Lecture # 30Review of lectures 8-14

Definition: The evolution of language in human society and its role in the formation of culture is studied in anthropological linguistics.

This is another aspect of language, society and culture.

Anthropological Linguistics

The structure of language has a social and cultural basis in the same way as other customs, conventions, and codes such as those related to dress and food.

Each culture organizes its world in its own way giving names to objects, identifying areas of significance or values and suppressing other areas.

Anthropological Linguistics (contd..)

Anthropological studies have explored the relation between language and culture.

Language is invented to communicate and express a culture.

The language begins to determine the way we think and see the world

Anthropological Linguistics (contd..)

Definition: The study of the style of literary texts

Taking the view of register (language used in different fields – religious sermons, sports commentary, law etc.), we can study the styles of literary texts.

We may describe its features at levels of phonology, syntax, lexis, etc.

Literary Stylistics

We distinguish one text from the other

We appreciate how it achieves some special features and effects through the use of language.

This kind of study is termed as ‘Literary stylistics’

Stylistics (contd..)

The writers try to link ‘what’ is being said with ‘how it is being said’

It is through the latter that writers can fully convey their complex ideas and feelings

Stylistic analysis also helps in better understanding of how metaphor, irony, paradox, ambiguity etc. operate in literary texts (they are effects of language and building up of a coherent linguistic structure)

Stylistics (contd…)

Neurolinguistics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.

As an interdisciplinary field, neurolinguistics draws methodology and theory from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, neurobiology, communication disorders, neuropsychology and computer science.

Neurolinguistics (contd..)

Later, Carl Wernicke, after whom Wernicke’s area is named, proposed that different areas of the brain were specialized for different linguistic tasks.

Broca's area specialized at handling the motor production of speech, and Wernicke's area handling auditory speech comprehension

Neurolinguistics (contd..)

Anthropological LinguisticsThe evolution of language in human society and its role in the formation of culture Literary Stylistics

The study of the style of literary texts Neurolinguistics

the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.

Summary

The most influential: American school of structural anthropologists – Leonard Bloomfield & after World War II, Noam Chomsky

The European linguists, chiefly among them the Swiss linguist Ferdinand De Saussure

Some basic distinctions

The most influential: American school of structural anthropologists – Leonard Bloomfield & after World War II, Noam Chomsky

The European linguists, chiefly among them the Swiss linguist Ferdinand De Saussure

Some basic distinctions

An individual makes use of his knowledge (langue) to produce actual sentences (parole)

Individuals can communicate with each other because they share the same langue.

Individuals produce different sentences based on the same langue

Langue/parole distinction

Noam Chomsky, an American linguist made similar distinction between competence & performance

Competence- native speaker’s knowledge of his language (mastery of the system of the system of rules)

Performance – production of actual sentences in use in real-life situations

Competence and Performance

Speaker’s knowledge of the structure of language is the speaker’s linguist’s competence.

The way a speaker uses it- his linguistic performance

Competence – set of principles Performance – what a speaker does Competence – kind of code Performance – the act of encoding or

decoding

Competence & performance

Moreover, it is not easier to study performance through recording by audio and video devices.

Study of parole gives us data that makes us understand langue and competence better.

Competence and performance

Language is a system of symbolic signs since there are often very complex associative relationships between the signifiers and the signifieds in a language

Signifiers and signified operate in their

relationship with each other

Sign/ symbol distinction

Saussure’s contributions Saussure exerted two kinds of influence on

modern linguistics: First, he provided a general orientation, a sense of the task of linguistics which has seldom been questioned.

Second, he influenced modern linguistics in

the specific concepts.

Sign/symbol distinction

Saussure’s contributions

Many of the developments of modern linguistics can be described as his concept, i.e. his idea of the arbitrary nature of the sign, langue vs. parole, synchrony vs. diachrony, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, etc.

Sign/symbol distinction

Saussure’s contributions

Saussure’s contribution regarding the concepts of sign & symbol distinction brought a new revolution and enjoys a prime importance in the domain of modern linguistics

Sign/symbol distinctions

Language made of signs Linguistic sign has two parts – Signifier &

Signified That which signifies (the word) – Signifier That which is signified (the concept) –

Signified Sign – composite of both, it consists of the

relationship between signifier & signified

Sign & Symbol distinction

That is why we say that language is a system of symbolic signs since there are often very complex associative relationships between the signifiers and the signifieds in a language

Signifiers and signified operate in their

relationship with each other

Sign/symbol distinction

Saussure’s contributions

Many of the developments of modern linguistics can be described as his concept, i.e. his idea of the arbitrary nature of the sign, langue vs. parole, synchrony vs. diachrony, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, etc.

Sign/symbol distinction

Saussure’s contributions

Saussure’s contribution regarding the concepts of sign & symbol distinction brought a new revolution and enjoys a prime importance in the domain of modern linguistics

Sign/symbol distinction

Two intersecting threads build up fabric of language.

Language has duality of structure. At one level we select the elements out of

many, at another level, we combine these elements to form a structural unit

With a limited number of elements, we can construct a large number of combinations

Structure/system distinction

System – set of paradigmatic relationships between elements

Structure – set of syntagmatic relationships between elements at each level in the language

At level of sounds – phonological system (vowels & consonants) & phonological structure ( determining combination of vowels & consonants)

Structure/system distinction

At level of sentence- formation, we have syntactic system (word classes such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb) & syntactic structure (determining combination of these word classes) to enable formation of sentences

Structure/system distinction

Substance and symbols (letters of the alphabet) are raw material of language

They become meaningful when given a particular shape or order.

At one level we consider only the form or shape

At another we consider the level of meaning

Structure/system distinction

A combination of both gives us a meaningful form.

Diachronic & Synchronic Approaches Diachronic approach related with

development of language over different ages

Synchronic approach related with the shape of language at a specific time without considering its shape in the past or future

Structure/system distinction

Developed by Noam Chomsky & followers in 1950s.

Came as a reaction to behaviourism Chomsky asserted that language is free

from stimulus control Creativity is a human attribute which

distinguishes men from machines

Generativism

Generativism is an integrated whole in which the technical details of formalization are on a par with a number of logically unconnected ideas about language and the philosophy of science.

Language free from stimulus control

Human can produce variety of utterances

Generativism

It’s a rule governed creativity. We produce utterances with a certain

grammatical structure. Generativism different from Bloomfieldian

and Post-Bloomfieldian structuralism. They emphasized on the structural diversity Generativists interested in similarities in

languages

Generativism

Chomsky gives importance to the formal properties of languages & to the nature of the rules that their description requires.

Human language faculty is innate and species –specific

Another difference – Competence and performance.

Generativism

Generative grammar is set of rules which, operating upon a finite vocabulary of units , generates a set of (finite or infinite) strings, which is well formed in the language that is characterized by the grammar.

The word ‘generate’ does not relate to any process of sentence production

Ganarative Grammar

A generative grammar is the specification of the grammatical structure of the sentences that it generates.

Grammar of a particular language is a system of rules & principles that link sounds and meaning

human beings are endowed with a number of special faculties (mind)

Generative Grammar

Chomsky says that there are certain phonological, syntactic and semantic units that are universal.

Human beings are independent of any external stimuli

All human languages are similar in structure.

All human languages make reference to the properties and objects of the physical world

Generative Grammar

grammatical similarities between widely separated and historically unrelated languages are as important as their differences.

Generative Grammar