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LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE

WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?
Linguistics is generally defined as `the scientific study of language`, i.e. it attempts to study
language as a scientist itself, systematically and without prejudice. This implies observing,
forming hypothesis, testing those hypothesis and refining them on the basis od collected
evidence.

WHAT IS ITS ULTIMATE GOAL?

Its ultimate goal is to understand the properties shared by all natural human language: how
languages are structured, and how and why they vary and change- how language is
acquired, and how it is used by individuals and groups to communicate.

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
A language is a set of systems by which we communicate. This system is a finite one made
of principles that make it possible for speakers to construct sentences to do particular
communicative jobs. These principles may be called Grammatical Competence and
Communicative Competence. By saying grammatical competence, we refer to the
knowledge and the ability to produce sentences, building blocks of sentences (e.g., parts of
speech, tenses, phrases, clauses, sentence patterns), and how the sentences are formed.
Although it can master the rules of sentence formation in a language, the grammatical
competence is still not very successful at being able to use the language for meaningful
communication. So here is when we need to refer to communicative competence, which
includes knowing how to use language for a range of different purposes and function, and
knowing how to vary our use of language according to the setting and participants.

WHAT ARE THE UNIVERSAL PROPERTIES OF LANGUAGE?

Although languages differ in many ways, they are all made possible by the same genetic
information, they are all processed by the brain in basically the same ways, and, not
surprisingly, they all share certain fundamental `design features` and structural
characteristics that enable them to work the way they do.- Universal properties of the
language.
MODUL ARITY
People produce and interpret language
using a set of coordinated modules or
subsystems. Each module is responsible
for a part of the total job, taking outputs of
other modules as its inputs and distributes
its own outputs to those other modules.
These modules facilitate linguistics
analyses hugely. For example, Phonetics
concentrated in the production and
interpretation of speech sound, Phonology
studies the organization of raw phonetics

in an individual language, Morphology, the

structure of within words, and Syntax, the
structure of sentences, and so on.

CONSTITUENCY AND RECURSION

As language is organized into constituents,
allows more complex units to enter
structures where simpler ones are also
possible. These constituents permits a
balance of structure and flexibility,
because constituents can be replaced by

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only other constituents, and they can be

moved if they are complete ones.
Constituency allows recursion in a
language. A recursive language means
that permits grammatical processes to be
applied repeatedly, combining units or
constituents to expand a variety of
sentences to indefinite length.

It`s another fundamental property of the

language. It refers to the fact that words
have no principled or systematic
connection with their meanings. This
special characteristic changes from
language to language, that is to say that
sounds are perceived through arbitrary
`sound filters` of their respective
language.
RELIANCE ON CONTEXT

DISCRETENESS
The term is especially used in phonetics
and phonology to refer to sounds which
have relatively clear-cut boundaries, as
defined in acoustic, articulatory or
auditory terms. It is evident that speech is
a continuous stream of sound, but
speakers of a language are able to
segment this continuum into a finite
number of discrete units, these usually
corresponding to the phonemes of the
language.
PRODUCTIVITY
It refers to the creative capacity of
language users to coin new words and,
produce and understand an indefinitely
large number of sentences.
ARBITRARINESS

This a crucial language property, because

here the interpretation plays an important
role, and also the interpretation depends
on the context and situation in which is
uttered. The context could be a sentence
or sentences, or it could be a physical or
social circumstances in which the
utterance is produced, too.
VARIABILITY
Also known as difference and diversity,
the variability allows people to
communicate far more than the semantic
content of the words and sentences they
utter. This variability is said to be
indexical, because permits people to
signal their social identities (social status,
geographical features, etc.) and define the
immediate speech situation (roles their
playing, social situations, etc.) with the
use of language.

WHAT ARE THE CORE AREAS OF LANGUAGE?

The core areas of language are the following:
PHONOLOGY
It involves the study of production,
transmission and reception of speech
sounds (PHONETICS) and the study of
sounds and sounds patterns of a specific
language.

continuous movement of speech organs

when we speak.
MORPHOLOGY
Its the study of morphemes, which are
the smallest significant units of grammar.

PHONETICS

LEXICOLOGY

The ability to produce or articulate an

infinite number of sounds by the

Studies the words and word segments,

their meaning and organization.

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SYNTAX

SEMANTICS

It concentrates on the study of isolated

words and words in combination, in the
language.

It refers to the meaning and connotation

of words.

HOW AND WHERE IS THE LINGUISTICS SAID TO HAVE STARTED

DEVELOPING?
We find the foundation of linguistics in ancient times. The written linguistic traditions arose
in antique societies, in response to language changings and resulting religious and legal
impact.
BABYLONIAN TRADITION
Their texts were written on cuneiform on
clay tablets. Their texts were lists of nouns
in Sumerian. Sumerian was the language
of religious and legal texts. Sumerian was
replaced by Akkadian, a prestigious
language.
HINDU TRADITION
Origins in the first millennium BC.
Stimulated by changes in Sanskrit, the
sacred language of religious texts. The
grammatical tradition purpose was to set
out rules for the ancient language.
Pannini`s grammar covered phonetics
differences between words pronounced in
isolation and in connected speech.
GREEK LINGUISTICS
Developed in response to linguistics
changes necessitating explanation of the
language of Homer`s epics. Themes of
importance included the origin of the
language, parts-of-speech systems, the
relation between language and thought,
and the relation between the two aspects
of word signs: meaning (iconicity) and
convention (arbitrary). Dionysus Thrax`s
grammatical work treated phonetics and
morphology, and had a considerable
influence over later descriptive grammar.
ROMAN TRADITION

Studied the themes of Greek linguists`

interests. The primary interest was in
morphology, parts-of-speech and the
forms of nouns and verbs.
ARABIC TRADITION AND HEBREW
TRADITIONS
Focused on morphology and accurate
phonetic descriptions. Their main
contributions are the work of Abu alAswad ad Du`ali and Saadya ben Joseph
al-Fayyumi, who produced the first
grammar and dictionary in Hebrew; and
last but not least, David Qimhi`s work,
which had a strong impact on European
linguistics.
MIDDLE AGES IN EUROPE
Back then Latin was held in high esteem
as the language of the public sphere, as
the primary written language. Sooner
vernacular languages increased among
scholars, and traditions of writing began to
emerge and still were presented in the
mould of Latin.
The notion of universal nature of
grammar, which was refined and
developed by scholars such as Roger
Bacon. He held that grammar was
fundamentally the same in all languages,
differences being incidental and shallow.
The first grammatical treatise was
introduced sometime in the 12th century

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in Iceland. It concentrated on spelling

reform, to correct in adequacies of the
Latin-based writing system of Icelandic. It
presented a short description of Icelandic
phonology, differentiating phones from
phonemes.

EUROPEAN COLONIALISM
Thanks to explorers, colonial
administrators, travelers, missionaries and
others grammar and word lists and texts
were spread up in Europe. Some scholars
compiled these multilingual lists and made
language comparisons. The languages
that were related to one another where
appreciated gradually, and sooner,
developed and established.
In later centuries, William Jones will
discover the relatedness of Indo-European
languages and will be the founder of
comparative linguistics.
Other families of related languages were
recognized and motivated soon after by
the hand of:

Adriaan Reeland, who proposed a

relation between the languages of

Madagascar and the islands of

Indonesian archipelago.
Jans Sajnovics showed a relation
between Hungarian, Finnish and
Saami in 1770.
Six years later, Abb Lievain
Proyart observed relatedness of the
African languages Kakongo,
Laongo, and Kikongo.
In 1787, jonathan Edwards
demonstrated that Algonquian
languages of North American form
a family.
Rasmus Rask drew a coherent
system of principles for stablishing
the relatedness of languages. He
highlighted grammar evidence and
sound correspondences between
related words.
Augus Schleicher further formalized
Rask`s ideas into the comparative
method.

Soon after, Latin grammar formed the

basis for the tradition of missionary
grammars. Colonial powers mounted
academic, anthropological, biological, and
geological investigations for further
grammar research.

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