LANGUAGE

It is system of conventional
signals used for communication
by a whole community

(Gimson, A.C. An Introduction to the

Pronunciation of English)
Human Language = Natural Language

A common
progression for
natural languages is
that they are
considered to be first
spoken and then
written, and then an
understanding and
explanation of their
grammar is
attempted.
CHARACTERISTICS

AUTOMATISED

ARBITRARY

CREATIVE

CULTURALLY
TRANSMITTED

CONVENTIONAL

OPEN

DISCRETE

HIERARCHICAL

LEARNABLE

DUAL IN ITS PATTERNING

automatized it refers to behavior that is
"overlearned" to the point not only of being
performed rapidly and unconsciously, but
of being incapable of being interrupted or
modified by conscious effort.

arbitrary it refers to the fact that the

sounds of words typically have no
relationship to their meanings.
 creative it refers to the capacity of language
users to produce and understand an indefinitely
large number of sentences, most of which they
have not heard or used before; this property is
also known as productivity.

culturally transmitted human genes transmit

the capacity to acquire language, but the
detailed conventions of a particular language
are transmitted by teaching and learning.
conventional it refers to the fact that
aspects of language are regulated by
social norms.

open it is able to accept new members

indefinitely or without limit.
discrete it refers to the properties of
language that continuous changes in the
acoustic signal do not result in continuous
changes in perceived speech sounds but
in perceptually distinct sounds.
hierarchical it is organized in multiple
levels such that each level bears some
principled relationship to the ones above
and below.
learnable it refers to the property that a
learner can generate rules, a grammar for
that language.

dual in its patterning a small stock of

meaningless sounds can be combined in
numerous permutations to make up a very
large number of meaningful units (words).
 LINGUISTICS

Linguistics is the scientific

study of natural languages
THE LINGUISTIC SCIENCES

LINGUISTIC SCIENCES

PHONETICS LINGUISTICS
 LINGUISTICS

PHONETICS AND SEMANTICS AND

GRAMMAR
PHONOLOGY PRAGMATICS

SYNTAX MORPHOLOGY
OTHER SUB-FIELDS OF LINGUISTICS

Psycholinguisics Neurolinguistics
Discourse Analysis Language Acquisition
Applied Linguistics Computational
Developmental Linguistics
Linguistics Historical Linguistics
Sociolinguistics Evolutionary
Stylistics Linguistics
Language Geography
 PHONETICS
/f'netks/

It is the study of phonic substance and its

function in spoken language. (Finch and Ortiz Lira)

It is the study of human speech sounds .

 CHARACTERISTICS

PHONETICS

GENERAL DESCRIPTIVE

ANALYTICAL CLASSIFICATORY
 BRANCHES OF PHONETICS

PHONETICS

ARTICULATORY AUDITORY ACOUSTIC

/: 'tkjltr / / ':dtr / / ' ku:stk /
 PHONOLOGY
/ f'nld /
It studies the selection and organization of
phonic substance into a given form or
pattern. (Finch and Ortiz Lira)

Phonology is the study of how sounds are

organized and used in natural languages.
 CHARACTERISTICS

PHONOLOGY

PARTICULAR FUNCTIONAL
 COMPARISON BETWEEN
PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

PHONETICS
It is the basis for It is the basis for further
phonological analysis
It analyzes the production
of all human speech
sounds, regardless of
language.
It deals with the
measurement,
observation and
description of sounds
PHONOLOGY
work in morphology,
syntax, discourse, and
orthography design.
It analyzes the sound
patterns of a particular
language by
determining which
phonetic sounds are
significant, and
explaining how these
sounds are interpreted by
the native speaker