Activities to Develop

Task 1: individual activity

1. Read the following two documents “An Introduction to Linguistics

and Language Studies” pages 1-13, by McCabe A, and
“Linguistics”; and also, read the document ‘Linguistics’ by Bauer,
Laurie. Pages 10-18, found in UNIT 1, in the Knowledge
Environment.

EXERCISE 1.4

Attribute each of the following phrases to either Ferdinand de

Sausurre, Noam Chomsky, or Michael Halliday.
What motivates your response? motivates my response
What does the quote tell you about their perspective on the study
and analysis of language?

1. ‘If we could embrace the sum of word-images stored in the

minds of all individuals, we could identify the social bond that
constitutes language. It is a storehouse filled by the members
of a given community through their active use of speaking, a
grammatical system that has a potential existence in each
brain, or, specifically, in the brains of a group of individuals.
For language is not complete in any speaker; it exists
perfectly only within a collectivity..’

In separating language from speaking we are at the same

time
separating: (1) what is social from what is individual; and (2)
what
is essential from what is accessory and more or less
accidental. Language is not a function of the speaker ; it is a
product that is passively assimilated by the individual. It never
 requires premeditation, and reflection enters in only for the
purpose of classification,
which we shall take up later (pp. 122 ff.). Based on
THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
https://monoskop.org/images/0/0b/Saussure_Ferdinand_de_Course_in_General_Lin
guistics_1959.pdf

2, ‘It seems clear that we must regard linguistic competence –

knowledge of a language – as an abstract system underlying behavior, a
system constituted by rules that interact to determine the form and
intrinsic meaning of a potentially infinite number of sentences.
Such a system – a generative grammar – provides an explication of the Humboldtian idea of “form of
language,”which in an obscure but suggestive remark in his great posthumous work,
(Chomsky, Noam (2006) Language and Mind . 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press

(Halliday, M.A.K. (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London:

Edward Arnold, xiii.)

’4. ‘Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-hearer, in a

completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly
and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory
limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, errors (random or
characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-hearer, in a
completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly
and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory
limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, errors (random or
characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance.

(Chomsky, Noam (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 3)

5. ‘Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the

value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of
the others ... [for example]. To determine what a five-franc piece is
worth one most know: (1) that it can be exchanged for a fixed
quantity of a different thing, e.g. bread; and (2) that it can be
compared with a similar value of the same system, e.g. a one-franc
piece, or with coins of another system (a dollar, etc.). In the same
way a word can be exchanged for something dissimilar, an idea;
besides, it can be compared with something of the same nature,
another word. Its value is therefore not fixed so long as one simply
states that it can be ‘exchanged’ for a given concept.
’
6. ‘Spoken and written language, then, tend to display different
KINDS of complexity; each of them is more complex in its own way.
Written language tends to be lexically dense but grammatically
simple; spoken language tends to be grammatically intricate but
lexically sparse’ ... ‘The value of having some explicit knowledge of
the grammar of written language is that you can use this
knowledge, not only to analyze the texts, but as a critical resource
for asking questions about them.
Influenced by J.R. Firth, who drew attention to the relationship
between meaning and context, including the surrounding co-text
that a piece of language participates in; this co-text lends meaning
to words: ‘You shall know a word by the company it keeps’
Halliday: a systemic framework of functional choices
Language – a system of choices at different levels, and each choice
provides an aspect of meaning
(Halliday, M.A.K. (1987) Spoken and written modes of meaning. In Horowitt, R. & Samuels,
S.J. (eds) Comprehending Oral and Written Language. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 66.)
Systemic functional linguistics

Based on the second text ‘Linguistics’ in “Bauer, Laurie; The

Linguistic Student's Handbook”

Answer the following question:

why is Linguistics definitely considered a science?

In your answer,THE lINGUISTIC is involve the other

language areas such as semiotics, philology and literature.

RTA/ therefore, The Semiotics is a very good discipline

linked to linguistics, an example of this are literary studies,
discourse analysis, linguistics of the text and philosophy of
language. Semiotics, within the paradigm of language, is the
study of the relationship between language and culture

we will also highlight the importance it has whenLinguistics

shares this meta-language with prescriptive grammar, which
may lead to the idea that linguistics is about correctness in
language use – this is very far from the reality of linguistic
studies.

The concept of ‘double articulation’ is a classic one at

identifying language, please, explain it, and give examples.
 According to André Martinet, language is doubleally
articulated: when speaking or listening we note, first of all,
the presence of certain linguistic units that possess meaning
and keep certain independence among themselves. These
are the words or units of the first joint. Let's look at the
following expressions:

xamples: THE NILA PLAY WITH THE DOG IN THE PARK

T/H/E/ N/I/L/A/ P/L/A/Y/ W/I/T/H/ T/H/E/ D/O/G/ I/N T/H/E

P/A/R/K
language

structure
symbolic operation
function

double
articulation’ unit combin
selection ation of
units
first articulationculation second
articulation

Human language is different from other semiotic systems, explain at

least three, that according to Linguistics, are unique to human language
( give references).

Human language is unique in the following ways: It is generative—there

is no limit to the number of ideas it can communicate, and there is no
limit on the number of utterances that can be made. as well as You can
(and probably have) uttered something no other human has ever said
characteristics
Human languages also differ from animal
communication systems in that they employ grammatical and semantic
categories
Human language is also unique in having the property of recursivity;
this is the way in which, for example, a noun phrase to contain another
noun phrase (as in "the chimpanzee's lips") or a clause to contain a
clause (as in "I think that it's raining")
Human language is also the only known natural communication system
that is modality independent, meaning that it can be used not only for
communication through one channel or media, but through several
For example spoken language uses the auditive modality, whereas sign
languages and writing use the visual modality and braille writing uses
the tactile modality