tomog-
raphy (PET) scans and functional MRI (fMRI) scans can reveal the brain in
action by measuring blood flow and oxygen utilization in different areas of the
brain during the performance of various linguistic and other cognitive tasks. It
is now possible to detect changes in brain activity and to relate these changes
to localized brain damage and specific linguistic and nonlinguistic cognitive
tasks.
Figures 10.5 and 10.6 show MRI scans of the brains of a Broca’s aphasic
patient and a Wernicke’s aphasic patient. The black areas show the sites of the
lesions. Each diagram represents a slice of the left side of the brain.
Dramatic evidence for a differentiated and structured brain is also provided
by studies of patients with lesions in regions of the brain other than Broca’s
and Wernicke’s areas. Some patients have difficulty speaking a person’s name;
others have problems naming animals; and still others cannot name tools.
fMRI studies have revealed the shape and location of the brain lesions in each
of these types of patients. The patients in each group had brain lesions in dis-
tinct, nonoverlapping regions of the left temporal lobe. In a follow-up PET
scan study, normal subjects were asked to name persons, animals, or tools.
Experimenters found that there was differential activation in the normal brains
in just those sites that were damaged in the aphasics who were unable to name
persons, animals, or tools.
Further evidence for the separation of cognitive systems is provided by the
neurological and behavioral findings that occur after brain damage. Some pa-
tients lose the ability to recognize sounds or colors or familiar faces while
retaining all other functions. A patient may not be able to recognize his wife

Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
What is Language?
Functions and uniqueness of human language
Language is an essential and ubiquitous
component of our lives.

► Why? Can you imagine a day without language? Even when you don’t speak a word?
► Languages have been used by human being for more than 40000 years.
► Even music, mathematics and art needs language to study, interpret, analyse, and criticise
them. You think, assess, reflect, and plan in language.
► There are about 7000 languages in the world, spoken and signed.
► According to ethnologue there are around 142 language families out of which 6 are major.
► In India we have six language families represented, namely Indo-Aryan, Dravidian,
Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, Tai-Kadai, and Great Andamanese.
► In India we have 22 scheduled languages, around 1635 (2001), 1369 (2011) mother tongues
(19569 was returned in the raw data). 121 languages with more than 10,000 speakers
(2011).
► According to Ethnologue India has 460 languages of which 447 are living and 13 are extinct.
Language is one of the defining traits of
humankind
► Language is unique to the human species. No other species has any
communication system that can be compared in scale, complexity, subtlety
and adaptability to human language.
► Language is tied up to human reason, cognition, thought, and culture.
► Cognition refers broadly to the mental processes that take in information
from the environment, use it to form representations of reality in the mind,
and apply this stored knowledge in activities such as thinking, speaking, and
remembering. In order to use language, we must be able to perceive,
comprehend, plan, produce, and recall linguistic units, such as phonemes,
morphemes, words, and sentences. We also need the ability to perceive,
comprehend, plan, and produce behaviours, experiences, actions, etc. to
participate in the culture of the society.
Defining Traits cont.…

► It is also embedded into our physiology. The way we produce sounds is constrained
by the movement possible by the human oral-nasal apparatus.
► Language processes are largely centred in the brain. Therefore language shares
characteristics with other cognitive functions, e.g. it is both learnable and
adaptable.
► Language is innate to humans; we are born with the ability to acquire languages.
language is functional; it is a tool of
human communication
► What ever we have to convey in a day, in a life time, or in a civilization we
use language for that.
► Language is the repository of collective knowledge.
► Orality is primary, writing came afterwards. Ashtadhyayi was composed by
Panini in 5th century BCE orally. It is considered to the first grammar in the
world.
Language forms a part of our social
behaviour-
► We use language to show solidarity, bonding, distance, hierarchy, honour,
prestige, desirability etc.
► It also reflects our place i.e. who belongs where? In society.
► When children acquire language, they do so by using it as a tool of social
interaction within particular social settings. The social component of human
language is also reflected in how language is used and structured.
Using Language is an inherently
Interactional Task-
► Not only are we listening to our conversational partner and picking upon the
many subtleties of word choice, sentence structure, rate of speech, and
intonation, we are also constantly assessing when and how to take a turn, and
how to communicate our message so that the person to whom we are
speaking (the addressee) will correctly interpret what we are saying.
► We use different linguistic structures and constructions to get our point
across. The interactional component of language is both deep and subtle. The
language structures reflect our interactional needs.
Language is structured to take
advantage of human creativity-
► All languages are constructed in a way that allows for the creation of novel
utterances; any language can produce an infinite number of sentences.
► We can say anything in any language that no one has heard before!
► Poems, puzzles, songs, stories etc.
► Use of words in novel ways e.g. ‘way’ in English language is used to intensify
certain quantifiers e.g. ‘way too much’, ‘way too many’ etc. but young
speakers of English also use it to intensify adjectives e.g. ‘way cool’, ‘way
crazy’, ‘way unfair’ etc.
► Words like ‘garda’, ‘khatam’, or ‘bhayankar’ in Bihari Hindi.
Language is dynamic and adaptable-
Language changes
► Language is in constant process of change- to you the speech of your grand parents
will appear old fashioned. When they were your age they never used a lot of words
that you use and in the same sense in which you use them today.
► New words enter language constantly, meanings also get modified or completely
changed.
► old English, language used in ‘Canterbury Tales’ and how we speak today will appear
like two different languages almost (written almost 600 years ago by Geoffrey
Chaucer). Even the English in ‘King Henry’ of Shakespeare that was written around
300 years back appears very different.
► E.g. “Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour in true English, I love thee,
Kate: by which honour I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to
flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my
visage”.
Language Change-

► All aspects of language can undergo change- Sounds can enter a language or fall
out of use. Sentence structures can shift in interesting ways. Words can develop into
prefixes, suffixes, or other small linguistic units. Word meanings can be broadened,
narrowed, or otherwise shifted. The social implications of using particular words and
phrases can change over time, as can larger patterns, such as how we structure and
present information.
► Language adapts to the world around it- The words email, nanotechnology, cell
phone, and Internet are just a few of the terms that reflect the technological
changes that swept over us in the late twentieth century. Changes in vocabulary can
reflect social changes as well. The English word spinster, meaning an unmarried
woman past the age of marrying, has vanished from everyday vocabulary in most of
modern society, together with the idea that there is an age of marrying and that
marriage and family are the primary goals of a woman’s life.
► Language Contact and Change: The words example, adopt, huge, number, French,
Norman, and invasion all came into English from French!
Language is structured and systematic

► Language is constantly in the process of change still regular and recurring

patterns form the basis of linguistic structure.
► Past tenses in English
► Singular-plural
► No Language is perfectly systematic, there are always some irregularity in
pattern that can be explained in terms of History. Irregularities in language
usually result from language change.
Design Features of Human Language
Hockett's design features describe the basic properties of the rule system shared by all human
languages. In particular, the ability to combine discrete units into larger units, forms the foundation
of what linguists call grammar. A grammar is a complex system of rules that governs how speakers
organize sounds into words and words into sentences. (Sign languages also have grammar and differ
from spoken language only in terms of modality).
(From Charles Hockett 1960, 1966)
► Semanticity- Specific signals can be matched with specific meanings. In short, words have meanings.
The Linguistic sign comprises of ‘Signifier’ (the word for a concept) and ‘Signified’ (the concept
denoted by the word)- Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.
► Arbitrariness- There is no logical connection between the form of the signal and the thing it refers to.
For example, dog in English is Hund in German and perro in Spanish.
► Discreteness- Messages in the system are made up of smaller, repeatable parts rather than indivisible
units. a word, for example, can be broken down into units of sound.
► Displacement- The language user can talk about things that are not present—the messages can refer
to things in remote time (past and future) or space (here or elsewhere).
► Productivity- Language users can understand and create never-before-heard utterances.
► Duality of patterning- A large number of meaningful utterances can be recombined in a systematic
way from a small number of discrete parts of language. For example, suffixes can be attached to
many roots, and words can be combined to create novel sentences.
 ►When we study human language, we are approaching what some might
call the “human essence,” the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so
far as we know, unique to man . . . —Noam Chomsky, Language and
Mind

Language ►Children figure out complex rules of grammar just from hearing (or
seeing, in the case of sign language) language around them
Acquisition-
► Evidence suggests that language acquisition proceeds in the same
How human stages across languages over the same period.

language ►Noam Chomsky was the first to argue that first language acquisition in
human infants proceeds the way it does because we are cognitively
predisposed to acquire language. He observed that the input available
passes from to children—the language they hear around them—does not provide
enough information alone for the child to learn the complex set of
grammatical rules needed to produce and understand a language. Much

one research in the field of first language acquisition supports this poverty
of the stimulus argument that children do not receive enough data to
acquire language simply from what they hear spoken around them.

generation ►By the time a normal human child is 4-5 years of age, he/she/they

to Another? acquire the complicated grammatical system of the language to which

he/she/they are exposed.

►LAD- Language acquisition device. Our brains are wired to acquire

language. We have a special language centre in our brains. For most
humans, it is in the left hemisphere of the brain.
Child Language Acquisition-

► Behaviourists- This school of Psychology in the 1950s focused on

the directly observable behaviour of the people rather than the
mental systems underlying it.
► The language was viewed as a kind of verbal behaviour, and it
was proposed that human children acquire language through
imitation, reinforcement, analogy and other processes.
► B.F Skinner, one of the founders of the behaviourist school of
Psychology, talks about it in his book verbal behaviour (1957).
Language has a biological
basis-
► Noam Chomsky proposed that language acquisition in humans has
a strong biological basis and that humans are predisposed to
acquire language.
► In his reply to Skinner’s verbal behaviour in 1959, entitled review
of verbal behaviour, Chomsky showed that language is a complex
cognitive system that can not be acquired by behaviourist
principles.
► Poverty of stimulus argument
Language has Biological,
Cognitive, and Social
Foundations
► First language acquisition has a strong biological basis.
► The human brain, the left hemisphere for most, is specialized
in acquiring language. All normal human children acquire
language on a fairly predictable timeline, similar to mental
and physical growth.
► Many scholars believe that there is a biologically programmed
sensitive period or critical period during which young children
can acquire their first language successfully. If children are
not exposed to human language during this period, it becomes
difficult for them to acquire language, and it affects their
mental and cognitive growth.
► Social Foundation- Socialization and learning of social
behaviour of language.
Language acquisition-timeline
► In utero- perception of low-frequency property of sound e.g. rhythm, pitch.
► 0-2 months- Phonetic distinction between sounds e.g. [p] vs [b].
► 2-3 months- cooing- instead of crying, use sounds to get attention. Mutual
gaze, simultaneous or alternating vocalization with the caregiver, social
games like peekaboo.
► 6-8 months- babbling- cvcv structure (reduplicated)
► 8-12 months- communicative gestures e.g. pointing at objects
► 10-14 months- Babbling, not reduplicated (badida)
► 12 months- Gesture+ sound combination with consistent communicative
function. First word, and first word turns into a conversation with the
caregiver. Also known as the holophrastic stage.
► 18-24 months- two words
► 2-3 years- telegraphic speech
► 4-5 years- the process of language acquisition is complete.
Language and Brain

► The human brain is the most complex organ of the human body.
The surface of the brain is the cortex, also known as ‘grey
matter’.
► Consisting of billions of neurons (nerve cells) and glial cells (which
support and protect the neurons).
► The cortex is the decision-making organ of the body.
► Somewhere in the grey matter resides the grammar that
represents our knowledge of the language.
► The brain is composed of a right hemisphere and a left
hemisphere, joined by the corpus callosum, a network of more
than 200 million fibres. The corpus callosum allows the two
hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each other.
Contralateral Brain Function-

► In general, the left hemisphere controls the right side of

the body, and the right hemisphere controls the left
side of the body.
► Similarly, sensory information from the right side is
received by the left hemisphere and vice-versa.
► This is referred to as Contralateral Brain Function.
Localization of Cognitive
Abilities-
► Specific areas of the brain are responsible for specific
functions or activities.
► It is not a new thought; in the 19th century, Franz Joseph Gall
proposed this theory. He proposed that language is located in
the frontal lobes of the brain because, as a young man, he had
noticed that the most articulate and intelligent of his fellow
students had protruding eyes.
► He put forth a Pseudoscientific theory called ‘Organology’.
That came to be known as Phrenology later, which is the
practice of determining personality traits, intellectual
capacities, and other matters by examining the bumps on the
skull.
How we acquire language?
Language centers in human Brain
► For most of the human beings, language centres are located in the left hemisphere of
the brain.
► Anatomy of Language
► There are several areas of the brain that play a critical role in speech and language.
► Broca’s area, located in the left hemisphere, is associated with speech production and
articulation. Our ability to articulate ideas, as well as use words accurately in spoken
and written language, has been attributed to this crucial area.
► Wernicke’s area is a critical language area in the posterior superior temporal lobe that
connects to Broca’s area via a neural pathway. Wernicke’s area is primarily involved in
comprehension. Historically, this area has been associated with language processing,
whether it is written or spoken.
► Arcuate Fasciculus- Connects Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area.
► The angular gyrus allows us to associate multiple types of language-related information,
whether auditory, visual or sensory. It is located in close proximity to other critical brain
regions such as the parietal lobe, which processes tactile sensation, the occipital lobe,
which is involved in visual analyses and the temporal lobe, which processes sounds. The
angular gyrus allows us to associate a perceived word with different images, sensations
and ideas.
Language centres-
What is Grammar that we
acquire as a Result of
Language Acquisition?
► Grammar is the set of rules that enables a speaker to comprehend,
construct and express grammatically correct sentences in a language.
► Grammar is a complex system of rules that governs how speakers
organize sounds into words and words into sentences. (Sign languages
also have grammar and differ from spoken language only in terms of the
modality). Basic components of grammar are Phonetics, Phonology,
Morphology, Syntax, and Semantics.
What Is Grammatical?
► When we talk about the grammar of a language, we mean the set
of rules a speaker knows that allow him or her to produce and
understand sentences in the language. A grammatical sentence is
therefore a possible sentence in the language. An ungrammatical
sentence is one that is impossible in a given language, one that a
native speaker of that variety would never utter naturally.
► Foggy purple ideas sleep feverishly on the muddy grounds……
► Is it grammatical? Is it meaningful? Is it making sense?
► “Colourless green ideas sleep furiously” (Noam Chomsky 1957
Syntactic Structures)
Universal Grammar (UG)
► The theory of Universal Grammar functions on the premise that we all
acquire a complex grammatical system, regardless of how and where we are
raised. This suggests that we all tackle language acquisition with the same
basic cognitive hardwiring to accomplish that task. think about it—if we
weren’t predisposed to acquire this complex grammatical system, then we
would have to learn it consciously. But we do not, we acquire language,
naturally.
► If we are all hardwired in some way to acquire language, what is the
nature of this hardwiring? the study of descriptive grammar provides
insights into this question because it helps us understand the core
grammatical rules that we use to produce and understand language.
► These core grammatical rules must have similar properties across
languages, forming a kind of basic grammatical “blueprint.” these core
properties make up what linguists refer to as Universal Grammar (UG). One
of the goals of modern linguistics is to study languages in order to learn
more about what they have in common and to learn more about UG. UG is
hypothesised to be part of human cognition.
► According to Evans and Nicholson (2009) even the universals vary a lot and
there can be very few universals if at all that applies to all languages.
How do we account for
Similarities and Differences-
► All languages seem to combine subjects and predicates to
form larger units, clauses. Word order within the clause,
however, can differ across languages e.g. English has SVO,
Hindi has SOV.
All languages also appear to share some of these universal
principles:
► They all have subjects and predicates.
► They all have nouns and verbs.
► They all use a subset of sounds from a much wider possible
group of sounds humans make that could be used for
language.
► They all have some way of asking questions, negation, and
command.
Linguistic Parameters account
for differences
► We can think of a parameter as a metaphorical on–off
switch. We can account for certain facts about the
differences between languages by proposing that in one
language a parameter might be set “on” and in the
other, “off.” this means that the differences among
languages, which seem dramatic, are really fairly
trivial. Whether a language has SVO or SOV order is a
possible parameter: e.g. English and Hindi.
Prescriptive Vs Descriptive
Grammar
► Prescriptive grammar- is a set of rules that prescribes or defines how we are
supposed to speak, typically according to some authority (your older sibling,
your teacher, your parents, writing or grammar handbook). prescriptive rules
have positive social value, and sentences that do not conform to prescriptive
rules often have negative social value. While teaching English, it is very
common for instructors to say that you should not split your infinitives i.e.
should not insert an adverb between to and verb (to quickly go, or to boldly
act); they insist that the correct usage is – to go quickly and to act boldly.
Or that one should not use double negatives.
► Descriptive grammar- It describes the rule system we use to produce
sentences, regardless of the social value we may attach to those sentences.
► Watch the old movie ‘chupke-chupke’ it has a very hilarious take on
prescriptive grammar and people’s fixation with ‘pure’, ‘standard’ and
‘correct’ language.
► Language keeps going through constant changes and modifications. It also
varies from region to region; therefore, what is grammatical at a given time
and place (region) might vary at others.
What is Linguistics
► Linguistics is scientific study of language. Scientific here means examining
data, forming hypothesis that explains the data, then testing the hypothesis
against more data, and drawing inferences.
Core areas of Linguistic studies:-
► Phonetics: Study of speech sounds, their physical properties, acoustics, and
reception by human auditory system.
► Phonology: Study of sound system and constraints on sounds and
combination of sounds in any language
► Morphology: Study of word formation process and word structures.
► Syntax: study of grammatical sentence structure in a language
► Semantics: Study of meaning
► Pragmatics: Study of intended meaning of a speaker in a given context.
► Linguistics has various overlaps with different disciplines that gives rise to
various inter-disciplinary areas of study like Semiotics and Philosophy of
Language, Historical Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics,
Computational linguistics, Neurolinguistics, Forensic Linguistics etc.
Key phases in linguistic study-

► c.500 BC: Panini and his followers in India produce oral treatises on
phonetics and language structure. Later, independent traditions of
language study develop in Europe.
► 1786: founding of modern linguistics, based on a seminal speech by
Sir William Jones concerning the relations between Sanskrit, Latin,
Greek and other ancient languages. Linguistics enters a historical
phase in which principles of language comparison and classification
emerge.
► Early twentieth century: structuralism predominates in linguistics.
‘Structuralists’ like Ferdinand de Saussure in Europe and Leonard
Bloomfield and others in the USA were concerned with internal
systems of languages rather than with historical comparisons.
► 1957: Generative linguistics is founded with the publication of Noam
Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures. Linguistics shifts to a
psycho-biological stage, with interest in the way in which children
acquire languages based on an abstract ‘universal grammar’ common
to all languages.
Linguistic Competence &
Performance-
► With the start of the Pyscho-biological phase in the study of Linguistics.
Linguistic studies abstracted language from the social context as the
emphasis was on the Pyscho-biological phenomenon that made the
acquisition of language possible and on the structures that could be
constructed from a finite set of rules thus acquired.
► In a frequently cited passage, Chomsky (1965: 3) characterised the focus of
the linguist’s attention on an idealised competence:
“Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, 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, and errors (random
or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual
performance”.
► Linguistic Competence: Ability to produce infinite grammatical sentences
from a set of finite rules acquired.
► Performance: Application of the acquired linguistic knowledge in actual
utterance.
► There is a difference between competence and performance due to contexts,
situations, social settings etc.
Social approach to Language

► The social approach tries to account for what can be said in

a language, by whom, to whom, in whose presence, when
and where, in what manner and under what social
circumstances (Fishman 1971; Hymes 1971; Saville-Troike
1982: 8)
► Language acquisition is not only a cognitive process it is also
a social process.
► Dell Hymes (1971) was the principal objector to the
dominance of Chomsky’s characterisation of what
constituted the study of linguistic competence. He suggested
that a child who might produce any sentence whatever
without due regard to the social and linguistic context would
be ‘a social monster’ (1974b: 75) who was likely to be
institutionalised. Hymes coined the term ‘communicative
competence’ to denote our ability to use language
appropriately in different settings.
Relation Between Language
and Society
► Language is not only Denotational it is Connotational as well:
Connotation is a term which refers to the process of conveying meaning,
other than literal or explicit meaning that is Denotation. Connotative
meaning is the cultural or emotional associations that a word has. It can
be both negative and positive.
► Language is Indexical: It is indexical of one’s social class, status, region
of origin, gender, age group and so on. In the sociolinguistic sense, this
indexical aspect of language refers to certain features of speech
(including accent), which indicate an individual’s social group (or
background); the use of these features is not exactly arbitrary since it
signals that the individual has access to the lifestyles that are associated
with that type of speech.
► Language Influences thought and Cognition: Most of the scholars agree
that language influences cognition and thought to some extent. Linguists
feel safer in accepting a ‘weak form’ of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis: that
our language influences (rather than completely determines) our way of
perceiving things. But language does not grip communities so strongly as
to prevent at least some individuals from seeing things from different
perspectives, from forming new thoughts and ideas.
Sociolinguistics & Sociology of
Language
► Sociolinguistics is a broad area of study in linguistics, focusing on
language in society for the light that social contexts throw upon
language.
► Sociology of Language is primarily considered to be a sub-part of
sociology, which examines language use for its ultimate
illumination of the nature of societies.
► Sometimes the distinction between the two orientations is
expressed by the terms macro- and micro-sociolinguistics. Here
macro sociolinguistics focuses on broad patterns like
multilingualism in a country and its impact on education or impact
of multilingualism on economic development, language policy etc.
while micro sociolinguistics focuses on finer pattern as regional
variations, variation in language due to social factors, Language
contact and formation of new varieties, etc.
► For most part we cannot chart out the exact distinction between
the domains of two orientations, many scholars consider them as
alter egos of each other. It is difficult to ascertain where one
ends and the other begins.