LINGUISTICS AND

LANGUAGE
 DR. JOSE P. RIZAL

Our National Hero was himself a polygot having

mastered 22 languages (Tagalog, Ilokano, Spanish,
Portuguese, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, English, French,
German, Arabic, Hebrew, Catalan, Dutch, Italian,
Chinese, Japanese, Swedish,Russian, Malay,Bisayan
and Subanon).

WHY DID DR. JOSE RIZAL MASTER MANY LANGUAGES?

To learn foreign publications and communications
written by foreign scholars since English is not yet
recognized as a universally known language during
that time
 DR. JOSE RIZAL: A LINGUIST

Produced research works on:

Tagalog Grammar
Comparative Study of Visayan and Malayan
languages.

His scholarly research entitled Tagalische Verkunst

(Tagalog Metrical Art) was presented before the
Ethnographic Society of Berlin in 1887.
 LINGUISTICS

Definition: the study of language in a cultural context

Scope: The subject of formal linguistic analysis is not

the written language but rather the spoken
language. Writing and reading are learned, unlike
spoken language which is acquired.

Lingusitics describes languages in their own merits,

and unlike grammar, it does not lay down rules of
correctness which is why linguistics is said to be
descriptive, while grammar is prescriptive.
 TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE
LINGUISTICS

In 1957, professor of Linguistics, Dr. Noam Chomsky of

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA ushered in
a new era in linguistics that has come to be known as
transformational generative linguistics which has
redirected the aims of linguistic study and
application in two folds:

1. Linguistic Competence
2. Linguistic Performance
 AIMS OF LINGUISTIC STUDY AND
APPLICATION
1. Linguistic Competence.

An idealized understanding of the rules and construction of a

given language.

This includes :

distinct sounds used in the language, the combination of

these sounds, and the formation and the interpretation of a
sentence.

Chomsky assumes that children are born with a Language

Acquisition Device (LAD) which is made up of a set of general
principles applicable to all languages that is called universal
grammar.
 AIMS OF LINGUISTIC STUDY AND
APPLICATION
2. Linguistic Performance.

The actual use of language as an output which involves the

production and comprehension of actual utterances including
appropriate use in social context.

Excellence in competence does not guarantee error-free

performance. Factors that may result in performance flaws
could be due to memory recall limitations, distractions, random
inadvertent errors, etc.
 DISTINCTION BETWEEN LANGUAGE
AND SPEAKING
Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure(1857-1913) who laid
the foundations of structural linguistics draws a distinction
between language (langue) and speaking (parole)

It is not to be confused with human speech, of which it is

only a definite part, though certainly an essential one.

It is both a social product of the faculty of speech and a

collection of necessary conventions that have been
adopted by a social body to permit individuals to
exercise that faculty.
 FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE FROM A
STRUCTURAL LINGUISTS PERSPECTIVE
Language is not a function of the speaker, it is a
product that is passively assimilated by the individual.

Without language, thought is vague.

Nothing is distinct before the appearance of

language.

The characteristic role of language is to serve as a

link between thought and sound.
 LANGUAGE

Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Timothy R. Quigley of the

New School Eugene Lang College, New York, USA
outlined in his summary and analysis of structuralism
that:

language is the medium of thought and human

expression and

provides the structure used to conceptualize own

experience.
 LANGUAGE

Language is a structured system of arbitrary signs

that communicate meaning.

A Language structure refers to the way in which all

the elements of a language are organized for the
purpose of communication.
 LANGUAGE

Language is structured in such that the individual

sounds (phonemes) of the language combine into
meaningful words (morphemes) that combine into
meaningful phrases, clauses, and sentence
pattern(grammar).

Language is arbitrary because there is no natural or

intrinsic relationship between a word and its
meaning, otherwise, every language would have
the same words for the same meanings.
 LANGUAGE

The basic unit of language is a sign.

A sign is composed of:

signifier( a sound-image or its graphic equivalent)
signified (the concept or meaning)
 FORMS OF COMMUNICATION

Communication takes on two forms:

1. Verbal.
Consisting of using words only and not involving action.
This refers to communication in the composition of words
which can be spoken, listened, written and read.

2. Non-Verbal
Do not involve or use words.
This refers to unwritten and unspoken language such as
gestures, body posture and movement, facial expressions,
eye contact, voice tone, touch and visual representations.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN
LANGUAGE
What makes human language unique in comparison
to animal languages are its characteristics that may
be enumerated as follows:

Arbitrariness. The link between a linguistic sign and

its meaning is a matter of social convention or a
mutual understanding among those adopting it.

Duality. The property of having two levels of

structures consisting of primary units or meaningful
words and secondary units or meaningless sounds.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN
LANGUAGE

Creativity. Animal languages do not have

phonemes or articulated and differrentiated sounds
to produce infinite set of words and sentences
generating new meanings.

Displacement. The ability to communicate about

things that are physically absent or those that are
abstract concepts at the moment of
communication.
THANK YOU!