INTRODUCTION TO LANG UAGE STUDY

DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal signs, is rule-governed, creative, universal, innate, and learned,
all at the same time. Language is seen distinctly human.

THEORIES OF LANGUAGE

In 1866, a certain association of language came up with theories on where language came from.

1. The Bow-Wow Theory The idea that speech arose from people imitating the sounds that things make:
Bow-wow, moo, baa, etc. Not likely, since very few things we talk about have characteristic sounds
associated with them, and very few of our words sound anything at all like what they mean.
2. The Pooh-Pooh Theory - The idea that speech comes from the automatic vocal responses to pain, fear,
surprise, or other emotions: a laugh, a shriek, a gasp. But plenty of animals make these kinds of sounds
too, and they didn't end up with language.
3. The Ding-Dong Theory The idea that speech reflects some mystical resonance or harmony connected
with things in the world. Unclear how one would investigate this.
4. The Yo-He-Ho Theory The idea that speech started with the rhythmic chants and grunts people used
to coordinate their physical actions when they worked together. There's a pretty big difference between
this kind of thing and what we do most of the time with language.
5. The Ta-Ta Theory - The idea that speech came from the use of tongue and mouth gestures to mimic
manual gestures. For example, saying ta-ta is like waving goodbye with your tongue. But most of the
things we talk about do not have characteristic gestures associated with them, much less gestures you
can imitate with the tongue and mouth.
6. The La-La Theory - The idea that speech emerged from the sounds of inspired playfulness, love, poetic
sensibility, and song. This one is lovely, and no more or less likely than any of the others.

About a century after banishment of the language origin question, scientists started to consider it again, but
this time using evidence from paleontology about the likely brain and vocal tract features of early humans
and hominids. Rather than speculate about which kinds of vocalizations gave rise to speech sounds, they
consider which physical, cognitive, and social factors must first be in place in order for there to be language.
 FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
ACCORDING TO MICHAEL A.K. HALLIDAY

1. Instrumental Language allows speakers to get things done. It allows them to manipulate environment.
People can ask for things and cause things to be done and happen through the use of words alone. This
is sometimes known as the I want function of language. Some of the micro-functions included are
naming, pronouncing, betting, suggesting, demanding, persuading, ordering, directing, and
commanding.

2. Regulatory - Language is used to control events once they happen. Those events may involve the self or
others language regulates encounters among people; it helps to mark roles, provides devices for
regulating encounters, and affords a vocabulary for approving and disapproving. It is this function of
language which allows people to exercise deliberate control over events that happen. This is sometimes
called the Do as I tell you function language. Some of the micro-functions included are approving,
disapproving, answering the phone, and setting the rules for playing, and addressing the action.

3. Representational - Language is used to communicate knowledge about the world, to report events,
make statements, give accounts, explain relationships, and relay messages to others. An exchange of
information occurs. Certain rules exist to regulate language behavior when an exchange of information
is involved. This is also known as the Ive got something to tell you of language. Some of the micro-
functions included are reporting, giving accounts, explaining, relaying messages,
informing/misinforming, telling lies and making statements.
4. Interactional - Language is used to ensure social maintenance. In a wider sense this function refers to
all uses of language which help define and maintain groups: teenage slangs, family jokes, professional
jargon, ritualistic exchanges, social and regional dialects. People must learn wide variety of such
different kinds of language usage if they are to interact comfortably with many others. This is sometimes
known as the You and Me function of language. Some of the micro-functions included are greetings,
leave-takings, joking, teasing, inviting, parting, and accepting.

5. Personal - Language is used to express the individuals personality. Individuals have a voice in what
happens to them. They are also free to speak or not to speak, to say as much or as little as they wish,
and to choose how to say what they say. This is sometimes called Here I Come function of language.
Some of the micro- functions included are exclaiming, endorsement, cursing, expressing anger, and
apologizing.

6. Heuristic - Language is used as an instrument itself in order to acquire knowledge and understanding.
Language may be used to learn things about the world. Question can lead to answers; argumentation to
conclusions; hypothesis testing to new discoveries. Language allows people to ask question about nature
of the world in which they live to construct possible answers. Sometimes it is known as the Tell Me
 Why function of language. Some of the micro-functions included are questioning, probing, answering,
arguing, concluding defining, hypothesizing, analyzing, testing, experimenting.

7. Imaginative - Sometimes it is known as the Lets Pretend function of language. Language is used to
create imagining system whether these are literary works, philosophical systems. Or utopian visions, on
the hand, or daydreams and idle musings on the other. The imaginative function is prized when it deals
to artistic creation.

ACCORDING TO ROMAN JAKOBSON

1. Cognitive / Referential to convey messages.

2. Conative to persuade and influence others through commands and entreaties.
3. Emotive - to express attitudes, feelings and emotions.
4. Phatic - to establish communion with others.
5. Metalingual - to clear up intentions, words and meanings.
6. Poetic - to indulge in language for its own sake.

ACCORDING TO W.P. ROBINSON

1. Aesthetic using language for literary creation.

2. Ludic - rhyming, making up nonsense, trying out possibilities of language as it is being learned; joking.
3. Regulation of Encounters and Human Relations using language to start, maintain and encounters.
4. Regulation of Others using language to regulate the behavior and emotions of other use of rules and
expressions of obligations, commanding, requesting, threatening, criticizing, encouraging, persuading,
inviting, giving permission, barrowing and bargaining.
5. Regulation of Self involving both behavior and emotion, talking to oneself done either silently or
alone letting other people know what one uses thinking, giving ones opinion, reasoning and
explaining.
6. Self Expression expressing ones own identity, personality and feelings directly using exclamation,
using elements about feelings.
7. Marking Social Rules using language to mark or express social role relationship between people
address terms used when speaking to someone.
8. Reference to Non-linguistic World-Discrimination recognizing and expressing differences and
similarities between things, organization clarifying and defining.
9. Instruction & Teaching using language to impart new information and skills.
10. Inquiring & Speculation wondering finding out, asking for information and directions, imagining and
supposing.
11. Metalanguage using language to talk about language itself.
 LINGUISTICS AND COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE

Linguistics is defined as the study of language systems. For the purposes of study, language is divided into
levels, or components. These components are conventional and, to some extent, arbitrary divisions of linguistic
investigation, and although they are interrelated to the complex ways in the system of language, we treat them more
or less separately.

The first component is phonology (from the Greek word phon meaning sound, voice), the study of the
speech sounds of a particular language. A subdivision of phonology is phonetics, the study of the speech sounds of
human language in general, either from the perspective of their production (articulatory phonetics), their perception
(auditory phonetics) or their physical properties (acoustic phonetics). Although speech is a continuum of sound, it is
possible to break it into different types of sounds, known as consonants, vowels, and glides or semivowels.

Since the writing system of English does not provide us with a one-on-one correspondence between oral
sound and written symbol, we need a tool for representing human sounds in a regular way when studying phonology;
the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has been invented for this purpose.

The second component of language is morphology (from the Greek morph form). Morphology is the study
of the structure or form of words in a particular language, and of their classification.

Morphology considers principles of word formation in a language:

How sounds combine into meaningful units such as prefixes, suffixes and roots (as in re-mind-er)
Which of these units are distinctive and which are predictable variants (such as the different forms
of the indefinite article, a and an), and
What processes of word formation a language characteristically uses, such as compounding (as in
road-way) or suffixing (as in pave-ment)

Morphology then considers how words can be grouped into classes, what are traditionally called parts of
speech, again seeking some objective criteria-either of form or of meaning- for sorting the words of language into
categories.

The third component of language is syntax (from Greek suntasseinto put in order). Syntax is the study of the
order and arrangement of words into larger units, as well as the relationships holding between elements in
hierarchical units. It studies the structure and types of sentences, of clauses, and phrases.

The fourth component of language is semantics (from Greek semainein to signify, show, signal). Semantics
is the study of how meaning is conveyed in words, phrases, or clauses. The study of semantics focuses either on
meanings related to the outside world (lexical meaning) or meanings related to the grammar of the sentence
(grammatical meaning).

A fifth component of language, not part of the traditional subdivision but added in recent years, is pragmatics
(from Greek pragma deed, affair, from prassein to do). Pragmatics is the study of the functions of language and its
use in context.
 Language, in addition to serving to communicate information, actually has a variety of functions, including
the expression of the emotion, the maintenance of social ties, and even the performance of action. Furthermore, in
any context, a variety of factors, such as the age, sex, and social class of the interlocutors and their relationships of
intimacy and power, influence the form of language used.

DEFINITION OF LINGUISTICS

Linguistics may be defined as the scientific study of language. Language analysis is done systematically within

the framework of some general theory of language structure. The linguist tries to verify the theory by making objective

observations of actual language data and modifies the theory in the light of what he perceives to be the patterns or

regularities underlying the data. The description of the language that emerges depends on the theoretical framework

that the linguist started.

BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS

Descriptive Linguistics involves the description of a language at one point in time.

Historical Linguistics is the study of language history. Historical linguistics studies the changes that occur in a

language through time, seeking to reconstruct earlier stages of it whose written records are not available and

to determine precisely what changes that have taken place in the course of its historical development.

Anthropological Linguistics is the investigation of languages as part of the investigation of their associated

cultures.

Psycholinguistics is the study of language acquisition and linguistic behavior as well as the psychological

mechanisms responsible for them.

Sociolinguistics is concerned with the functioning of the language in society.

Phonetics is the analysis of speech sounds with respect to their articulation, acoustic properties and

perception.

Applied Linguistics is the attempt to put the insights resulting from linguistic research practical uses, particularly

in the areas of language teaching.

 WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?
Morphology is the study of parts of language and how we use these parts to form words. Morphology may be one of the best
words in the English language. Aside from sounding like a superpower or making an excellent album title for a band, it is also a
vital aspect of understanding language. From a linguistics perspective we can define morphology as the study of a language's parts
and how those parts interact. Though this lesson is only concerned with the morphology of the English language, every language
which can be broken down into components can be studied by morphology.

To examine morphology of English, we need to first understand the components of a word. When we look at the smallest
grammatical unit in English we are talking about a morpheme. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language,
making it different from a word. This is a hard concept to wrap your brain around, so let's use some examples to make it a
little more obvious. Take the word 'reusable'. We can understand that this word means something that is repeatable or can
be used again. However, we can break the word down into three distinct morphemes. For example, the prefix re- essentially
means repeatable, -use-is an action meaning to engage or employ something, and the suffix -able means 'capable of.' This
is the furthest we can break down this word with each component still being meaningful.

DEFINITION OF MORPHEME
The smallest recognized unit of grammar and syntax, morphemes function as the foundation of language. As scientists have
studied the composition of the universe, they've determined that the smallest unit for measuring an element is the atom.
If you think of the periodic table of elements, atoms are what comprise elements, such as hydrogen, carbon, silver, gold,
calcium, and so on. Scientists utilize this classification system for uniformity, so that they're on the same page in the
terminology of their studies.

Similarly, linguists, or those who study language, have devised a category for the smallest unit of grammar: morphemes.
Morphemes function as the foundation of language and syntax. Syntax is the arrangement of words and sentences to create
meaning. We shouldn't confuse morphemes as only a given word, number of syllables, or only as a prefix or suffix. The term
morpheme can apply to a variety of different situations.

TYPES OF MORPHEMES
In linguistics, we would further classify morphemes as either as phonemes (the smallest units of grammar recognizable by
sound) or graphemes (the smallest units of written language). For our purposes, we will focus on graphemes. Let's examine
the word nonperishable, analyze it, and then discuss terms associated with it.

Nonperishable is comprised of three morphemes: non-, perish, and -able. It actually has five syllables though, which is a
good example of why morphemes and syllables are not synonymous.

non- is an example of a prefix, or a morpheme that precedes a base morpheme

perish is an example of a base morpheme, as it gives the word its essential meaning
 -able is an example of a suffix, or a morpheme that follows a base morpheme

Both non- and -able are examples of an affix, a morpheme attached prior to or following a base that cannot function
independently as a word.

A Morpheme as a Word Free Morpheme

When we can take a morpheme independently and use it as a stand-alone word in a sentence, it is known as a base. As the chart
indicated, these can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, or determiners. We also classify a morpheme that can
function as a stand-alone word as free.

In the sentence: The bird-like man hardly touched his food at dinner.

There are a total of twelve morphemes, and ten of the twelve are free:
the (article) hard (adjective) at (preposition)
bird (noun) touch (verb) dinner (noun)
like (adjective) his (determiner)
man (noun) food (noun)

The other two morphemes, -ed and -ly, are types of affixes, which brings us to our next topic.

A Morpheme as an Affix Bound Morpheme

An affix is a bound morpheme, which means that it is exclusively attached to a free morpheme for meaning. Prefixes and
suffixes are the most common examples.

Common prefixes are : re-, sub-, trans-, in-, en-, ad-, dis-, con-, com-
Common suffixes are: -s, -es, -able, -ance, -ity, -less, -ly, -tion

It is also important to note two types of affixes: inflectional and derivational.

Inflectional morphemes can only be a suffix, and they transform the function of a word, such as adding an -ly suffix to the
base noun of friend. This becomes the word friendly, which has two morphemes. The -ly is an inflectional morpheme
because it changes the noun into an adjective.

Derivational morphemes can be either a suffix or a prefix, and they have the ability to transform either the function or the
meaning of a word. An example would be adding the suffix -less to the noun meaning. The suffix then makes the word the
opposite of itself, thus drastically changing meaning.
 WHAT ARE WORDS?
They are single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence
and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed.

Function Words
In contrast to content words, function words (also called grammatical words) are words that have little lexical meaning or
have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence.
Function words are closed-class words. Languages do not easily add new words to this set. They are always relatively few
and resistant to change. They are lexically unproductive and are generally invariable in form.

Examples:

Prepositions: of, at, in, without, between

Pronouns: he, they, anybody, it, one
Determiners: the, a, that, my, more, much, either, neither
Conjunctions: and, that, when, while, although, or
Auxiliary: verbs be (is, am, are), have, got, do
Particles: no, not, nor, as

Content words
In contrast to function words, content words or lexical words (including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs), are
words that carry the content or the meaning of a sentence. They are open-class words. Open classes accept the addition of
new morphemes (words), through such processes as compounding, derivation, inflection, coining, and borrowing.

Examples:

Nouns: John, room, answer

Adjectives: happy, new, large, gray
Verbs: search, grow, hold, have
Adverbs: really, completely, very, also, enough