Linguistic Theories

ISFD N° 3 – Dr. J. C. Avanza – Prof.
de Inglés – Lengua y Expresión Escrita III – Linguistic Theories 1
Saussure and Structuralism

Saussure's systematic reexamination of language is based on four assumptions:
1. The scientific study of language needs to develop and study the system rather than the history of linguistic
phenomena.
2. The basic elements of language can only be studied in relation to their functions rather than in relation to
their causes.
3. The relationship between the signifier and the signified in language is arbitrary.
4. Language is primarily a "social activity" (in some ways this is the most radical and yet least developed
element of his system); language is socialized at every level, from the production of phonemes to the
interpretation of complex meaning.
A Selection of Basic Points from the Cours:

 the sound-image is nothing more than the sum of a limited number of elements or phonemes
 language is a storehouse of sound-images.
 the sound-image is sensory - "material" - and can be opposed to the more abstract term, the concept.
 language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing.
 a linguistic sign is a two-sided psychological entity made up of a concept and a sound-image that are
intimately united, each recalling the other. This combination of concept and sound-image is also identified as
signified and signifier.
 the linguistic sign is arbitrary - in the sense that there is no natural connection between the signifier and the
signified.
 the sign is not only arbitrary but linear.
 it is impossible to conceive of ideas without language - language must preexist the idea - language becomes
the sign of the idea.
 imagine thought as the front and back of a piece of paper, or two sides of a coin; irrevocably connected. So
with language, sound and thought cannot be divided.
 signs used in writing are arbitrary.
Saussure, as a structuralist, is interested in language as a system or structure. His ideas apply to any
language -English, French, computer languages- and to anything we can call a "signifying system." He describes
the structures within any language which make meaning possible, but he is not interested in what particular
meanings get created. Like all structuralists, he's not interested in the details of what fills up the structure, the
specifics of speech or writing, but only in the design of the structure itself.
SECTION I: THE NATURE OF THE LINGUISTIC SIGN

Language is based on a NAMING process, by which things get associated with a word or name. Saussure
says this is a pretty naive or elementary view of language, but a useful one, because it gets across the idea that
the basic linguistic unit has two parts. Those two parts Saussure names the "concept" and the "sound image".
The sound image is not the physical sound (what your mouth makes and your ear hears) but rather the
psychological imprint of the sound, the impression it makes. An illustration of this is talking to yourself--you do
not make a sound, but you have an impression of what you are saying.
The linguistic SIGN (a key word) is made of the union of a concept and a sound image. The union is a close
one, as one part will instantly conjure the other; Saussure's example is the concept "tree" and the various words
for tree in different languages. When you are a speaker of a certain language, the sound image for tree in that
language will automatically conjure up the concept "tree." The MEANING of any SIGN is found in the
association created between the sound image and the concept: hence the sounds "tree" in English mean the
thing "tree." Meanings can (and do) vary widely, but only those meanings which are agreed upon and sanctioned
within a particular language will appear to name reality.
ISFD N° 3 – Dr. J. C. Avanza – Prof. de Inglés – Lengua y Expresión Escrita III – Linguistic Theories 2
A more common way to define a linguistic SIGN is that a SIGN is the combination of a SIGNIFIER and a
SIGNIFIED. Saussure says the sound image is the SIGNIFIER and the concept the SIGNIFIED. You can also
think of a word as a signifier and the thing it represents as a signified (though technically these are called sign
and referent, respectively).
The SIGN, as union of a SIGNIFIER and a SIGNIFIED, has two main characteristics.
1. The bond between the SIGNIFIER (SFR) and SIGNIFIED (SFD) is ARBITRARY. There is nothing in either the
thing or the word that makes the two go together, no natural, intrinsic, or logical relation between a particular
sound image and a concept. An example of this is the fact that there are different words, in different languages,
for the same thing. Dog is "dog" in English, "perro" in Spanish, "chien" in French, "Hund" in German.
This principle dominates all ideas about the STRUCTURE of language. It makes it possible to separate the
signifier and signified, or to change the relation between them. (This makes possible the idea of a single signifier
which could be associated with more than one signified, or vice-versa, which makes AMBIGUITY and
MULTIPLICITY OF MEANING possible.)
Language is only one type of semiological system (the word "semiological," like the word "semiotic," comes
from the Greek word for "sign"). Any system of signs, made up of signifiers and signifieds, is a semiotic or
SIGNIFYING SYSTEM. Think, for example, of football referee signals, baseball signs, astrological signs. Any
time you make up a secret code or set of signals you are making your own signifying system.
There may be some kinds of signs that seem less arbitrary than others. Pantomime, sign language,
gestures (what are often called "natural signs") seem to have a logical relation to what they represent. But
Saussure insists that ALL SIGNS ARE ARBITRARY; signs have meanings because a community has agreed
upon what they signify, not because it has some intrinsic meaning.
Saussure discusses whether symbols, such as the use of scales for the idea of justice, are innate or
arbitrary, and decides that these too are arbitrary, or based on community agreement. He also dismisses
onomatopoeia (words that sound like what they mean, like "pop" or "buzz") as still conventional, agreed-upon
approximations of certain sounds. Think, for example, about the sounds attributed to animals. While all roosters
crow pretty much the same way, that sound is transcribed in English as "cock-a-doodle-do" and in Spanish as
"cocorico." Interjections also differ. In English one says "ouch!" when one bangs one's finger with a hammer; in
French one says "Aie!" (Curse words work the same way)
Admittedly, Saussure is not very interested in how communities agree on fixing or changing the relationships
between signifiers and signifieds. Like all structuralists, he focuses on a SYNCHRONIC analysis of language as
a system or structure, meaning that he examines it only in the present moment, without regard to what its past
history is, or what its future may be. (Analyses which do take time into account, and look at the history of
changes within a structure, are called DIACHRONIC).
2. The second characteristic of the SIGN is that the signifier (here, meaning the spoken word or auditory
signifier) exists in TIME, and that time can be measured as LINEAR. You can't say two words at one time; you
have to say one and then the next, in a linear fashion. (The same is true for written language: you have to write
one word at a time (though you can write over an already written word) and you generally write the words in a
straight line).
This idea is important because it shows that language (spoken language, anyway) operates as a linear
sequence, and that all the elements of a particular sequence form a chain. The easiest example of this is a
sentence, where the words come one at a time and in a line, one after the other, and because of that they are all
connected to each other.
SECTION II: LINGUISTIC VALUE

According to Saussure thought is a shapeless mass, which is only ordered by language. One of
the questions philosophers have puzzled over for centuries is whether ideas can exist at all without language.
Saussure says no ideas preexist language; language itself gives shape to ideas and makes them expressible. In
other words, from Saussure's point of view, thought cannot exist without language. This leads to an important
structuralist and post-structuralist idea, which is that language shapes all our conceptions of ourselves and our
reality. Sound is no more fixed than thought, though sounds can be distinguished from each other, and hence
associated with ideas. Sounds then serve as signifiers for the ideas which are their signifieds. Signs, in this view,
are both material/physical (like sound) and intellectual (like ideas). This is important to Saussure because he
wants to insist that language is not a thing, a substance, but a form, a structure, a system. His image is that
thought and sound are like the front and back of a piece of paper (and the paper is the linguistic sign); you can
distinguish between the two, but you can't separate them. Saussure (and other structuralist and post-
structuralist theorists) talk about the system of language as a whole as LANGUE and any individual unit within
that system as a PAROLE. Structuralist linguistics is more interested in the LANGUE than in any PAROLE. The
arbitrary nature of the sign explains why language as a system (LANGUE) can only arise in social relations. It
takes a community to set up the relations between any particular sound image and any particular concept (to
form specific PAROLES). An individual can't fix VALUE for any signifier/signified combination. You could make up
your own private language, but no one else would understand it; to communicate, two or more people have to
agree on what signifiers go with what signifieds. And again, Saussure as a structuralist is not really interested
in how this happens.
VALUE is thus defined as the collective meaning assigned to signs, to the connections between sfrs and
sfds. The VALUE of a sign is determined, however, not by what signifiers get linked to what particular signifieds,
but rather by the whole system of signs used within a community. VALUE is the product of a system or structure
(LANGUE), not the result of individual sfr-sfd relations (PAROLE).
Saussure distinguishes between VALUE and SIGNIFICATION. SIGNIFICATION is what we commonly think
of as "meaning," the relationship established between a signifier and a signified. VALUE, by contrast, is the
relation between various SIGNS within the signifying system. As Saussure says, "Language is a system of
interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the
others." VALUE is always composed of two kinds of comparisons among elements in a system. The first is that
dissimilar things can be compared and exchanged, and the second is that similar things can be compared and
exchanged. A good example of this is money. The VALUE of money is established because it can be exchanged
for something dissimilar or something similar. (Coins are also good examples of the arbitrary nature of signs. Ten
cents is worth 10 cents because we all agree that it is, not because the materials in the coin have some absolute
value of 10 cents).
Words work the same way. A word can be "exchanged" for something similar, another word, a synonym, or
for something dissimilar, an idea, for example. In both cases (coin or word); it is the system itself which creates
value, and sets up the ways that exchanges can be made. A signifier, such as a coin or a word, when considered
alone, has only a limited relation to its own signified; when considered as part of a system, a signifier has
multiple relations to other signifiers in the system.
The most important relation between signifiers in a system, the relation that creates VALUE, is the idea of
DIFFERENCE. One signifier has meaning within a system, not because it's connected to a particular signified,
but because it is NOT any of the other signifiers in the system. The word "cat" has meaning, not because of the
animal it's associated with, but because that word is not "hat" or "bat" or "car" or "cut."
Think about the letters of the alphabet in this context. The sound "t", made with the tip of the tongue against
the teeth, is represented in English with the symbol "T." Because the connection between sound and concept, or
signifier and signified, is ARBITRARY, that sound "t" could just as easily be represented by another symbol, such
as "D" or "%". Further, within the alphabet, "T" has meaning because it is NOT "A" or "B" or "X." Saussure calls
this a negative value, wherein something has meaning or value because it is NOT something else within a
system. (Positive value, on the other hand, is established in the sfr/sfd connection; a sign has positive value in
and of itself because of the connection of its two parts, but has negative value within a signifying system).
Another good example of this is the digital languages recognized by computers, which consist of two switch
positions, off and on, or O and 1. O has meaning because it is not 1, and 1 has meaning because it is not 0.
The system of linguistic units depends thus on the idea of DIFFERENCE; one unit has VALUE within the
system because it is not some other unit within the system. As the computer example shows, this idea of
DIFFERENCE depends upon the idea of BINARY OPPOSITES. To find out what a word or sign is not, you
compare it to some other word or sign. (And because language exists in time and space, you can only do this
comparison one word at a time, hence always forming binary pairs, pairs of two.) A binary pair shows the idea of
difference as what gives any word value: in the pair cat/cats, the difference is the "s"; what makes each
word distinct is its difference from the other word.
SYNTAGMATIC AND ASSOCIATIVE RELATIONS

In this section, Saussure says more about how he thinks the structure of language, or of any signifying
system, operates. Everything in the system is based on the RELATIONS that can occur between the units in the
system. These relations consist mainly of relations of DIFFERENCE. In this section Saussure talks more about
the rules that may connect units together. The most important kind of relation between units in a signifying
system, according to Saussure, is a SYNTAGMATIC relation. This means, basically, a LINEAR relation. In
spoken or written language, words come out one by one. Because language is linear, it forms a chain, by which
one unit is linked to the next. An example of this is the fact that, in English, word order governs meaning. "The
cat sat on the mat" means something different than "The mat sat on the cat" because word order -the position of
a word in a chain of signification- contributes to meaning. (The sentences also differ in meaning because "mat"
and "cat" are not the same words within the system).
English word order has a particular structure: subject-verb-object. Other languages have other structures.
Combinations or relations formed by position within a chain (like where a word is in a sentence) are called
SYNTAGMS. Examples of SYNTAGMS can be any phrase or sentence that makes a linear relation between two
or more units: under-achiever. The terms within a syntagm acquire VALUE only because they stand in opposition
to everything before or after them. Each term IS something because it is NOT something else in the sequence.
SYNTAGMATIC relations are most crucial in written and spoken language, in DISCOURSE, where the ideas of
time, linearity, and syntactical meaning are important. There are other kinds of relations that exist outside of
discourse. Signs are stored in your memory, for example, not in syntagmatic links or sentences, but in
ASSOCIATIVE groups. The word "education", for example, may get linked, not to verbs and adjectives, but to
other words that end in "-tion":education, relation, association, deification. You may store the word education"
with other words that have similar associations: education, teacher, textbook, college, expensive. Or you may
store words in what looks like a completely random set of linkages: education, baseball, computer games,
psychoanalysis. ASSOCIATIVE relations are only in your head, not in the structure of language itself, whereas
SYNTAGMATIC relations are a product of linguistic structure.
Think of the columns of a building. The columns form syntagmatic, or structural, relation when you think
about where in the building the columns are, what they support, what they're connected to. The columns form
associative relations when you think of what else the columns make you think of: phallic symbols, rockets, or
whatever. Syntagmatic relations are important because they allow for new words -neologisms- to arise and be
recognized and accepted into a linguistic community. "To office," for example has meaning because the noun
"office" can be moved to the position of verb, and take on a new syntagmatic position and relation to other
words. Associative relations are important because they break patterns established in strictly grammatical/linear
(syntagmatic) relations and allow for metaphoric expressions.
Summary of Saussure's Structural Linguistics

The French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure studied language from a formal and theoretical point of view, i.e.
as a system of signs which could be described synchronically (as a static set of relationships independent of
any changes that take place over time) rather than diachronically (as a dynamic system which changes over
time).
According to Saussure, the basic unit of language is a sign. A sign is composed of signifier (a sound-
image, or its graphic equivalent) and a signified (the concept or meaning). So, for example, a word composed of
the letters p-e-a-r functions as a signifier by producing in the mind of English-speakers the concept (signified) of
a certain kind of rosaceous fruit that grows on trees, viz., a pear.
According to Saussure, the relation between a signifier and a signified is arbitrary in at least two ways.
First, there is no absolute reason why these particular graphic marks (p-e-a-r) should signify the concept pear.
There is no natural connection or resemblance between the signifier and the signified (as there would be in
what Saussure calls a symbol, i.e. an iconic representation such as a descriptive drawing of a pear). After all,
it's not as if the word "pear" looks or sounds anything like a pear! In fact, a moment's reflection makes it clear
that the connection between the signifier and the signified is due to a contingent historical convention. It didn't
have to happen the way it did. In principle, the word "pare", "wint", or even "apple" would have worked just as
well in associating a word with the concept pear! But given that the word "pear" has come to signify the concept
pear in English, no one has the power to simply change it at will. In other words, the relationship between a word
and a concept is arbitrary in one sense (in terms of its origin) but not in another sense (in terms of its use).
Saussure makes a second point about the arbitrariness of the sign. He points out that the relation between
the sign itself (signifier/signified pair) and what it refers to (what is called the referent, i.e. the actual piece of
fruit-the physical object) is also arbitrary. This claim is less plausible than the former. For example, one might
object that the concept in the mind of the speaker is formed, either directly or indirectly, by actual pears. Ideally
then we would expect it to be the case that the properties of actual pears would be causally related to our
concept of a pear-that the characteristics of pears produce in one's mind the concept of a pear either directly
through experience with pears, or indirectly through pictures of pears, descriptions, or some such thing. Thus,
the concept pear might be thought of as some basic information and set of beliefs about actual pears, e.g. what
they look like, how they feel and taste, what they're good for, etc.
Saussure's way around this obvious objection is to say that his interest is in the structure of language, not
the use of language. As a scientist, Saussure limited his investigation to the formal structure of language
(langue), setting aside or bracketing the way that language is employed in actual speech (parole). Hence, the
term structuralism. Saussure bracketed out of his investigation any concern with the real, material objects
(referents) to which signs are presumably related. This bracketing of the referent is a move that enabled him to
study the way a thing (language and meaning) is experienced in the mind. And in the end, Saussure never
offered a method for investigating how language as a system hooks up to the world of objects that lie outside
language.
Thus, according to Saussure's structural linguistics, each sign in the system of signs which makes up a
language gets its meaning only because of its difference from every other sign. The word "pear" has no
meaning in itself or in the intention of the speaker, but only due to the fact that it differs from other possible
graphic images such as p-e-e-r, p-e-a-k, f-e-a-r, b-e-a-r, etc. In other words, it doesn't matter how the form of the
signifier varies, as long as it is different from all the other signifiers in the system (langue). To the structuralist,
meaning arises from the functional differences between the elements (signs) within the system (langue).
Linguistic signs also have values in relation to other signs. For example, the word "bachelor" can be
"exchanged" for the term "unmarried man". This is, in many ways, an equal exchange. That's what it means for
words to be synonymous - they have the same meaning or linguistic value. They can be substituted or
exchanged for one another just as the quarter can be exchanged for two dimes and a nickel.
The Significance of Structuralist Theory

The first point to notice is that, according to structuralist theory, meaning is not a private experience but the
product of a shared system of signification. A text is to be understood as a construct to be analyzed and
explained scientifically in terms of the deep-structure of the system itself. For many structuralists, this "deep-
structure" is universal and innate.
Second we should note that in structuralism, the individual is more a product of the system than a producer
of it. Language precedes us. It is the medium of thought and human expression. Thus, it provides us with the
structure that we use to conceptualize our own experience.
And third, since language is arbitrary, there is no natural bond between words and things, there can be no
privileged connection between language and reality. In this sense, reality is also produced by language. Thus,
structuralism can be understood as a form of idealism.
It should be clear from what was just said that structuralism undermines the claim of empiricism that what is
real is what we experience. It can also be seen as an affront to common sense, esp. to the notion that a text has
a meaning that is, for all intents and purposes, straightforward. In other words, things are not always what they
seem. Thus, the idealist claim of structuralism can be understood in the following way: Reality and our
conception of it are "discontinuous". According to structuralist theory, a text or utterance has a "meaning", but its
meaning is determined not by the psychological state or "intention" of the speaker, but by the deep-structure of
the language system in which it occurs. In this way, the subject (individual or "author") is effectively killed off and
replaced by language itself as an autonomous system of rules. Thus, structuralism has been characterized as
antihumanistic in its claim that meaning is not identical with the inner psychological experience of the speaker.
It removes the human subject from its central position in the production of meaning. And since language pre-
exists us, it is not we who speak but "language speaks us".
Structuralists are interested in the interrelationship between units, also called surface phenomena, and
rules, which are the ways that units can be put together. Structuralist analysis looks at the units of a system, and
the rules that make that system work, without regard for any specific content. In language, structuralists consider
that the units are words and the rules are the forms of grammar which order words. In different languages the
grammar rules are different, as are the words, but the structure is still the same in all languages: words are put
together within a grammatical system to make meaning. In a sentence, any noun can replace any other noun
and not change the grammatical structure: the sentence: “My pen ate my dog,” may not make any sense, but it
is recognizable as a sentence because the parts of speech are all in the right places.
Structuralists believe that the underlying structures which organize units and rules into meaningful systems
are generated by the human mind itself, and not by sense perception. As such, the mind is itself a structuring
mechanism which looks through units and files them according to rules. For structuralists, the order that we
perceive in the world is not inherent in the world, but is a product of our minds.
Generative linguistics
The Chomskyan Revolution: a Progress Report.
Chomsky’s early work did indeed have a revolutionary impact upon both the theory and the practice of
linguistics. Chomsky’s work on the theory of generative grammar and his development of particular kinds of
generative grammar did indeed constitute a major breakthrough in the history of linguistics. The Chomskyan
revolution resulted from Chomsky’s demonstration of the formal inadequacy of previous modes of linguistic
explanation. His most revolutionary contribution to linguistics was embodied in his advocacy of a thoroughly
individualistic point of view. He was probably the first to provide detailed arguments from the nature of language
to the nature of mind, rather than vice versa.
His research on the formalization of syntactic theory is what constitutes his most original and probably his
most enduring contribution to the scientific investigation of language. He has greatly extended the scope of what
is called “mathematical linguistics” and opened up a whole field of research. The findings of transformational
grammar have had certain very definite implications for psychology and philosophy. His model of
transformational grammar was designed for the analysis of natural languages and has been employed with
considerable success for that purpose for many years.
He has also made a strong case against behaviourism. He says that no aspects of language, or the use of
language, can be reasonable described in terms of a ‘stimulus-and-response’ model. There can be little doubt
that the behaviourist account of the acquisition of language fails to solve the problem posed by what Chomsky
calls ‘creativity’. He has argued that the gap between human language and systems of animal communication is
such that it cannot be bridged by any obvious extension of current psychological theories of learning based on
laboratory experiments with animals. Chomsky has demonstrated that the behaviourist account of language
acquisition must be supplemented with something more substantial than rather empty appeals to analogy.
Neither the earlier nor the later versions of transformational grammar are presented by Chomsky as
psychological models of the way people construct and understand utterances. The grammar of a language, as
conceived by Chomsky, is an idealized description of the linguistic competence of native speakers of that
language. A sentence is considered grammatical when it is well-formed in terms of the rules set up to describe
the competence of the ‘ideal’ native speaker. Any psychological model of the way this competence is put to use
in actual performance will have to take into account a number of additional facts which the linguist deliberately
ignores in his definition of the notion of grammaticality. These facts include limitations of human memory and
attention, the interference of one physiological or psychological process with another, etc.
Chomsky’s assumption that certain formal principles of grammar are innate is intended to account for two
problems simultaneously: the universality of the principles and the child’s success in constructing the grammar of
his language on the basis of the utterances he hears around him. Though a mentalist, Chomsky believes that
even though the knowledge and predispositions for language are innate, the acquisition requires rather definite
environmental conditions during the period of maturation.
A generative grammar is a mathematically precise (formalized) set, or system, of rules which, operating
upon (or in association with) a vocabulary, generates the sentences of a language and assigns to each a
structural analysis. There are many different kinds of (sentence-generating) generative grammars, Chomskyan
and non-Chomskyan. Generativism is a set of philosophical beliefs, including rationalism and nativism, a
particular view of universal grammar, and the incorporation of linguistics within cognitive psychology.
Plato’s problem and Chomsky’s solution: genetic anamnesis.
Chomsky stands firmly in the rationalist tradition going back to Plato. Chomsky himself has referred to the
similarity between his own view of inborn knowledge, or innate ideas, and Plato’s doctrine of anamnesis, or
recollection. Plato’s problem, in its most general form, may be expressed as follows: how can human beings
come to know as much as they do when, apparently, they are born in ignorance and the evidence available to
them in life for what they know (or believe) is so limited? Plato solved the problem by denying that the human
mind is empty of knowledge at birth. Some knowledge, he said, is innate by virtue of the mind’s (or soul’s) prior
existence; and what we call learning, in such cases, is a matter of the remembrance or recollection of what was
known previously. Plato did not apply his doctrine of anamnesis to the specific problem of the acquisition, or
learning, of language.
However, it is this very problem with which Chomsky has been primarily concerned in all his work. He
claimed that it was a problem which could not be solved within the arbitrary constraints of behaviourists.
Chomsky’s solution is that language-acquisition is inexplicable unless we assume that children are born with a
knowledge of what he calls universal grammar, i.e., of the universal principles governing the structure of human
language. His solution is a modern version of Platonic rationalism, in which genetic transmission and
environmentally triggered, organic, processes of growth and maturation replace Plato’s postulates of pre-
existence and recollection. As Chomsky has pointed out, there is good evidence, accepted by all biologists, for
the genetic transmission of various kinds of skill and knowledge in other species. It would be surprising,
therefore, if similar biological mechanisms were not operative in human beings. The question is how much
genetically-transmitted knowledge there is and whether it is specific to the acquisition of linguistic competence.
Competence and performance.
In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) Chomsky drew a crucial theoretical distinction between
competence and performance: between the knowledge that native speakers have of their language as a system
of abstract formal relations, and their actual use of language in concrete situations. Although performance must
clearly be projected from competence, and therefore be referable to it, it does not correspond to it in any direct
way. Actual linguistic behaviour is conditioned by all manner of factors other than a knowledge of language as
such, and these factors are, according to Chomsky, incidental, and irrelevant to linguistic description.
Performance is particular, variable, dependent on circumstances. It may offer evidence of competence, but it is
circumstantial evidence and not to be relied on. Abstract concepts of competence and actual acts of
performance are quite different phenomena and you cannot directly infer one from the other. What we know
cannot be equated with what we do.
He noted that his own competence/performance distinction was related to Saussure’s distinction between
langue and parole. It represents a similar dichotomy of knowledge and behaviour and a similar demarcation of
the scope of linguistic enquiry. There are, however, differences. To begin with, there is no ambivalence in
Chomsky as to the status of the distinction. It is not that competence is presented as a convenient construct and
therefore a useful principle for language study: it is presented as a valid construct, as the central principle of
language itself. To focus on competence is to focus on what is essential and primary. Performance is the residual
category of secondary phenomena, incidental, and peripheral.
Though langue and competence can both be glossed in terms of abstract knowledge, the nature of
knowledge is conceived of in very different ways. Saussure thinks of it as socially shared, common knowledge:
his image is of langue as a book, printed in multiple copies and distributed throughout a community. It
constitutes, therefore, a generality of highest common factors. For Chomsky competence is not a social but a
psychological phenomenon, not so much printed as imprinted, not a shared generality but a genetic endowment
in each individual. Of course, individuals are not innately programmed to acquire competence in any particular
language, but competence in any one language can nevertheless be taken as a variant in respect to universal
features of language.
Langue, then, is conceived of as knowledge which is determined by membership of a social community, and
so the focus of attention will naturally be on what makes each langue different. So, the main question of interest
is: what is distinctive about particular languages as social phenomena? Competence, on the other hand, is
conceived of as knowledge which is determined by membership of the human species; the interest here will
naturally be in what makes individual competences alike. Chomsky’s distinction leads to a definition of linguistics
as principally concerned with the universals of the human mind. Indeed, he has defined linguistics as a branch of
cognitive psychology. Chomsky’s definition of competence leaves social considerations out of account entirely.
If competence is knowledge of the abstract principles of linguistic organization, which may not be evident in
actual behaviour, nor even accessible to consciousness, then what counts as empirical evidence for its
existence? The answer to this question has generally been that linguists themselves, as representative native
speakers of a language, can draw evidence from their own intuitions.
What Chomsky represents as central in language is an abstract set of organizing principles which both
define an area of human cognition, a specific language faculty, and determine the parameters of Universal
Grammar. The various forms of different languages, or the communicative functions are of no interest at all. They
furnish no reliable evidence of underlying cognitive principles. What is important about language is that it is
evidence for a faculty in the human mind, uniquely and innately specific to the species. Paradoxically, for
Chomsky, the study of language depends on disregarding most of it as irrelevant. In his view, what linguistics is
about is not really language but grammar, and more particularly that area of grammar which is concerned with
the structural relations of sentence constituents, i.e. syntax.
Deep Structure and Universal Grammar
Few technical distinctions of modern theoretical linguistics have been so widely adopted outside linguistics
as Chomsky’s distinction between deep structure and surface structure, which he first drew in Aspects (1965);
few, too, have been so widely misinterpreted or misunderstood. That is why in later years he has preferred to talk
of D-structure and S-structure.
Every language is a set of sentences; to each sentence of any language that is generated by a standard-
theory transformational grammar there is assigned, by the rules of the grammar, at least one deep structure and
at least one surface structure. Sentences of the same language differ from one another in meaning if, and only if,
they are derivable from two or more different, and semantically non-equivalent, deep structures. The deep
structure of a language is the set of deep structures from which its sentences are generated, considered in
abstraction from the actual words supplied by the vocabulary. All human languages, being intertranslatable and
generable from the same universal inventory of syntactic and semantic elements, share the same deep
structure.
The distinction between deep structure and surface structure no longer occupies the same position of
prominence in Chomskyan generative grammar that it once did. The standard theory of transformational
grammar, within which the distinction was originally formalized, was radically modified by Chomsky, and the role
of transformational rules has been successively reduced.
Modularity of Mind and Language
More recently Chomsky started using the terms I-language (internalised) and E-language (externalised). An
I- language is the language-system that is stored internally in the individual, i.e. someone’s idiolect (a particular
person’s individual language-system). Chomsky uses the term E-language to refer, not only to both performance
and to text, but also to languages (i.e. language-systems) considered as social entities. E-language is the term
that he would use for English, French, etc.
What Chomsky used to call ‘linguistic competence’ (or ‘grammatical competence’) and is now referring to as
‘I-language’ is independent of other kinds of knowledge; it develops in early childhood in the mind/brain of the
child (growing ‘organically’ under the control of a genetic program) independently of the development (or
‘growth’) of other mental capacities, and it must be ascribed to a distinct mental ‘faculty’. Chomsky’s view that
the language-faculty is a relatively independent mental ‘organ’ has not changed fundamentally over the last
twenty-five years. It has, however, been successively clarified in some of the detail. When he talks of linguistic
competence (or the I-language) as a mental organ, he is not using the word ‘organ’ metaphorically. He insists
that linguistic competence is just as properly described as an organ which ‘grows’, or matures, in the human
psycho-physical organism according to biologically predetermined principles as is the liver or the heart.
Chomsky has always been concerned primarily with the language-faculty, and such references as he has
made to other mental organs, or modules, have been incidental to this primary concern. His basic assumption, or
hypothesis, is that linguistic competence is independent of other mental faculties or abilities, but interacts with
them in the production and interpretation of utterances. The language-faculty is one of the modules of the mind,
and it is itself modular in structure. Then, for him, the major task of theoretical linguistics is to characterize the
language-faculty by means of a generative grammar. Chomsky’s interest in (generative) grammar is as a key to
unlock ‘the black box’ and gain access to one part, or faculty, of the mind. For Chomsky, the grammar of any
human language is now conceived, not as a single set of rules (operating upon a vocabulary), but as a system of
relatively independent, but interacting, modules, each of which is of course a sub-module of the mind.
Even though Chomsky classifies linguistics as a branch of cognitive psychology, he himself is uninterested in
the theories and empirical findings of psychologists. He has always argued that the question ‘What is linguistic
competence?’ must first be addressed and clarified by linguistics (operating autonomously) before other
disciplines can profitably address the secondary question ‘How is language competence stored and processed in
the brain?’
Chomsky’s rationalization of linguistics is evident in his insistence that languages are essentially
(cognitively-based) systems of representation rather than systems of communication and in his attitude to
semantics. His views on semantics have never been developed in detail; he has always given priority to
propositional, or cognitive, meaning, in contrast with non-propositional (affective, instrumental, socio-expressive,
etc.) meaning. As he says, the one basic function of languages is to serve for ‘the expression of though’. This is
one of the points in which he has been mostly criticised: he has given priority to the expression of reason, rather
than to the expression of will, desire, and the emotions.
Generative linguistics: Summary
Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative
grammar. The term "generative grammar" is used in different ways by different people, and the term "generative
linguistics" therefore has a range of different, though overlapping, meanings.
Formally, a generative grammar is defined as one that is fully explicit. It is a finite set of rules that can be
applied to generate exactly those sentences (often, but not necessarily, infinite in number) that are grammatical
in a given language (or, of course, particular dialect or otherwise sociolinguistically defined way of using a
language), and no others. This is the definition that is offered by Noam Chomsky, who popularised the term, and
by most dictionaries of linguistics.
More popularly, but somewhat to the apparent distaste of certain professional linguists including Chomsky,
the term is used to define the approach to linguistics taken by Chomsky and his followers. Chomsky's approach
is characterised by the use of transformational grammar - a theory that has changed greatly since it was first
promulgated by Chomsky in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures - and by the assertion of a strong linguistic
nativism (and therefore an assertion that some set of fundamental characteristics of all human languages must
be the same). The term "generative linguistics" is often applied to the earliest version of Chomsky's
transformational grammar, which was associated with a distinction between "Deep Structure" and "Surface
Structure" of sentences.
Chomsky also launched his approach to linguistics with a virulent attack on alternative approaches, in
particular the behaviorist view then popular, in the form in which it had been put forward by B. F. Skinner in a
book also published in 1957, Verbal Behavior. A final, and still looser, meaning of "generative linguistics",
therefore, might be summarised as "anti-Skinnerian linguistics" - or just generalised anti-behaviorism.
Psycholinguistics, which in the early 1960s was developing rapidly as part of the general movement towards
cognitive psychology, found this anti-behaviorist emphasis congenial, and rapidly absorbed many Chomskian
ideas including the notion of generative grammar. However, as both cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics
have matured, they have found less and less use for generative linguistics, not least because Chomsky has
repeatedly emphasised that he never intended to specify the mental processes by which people actually
generate sentences, or parse sentences that they hear or read.
Cognitive linguistics emerged in the latter years of the twentieth century as an alternative linguistic paradigm
to generative linguistics. Cognitive linguistics seeks to unify the understanding of language with the
understanding of how specific neural structures function biologically.
Systemic-Functional linguistics
Linguistic theorist, Michael Halliday introduced the term ‘social semiotics’ into linguistics when he used the
phrase in the title of his book, Language as Social Semiotic. This work argues against the traditional separation
between language and society, and exemplifies the start of a 'semiotic' approach, which broadens the narrow
focus on written language in linguistics (1978). For Halliday, languages evolve as systems of "meaning potential"
or as sets of resources which influence what the speaker can do with language in a particular social context.
Halliday believes that above all linguistics should deal with meaning at all levels of analysis and should study
texts in contexts of situation. Systemic Functional (SF) theory views language as a social semiotic, a resource
people use to accomplish their purposes by expressing meanings in context. "The value of a theory," Halliday
wrote, "lies in the use that can be made of it, and I have always considered a theory of language to be
essentially consumer oriented."
Halliday writes: ”By their everyday acts of meaning, people act out the social structure, affirming their own
statuses and roles, and establishing and transmitting the shared systems of value and of knowledge. [. . .] This
twofold function of the linguistic system ensures that, in the microencounters of everyday life where meanings
are exchanged, language not only serves to facilitate and support other modes of social action that constitute its
environment, but also actively creates an environment of its own, so making possible all the imaginative modes
of meaning, from backyard gossip to narrative fiction and epic poetry. The context plays a part in determining
what we say; and what we say plays a part in determining the context. As we learn how to mean, we learn to
predict each from the other. […] We have to proceed from the outside inwards, interpreting language by
reference to its place in the social process. This is not the same thing as taking an isolated sentence and
planting it out in some hothouse that we call a social context. It involves the difficult task of focusing attention
simultaneously on the actual and the potential, interpreting both discourse and the linguistic system that lies
behind it in terms of the infinitely complex network of meaning potential that is what we call the culture.”
Language is a systematic resource for expressing meaning in context and linguistics, according to Halliday,
is the study of how people exchange meanings through the use of language. This view of language as a system
for meaning potential implies that language is not a well defined system, not "the set of all grammatical
sentences." It also implies that language exists and therefore must be studied in contexts such as professional
settings, classrooms, and language tests. In short, SF theory states that particular aspects of a given context
(such as the topics discussed, the language users and the medium of communication) define the meanings likely
to be expressed and the language likely to be used to express those meanings.
Against the Chomskyan notion of competence, Halliday's notion of meaning potential is defined in terms of
culture, not mind: what speakers can do and can mean, not what they know. He says that we force a distinction
between meaning and function if we characterize language subjectively as the ability or competence of the
speaker, instead of objectively as a potential or set of alternatives. A hypothesis about what the speaker can do
in a social context makes sense of what he does, which might otherwise appear merely as a random selection.
We must pay attention to what is said and relate it systematically to what might have been said but was not.
Halliday makes a distinction between the context of culture and the context of situation. While the context of
culture defines the potential, i.e., the range of possibilities, the context of situation determines the actual, i.e.,
the choice that takes place. Hence, the actual is not unique or a chance product of random observation, and the
analysis of language comes within the range of a social theory and leads toward an account of semantic options
deriving from the social structure. In this view, the meaning potential of language realizes behaviour potential
and is in turn realized in the language system as lexicogrammatical potential (what the speaker can say).
The connection between the social functions of language and the linguistic system is clearest in the case of
the language of the very young child. Those functions determine both the options the child creates for himself
and their realizations in structure. Language development is thus the mastery of linguistic functions: learning the
meaning potential associated with the uses of language, i.e., learning how to mean. Insights into how language
is learned ought to shed light on the internal organization of language. In learning his mother tongue, a child is,
in effect, learning new modes and conditions of being. He first tends to use language in just one function at a
time; structure and internal form reflect a given function rather directly, and the utterance has just one structure.
The two-level system with meanings coded directly into expressions (sounds and gestures) gets replaced, in the
second year of life, by a three-level system with a grammar, whereby meanings are first coded into wordings and
these then recoded into expressions. This step opens up the potential for dialogue, the dynamic exchange of
meanings with other people, and for combining different kinds of meaning in one utterance – using language to
think with and to act with at the same time. Later in the evolution of the system, the child learns the principle of
grammatical metaphor, whereby meanings may be cross-coded, and phenomena represented by categories
other than those evolved to represent them. Eventually, in adult language, utterances are functionally complex:
almost every linguistic act serves several functions that interact in subtle and complex ways.
Halliday speculates that the developing language system of the child traverses, or at least provides an
analogy for, the stages through which language itself has evolved, and thus opens up a discussion about the
nature and social origins of language. Having no living specimens of its ancestral types, we can gather evidence
from studying the language and how it is learnt by a child. To judge from children's protolanguage, language
evolved in the human species from an early stage without any grammar, the meanings being expressed through
rather simple structures whose elements derive directly from the functions.
For our conception of language to be exhaustive, it must incorporate all the child's own models. In the
instrumental model, language is a means of getting things done, and in the regulatory model, a means for
exercising control over others and their behaviour. In the interactional model, language serves the interaction
between the self and others in complex and rapidly changing patterns, and defines and consolidates the group.
In the personal model, the child becomes aware of language as a form of individuality and of its role in the
development of personality. In the heuristic model, language serves to explore his environment and investigate
reality, and in the imaginative model, to create his own environment. Finally, in the representational model,
language is a means of communicating about something, expressing propositions, and conveying a message
with specific reference to processes, persons, objects, abstractions, qualities, states, and relations of the real
world. The ritual model, with language as a means for showing how well one was brought up, comes much later
and plays no part in the child's experience.
For effectual language teaching, the teacher's own model of language should encompass all that the child
knows language to be and take account of the child's own linguistic experience in its richest potential. The model
should also be relevant to later experiences and to the linguistic demands of society – where we are surrounded
not by grammars and dictionaries or randomly chosen words and sentences but by text or language in use in a
situation. Halliday believes that such issues are urgent because educational failure is often language failure, due
to a fundamental mismatch between the child's linguistic capabilities and the demands being made upon them.
The problem lies not in dialect or accent, nor in lack of words (vocabulary is learnt very easily through
opportunity and motivation), nor in an impoverishment of grammar or a narrower range of syntactic options.
Instead, the child suffers some limitation in linguistic models and some restriction on the range of uses of
language; the functions have developed one-sidedly, perhaps at the expense of the personal function and the
heuristic, which do not follow automatically from the acquisition of the grammar and vocabulary.
Halliday's concern for language development and pedagogy lends urgency to his broad social vision of
language. He holds it to be a universal of culture that all languages are called upon to fulfil a small set of distinct
though related demands which, though indefinitely many and varied, are derived ultimately from a small number
of general headings. And it is the nature of language to have all these functions built into its total capacity such
that the social functioning of language is reflected in the internal organization of language as a system. Thus,
functional theories of language seek to explain the nature and organization of the language system by asking
which functions it has evolved to serve in the life of social man and how these are achieved through speaking
and listening, reading and writing.
Halliday now proposes a functional grammar that can reveal how the form of language is determined by
the functions, and the grammatical patterns by configurations of functions. Each element in a language is
explained by reference to its function in the total linguistic system, and most linguistic items are multi-functional.
Among the many grammars that are functional in orientation is systemic grammar. Systemic theory interprets
meaning as choice and a language or semiotic system as networks of interlocking options. Though it presents
structures which are the output of networks, the grammar is not structural, i.e. syntagmatic; a systemic
grammar is paradigmatic, describing something consists in relating it to everything else. Although the text is a
semantic unit, not a grammatical one, meanings are realized through wordings (i.e. through sequences or
syntagms of lexical and grammatical items), and only a grammar as a theory of wordings allows one to make
explicit one's interpretation of the meaning of a text.
Halliday himself proffers only ‘a thumbnail sketch’, a minute fragment of an account of English grammar. He
grants that many aspects of English should be much more fundamentally reexamined; twentieth-century
linguistics has tended to wrap old descriptions inside new theories, whereas we really need new descriptions,
e.g., grammars for spoken language. Of course, no account could be complete because a language is
inexhaustible. We have a finite body of text, written or spoken, but the language itself, the system behind the
text, is of indefinite extent. Besides, distinctions can be pursued only up to a certain degree of fineness or
delicacy. In functional grammar, a language is interpreted as system of meanings accompanied by forms through
which the meanings are realized. The forms are a means to an end, not an end in themselves; we ask not what
these forms mean, but how these meanings are expressed. Halliday says grammar is the level of formal
organization in language – a purely internal level and the main defining characteristic of language. Yet it is not
arbitrary; it is natural, having evolved as content form on a functional basis. As the complexity of both linguistic
function and language increased, the stratal form of organization emerged, with a purely formal level of coding at
its core to integrate complex meaning selections into structures by sorting specific uses of language into a small
number of highly general functions.
The following points can sum up the major premises of Halliday’s social semiotics:
 Language is a social fact.

 We shall not come to understand the nature of language if we pursue only the kinds of question
about language that are formulated by linguists.
 Language is as it is because of the functions it has evolved to serve in people’s lives.
 There are three functions, or ‘metafunctions’, of language: ideational (about something); interpersonal
(doing something) and textual (the speaker’s text-forming potential).
 Language is constituted as a discrete network of options.
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics, which is often described as the study of language use, and contrasted
with the study of language structure. In this broad sense, it covers a range of loosely related research
programmes from formal studies of deictic expressions to sociological studies of ethnic verbal stereotypes. In a
more focused sense, pragmatics contrasts with semantics, the study of linguistic meaning, and is the study of
how contextual factors interact with linguistic meaning in the interpretation of utterances. Pragmatics is an
empirical science, but one with philosophical origins and philosophical import.
The term pragmatics started being used when Charles Morris proposed a threefold division of a sign into
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in his studies on semiotics in his book Foundations of the Theory of Signs in
1938. He defined it as the study of the relations between signs and their interpreters. However, it was the
philosopher Paul Grice’s William James lectures at Harvard in 1967 that led to the real development of the field.
Grice introduced new conceptual tools – in particular the notion of IMPLICATURE – in an attempt to reconcile the
concerns of the two then dominant approaches to the philosophy of language, Ideal Language Philosophy and
Ordinary Language Philosophy. Ideal language philosophers were studying language as a formal system;
ordinary language philosophers were studying actual linguistic usage, highlighting in descriptive terms the
complexity and subtlety of meanings and the variety of forms of verbal communication. For ordinary language
philosophers, there was an unbridgeable gap between the semantics of formal and natural languages. Grice
showed that the gap could at least be reduced by sharply distinguishing sentence meaning from speaker’s
meaning, and explaining how relatively simple and schematic linguistic meanings could be used in context to
convey richer and fuzzier speaker’s meanings, made up not only of WHAT WAS SAID, but also of what was
implicated. This became the foundation for most of modern pragmatics.
The study of pragmatics includes speech act theory, felicity conditions, conversational implicature, the
cooperative principle, conversational maxims, relevance, politeness, and deixis.
John Austin was a British philosopher of language who is widely associated with the speech act theory and
the idea that speech is itself a form of action. His work in the 1950s provided the early underpinnings for the
modern theory of speech acts developed subsequently by the American philosopher John Searle.
How to Do Things With Words is perhaps Austin's most influential work. In it he attacks what was at his time
a predominant account in philosophy, namely, the view that the chief purpose of sentences is to state facts, and
thus to be true or false based on the truth or falsity of those facts. In contrast to this common view, he argues,
truth-evaluable sentences form only a small part of the range of utterances. After introducing several kinds of
sentences which he assumes are indeed not truth-evaluable, he turns in particular to one of these kinds of
sentences, which he deems performative utterances. These he characterises by two features:
 First, to utter one of these sentences is not just to "say" something, but rather to perform a certain kind
of action.
 Second, these sentences are not true or false; rather, when something goes wrong in connection with
the utterance then the utterance is, as he puts it, "infelicitous", or "unhappy."
The action which performative sentences 'perform' when they are uttered belongs to what Austin later calls a
speech act which he later calls illocutionary act. For example, if you say “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth,"
and the circumstances are appropriate in certain ways, then you will have done something special, namely, you
will have performed the act of naming the ship. Other examples include: "I take this man as my lawfully wedded
husband," used in the course of a marriage ceremony, or "I bequeath this watch to my brother," as occurring in a
will. In all three cases the sentence is not being used to describe or state what one is 'doing', but being used to
actually 'do' it.
After numerous attempts to find more characteristics of performatives, and after having met with many
difficulties, Austin makes what he calls a "fresh start", in which he considers "more generally the senses in which
to say something may be to do something, or in saying something we do something". For example: John turns to
Sue and says ‘Is Jeff’s shirt red?’, to which Sue replies ‘Yes’. John has produced a certain sound. Austin called
such a performance a phonetic act, and called the act a phone. John’s utterance also conforms to the lexical and
grammatical conventions of English – that is, John has produced a sentence in English. Austin called this a
phatic act, and labels such utterances phemes. John also referred to Jeff’s shirt, and to the colour red. To use a
pheme with a more or less definite sense and reference is to utter a rheme, and to perform a rhetic act. Note that
rhemes are a sub-class of phemes, which in turn are a sub-class of phones. One cannot perform a rheme
without also performing a pheme and a phone. The performance of these three acts is the performance of a
locution – it is the act of saying something. John has therefore performed a locutionary act. He has also done at
least two other things. He has asked a question, and he has elicited an answer from Sue. Asking a question is
an example of what Austin called an illocutionary act. Other examples would be making an assertion, giving an
order, and promising to do something. To perform an illocutionary act is to use a locution with a certain force. It is
an act performed in saying something, in contrast with a locution, the act of saying something. Eliciting an
answer is an example of what Austin calls a perlocutionary act, an act performed by saying something. If one
successfully performs a perlocution, one also succeeds in performing both an illocution and a locution. In the
theory of speech acts, attention has especially focused on the illocutionary act, much less on the locutionary and
perlocutionary act.
John Searle was a professor of Philosophy who contributed to philosophy of language. Searle's early work
was on speech acts. In his book Speech Acts (1969) Searle presents an account of speech acts in the tradition
of Austin's account of illocutionary acts as exposed in How to Do Things with Words. The core of the account he
presents in Speech Acts is an analysis of promising, which he regards as a prototypical instance of an
illocutionary act, and further several sets of semantical rules which are intended to represent the linguistic
meaning of devices indicating further (supposed) illocutionary act types. Among the ideas Searle uses in this
book is the distinction between 'illocutionary force' and 'propositional content'. He does not give any definitions of
these notions, but introduces them by reference to examples. According to Searle, the sentences
1. Sam smokes habitually.
2. Does Sam smoke habitually?
3. Sam, smoke habitually!
4. Would that Sam smoked habitually!
each indicate the same propositional content (Sam smoking) but differ in the illocutionary force indicated (a
statement, a question, a command and an expression of desire, respectively). Despite his announcement that he
would be providing a "full dress analysis of the illocutionary act", he does not give any straightforward definition
of either "illocutionary force", or "illocutionary act"; thus, in the end it remains unclear how to distinguish
illocutionary acts from other acts, whether for instance answering a question, expressing love, or cursing actually
are illocutionary acts. As a consequence, a serious examination of the truth of what he says about 'illocutionary'
acts is extremely difficult. According to a later account, which Searle's presents in Intentionality (1983), and
which differs in several fundamental ways from the one suggested in Speech Acts, illocutionary acts are
characterised by their having conditions of satisfaction and a direction of fit. For example, the statement "John
bought two candy bars" is satisfied if and only if it is true, i.e. John did buy two candy bars. By contrast, the
command "John, buy two candy bars" is satisfied if and only if John carries out the action of purchasing two
candy bars. Searle refers to the first as having the word-to-world direction of fit, since the words are supposed to
change to accurately represent the world, and the second as having the world-to-word direction of fit, since the
world is supposed to change to match the words.
Examples of speech acts
 Greeting (in saying, "Hi John!", for instance), apologizing ("Sorry for that!"), describing something ("It is
snowing"), asking a question ("Is it snowing?"), making a request and giving an order ("Could you pass the
salt?" and "Drop your weapon or I'll shoot you!"), or making a promise ("I promise I'll give it back") are typical
examples of "speech acts" or "illocutionary acts".
 In saying, "Watch out, the ground is slippery", Peter performs the speech act of warning Mary to be careful.
 In saying, "I will try my best to be at home for dinner", Peter performs the speech act of promising to be at
home in time.
 In saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?", Peter requests the audience to be
quiet.
 In saying, "Can you race with me to that building over there?", Peter challenges Mary.
John Searle's theory of "indirect speech acts"
Searle introduced the notion of 'indirect speech act', which in his account is meant to be, more particularly, an
indirect 'illocutionary' act. Applying a conception of such illocutionary acts according to which they are (roughly)
acts of saying something with the intention of communicating with an audience, he describes indirect speech
acts as follows: "In indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by
way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with
the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer." An account of such act, it follows, will
require such things as an analysis of mutually shared background information about the conversation, as well as
of rationality and linguistic conventions.
In connection with indirect speech acts, Searle introduces the notions of 'primary' and 'secondary'
illocutionary acts. The primary illocutionary act is the indirect one, which is not literally performed. The secondary
illocutionary act is the direct one, performed in the literal utterance of the sentence. In the example:
(1) Speaker X: "We should leave for the show or else we’ll be late."
(2) Speaker Y: "I am not ready yet."
Here the primary illocutionary act is Y's rejection of X's suggestion, and the secondary illocutionary act is Y's
statement that she is not ready to leave. By dividing the illocutionary act into two subparts, Searle is able to
explain that we can understand two meanings from the same utterance all the while knowing which is the correct
meaning to respond to.
With his doctrine of indirect speech acts Searle attempts to explain how it is possible that a speaker can
say something and mean it, but additionally mean something else. This would be impossible , or at least it would
be an improbable case, if in such a case the hearer had no chance of figuring out what the speaker means (over
and
above what she says and means). Searle's solution is that the hearer can figure out what the indirect speech act
is meant to be, and he gives several hints as to how this might happen. For the previous example a condensed
process might look like this:
Step 1: A proposal is made by X, and Y responded by means of an illocutionary act (2).

Step 2: X assumes that Y is cooperating in the conversation, being sincere, and that she has made a
statement that is relevant.
Step 3: The literal meaning of (2) is not relevant to the conversation.
Step 4: Since X assumes that Y is cooperating; there must be another meaning to (2).
Step 5: Based on mutually shared background information, X knows that they cannot leave until Y is
ready. Therefore, Y has rejected X's proposition.
Step 6: X knows that Y has said something in something other than the literal meaning, and the primary
illocutionary act must have been the rejection of X's proposal.
Searle argues that a similar process can be applied to any indirect speech act as a model to find the
primary illocutionary act . His proof for this argument is made by means of a series of supposed "observations".
In order to generalize this sketch of an indirect request, Searle proposes a program for the analysis of indirect
speech act performances, whatever they are. He makes the following suggestion:
Step 1: Understand the facts of the conversation.

Step 2: Assume cooperation and relevance on behalf of the participants.
Step 3: Establish factual background information pertinent to the conversation.
Step 4: Make assumptions about the conversation based on steps 1–3.
Step 5: If steps 1–4 do not yield a consequential meaning, then infer that there are two illocutionary
forces at work.
Step 6: Assume the hearer has the ability to perform the act the speaker suggests. The act that the
speaker is asking be performed must be something that would make sense for one to ask. For example,
the hearer might have the ability to pass the salt when asked to do so by a speaker who is at the same
table, but not have the ability to pass the salt to a speaker who is asking the hearer to pass the salt
during a telephone conversation.
Step 7: Make inferences from steps 1–6 regarding possible primary illocutions.
Step 8: Use background information to establish the primary illocution
With this process, Searle concludes that he has found a method that will satisfactorily reconstruct what
happens when an indirect speech act is performed. Searle (1975) has set up the following classification of
illocutionary speech acts:
 assertives = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition.
 directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular action, e.g. requests,
commands and advice
 commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action, e.g. promises and oaths
 expressives = speech acts that expresses on the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the
proposition, e.g. congratulations, excuses and thanks
 declaratives = speech acts that change the reality in accord with the proposition of the declaration, e.g.
baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife
Paul Grice
Born and raised in the United Kingdom, Grice was educated in England; he taught at Oxford until 1967, then
moved to the United States to take up a professorship at the Berkeley, where he taught until his death in 1988.
His work is one of the foundations of the modern study of pragmatics. Grice is remembered mainly for his
contributions to the study of speaker meaning, linguistic meaning, and the interrelations between these two
phenomena. He provided, and developed, an analysis of the notion of linguistic meaning in terms of speaker
meaning (according to his initial suggestion, 'A meant something by x' is roughly equivalent to 'A uttered x with
the intention of inducing a belief by means of the recognition of this intention'). In order to explain how non-literal
utterances can be understood, he further postulated the existence of a general Cooperative Principle in
conversation, as well as of certain special conversational maxims derived from the cooperative principle. In order
to describe certain inferences for which the word "implication" would appear to be inappropriate, he introduced
the notion of different kinds of implicatures.
The distinction between natural and non-natural meaning
Grice understood "meaning" to refer to two rather different kinds of phenomena. Natural meaning is supposed to
capture something similar to the relation between cause and effect as, for example, applied in the sentence
"Those spots mean measles". This must be distinguished from what Grice calls non-natural meaning, as present
in "Those three rings on the bell (of the bus) mean that the bus is full". Grice's subsequent suggestion is that the
notion of non-natural meaning should be analysed in terms of speakers' intentions in trying to communicate
something to an audience.
Presupposition and Entailment
Speakers assume that certain information is already known by their listeners. Because it is treated as known,
such information will generally not be stated and consequently will count as part of what is communicated but not
said. The technical terms presupposition and entailment are used to describe two different aspects of this kind of
information. A presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance.
Speakers, not sentences, have presuppositions. An entailment is something that logically follows from what is
asserted in the utterance. Sentences, not speakers, have entailments.
We can identify some of the potentially assumed information that would be associated with the following
utterance.
Mary’s brother bought three horses.
In producing the utterance, the speaker will normally be expected to have the presuppositions that a person
called Mary exists and that she has a brother. The speaker may also hold the more specific presuppositions that
Mary has only one brother and that he has a lot of money. All these presuppositions are the speaker’s and all of
them can be wrong, in fact. The same sentence will be treated as having the entailments that Mary’s brother
bought something, bought three animals, bought two horses, bought one horse, and many other similar logical
consequences. These entailments follow from the sentence, reagrdless of whether the speaker’s beliefs are right
or wrong, in fact. They are communicated without being said.
A presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose
truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions include:
 Do you want to do it again? Presupposition: that you have done it already, at least once.
 Jane no longer writes fiction. Presupposition: that Jane once wrote fiction.
A presupposition must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be
considered appropriate in context. It will generally remain a necessary assumption whether the utterance is
placed in the form of an assertion, denial, or question, and can be associated with a specific lexical item or
grammatical feature (presupposition trigger) in the utterance.
Crucially, negation of an expression does not change its presuppositions: I want to do it again and I don't want to
do it again both presuppose that the subject has done it already one or more times; My wife is pregnant and My
wife is not pregnant both presuppose that the subject has a wife. In this respect, presupposition is distinguished
from entailment. For example, The president was assassinated entails that The president is dead, but if the
expression is negated, the entailment is not necessarily true.
A presupposition of a sentence must normally be part of the common ground of the utterance context (the
shared knowledge of the interlocutors) in order for the sentence to be felicitous. Sometimes, however, sentences
may carry presuppositions that are not part of the common ground and nevertheless be felicitous. For example, I
can, upon being introduced to someone, out of the blue explain that my wife is a dentist, this without my
addressee having ever heard, or having any reason to believe that I have a wife. In order to be able to interpret
my utterance, the addressee must assume that I have a wife. This process of an addressee assuming that a
presupposition is true, even in the absence of explicit information that it is, is usually called presupposition
accommodation.
Implicature
Implicature is a technical term in pragmatics coined by Paul Grice. We assume that speakers and listeners
involved in conversation are generally cooperating with each other. For example, for reference to be successful,
it was proposed that collaboration was a necessary factor. In accepting speakers’ presuppositions, listeners
normally have to assume that a speaker who says ‘my car’ really does have the car that is mentioned and is not
trying to mislead the listener. This sense of cooperation is simply one in which people ahving a conversation are
not normally assumed to be trying to confuse, trick, or withhold relevant information from each other. In most
circumstances, this kind of cooperation is only the starting point for making sense of what is said.
In the middle of their lunch hour, one woman asks another how she likes the hamburger she is eating, and
receives the following answer:
A hamburger is a hamburger.
From a purely logical perspective, the reply seems to have no communicative value since it expresses
something completely obvious. Clearly, the speaker intended to communicate more than was said. When
the listener hears an expression like that one, she first has to assume that the speaker is being cooperative
and intends to communicate something. That something must be more than just what the words mean. It is
an additional conveyed meaning, called an implicature. By stating it, the speaker expects that the listener
will be able to work out, on the basis of what is already know, the implicature intended in this context. Given
the opportunity to evaluate the hamburger, the speaker has responded without an evaluation, thus one
implicture is that she has no opinion, either good or bad, to express. Depending on other aspects of the
context, additional implicatures (for example, the speaker thinks all hamburgers are the same) might be
inferred.
Implicatures are primary examples of more being communicated than is said, but in order for them to be
interpreted, some basic cooperative principle must first be assumed to be in operation.
Cooperative principle
The cooperative principle describes how people interact with one another. As phrased by Grice, who
introduced it, it states, "Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged." Though phrased as a prescriptive
command, the principle is intended as a description of how people normally behave in conversation. Put more
simply, people who obey the cooperative principle in their language use will make sure that what they say in a
conversation furthers the purpose of that conversation. Obviously, the requirements of different types of
conversations will be different.
The cooperative principle can be divided into four maxims, called the Gricean maxims, describing specific
rational principles observed by people who obey the cooperative principle; these principles enable effective
communication.
The cooperative principle goes both ways: speakers (generally) observe the cooperative principle, and listeners
(generally) assume that speakers are observing it. This allows for the possibility of implicatures, which are
meanings that are not explicitly conveyed in what is said, but that can nonetheless be inferred. For example, if
Alice points out that Bill is not present, and Carol replies that Bill has a cold, then there is an implicature that the
cold is the reason, or at least a possible reason, for Bill's absence; this is because Carol's comment is not
cooperative — does not contribute to the conversation — unless her point is that Bill's cold is or might be the
reason for his absence. (This is covered specifically by the Maxim of Relation).
Gricean maxims
The philosopher Paul Grice proposed four conversational maxims that arise from the pragmatics of natural
language. These maxims are:
Maxim of Quality: Truth

 Do not say what you believe to be false.
 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Maxim of Quantity: Information

 Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.
 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
Maxim of Relation: Relevance

 Be relevant.
Maxim of Manner: Clarity

 Avoid obscurity of expression.
 Avoid ambiguity.
 Be brief ("avoid unnecessary prolixity").
 Be orderly.
These maxims may be better understood as describing the assumptions listeners normally make about the way
speakers will talk, rather than prescriptions for how one ought to talk. Philosopher Kent Bach writes:
...[W]e need first to get clear on the character of Grice’s maxims. They are not sociological
generalizations about speech, nor they are moral prescriptions or proscriptions on what to say or
communicate. Although Grice presented them in the form of guidelines for how to communicate
successfully, I think they are better construed as presumptions about utterances, presumptions that
we as listeners rely on and as speakers exploit. (Bach 2005).
If the overt, surface meaning of a sentence does not seem to be consistent with the Gricean maxims, and yet the
circumstances lead us to think that the speaker is nonetheless obeying the cooperative principle, we tend to look
for other meanings that could be implicated by the sentence. Grice did not, however, assume that all people
should constantly follow these maxims. Instead, he found it interesting when these were "flouted" or "violated"
(either purposefully or unintentionally breaking the maxims) by speakers, which would imply some other, hidden
meaning. The importance was in what was not said. For example: "It's raining" is in violation of quality and
quantity of spoken language; however, in context (e.g. when someone has suggested a game of tennis) the
reasoning behind this 'fragment' sentence becomes clear.
The basic assumption in conversation is that, unless otherwise indicated, the participants are adhering to the
cooperative principle and the maxims. In the following example, Dexter may appear to be violating the
requirements of the quantity maxim.
Charlene: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.

Dexter: Ah, I brought the bread.
After hearing Dexter’s response, Charlene has to assume that Dexter is cooperating and not totally unaware of
the quantity maxim. But he did not mention the cheese. If he had brought the cheese, he would say so, because
he would be adhering to the quantity maxim. He must intend that she infer that what is not mentioned was not
brought. In this case, Dexter has conveyed more than he said via a conversational implicature.
It is important to note that it is speakers who communicate meaning via implicatures and it is listeners who
recognize those communicated meanings via inference. The inferences selected are those which will preserve
the assumption of cooperation.
An inference is the listener’s use of additional knowledge to make sense of what is not explicit in an utterance.
Geoffrey Leech
Politeness Principle
According toGeoffrey Leech, there is a politeness principle with conversational maxims similar to those
formulated by Grice. He lists six maxims: tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy. The
first and second form a pair, as do the third and the fourth. These maxims vary from culture to culture: what may
be considered as polite in one culture, may be strange or downright rude in another.
The Tact Maxim

The Tact Maxim states: 'Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other; maximize the expression of
beliefs which imply benefit to other.' The first part of this maxim fits in with Brown and Levinson's negative
politeness strategy of minimising the imposition, and the second part reflects the positive politeness strategy of
attending to the hearer's interests, wants, and needs:
Could I interrupt you for a second?

If I could just clarify this then.
The Generosity maxim
Leech's Generosity Maxim states: 'Minimize the expression of benefit to self; maximize the expression of cost to
self.' Unlike the tact maxim, the maxim of generosity focuses on the speaker, and says that others should be put
first instead of the self.
You relax and let me do the dishes.

You must come and have dinner with us.
The Approbation maxim
The Approbation Maxim states: 'Minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise of other; maximize
the expression of beliefs which express approval of other.'The operation of this maxim is fairly obvious: all things
being equal, we prefer to praise others and if we cannot do so, to sidestep the issue, to give some sort of
minimal response (possibly through the use of euphemisms or to remain silent. The first part of the maxim
avoids disagreement; the second part intends to make other people feel good by showing solidarity.
I heard you singing at the karaoke last night. It was, um... different.
John, I know you're a genius - would you know how to solve this math problem here?
The Modesty maxim
The Modesty Maxim states: 'Minimize the expression of praise of self; maximize the expression of dispraise of
self.'
Oh, I'm so stupid - I didn't make a note of our lecture! Did you?
The Agreement maxim
The Agreement Maxim runs as follows: 'Minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other;
maximize the expression of agreement between self and other.' It is in line with Brown and Levinson's positive
politeness strategies of 'seek agreement' and 'avoid disagreement,' to which they attach great importance.
However, it is not being claimed that people totally avoid disagreement. It is simply observed that they are much
more direct in expressing agreement, rather than disagreement.
A: I don't want my daughter to do this; I want her to do that.

B: Yes, but ma'am, I thought we resolved this already on your last visit.
The Sympathy maxim
The Sympathy Maxim states: 'minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize sympathy between self and
other.' This includes a small group of speech acts such as congratulation, commiseration, and expressing
condolences - all of which is in accordance with Brown and Levinson's positive politeness strategy of attending
to the hearer's interests, wants, and needs.
I was sorry to hear about your father.
Criticisms
A traditional criticism has been that pragmatics does not have a clear-cut focus, and in early studies there
was a tendency to assort those topics without a clear status in linguistics to pragmatics. Thus pragmatics was
associated with the metaphor of 'a garbage can' (Leech, 1983). Other complaints were that, unlike grammar
which resorts to rules, the vague and fuzzy principles in pragmatics are not adequate in telling people what to
choose in face of a range of possible meanings for one single utterance in context. An extreme criticism
represented by Marshal was that pragmatics is not eligible as an independent field of learning since meaning is
already dealt with in semantics.
However, there is a consensus view that pragmatics as a separate study is more than necessary because it
handles those meanings that semantics overlooks. This view has been reflected in practice at large. Thus, in
spite of the criticisms, the impact of pragmatics has been colossal and multifaceted. The study of speech acts,
for instance, provided illuminating explanation into sociolinguistic conduct. The findings of the cooperative
principle and politeness principle also provided insights into person-to-person interactions. The choice of
different linguistic means for a communicative act and the various interpretations for the same speech act
elucidate human mentality in the relevance principle which contributes to the study of communication in
particular and cognition in general.
Implications of pragmatic studies are also evident in language teaching practices. Deixis, for instance, is
important in the teaching of reading. Speech acts are often helpful for improving translation and writing.
Pragmatic principles are also finding their way into the study of literary works as well as language teaching
classrooms.
Conclusion
Pragmatics is concerned with bridging the explanatory gap between sentence meaning and speaker’s
meaning. The study of how context influences the interpretation is then crucial. Context here must be interpreted
as situation as it may include any imaginable extralinguistic factor, including discourse, social, environmental,
and psychological factors. Pragmatics is interested predominantly in utterances, made up of sentences, and
usually in the context of conversations. A distinction is made in pragmatics between sentence meaning and
speaker meaning. Sentence meaning is the literal meaning of the sentence, while the speaker meaning is the
concept that the speaker is trying to convey. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is
called pragmatic competence.
Pragmatics tries to understand the relationship between signs and interpretations, while semantics tends to
focus on the actual objects or ideas that a word refers to, and syntax (or "syntactics") examines the relationship
between signs.
Bibliography
Austin, J. How to do Things with Words. Oxford University Press. London. 1962.
Culler, Jonathan. Ferdinand de Saussure. Cornell University Press. New York. 1986.
Grice, P. Logic and Conversation in Pragmatics a Reader. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1991.
Grice, P. Meaning in Philosophical Review, 1957
Halliday, M., Mathiessen, An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Arnold. London. 2004.
Halliday, M. and Hasan, R. Cohesion in English. Longman. London. 1994.
Halliday, M. A. K. Language as Social Semiotic. University Park Press. 1978
Leech, Geoffrey. Principles of Pragmatics. Longman. London. 1983.
Levinson, S. Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 1983.
Lyons, John. Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 1986.
Robins, R. A Short History of Linguistics. Indiana University Press. 1967
Searle, J. Indirect Speech Acts in Pragmatics a Reader. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1991.
Searle, J. Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
1969.
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. Relevance. Harvard University Press. 1994.
Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1996.
Widdowson, H. Linguistics. Oxford University Press. 1996.

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Linguistic Theories

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ISFD N° 3 – Dr. J. C. Avanza – Prof.

de Inglés – Lengua y Expresión Escrita III – Linguistic Theories 1

Saussure and Structuralism

A Selection of Basic Points from the Cours:

SECTION I: THE NATURE OF THE LINGUISTIC SIGN

SECTION II: LINGUISTIC VALUE

SYNTAGMATIC AND ASSOCIATIVE RELATIONS

Summary of Saussure's Structural Linguistics

The Significance of Structuralist Theory

The Chomskyan Revolution: a Progress Report.

Plato’s problem and Chomsky’s solution: genetic anamnesis.

Competence and performance.

Deep Structure and Universal Grammar

Modularity of Mind and Language

Generative linguistics: Summary

 Language is a social fact.

Examples of speech acts

John Searle's theory of "indirect speech acts"

Step 1: A proposal is made by X, and Y responded by means of an illocutionary act (2).

Step 1: Understand the facts of the conversation.

The distinction between natural and non-natural meaning

Presupposition and Entailment

Mary’s brother bought three horses.

Maxim of Quality: Truth

Maxim of Quantity: Information

Maxim of Relation: Relevance

Maxim of Manner: Clarity

Charlene: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.

The Tact Maxim

Could I interrupt you for a second?

The Generosity maxim

You relax and let me do the dishes.

The Approbation maxim

The Modesty maxim

The Agreement maxim

A: I don't want my daughter to do this; I want her to do that.

The Sympathy maxim

I was sorry to hear about your father.

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