SAMAR COLLEGE

Catbalogan City
COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES

MIDTERM and FINAL EXAMINATION IN CLL 108

(Introduction to Linguistics from a Second Language Learning)

1. Define Linguistics. What disciplines can be related to the study of Linguistics? Explain
how they are related/interrelated. (10 points)

My Response:

I once read from a book that each human language is a complex of knowledge and abilities
that enable speakers of the language to communicate with each other, to express ideas, hypotheses,
emotions, desires, and all the other things that need expressing. So, linguistic is the study of these
knowledge systems in terms of how is such a knowledge system structured, how it is acquired,
how is it used in the production and comprehension of message and how does it change over time.

Furthermore, linguistic is often called the science of language for it is the study of the human
capacity to communicate and organize thought using different tools (the vocal track for spoken
languages, hands for sign languages, etc.) and involving different abstract and tactile components.

I would say that there are so many disciplines that might be related to the study of linguistics.
Because of its inherently cross-disciplinary nature, linguistics is often integrated into such
disciplines as communications (how do we learn our language, how do the processes of language
comprehension and production of work, how we take a look at the role of memory in language and
how it is used once we are able to talk), sociology (how do people communicate) history
(examination of the historical development of languages and the synchronic analysis of certain
states of language), literature (different languages), mathematics, logic and philosophy (what is
the structure of grammar, and thought, and meaning), physics (how are sound produced and
perceived), biology, medicine (how is the brain capable of producing language, and what about
language impairments), economics, business, political science (how are languages used around
the world), and psychology (how do we process knowledge.)

I would also like to add, that I am always wondering why so many people learn English, but
why so few English speakers learn other languages. So, I could say that the study of linguistic is a
very much important matter because it permits a person to better understand the world around her
or him, as this world is constantly being filtered through and organized by language if how do you
talk to yourself, to others, how do you organize your day, how do you conceive of your existence
and that of others. So, therefore the study of linguistic is not just an investigation into words or
sounds, but into the heart of humanity. I also believe that without language we couldn’t study
anything, or even communicate about it, but that’s not what linguistics for me all about, but
understanding how we communicate is more important for understanding everything. Linguistic
is everywhere because language is everywhere.

2. Define Language. Discuss two (2) characteristics of language that are distinct to humans and
give an example for each. Cite authorities to buttress your point. (10 points)

My Response:

Language is a cognition that truly makes us human. Language is a construct human’s work
in every day to express a wide range of emotions, ideas, concepts, and actions.
 In real life, language is used to perform certain communicative function in certain context.
But the traditional pedagogy tends to focus more on grammatical structures and isolate language
from the context in which it is used.

One of the characteristics of language which is distinct to humans is arbitrariness.

Arbitrariness of language is the fact the symbols we use to communicate meaning to not have any
natural form or meaning in and of themselves. For example, all of the words you are reading right
now do not have a natural essence to them, but we have assigned these words to their particular
meanings. The word table is not a table itself; rather, it is a word we have agreed means or signals
for the idea of a table. Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no inherent relation between
the words of a language and their meanings or the ideas conveyed by them.

Another characteristic is language is both acquired by and continues the process of cultural
transmission. Humans are not born with an innate understanding of communication in the way
that birds or lions are. We must learn, along with other elements of culture, how to communicate
with others using language.

According to Noam Chomsky, language is innate, we are born with rules of language in
our heads. That’s what he called it the universal grammar. And according to him, 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.

Descartes also believed humans to be largely rational creatures, and language was required
to interact.

4. Define Phonology. Explain and exemplify the following terminologies in relation to Phonology:
(20 points)
4.1. Phoneme
4.2. Allophone
4.3. Voicing/Voice

My Response:

Phonology is the study of the patterns of sounds in a language and across languages. Put
more formally, phonology is the study of the categorical organisation of speech sounds in
languages; how speech sounds are organised in the mind and used to convey meaning. Phonology
is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, discourse, and orthography design.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in speech. When children first begin to read, we
teach that phonemes have distinctive sounds that are represented by letters and that each phoneme
carries distinct word meaning. For example, the word 'cat' has three phonemes, 'c' 'a' and 't', but if
'c' is changed for the other phoneme 'mat', the meaning of the word changes. So there is a pattern
of sounds across languages.

Allophones are variations in the realization (or sound) of phonemes, like the different
pronunciations of the phoneme 't' in the word 'tar' and the word 'letter', where the 't' allophone
(sound) is softened to a 'd' sound. Allophones do not indicate a change in the meaning of the word,
nor do they indicate a change in the phoneme used to make up the word.

Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds
(usually consonants). Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal folds vibrate,
its primary use in phonetics to describe phones, which are particular speech sounds.

5. Define Morphology. Explain and exemplify the following terms related to it: (20 points)
5.1. Allomorph
5.2. Free Morpheme
 5.3. Bound Morpheme

My Response:

Morphology is the branch of linguistics and one of the major components of grammar that
studies word structures, especially in terms of morphemes. It is the study of the internal structure
of words, and of the systematic form-meaning correspondences between words. Morphology is
the smallest independent units of language.

Allomorphs are the variation of morphemes. Allomorphs are different forms of the same
morpheme, or basic unit of meaning. These can be different pronunciations or different spellings.

Examples:

Free morpheme is one that can stand alone with the specific meaning. They are words in
themselves.

Examples: Book, Table, Stand, Bag, etc.

Bound morpheme are morphemes that must be attached to another morpheme to receive
meaning. They cannot stand alone with the meaning.

Example: UNKINDNESS
UN- and -NESS are the bound morphemes, requiring the root KIND to form the word.

6. Define Syntax. Explain and exemplify the following terminologies in relation to

Syntax: (20 points)
6.1. Grammar
6.2. Noun Phrase
6.3. Verb Phrase

My Response:

Syntax is the study of sentences and their structure, and the constructions within
sentences. Syntax tells us what goes where in a sentence while grammar is the general term
referring to the set of rules in a given language including syntax, morphology, while syntax studies
sentence structures.

Noun phrase (also known as NP) refers to a phrase that built upon a noun which functions
as the headword of the phrase. Noun phrases typically bear argument functions. That is,
the syntactic functions that they fulfil are those of the arguments of the main clause predicate,
particularly those of subject, object and predicative expression.

In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and its
dependents-objects, complements and other modifiers-but not always including the subject.

7.
My Response:

1. No
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Yes
5. Yes

8. Conversational Implicatures (20 points)

What implicatures can be drawn from the following statements? What maxims do you need
to make reference to in order to draw the implicatures?

8.1. A: What time is it?

B: The paper hasn’t arrived yet.

My Response:

Maxim: Relevance (B did not provide a relevant answer to A’s question, instead something
completely unrelated was said.)
Implicature: B is still waiting for the paper to arrive.

8.2. Using her voice, Stephanie produced a series of notes closely approximating those of an
aria from The Marriage of Figaro.

Maxim: Manner
Implicature: Stephanie has the same voice with that of an aria from The Marriage of Figaro.

8.3. A: Isn’t Professor Snape a dreadful teacher?

B: Lovely weather we’re having for March.

Maxim: Relevance (B did not provide a relevant answer to A’s question, instead something
completely unrelated was said.)
Implicature: B will be having a lovely weather for the month of March.

8.4. From a recommendation letter: “Stephanie’s thesis was excellent. It was very well-
typed.”

Maxim: Quality (the example gives truthful information that the thesis was very well-typed
and that’s why it was an excellent one.
Implicature: Stephanie was an excellent thesis writer.

8.5. Nisa: What’s going to be on the midterm next week?

Zach: Something about linguistics.

Maxim: Quantity (In the example, B responds to A’s question without adding other
information.)
Implicature: The speakers will be having an exam the other week.

9. Compare and contrast the following: (5 points each)

9.1. acquisition and learning;
My Response:
In terms of language, acquiring is through a subconscious process during which they are
unaware of grammatical rules. This happens especially when they acquire their first language.
Acquiring is an unconscious process, does not presuppose teaching and the child controls the pace.
 Learning, on the other hand, is the result of direct instruction in the rules of language.
Language learning is not an age-appropriate activity for very young children as learning
presupposes that learners have a conscious knowledge of the new language and can talk about that
knowledge. They usually have a basic knowledge of the grammar. Learning has an intentional
process, presupposes teaching and the teacher controls the pace.

9.2. subtractive bilingual and additive bilingual;

Subtractive bilingualism means to subtract some part of a language from their vocabulary.
On the other side of that is additive bilingualism which means to add a language. Additive
language learners tend to have very balanced languages.

Some ways to prevent a subtractive language, and gain more access to additive languages,
are to read and watch what’s available online, chat and ensure there are connections in your
language that you create or hold onto. Just like a learner of a new language, maintaining a
language requires practice and desire.

9.3. idiolect and sociolect;

Both idiolects and sociolects are subgroupings of dialects - defined as variations within a
language.

Sociolects are distinguished by social subgroup, and can be attributed to entire subsets of
a population with common sociological influences.

An idiolect is the distinct use of language unique to an individual - it refers to one and only
one person and their particular linguistic pattern

9.4. pidgin and creole; and

A pidgin is a simplified, makeshift language that develops to fulfill the communication
needs of people who have no language in common but who need to occasionally interact for
commercial and other reasons. Pidgins combine a limited amount of the vocabulary and grammar
of the different languages. People who use pidgin languages also speak their own native language.
At times, a pidgin language becomes the mother tongue of a population. When that happens, it is
called a Creole language. As pidgins change into creoles over several generations, their
vocabularies enlarge.

9.5. sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics.

Sociolinguistics is the study of social and cultural effects on language
while psycholinguistics is the study of the comprehension and production of language in its
spoken, written and signed forms.

Socio-linguistics tends to study the relation of language to society while

psycho-linguistics tends to study the relation of language to psychology.

10. Answer as asked: (10 points each)

1. Explain the three (3) major theories on first language acquisition and elucidate how they may
affect the teaching of mother tongue to children/pupils.

My Response:
Imagine a blank template, a white sheet of paper, that’s how human being starts off. From a
crying baby in a cradle, to babbling, to simple single words, slowly progressing into two-words,
then finally a complete sentence, ever wonder how one acquires the ability to produce the
language?
 As a normal human, I acquire first language naturally. I do not know exactly how the process
takes place until I can speak as people communicate around me. Waray-Waray is the first language
I learned as a language that I know better than any other language.

First Language Acquisition is touted by linguist as the process of acquiring a language via
exposure whilst young. First language is defined as the primary language -not necessarily mother
tongue- which the speaker first acquires and use on a constant basis. According to Lennenberg
(1967) the language that one picks up during the critical period will generally be the person’s first
language.

Behaviourist theory claims that language is constructed thanks to the exposure and
positive reinforcement. At the beginning of the twentieth century, behaviourism dominated
psychology. Skinner argued that languages are acquired through a process of stimulus-response-
reward. Moreover, he added that the process of acquiring language can be seen as a question of
imitating parents, by “creating associations between words and real-word objects.” It is the
stimulus that acts as an object.

Constructivist theory claims that language is constructed as part of cognitivelearning systems

that the infant builds. Piaget, who ignored behaviourism, contributed to thistheory by claiming that
children pass some stages in the cognitive development, stages that willincrease in complexity.

Chomsky’s view of acquiring language is called Nativism. He added that a child can not only
learn his first language by listening to adults. What is more, Chomsky pointed that in around five
years a child acquires about 5,000 words, and suggested that language is independent from general
thinking skills. Chomsky described the adult speech (from where the child is supposed to acquire
language) as degenerate. On his view, the child is exposed to a range of speakers, with different
voices and accents encountering performance examples.

First language acquisition may affect the teaching of mother tongue to the students in the sense
that when children, teachers, and parents use their L1-in most cases the language they know best,
cognitive development is not interrupted. On the contrary, when children are required to learn all
new information and skills in L2, their L1 cannot keep pace with the new knowledge. Supporting
only the second language may lead to a limited bilingualism, where children lose their first
language becoming subtracting bilinguals.

My view consists of using the target language as the medium of instruction when possible and
switching to mother tongue when it is really necessary.

2. How do the components of language help in your learners’ way of acquiring/learning the
second language – English? Narrate from your own experience as a language teacher.

Almost every human child succeeds in learning language. As a result, people often tend to
take the process of language learning for granted. To many, language seems like a basic instinct,
as simple as breathing or blinking. But language is not simple at all, in fact it is the most complex
skill that a human being will ever master. That nearly all people succeed in learning this complex
skill demonstrates how well language has adapted to human nature. In a very real sense, language
is the complete expression of what it means to be human.

Human language involves both receptive and productive use. Receptive language use
occurs during the comprehension or understanding of words and sentences. Productive language
use involves idea generation and the articulation of words in speech. Both reception and production
utilize the basic structural components of language which are the phonology, semantics, grammar,
pragmatics. And learners need these components to better understand the second language.

But as a language teacher, I am convinced that I need to think more carefully about teaching
second language distinction, take more serious notice of student beliefs about learning and
classroom preferences. For I believed that there is no one best method, and no one method that is
best for a particular context. Choosing the best approach to use with a particular group pf students
should come down to a mixture of observation, cultural and interpersonal sensitivity, experience,
and experimentation as a language teacher.

That would be all. Thank You. To God be All the Glory.

Submitted by:

ELENA M. DELA CRUZ

MAEd-CLL

May 17, 2019