Ciclo de Licenciatura en Inglés

Lenguaje como fenómeno social

Cignetti, Luciana - Guzmán, M. Soledad

 Unit 1

An Introduction to Language
Unit 1 – Part 2

The field of Linguistics

Linguistics: The study of language

 “To study language ´scientifically´ is, in part, to refuse to accept uncritically, or

‘unscientifically’, the ways of thinking that, ahead of any professional training,
we all bring to it”. (Matthews, 2003, 12)

 Linguistic scientists are enganged in developing a body of

scientific observations, facts, and systematic theory about
language in general and about languages in particular.
 Linguistics narrows its attention to the study of languages
conceived as ´linguistic codes´, which are regarded as a system
of distinct sound symbols underlying the manifest speech
behavior of the individuals comprising a speech community.*

* Carroll, J. B. (1961) The Study of language.

Related fields/Applications of Linguistics
Philology
 is the large middle ground between linguistic science, on
the one hand, and the literary and humanistic studies, on
the other. It is concerned with the linguistic aspects of
literature and related art forms, as well as of cultural and
social documents of various sorts.
 Philological studies also include those literary and cultural
studies which are focused on major languages.
 For example, there is widespread interest in and study of the status of the English
language and its dialects throughout the English-speaking world; these studies
frequently pass beyond the purely structural interests of linguistic science, narrowly
defined, and trace the development of the language in terms of cultural history.
 Language teaching
 Engaged in teaching people how to use a particular
linguistic code. Teachers must know the characteristics of
these linguistic codes and have knowledge of the science
of linguistics.
 The linguistic scientist is frequently a teacher of foreign
languages.
 The psychological group (general or theoretical psychology;
social psychology; child psychology, educational
psychology, etc.)
 Interested in describing and explaining human behaviour, a
major aspect of which is language behaviour.
 Interested in language because of the importance it has
for communication in social interaction.
 Interested in the child´s development of language and
speech.
 The social science group (anthropology, sociology, political
science, history)
 Linguistics belongs to this group, as it is a social science.
 Related social disciplines regard language as one of the
main aspects of culture – as a series of habits, customs,
and attitudes of a particular group.
 Language can be studied as a means of social control,
formation and differentiation of social groups.
 Language as a formal system
The sounds of Language*
Phonetics
 The general study of the characteristics of speech sounds.

 Attention to:
 voiced and voiceless sounds
 place of articulation of sounds
 manner of articulation

*Yule,G. (2017). The Study of Language.

The sounds of Language
Phonology
 The description of the systems and patterns of speech
sounds in a language.
 Concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of the
sounds in a language rather than with the actual physical
articulation of speech sounds.
 Attention to phonemes (meaning-distinguishing sounds in
a language), phones and allophones, coarticulation effects
(assimilation, nasalization,elision).
Word formation
“The creation of new words in a language never stops and English is one
language that is particularly fond of adding to this large vocabulary”.*

Etymology: the study of the origin and history of a word.

Neologisms: a new word.
Borrowing: taking over, adopting words from other languages
(piano > Italian)

*Yule,G. (2017), 55.

Word formation
Word formation
Compounding: joining two separate words to produce a single
form (bookcase)
 Blending: the combination of two separate forms to produce a
single new term. Typically the beginning of a word and the end
of another one. (smoke + fog = smog)
Clipping: the reduction of a word of more than one syllable to a
shorter form (ad = advertisement)
 Hypocorisms: the reduction of a longer word into a single-
syllable word by adding –y or –ie (Aussie = Australian)
 Backformation: the reduction of a word of one type (usually a
noun) to a word form of another type (usually a verb)
(automation> automate)
Word formation
Coinage: the invention and general use of totally new terms.
 Acronyms: new words formed from the initial letters of a set
of other words.
Derivation: the most common word-formation process. The
addition of affixes (prefixes, infixes,suffixes).
Analogy: new words are formed that are similar in some way to
existing words.
Morphology
The study of forms
Morpheme: a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.

 Free morphemes:can stand by themselves (new, tour)

 Bound morphemes:cannot normally stand alone (re-, -ed)
 Derivational morphemes: used to make words of a different grammatical category
from the stem (encourage+ment)
 Inflectional morphemes: used to indicate the grammatical function of a word, to
show if a word is singular or plural,past tense or not,comparative or possessive.

 Lexical morphemes: set or ordinary nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs

that carry the ‘content’ of the message.
 Functional morphemes:articles, conjunctions,prepositions,pronouns.
Grammar
 The process of describing the structure of phrases and
sentences in such a way that we account for all the
grammatical sequences in a language and rule out all the
ungrammatical sequences.
Grammar
Traditional Grammar
 The description of the structure of phrases and sentences
based on established categories used in the analysis of
Latin and Greek.
 Parts of speech: basic grammatical components that connect to
each other in terms of agreement (nouns, articles, adjectives,
verbs, adverbs, prepositions,pronouns, conjunctions).
 Agreement: the grammatical connection between two parts of
a sentence, as in the connection between a subject and the
form of a verb. It is based on number, person, tense, voice, and
gender.
 Grammatical Gender: based on the type of noun (masculine,
feminine) as opposed to natural gender, which is based on biological
sex.
Grammar
The prescriptive approach
 A view of grammar as a set of rules for the proper use of
a language.
Grammar
The descriptive approach
 An approach to grammar that is based on a description of the
structures actually used in a language, not what should be used,
in contrast to the prescriptive approach.
 Stuctural Analysis: the investigation of the distribution of grammatical
forms in a language. The method involves the use of “test frames,”
which can be sentences with empty slots in them, e.g., The_______
makes a lot of noise. A lot of forms can fit into this slot. Thus, they are
likely to be examples of the same grammatical category.
 Constituent Analysis: a grammatical analysis of how small constituents
(or components) go together to form larger constituents in
sentences.
Grammar
The descriptive approach
 Subjects and Objects: used to describe the different functions
of noun phrases in a sentences. English uses the position in the
sentence to indicate grammatical function, so we can normally
identify the subject as the first noun phrase before the verb
and the object as the noun phrase after the verb. The other
phrase at the end is an adjunct, which typically provides
additional information such as where, when, etc.
Syntax
 (The analysis of) the structure of phrases and sentences.
Deep structure: the underlying structure of sentences as
represented by phrase structure rules (rules stating that the
structure of a phrase of a specific type consists of one or more
constituents in a particular order)
Surface structure: the structure of individual sentences in
contrast to deep structure.
Syntax
Structural ambiguity
A situation in which a single phrase or sentence has two
(or more) different underlying structures and
interpretations.
Syntax
Phrase structure rules: rules stating that the structure of a phrase
of a specific type consists of one or more constituents in a
particular order. Examples:
 A sentence (S) = noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP)
 A noun phrase (NP) = an article plus an optional adjective + a
noun, or pronoun.

Lexical Rules: rules stating which

words can be used for constituents
generated by phrase structure rules.
Tree Diagrams: diagrams with
branches showing the hierarchical
organization of structures.
Tree diagram
Semantics
 The study of the meaning of words, phrases and
sentences.
 In semantic analysis, there is always an attempt to focus
on what the words conventionally mean, rather than on
what an individual speaker might think they mean.
 Referential meaning: the basic components of meaning
conveyed by the literal use of words, also described as
´objective´ or ´conceptual´.
 Associative meaning: the type of meaning that people might
connect with the use of words (e.g. needle = painful) that is not
part of referential meaning.
Semantics
Semantic Features
 Basic elements such as ´human´, ´inanimate´ used in the
analysis of the components of word meaning.
Semantics
Lexical Relations
 Synonymy
The lexical relation in which two or more words have very closely
related meanings.
 Antonymy
The lexical relation in which words have opposite meanings.
 Hyponymy
The lexical relation in which the meaning of one word is included in
the meaning of another (e.g. ´daffodil´ is a hyponym of ´flower´).
Semantics
Lexical Relations
 Prototype
The most characteristic instance of a category (e.g. ´robin´is the
prototype of ´bird´).
 Homonyms
Two words with the same form that are unrelated in meaning
(e.g. ´mole´(on skin) - ´mole´(small animal)).
 Polysemy
A word having two or more related meanings (e.g. ´foot´ of a
person, of bed, of mountain).
Pragmatics
 The study of speaker meaning and how more is
communicated than is said.
 We will focus on pragmatics in detail in Unit 2 and deal
with elements like:
 presupposition
 entailments
 implicature
 cooperation
 politeness
 Language as a Human Phenomenon
 Language is one of the major elements which clearly
differentiate us from other living species.
 It is a very complex method of communicating ideas, beliefs,
and feelings, among others; and it does not merely consist of
speech or signs. It also involves sounds, a sound system,
internal structure of words, combining words to develop
understandable phrases, and connecting words to things to
make meaning.
 Noam Chomsky said: “Language is a process of free creation;
its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the
principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied.
Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of
free creation.” Language is simultaneously fixed and fluid. It is
fixed in the sense that words have a definitive meaning within
their given languages. But language is also fluid since we can
shape it to instill certain subjects with new or different
meanings through artistic comparisons, creative phrasing, and
clear applications of definition.
 Humans have several ways to communicate through language,
through written or spoken, sign language, facial expressions,
and signs.
Language as a Human Phenomenon
Language and cognition
 Do we think in language or do we think and then
verbalise our thoughts?
 This question has been around for quite some time but
only recently have researchers been able to provide
scientific evidence of the fact that language does in fact
shape the way we think.
 Cognitive scientist and profesor Lera Boroditsky (2018)
provides some fascinating examples in the following TED
talk.
 https://youtu.be/RKK7wGAYP6k
Language as a Social phenomenon
Discourse analysis
 The study of language beyond the sentence,in text and conversation.
 When studying language, some of the most interesting observations are
made not interms of the components of language, but interms of the way
language is used, even how pauses are used.
 Through discourse,people:
 represent the world
 convey communicative intentions
 organize thoughts into communicative actions
 arrange information so it is accessible to others
 engage in actions and interactions with one another
 convey their identities and relationships
 Discourse analysis involves asking:
 how we make sense of what we read,
 how we can understand speakers who communicate more than they say,
 how we successfully take part in a conversation.

Shiffrin, D. (in Fasold, 2006)

Language as a Social phenomenon
Sociolinguistics
 The study of the relationship between
language and society, between the uses of
language and the social structures in
which the users of language live.
 This discipline works under the
assumption that society is made up of
many related patterns and behaviours,
some of which are linguistic.
 Primarily concerned in mapping linguistic
variation on to social conditions in order
to help understand synchronic variation (at
a single point of time), as well as diachronic
variation (over time).

(Spolsky, 2003, p. 3)
Language as a Social phenomenon
Sociolinguistics
Style
 A way of communicating that moves along a continuum between formal/careful –
informal/casual. The cautious writer/speaker will observe how readers/listeners
might react to possible choices.
 In bilingual communities, stylistic levels may be marked by switching from one
variety of language to another.
Jargon
 A set of variations which concerns a special variety marked by a set of
vocabulary or technical terminology associated with a profession or occupation
or other defined social group.
Slang
 A special kind of ‘intimate’ or in-group speech which is marked by its rejection of
formal rules, its comparative freshness and its marked use to claim solidarity.
 Solidarity, or common group membership, is an important social force that has a
major impact on language.
 The importance of language in establishing social identity is also shown in the
case of slang.
 Language as a Human Phenomenon
 Languages change and to understand them, it is necessary to
examine variation and change.

Regional Variation in Language

 Every language has a lot of variation, especially in the way it is
spoken. Take English as an example, and we will find variation in
different countries where it is spoken, such as Australia, Britain and
the USA.
The Standard Language
 The variety of language treated as the official language and used in
public broadcasting, administration, and publishing. It belongs to no
particular region.
 Found in most printed newspapers, the mass media, in works of fiction,
scientific and other technical discourses.
 Normally taught in most schools and to those learning it as L2.
Language as a Human Phenomenon
Accent and Dialect
 Everybody has an accent.
 It would be incorrect to say that some people have an
accent while others do not.
 The term ‘accent’ refers to the description of aspects of
pronunciation that identify where an individual is from,
regionally or socially.
 The term ‘dialect’ is used to describe features of
grammar and vocabulary as well as aspects of
pronunciation.
Language as a Human Phenomenon
Bilingualism or multilingualism
 In some countries, regional variation is not simply a matter of two
(or more) dialects of a single language, but can involve two (or
more) quite distinct languages.
 Bilingualism is defined as the state of having two languages.
 In some cases, bilingualism at the level of the individual tends to be a
feature of the minority group. In this form of bilingualism, a member
of a minority group grows up in one linguistic community, mainly
speaking one language, but learns another in order to take part in
the larger dominant linguistic community.
 Pidgins: a variety of language that developed for a practical purpose
such as trade, but which has no native speakers, in contast to creole
 Creole: a variety of language that developed from a pidgin and is
used as a first language by a population of native speakers.
Language as a Social phenomenon
Sociolinguistics
Language and gender
Language reflects, records, and transmits social differences, so reflexes of
gender differences are found in language.
 Observations of the differences between the way males and females
speak were long restricted to grammatical features, such as the
differences between masculine and feminine morphology in many
languages.
 Attention was first drawn to distinct female and male varieties of
language, often with clear differences in vocabulary.
 Studies of gender differences have shown the power of stereotyping.
 “The use of generic masculine (e.g., Everyone should bring his lunch),
however well meaning and neutral the speaker’s intention may be,
reinforces the secondary status of women in many social groups”
(Spolsky, 2003, p. 38).
Language as a Social phenomenon
Sociolinguistics
Language and gender
 With the growth of social awareness in this area over the past
decades, there have been many attempts to overcome this
prejudicial use of language.
 Anthropocentric speech: assumes that men are more important
than women. It is often accompanied by prejudices and actions that
do real damage. These usages not only reflect and record current
prejudices, but also transmit and reinforce the lower power and
prestige ascribed to women in a society.
 It is now more common to avoid gender stereotyping and gender-
prejudiced language use.
 Social gender: the distinction we make when we use words like man,
woman, to classify individuals interms of their social roles.
 Becoming a social gender also involves becoming familiar with
gendered language use.

(Spolsky, 2003)
Language as a Social phenomenon
Sociolinguistics
Language and gender
Gendered words
 “There can be differences between the words used by
men and women in a variety of languages” (Yule, 2017, p.
307)
 Other examples suggest that the wrods for men are
´normal´ while the ones for women are ‘additions’ (e.g.
hero-heroine illustrates the derivation of the term for the
woman’s role from the man’s). This has decreased
considerably in contemporary English as firemen and
policemen have become firefighters and police officers.
Conclusion

In the field of Linguistics, central to observation is:

 Language as a Formal System

 Language as a Human Phenomenon
 Language as a Social Phenomenon

Purpose:To observe how language:

 is structured
 is used
 changes
References
 Carrol, J. B. (1961) The Study of Language. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
 Fasold, R & J. Connor-Linton. (2006) An Introduction to Language
and Linguistics.Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
 Spolsky, B. (2003) Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
 Noam Chomsky Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved
August 9, 2021, from BrainyQuote.com Web site:
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/noam_chomsky_158473
 Yule, G. (2017). The Study of Language. Sixth edition. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.