Properties and Functions of Language
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Ams SagittariusProperties and Functions of Language
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Ams Sagittarius anguageis a system of conventionalspoken, manual(signed), or written symbols by means
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of which h umanbeings, as members of a social groupandparticipants in its culture, express
themselves. The functions of language include communication,the expression
of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotionalrelease.
Many definitions of language have been proposed.
● Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language scholar,stated: “Language is the
expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are
combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.”
● The American linguists Bernard Bloch and George L.Tragerformulated the following
definition: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a
social group cooperates.”
● A number of considerations enter into a proper understanding of language as a subject:
Every physiologically and mentally typicalpersonacquires in childhood the ability to
make use, as both sender and receiver, of a system of communication that comprises a
circumscribed set of symbols (e.g., sounds, gestures, or written or typed
characters).In spoken language, this s ymbolsetconsistsof noises resulting from
movements of certain organs within the throat and mouth. In signed languages, these
symbols may be hand or body movements, gestures, or facial expressions. By means
of these symbols, people are able toimpart information,to express feelings and
emotions, to influence the activities of others, and to comport themselves with varying
degrees of friendliness or hostilitytoward personswho make use of substantially the
same set of symbols.
● Different systems of communication constitute different languages; the degree of
difference needed to establish a different language cannot be stated exactly.No two
people speak exactly alike; hence, one is able torecognize the voices of friends over
the telephone and to keep distinct a number of unseen speakers in a radio
broadcast. Yet, clearly, no one would say that theyspeak different languages.
Substantially different systems of communication that may impede but do not prevent
mutual comprehension are called dialectsof a language.In order to describe in detail
the actual different language patterns of individuals, the term idiolect,meaningthe
habits of expression of a single person, has been coined.
● Typically, people acquire a single language initially—theirfirst language, or native
tongue,the language used by those with whom, or bywhom, they are brought up from
infancy.Subsequent“second” languagesare learnedto different degrees of
competence under various conditions. Complete mastery of two languages is
designated as b ilingualism; in many cases—such as upbringing by parents using
different languages at home or being raised within amultilingual
community—children grow up as bilinguals.
● In most accounts, the primary purpose of language is to facilitate communication, in
the sense of transmission of information from one person to another. However,
sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic studieshavedrawn attention to a rangeof other
functions for language. Among these is the use oflanguage toexpress a national or
local identity. Also important are the “ludic” (playful) function of
language—encountered in such phenomena as puns, riddles,and c rossword
puzzles—and the range of functions seen in imaginativeor symbolic contexts, such
as p oetry, drama, and religious expression.
● The scienceof language is known as linguistics.Itincludes what are generally
distinguished asdescriptive linguistics and historicallinguistics. Linguistics is now a
highly technical subject; it embraces, both descriptively and historically, such major
divisions as phonetics, grammar(including syntaxand m
orphology), s emantics,
and p ragmatics(study of how context contributes tomeaning),dealing in detail with
these various aspects of language.
PROPERTIES OF LANUGAGE
roperties of language are features which are unlikely to be found in the communication
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systems of other living creatures.
PRODUCTIVITY (CREATIVITY)
Mostanimalshavea verylimitednumberofmessagestheycansendorreceive.Thistypeof
limitation is not found in human language. Language users manipulate their linguistic
resourcestoproducenewexpressionsandnewsentences.Thispropertyofhumanlanguageis
knownasproductivityorcreativity.Itisanaspectoflanguagewhichislinkedtothefactthat
thepotentialnumberofutterancesinanyhumanlanguageisinfinite.Productivity=speaker´s
ability to combine the basic linguistic units. All animal signals, on the other hand, have
a featurecalledfixedreferencethatmeanseachsignalisfixedasrelatingtoa particularobject
or occasion.
ARBITRARINESS
It is generally the case that thereisnonaturalconnectionbetweena linguisticformandits
meaning.TheformofwordCAThasnonaturalrelationshipwiththatanimal.Thepropertyof
linguistic signs is their arbitrary relationship with the objects they areusedtoindicate.The
forms of human language demonstratethispropertybecausetheydonot,inanyway,fitthe
objects they denote.
CULTURAL TRANSMISSION
We usually inherit the colour of eyes or height from ourparentsbutwedonotinherittheir
language.Weacquirea languageina culturewithotherspeakersandnotfromparentalgenes.
Ifa childborninSwedentoSwedishparentmightinheritblondhair,palecomplexionbutif
s/he is brought up from birth by English speakers in the USA e.g. will inevitably speak
English.Thisprocesswherebylanguageispassedonfromonegenerationtothenextiscalled
cultural transmission. Human infants, growing up in isolation, produce no instinctive
language.
DISPLACEMENT
Mostanimalscancommunicateaboutthingsintheimmediateenvironmentonly.A birdutters
itsdangercryonlywhendangerispresent.Itcannotgiveinformationaboutdangerinthepast
or future. Human language, by contrast can communicate about things that are absent as
easily as about things that are present. This feature of the human language is called
displacement.Itallowstheusersoflanguagetotalkabouteventsandthingsnotpresentinthe
immediateenvironment.Animalcommunicationisgenerallyconsideredtolackthisproperty.
We can find it in the communication of honey bees but it is rather limited. This featureof
language allows the human to create fiction and to describe possible future worlds.
DISCRETENESS
The sounds we use in language are meaningfully distinct. For example the difference
between/p/and/b/isnotverygreat,butwhenweusethesesoundsina languagewecannot
use /p/ insteadof/b/ becausethenthereisdistinctioninmeaning.Thepropertyoflanguage
when each sound istreatedasdiscreteisdescribedasdiscreteness.ForexampletheEnglish
word tin would consist of three units t/i/n. Speech units can be ordered and reordered,
combined and split apart.
DUALITY
Language isorganizedintwolevels.Thispropertyiscalled“duality“ordoublearticulation.
One level is when we produce individual sounds like“n,t,d.”Inanotherlevelweproduce
these sounds in a particular combination “bin, tip” and we are producing a meaning that is
differentfromothercombinationofthesesounds.Atonelevelwehavedistinctsoundandat
another levelwehavedistinctmeaning.Withalimitedsetofdistinctsoundswearecapable
of producing a very large number of sound combinations which are distinct in meaning.
Phonemes are meaningless in isolation but they become meaningful only when they are
combined with other phonemes.
These six properties of productivity, arbitrariness, cultural transmission, displacement,
discreteness and duality may by taken as the core features of human language.
PACDDD
● E dward Sapir inLanguage: An Introduction to the Studyof Speechdefines language as “a purely human andnon-instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.
● Puttenham in The Arts of English Poesie” writes “After a speech is fully fashioned to the common understanding and accepted by
consent of a whole country and nation it is called a language.”
● No two people speaking the language speak exactly alike and the term language which is not exactly identical with the speech of any one
speaker of the language “is a kind of unreal abstraction.”
● A language as long as it is spoken will continue to change. It will cease to change only when it has ceased to be spoken or has become a
dead language.
● Theories on the origin of language
1. Bow-wow theory
2. Ding-dong theory
3. Pooh-pooh theory
4. Gesture theory
Indo-European languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
he Indo-European languagesare a language familynativeto the m
T ajority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, andthe northern Indian
subcontinent. Some European languages of this family— English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian and Spanish— have
expanded through c olonialismin the modern periodand are now spoken across several continents.
he Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, of which there are nine groups with languages still alive
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today: Albanian, Anatolian,Armenian, B
alto-Slavic, C
eltic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian,and Italic/R
omance; and other
subdivisions that are now e xtinct.
In total, 46% of the world's population (3.2 billion people) speaks an Indo-European language as a firstlanguage—by far the
highest of any language family. There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to an estimate by Ethnologue.
ll Indo-European languages are descended from a single prehistoric language, linguistically
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reconstructedas P roto-Indo-European. The geographicallocation as to where it was spoken i.e., the Proto-Indo-European
homeland, is believed to be in what is now Ukraineand southernRussia, between 4000BC and 3000BC. By 2000BC,
Indo-European had already evolved into numerous languages spoken across much of Europe, S outh Asia, and partof W
estern
Asia. Written evidence of Indo-European appeared duringthe Bronze Age. The Indo-European family is significant to the field
of historical linguisticsas it possesses the second-longest recordedhistoryof any known family.
History of Indo-European linguistics
In 1583, English J esuitmissionary and Konkanischolar ThomasStephenswrote a letter from G
oato his brother inwhich he noted
similarities between Indian languages and Greekand Latin.
In 1585Filippo Sassettiof F
lorencenoted some wordsimilarities between Sanskrit and Italian (these included devah/dio “God,”
sarpah/serpe “serpent,” sapta/sette “seven,”aṣṭa/o
tto"eight",and nava/nove “nine”). However, neither Stephens' nor Sassetti's
observations led to further scholarly inquiry.
In 1647, Dutchlinguist and scholar Marcus Zueriusvan Boxhornnoted the similarity among certain Asianand European languages
and theorized that they were derived from a primitive common language. However, Van Boxhorn's suggestions did not become
widely known and did not stimulate further research.
In 1786 when Sir William Jonesfirst lectured on thestriking similarities among three of the oldest languages known in his
time: Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, though his classificationcontained some inaccuracies and omissions. He is the first to have
guessed the existence of an earlier ancestor language, which he called "a common source" but did not name: “The Sanskrit
language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more
exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar,
than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without
believing them to have sprung fromsome common source,which, perhaps, no longer exists.”
homas Youngfirst used the term Indo-European(IE)in 1813, deriving it from the geographical extremes of the language family:
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from Western Europeto N
orth India. A synonym is Indo-Germanic,specifying the family's southeasternmost and
northwesternmost branches. A n umber of other synonymoustermshave also been used.
Some Examples for the similarities between Indo-European languages:
Sanskrit mata pita traya
Greek meter pater treis
Latin mater pater tres
French mere pere trois
Spanish madre padre tres
German mutter vater drei
English mother father three
Classification
he division of the Indo-European languages intosatemand centum groupswas put forward by Peter von Bradkein 1890. This
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classification is based on how the dorsal consonants of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language developed. An example
of the different developments is provided by the words for “hundred”. In centum languages they typically began with a /k/ sound
(Latin centum is pronounced with initial /k/), but in satem languages they often began with /s/ as in satem in the Old Iranian
language Avestan.The various subgroups of the Indo-Europeanlanguage family include nine major branches, listed below in
alphabetical order:
● Albanian
● natolian
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● Armenian
● Balto-Slavic
● Celtic
● Hellenic
● Indo-Iranian
● Italic
● Germanic
In addition to the classical nine branches listed above, several extinct and little-known languages like Tocharian and Hittite have
existed or are proposed to have existed.
Tree vs Wave model
he "tree model" is considered an appropriate representationof the genealogical history of a language family if communities do not
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remain in contact after their languages have started to diverge. The tree model is not appropriate in cases where languages remain
in contact as they diversify; in such cases subgroups may overlap, and the "wave model" is a more accuraterepresentation. Most
approaches to Indo-European subgrouping to date have assumed that the tree model is by-and-large valid for Indo-European;
however, there is also a long tradition of wave-model approaches.
ld English, Middle English and Modern English:
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Comparative Linguistic Features and Evolution
he English language has gone through distinct periods throughout its history.
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Differentaspects ofthe languagehavechanged throughouttime, such as
grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc.
The Old Englishperiod (5th-11th centuries), MiddleEnglishperiod (11th-15th
centuries), and Modern Englishperiod (16th centuryto present)are thethree
main divisions in the history of the English language.
ld English Period (500-1100)
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The Old English periodbegan in 449 AD with the arrivalof three Germanic
tribes from the Continent: the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. They settled in the
south and east of Britain, which was then inhabited by the Celts. Thethree
tribes merged and came to be known as the Anglo-Saxons.They hadtheir own
language, called Old English, which was spoken from around the 5th century to
the 11th century.
Old English wasa Germanic language, and as such,it was very different from
the Celtic languages spoken by the Britons. It was also a very different language
from the English we speak today. There arefour knowndialects of the Old
English language:
● Northumbrianin northern England and southeasternScotland,
● Mercianin central England,
● Kentishin southeastern England,
● West Saxonin southern and southwestern England.
ld Englishwasahighly inflected language, meaningthat words could change
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their form depending on how they were being used in a sentence. Itsgrammar
had a complex system, with five main cases (nominative, accusative, genitive,
dative, instrumental), threegenders (masculine, feminine,and neuter), and two
numbers (singular and plural).
For example as against the modern forms of the noun stone (stone, stones,
stone’s stones’) there were in Old English the inflexional endings for the four
cases in the singular and the plural
Singular Plural
Nominative stan stans
Accusative stan stanas
Genitive stanes stana
Dative stane stanum
headjectives had two declensions: strong and weak and its nouns had three
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gender system which was so arbitrarythat the wordfor ‘girl’ was neuter while
of the two words for ‘woman’ one was neuter and the other masculine.
The Anglo-Saxons also hadtheir own alphabet, whichwas known as
the futhorc.The f uthorcconsistedof24 letters,most of which werenamed after
rune symbols. However, they alsoborrowed the Romanalphabet and eventually
started using that instead.
InpronunciationOE was very different from ModernEnglish. OE wasroughly
phonetic in its spelling. At least itdid not have‘the silent syllable’or such
confusing usages. Itsword order was also not fixeddue to it being highly
inflexional. The word order was quite free andtheverb often came at the very
end of the sentence. (Example transliterated fromOE “Other’s Voyages”:
“Others said to his Lord King Alfred, that he, of all Northmen northmost
lived”). Thevocabularywas also quitedifferent,with many words being
borrowed from other languages such as Latin(mile, wine, monk, priest, finance)
and Old Norse(get, take, they, them, husband, sister).
The firstaccount of Anglo-Saxon England ever writtenis from731 AD– a
document known as theVenerable Bede's E cclesiasticalHistory of the English
People,which remains the single most valuable sourcefrom this period.
Another one of the most famous examples of Old Englishliteratureis theepic
poem Beowulf, which waswritten sometime between the8th and 11th centuries.
There also exists a number oftranslations of religiousworks, and the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, a historical record startedby King Alfred the Great, a
fewhistorical poems, riddles and charms. By the endof the Old English period
at the close of the 11th century, West Saxon dominated,resulting in most of the
surviving documents from this period being written in the West Saxon dialect.
The Old English period was a time of great change for Britain.In 1066, the
Normans invaded England and conquered the Anglo-Saxons.The Normans
were originally Viking settlers from Scandinavia who had settled in France in
the 10th century. Theyspoke a form of French, whichcame to be the language
of the ruling class in England after the Norman Conquest.
The Old English period came to an end in 1066 with the Norman Conquest.
However, Old English continued to be spoken in some parts of England until the
12th century. After that, it was replaced by Middle English.
Middle English Period (1100-1500)
The second stage of the English language is known as the Middle English
period, which wasspoken from around the 12th centuryto the late 15th century.
Middle Englishemerged afterthe N
orman Conquestof1066,when William of
Normandy conquered England.The Normans were originallyViking settlers
from Scandinavia who had settled in France in the 10th century. Theyspoke a
form of French, which came to be the language of the ruling class in England
after the Norman Conquest, while English was spoken by the lower classes.
iddle English is often divided intotwo periods: E
M arly Middle
English(11th-13th centuries) and L ate Middle English(14th-15thcenturies).
In studying the evolution of language during the Middle English period there
are four aspects that we need to consider
1. Changes in and addition to the vocabulary
2. Changes in spelling
3. Changes in pronunciation
4. Grammatical changes
In all of these there was a double process at work. Firstly, a natural development
of the language and secondly the influence of the French language and culture.
he Normans brought with them many French words that began to replace their
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Old English equivalents. This process is known as Normanisation. One of the
most noticeablechanges was in the vocabulary of lawand government. Many
Old English words related to these concepts were replaced by their French
equivalents.For example, the Old English word fora king was cyningor cyng,
which was replaced by the Norman word we use today, king.Sometimes words
in either language existed side by side leading to the creation of many
synonyms.Example “wed” (native) “marry” (French);“kingly” (native) “royal”
(French).Another curious fact that can been seenin thevocabularyof the day
comes from the fact that the Norman rulers were theconsumersand the English
serfs were theproducers. So, we havesheep, pig andcow/bullockoriginating in
the native language whereas the meat on the table of the rich, have French
origin words likemutton, pork and beefrespectively. The medieval
ecclesiasticalsystem was much more elaborate thanany that the Anglo-saxons
had known and so we get new words likeabbot, abbess,curate, cardinal, friar,
deacon, chapel, cathedral etc. coming in at this time.Nearly all the terms
connected with chivalry and the luxury trades like draper, jeweller etc. come
from French. Development in Science and the Crusades also brought in a lot of
new words(algebra, infidel). It was also during this period tha surnames were
adopted by the English.
Thespellingbecame less phonetic. The French scribesintroduced their own
spelling conventions and at the time there were no literary or standard dialect
either to follow until Chaucer. Thelong /u:/ soundcame to be written as ‘ou’.
The‘c’ of Anglo-Saxon gave way to ‘k’before thefront vowels but was
retained before back vowels Thus Anglo-Saxon ‘cyning’ became ‘’king.’
OE‘g’ which was pronounced as ‘y’ was written assuch thusgearu became
‘year.’’Inpronunciationthe long/a:/ soundin OE‘ham, stan, half’changed to
long ‘o’roughly pronounced the same way as it istoday in home, stone and
loaf. A significant change calledthe ‘Great VowelShift’took place in phonetics
during the period. Two series of changes can be noted here:
1. The lower vowels were raised to a higher level, that is, the long vowels
came to be pronounced with a greater elevation of the tongue.
2 . Those vowels which could not be raised further became diphthongs.
Thus the modern pronunciations of feet (pronounced as fate in OE)
food(pronounced to rhyme with mode in OE), boon(pronounced to rhyme with
bone in OE), doom (pronounced to rhyme with dome in OE), game(pronounced
to rhyme with balm in OE), find(pronounced to rhyme with mean in OE), house
(pronounced as whose in OE) etc, were born.
The Norman Conquestalso affected thegrammarof OldEnglish. The word
order became less free. The inflectional system began to break down, and words
started to lose their endings. This Scandinavian influence made the English
vocabulary simpler and more regular. Natural gender substituted grammatical
gender,making everything of male sex, masculine;everything of female sex,
feminine and all other things as neuter. Thepersonalpronoun ‘she’ first
appearedduring this period.
In the late Middle ages occurred the Hundred Years’War(1337-1453) between
England and France which meant that English was used more and more in
official documents. This helped to standardize the language and make it more
uniform.In 1362 English replaced French as the languageof the law Courts.
The vernacular finally asserted itself as the language of English culture. London
having become the centre of commercial, political and ecclesiastical life, the
dialect of Londonemerged as the wide-spread mediumof written expression.
Thenearness of the universities of Oxford and Cambridgealso helped make
London dialect influential.
One ofthe most famous examples of Middle Englishliteratureis T he
Canterbury Talesby Geoffrey Chaucer, which was writtenin the late 14th
century. Chaucer was the first major writer in English, and hehelped to
standardize the language even further. For this reason, Middle English is also
frequently referred to as Chaucerian English.
odern English Period (1500-present)
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After Old and Middle English comes the third stage of the English language,
known as M odern English, which began in the 16th centuryand continues to
the present day.
Thefall of Constantinople in 1453led to the Renaissancein Europe which
perhaps reached England by 1500. Another factor for theemergence of Modern
English is the introduction of the printing press in England in 1476, which
meant that books could be mass-produced, and more people learned to read and
write. As a result, the standardization of English continued.Dialects began to be
considered inferior though they still continued to be spoken and gradually fell
out of use.
The Renaissance (14th-17th centuries) saw a rediscovery of classical learning,
which had a significantimpact on English literature.During this time, the
Englishvocabularyexpandedborrowing many Latin wordsdirectly
( ‘confession’, ‘honour’, ‘heretic,’ ‘Papist’). Thefirst E nglish dictionary, A Table
Alphabeticall of Hard Words, was published in 1604.
The King James Bible, which was first published in1611, also had a significant
impacton the development of Early Modern English,thoughTyndale’s and
Coverdale’sversions earlier too had an influence.The King James Bible was
translated into English from Latin and Greek, introducing many new words into
the language. It perhaps hadmore influence than anyother single factor in
‘fixing’ the English languageand setting some kindof standard, for it became
the ‘people’s book’ which they heard read Sunday to Sunday and became
familiar with as no other. Tyndale’s ‘congregation’,‘elder’; Coverdale’s
‘loving-kindness’ and the authorised Version’s ‘firmament,’ ‘raiment,’ ‘apparel’
etc, took firm root in English. These translators of the Bible adopted a
vocabulary which was predominantly native in character, together with a style
which was simpleand this influenced the developmentof the language. The
influence of the Bible and its translations can be seen in the writing style of
anyone who set pen to paper for the next 300 years.
The rise of the British Empire (16th-20th centuries)also had a significant
impact on the English language. Firstly, it freelyborrowed many new words
from all the languagesspoken by the many peopleswith whom the growth of
the British Empire brought the English into contact(‘bungalow’, ‘ginger’
‘banana’ ‘mumbo-jumbo’). Secondly sinceEnglish becamethe language of
commerce, science, and politics, and was spread around the world by British
colonists, there developed many different varieties of English, known as
dialects.
Spellingbecame more fixed, especially with the arrivalof theprinting pressin
1476 and the publication ofJohnson’s dictionaryin1755. The symbols u and v
and I and j were for long interchangeable but by the end of the 17th century the
convention became more or less fixed that u and i represent vowels and v and j
represent consonants. Another result of the Renaissance is thepedantic
reversion to latinised spellingfor example the unpronouncedb in ‘debt’ and
‘doubt’ comes from the Latin ‘debitum’ and ‘dubitum’. In the same way ‘indite’
became ‘indict’ and ‘quire’ became ‘choir’ to show it was derived from latin
‘chorus’. In all of these the intrusive letter has no phonetic value.
Inpronunciationthere were three changes (1)theshort/a/ was lengthened
before consonants s, f and thgiving us the modernpronunciations of task, craft,
bath, father etc. (2) lengthening of short /a/alsotook place in those words like
palm, calm, half, calfwhere the consonant ‘l’ standingimmediately before a
lip-consonant was at one time pronounced but became silent. (3)the long /a:/ in
words like cake, ale, dame, fame came to be pronouncedas the diphthong /ei/.
This change had already happened to a certain degree in Middle English but
now it became complete. Other changes in pronunciation that occurred during
the Middle English period too got concretised.
part from the vast increase in vocabulary, and changes in spelling and
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pronunciation another characteristic of Early Modern English is theloss of all
those inflexionsingrammarwhich had already beenlevelled in middle
English, because of which it is often referred to as theperiod of ‘lost
inflexions.’ Amore rigid word orderand theincreaseduse of prepositionshas
been the result of this loss of inflexions. Thepossessiveadjective ‘its’came into
general use.In nouns the addition of -s/-es cameto be seen as the general
grammatical rule for forming plurals, while the mutated comparisons of
adjectives gave place to the simple addition of the suffix -er, and -est to the
positive degree. In short, the modern grammaticalcame into existence by the
end of the seventeenth century.
One of the mostfamous examples of Early Modern Englishliteratureis
William Shakespeare's play R omeo and Juliet, whichwas first performed in
1597. To this day, William Shakespeare is considered the greatest writer in the
English language. Shakespeare has the vastest vocabulary that any single writer
has ever used, nearly 25,000 words, almost three times that of the scholarly
Milton. He has coined new words, idioms and phrases and has also adapted
from various dialects and archaisms. Words like ‘hump,’ ‘castigate’; compounds
like ‘happy-valiant’, ‘daring-hardy; prefixing -en/-em to coin new words like
‘enact’, ‘embattle’; expressions like “heaven-kissing-hill,”
“world-without-end”, “seamy side”, “to be or not to be” etc have become part of
every man’s vocabulary.
The final stage of the English language is known as ModernEnglish, which has
been spoken from around the 19th century to the present day.Modern English
has its roots in Early Modern English, but it has undergone several changes
since then. The most significant change occurred in the 20th century, with the
introduction of mass media and technology.For example,new wordshave been
created to keep up with changing technology, and old words have fallen out of
use. However,the core grammar and vocabulary of thelanguage have remained
relatively stable.
Today, English isspoken by an estimated 1.5 billionpeople around the world,
making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is the
official language of many countries, including theUnited Kingdom, the United
States, and Australia. English is also thelanguageof international
communication and is used in business, education, and tourism.
Descriptive and a Prescriptive View on Linguistic Phenomena:
A
Emphasis on Scientific Study and Analysis of Language
Adescriptive approachto language takes the viewthat language is a phenomenon that can
be studied scientifically. Such an approach takes as its evidence all aspects of language use
but, given the vast amount of data, most linguists concentrate on particular varieties of a
language. The major works of grammar, the Cambridge Grammar for example, examine and
report on the variety of English known as Standard English, which is, very broadly, the
language of the printed word.
It is to the work of professional linguists that we must turn if we want to find out about
language, just as we’d consult a lawyer if we were interested in the law of contract. It’s no
good saying we know about it because we use it. That’s like saying we know all about
pulmonary physiology because we breathe.
Theprescriptive approachto language, on the otherhand, takes the view that there is an
idealized form of a language to the use of which we all should aspire. Such an approach is
often based on social rather than linguistic considerations.
Publications usually want to ensure a uniform style and they produce manuals to promote it.
Schools have a duty to teach Standard English. This is not because Standard English is
linguistically superior to other varieties of the language, but because it is the variety that
allows us to understand and be understood by the widest possible number of other speakers of
the language, whatever our native dialect may be. However, ‘Standard English is not the
native language of about 90% of the population in the UK’. The value of Standard English as
a medium of communication beyond our immediate language communities is unchallenged,
but there is no reason why it, more than any other variety, should be anyone’s native language
and there can be no grounds for saying that words and constructions found in non-standard
dialects are not ‘proper English’. It isn’t inferior English. It’s different English.
(2)
Prescriptive linguistics and descriptive linguistics are two approaches to studying language.
Prescriptive linguisticsfocuses on establishing andadvocating for rules and norms for
"correct" language usage. It often involves prescribing how language should be used based on
established standards, such as grammar rules and style guides. This approach is concerned
with how language "should" be used according to traditional standards and often reflects
societal norms and values.
Descriptive linguistics, on the other hand, seeksto objectively describe and analyze how
language is actually used by its speakers. It focuses on the systematic study of the structure,
variation, and usage of language in its natural context. Descriptive linguists aim to understand
and document the full range of linguistic phenomena without making value judgments about
what is "correct" or "incorrect."
In summary, prescriptive linguistics prescribes rules for "correct" language usage, while
descriptive linguistics describes and analyzes language as it is actually used.
(3)
Descriptive linguisticsis when a linguist describeshow a language is actually used in
practice.Prescriptive linguisticsis when a linguistcomes up with rules for the “right” way
to use a language.
Example: “I ain’t got no money with me.”
● A descriptive linguist would say that “I ain’t got” is an informal way of
saying “I do not possess,” and that the double-negative is a way of
emphasizing the speaker’s lack of funds.
● A prescriptive linguist would say that the speaker’s sentence is “wrong.”
Instead of “I ain’t got,” the speaker should say “I don’t have.” Instead of
“no,” the speaker should say “any.”
(4)
Adescriptive grammaris built up by analyzing howspeakers use a language, and deducing
the rules they are following. Aprescriptive grammaris a set of explicit rules for using
language that are taught, or enforced, so that people will use the language in a particular way.
Typically the rules are handed down from generation to generation. Both kinds of grammars
have their places in the world.
Linguists create descriptive grammars in order to understand language more deeply. They
understand that a single language can have multiple dialects, and that each dialect will have
its own grammatical rules--internally consistent, but perhaps different from other dialects of
the same language.
Prescriptivists include schoolteachers, copyeditors, and others charged with correcting
people's use of the language. Prescriptivists start with the assumption that there is one
"correct" way to use the language, and many incorrect ways. The "correct" version is actually
the language's prestige dialect, especially its written version--for example, Standard English.
Prescriptivists enforce cultural cohesion through language. They help keep the written
language, at least, from changing too quickly. Descriptivists are not interested in enforcing
rules, but in discovering the rules and the patterns behind them, and comparing languages and
dialects. They do not consider some dialects as "substandard." Each is worthy of study.
Basic Sub-Disciplines of Linguistics
inguistics is the scientific study of language, and its focus is the systematic investigation of the
L
properties of particular languages as well as the characteristics of language in general. It
encompasses not only the study of sound, grammar and meaning, but also the history of
language families, how languages are acquired by children and adults, and how language use is
processed in the mind.
Important subfields of linguistics include:
● honetics- the study of how speech sounds are producedand perceived
P
● Phonology- the study of sound patterns and changes
● Morphology- the study of word structure
● Syntax- the study of sentence structure
● Semantics- the study of linguistic meaning
● Pragmatics- the study of how language is used incontext
● Historical Linguistics - the study of language change
● Sociolinguistics - the study of the relation between language and society
● Computational Linguistics - the study of how computers can process human language
● Psycholinguistics - the study of how humans acquire and use language
Phonetics
honeticsis a branch of linguisticsthat studieshow humans produce and perceive sounds or in
P
the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspectsof sign. Linguists who specialize in studying
the physical properties of speech are ph oneticians.The field of phonetics is traditionally divided
into three sub-disciplines based on the research questions involved such as how humans plan
and execute movements to produce speech (articulatoryphonetics), how various movements
affect the properties of the resulting sound(acousticphonetics) or how humans convert sound
waves to linguistic information (auditory phonetics).Traditionally, the minimal linguistic unit of
phonetics is the phone—a speech sound in a languagewhich differs from the phonological unit
of phoneme; thephonemeis not the physical segmentitself, but the cognitive abstraction or
categorisation of phones and it is also defined as the smallest unit that discerns meaning
between sounds in any given language.
honetics deals with two aspects of human speech:production—the ways humans make
P
sounds—and perception—the way speech is understood.The communicative modalityof a
language describes the method by which a language produces and perceives languages.
Languages withoral-aural modalitiessuch as Englishproduce speech orally (using the mouth)
and perceive speech aurally (using the ears). Sign languages, such as Australian Sign Language
(A
uslan) and American Sign Language (ASL), have amanual-visual modality, producing speech
manually (using the hands) and perceiving speech visually (using the eyes).
anguage production consists of several interdependent processes which transform a
L
non-linguistic message into a spoken or signed linguistic signal. After identifying amessageto be
linguistically encoded, a speaker mustselecttheindividual words—known as lexical items—to
represent that message in a process called lexical selection. Duringphonological encoding, the
mental representation of the words are assigned their phonological content as a sequence
of phonemesto be produced. Thephonemes are specifiedfor articulatory featureswhich denote
particular goals such as closed lips or the tongue in a particular location. These phonemes are
then coordinated into asequence of muscle commandsthat can be sent to the muscles and
when these commands areexecuted properlythe intendedsounds are produced.
hese movements disrupt and modify an airstream whichresults in a sound wave. The
T
modification is done by the articulators, with different places and manners of articulation
producing different acoustic results. For example, the words tackand s ackboth begin with
alveolar sounds in English, but differ in how far the tongue is from the alveolar ridge. This
difference has large effects on the air stream and thus the sound that is produced. Similarly, the
direction and source of the airstream can affect the sound. The most common airstream
mechanism is pulmonic—using the lungs—but the glottis and tongue can also be used to
produce airstreams.
anguage perception is the process by which a linguistic signal is decoded and understood by a
L
listener. In order to perceive speechthe continuousacoustic signal must be converted into
discrete linguistic units such as phonemes, morphemesand words.In order tocorrectly identify
and categorize sounds, listeners prioritize certainaspects of the signal that can reliably
distinguish between linguistic categories. While certain cues are prioritized over others, many
aspects of the signal can contribute to perception. For example, though oral languages prioritize
acoustic information, the McGurk effectshows thatvisual information is used to distinguish
ambiguous information when the acoustic cues are unreliable. This received data is then
decodedto understand the speaker.
Phonology
honologyis the branch of linguisticsthat studieshow languages systematically organize
P
their p honesor, for s ign languages, their constituentparts of signs.The term can also refer
specifically to the sound or sign system of a particular languagevariety. At one time, the study of
phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemesin spoken languages, but may
now relate to any linguistic analysis. Sign languageshavea phonological system equivalent to
the system of sounds in spoken languages. The building blocks of signs are specifications for
movement, location, and handshape. At first, a separate terminology was used for the study of
sign phonology ("chereme" instead of "phoneme", etc.), but the concepts are now considered to
apply universally to all human languages.
he word "phonology" (as in "phonology of English")can refer either to the field of study or to the
T
phonological system of a given language. This is one of the fundamental systems that a
language is considered to comprise, like its s yntax,its m
orphologyand its lexicon. The
word phonologycomes from Ancient Greekphōnḗ, meaning'voice, sound', and the suffix -logy
from logosmeaning 'word, speech, subject of discussion'.
honology is typically distinguished from p
P honetics,which concerns the physical production,
acoustic transmission and p erceptionof the soundsor signs of language. P honology describes
the way they function within a given language or across languages to encode meaning. For many
linguists, phonetics and phonology were the same. The distinction was not always made,
particularly before the development of the modern concept of the phonemein the mid-20th
century.
efinitions of the field of phonology vary. NikolaiTrubetzkoyin Grundzüge der Phonologie(1939)
D
defines phonology as "the study of sound pertaining to the system of language," as opposed to
phonetics, which is "the study of sound pertaining to the act of speech" (the distinction
between languageand speechbeing basically Ferdinandde Saussure's distinction
between langueand parole). More recently, Lass (1998)writes that phonology refers broadly to the
subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language, and in more narrow terms,
"phonology proper is concerned with the function, behaviour and organization of sounds as linguistic
items."According toClark et al.(2007), it meansthe systematic use of soundto encode meaning in
any spoken human language, or the field of linguisticsstudying that use.
Phonology isthe study of the patterns of sounds ina language and across languages. Put more
formally, phonology isthe study of the categoricalorganisation of speech sounds in languages;how
speech sounds are organised in the mind and used to convey meaning. Phonology can be related to
many linguistic disciplines, including psycholinguistics, cognitive science, sociolinguistics and
language acquisition. Principles of phonologycanalso be applied to treatments of speech pathologies
and innovations in technology. In terms of speechrecognition, systems can be designed to translate
spoken data into text. In this way, computers process the language like our brains do. The same
rocesses that occur in the mind of a human when producing and receiving language occur in
p
machines. One example of machines decoding language is the popular intelligence system, Siri.
honology vs. Phonetics –the key differences
P
Phonology is concerned with the abstract, whereas phonetics is concerned with the physical
properties of sounds. In phonetics we can see infinite realisations, for example every time you say a
‘p’ it will slightly different than the other times you’ve said it. However, in phonology all productions are
the same sound within the language’s phoneme inventory, therefore even though every ‘p’ is
produced slightly different every time, the actual sound is the same. This highlights a key difference
between phonetic and phonology as even though no two ‘p’s are the same, they represent the same
sound in the language.
Morphology
In linguistics, morphologyis the study of words,including theprinciples by which they are
formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology
investigate the structure of words in terms of m orphemes,which are the smallest units in a
language with some independent meaning. Morphemesinclude rootsthat can exist as words by
themselves, but also categories such as a ffixesthatcan only appear as part of a larger word. For
example, in English the root catchand the suffix -ingareboth morphemes; c atchmay appear as
its own word, or it may be combined with -ingto formthe new word c atching. Morphology also
analyzes how words behave as parts of speech, andhow they may be inflectedto
express g rammatical categoriesincluding n
umber, tense,and a
spect. Concepts such
as p
roductivityare concerned withhow speakers createwords in specific contexts, which
evolves over the history of a language.
he basic fields of linguistics broadly focus on language structure atdifferent "scales".
T
Morphologyis considered to operate at a scale largerthan p
honology, which investigates the
categories of speech sounds that are distinguished within a spoken language, and thus may
c onstitute the difference between a morpheme and another. Conversely, syntaxis concerned
with the next-largest scale, and studies how words in turn form phrases and sentences.
he history of ancient Indianmorphological analysisdates back to the linguist P
T āṇini,who
formulated the 3,959 rules of Sanskritmorphologyin the text Aṣṭādhyāyīby using a constituency
grammar. TheGreco-Romangrammatical tradition alsoengaged in morphological
analysis. Studies inArabicmorphology, includingthe Marāḥ Al-ArwāḥofAḥmad b. 'Alī Mas'ūd,
date back to at least 1200 CE.
The term "morphology" wasintroduced into linguisticsby A
ugust Schleicherin 1859.
Semantics
emanticsis the study of linguistic m
S eaning. It examineswhat meaning is,how words get their
meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this
process involves thedistinction between s ense andreference. Sense is given by the ideas and
concepts associated with an expression while reference is the object to which an expression
points.
emantics contrasts with s yntax, which studies therules that dictate how to create grammatically
S
correct sentences, and pragmatics, which investigateshow people use language in
communication.Semantics studies meaning in language,which is limited to the meaning of
linguistic expressions. It concerns how signs are interpretedandwhat information they contain.
An exampleis the meaning of words provided in dictionarydefinitionsby giving synonymous
expressions or paraphrases, like defining themeaningof the term r amas adult male sheep.
exical semanticsis the branch of semantics thatstudies word meaning. It examines whether
L
words have one or several meanings and in what lexicalrelationsthey stand to one another.
Phrasal semantics studies the meaning of sentencesby exploring the phenomenon
of compositionalityor how new meanings can be createdby arranging words. Other branches of
semantics includeformal semantics, cognitive semantics, c onceptualsemantics, c omputational
semantics, and cultural semantics.
he study of semantic phenomena began during antiquitybut was not recognized as an
T
independent field of inquiry until the 19th century. Semantics is relevant to the fields of formal
logic, computer science, and psychology.
emantics is the study of m
S eaningin languages. Itisa systematic inquiry that examines what
linguistic meaning is and how it arises. It investigateshow e xpressionsare built up from different
layers of constituents, like morphemes, words, clauses, sentences,and texts, and how the
meanings of the constituents affect one another. S emanticscan focus on a specific language,
like English, but in its widest sense, it investigates meaning structures relevant to all
languages.As a descriptive discipline,it aims todetermine how meaning works
without prescribingwhat meaning people should associatewith particular expressions. The main
disciplines engaged in semantics are linguistics, semiotics,and philosophy.
s a subfield of semiotics, semantics has a more narrow focus on meaning in language while
A
semiotics studies both linguistic and non-linguistic signs. Semiotics investigates additional topics
like the meaning of non-verbal communication, conventional symbols,and natural signs
independent of human interaction. Examples include n oddingtosignal agreement, stripes on a
uniform signifying rank, and the presence of vulturesindicatinga nearby animal carcass.
emantics further contrasts with pragmatics, whichis interested in how people use language in
S
communication. A closely related distinction by thesemiotician C harles W. Morrisholds that
semantics studies the relation between words and the world, pragmatics examines the relation
between words and users, and syntax focuses on the relation between different words.
emantics is related to etymology, which studies howwords and their meanings changed in the
S
course of history.
he word semanticsoriginated from the Ancient Greekadjective s emantikos, meaning 'relating
T
to signs', which is a derivative of s ēmeion, the nounfor 'sign'. It was initially used for medical
s ymptomsand only later acquired its wider meaning regarding any type of sign, including
linguistic signs.
emantics isprimarily interested in the public meaningthat expressions have,like the meaning
S
found in general dictionary definitions. Speaker meaning,by contrast, is theprivate or subjective
meaning that individuals associate with expressions.Itcan diverge from the literal meaning, like
when a person associates the word needlewith painor drugs.
Syntax
In linguistics, syntaxis the study of how words and morphemescombineto form larger units
such as p hrasesand s entences. Central concernsofsyntax include w ord order, grammatical
relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement,the nature of crosslinguistic
variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). There are numerous
approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals. The word syntaxcomes
from A
ncient Greekroots s yn, "together", and táxis,"ordering".
he field of syntax contains various topics that a syntactic theory is often designed to handle.
T
The relation between the topics is treated differently in different theories, and some of them may
not be considered to be distinct but instead to be derived from one another (i.e. word order can
be seen as the result of movement rules derived from grammatical relations).
ne basic description of a language's syntax is the sequence in which the subject(S), v erb(V),
O
and object(O) usually appear in sentences. Over 85%of languages usually place the subject
first, either in the sequence S VOor the sequence SOV.The other possible sequences
are V SO, VOS, OVS, and O
SV, the last three of whichare rare. In most generative theories of
syntax, the surface differences arise from a more complex clausal phrase structure, and each
order may be compatible with multiple derivations. However, word order can also reflect the
semantics or function of the ordered elements.
nother description of a language considers the set of possible grammatical relations in a
A
language or in general and how they behave in relation to one another in the morphosyntactic
alignmentof the language. The description of grammaticalrelations can also reflect
transitivity, p
assivization, and head-dependent-markingor other agreement.
Pragmatics
In linguisticsand related fields, pragmaticsis thestudy of how contextcontributes to meaning.
The field of study evaluateshow human language isutilized in social interactions, as well as the
relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted.Linguists who specialize in pragmatics
are called p
ragmaticians.
ragmaticsencompasses phenomena including implicature, and c onversation, as well
P
as n onverbal communication. Theories of pragmaticsgo hand-in-hand with theories
of semantics, which studies aspects of meaning, and s yntaxwhichexamines sentence
structures, principles, and relationships.The abilityto understand another speaker's intended
meaning is called p ragmatic competence.In 1938, CharlesMorris first distinguished pragmatics
as an independent subfield within semiotics,alongsidesyntax and semantics. Pragmatics
emerged as its own subfield in the 1950s after thepioneering work of J .L. Austinand Paul Grice.
Pragmatics was a reaction to structuralistlinguisticsas outlined by Ferdinand de Saussure. In
many cases,it expanded upon his idea that languagehas an analyzable structure, composed of
parts that can be defined in relation to others. Pragmaticsfirst engaged only in s ynchronicstudy,
as opposed to examining the historical development of language. However, it rejected the notion
that all meaning comes from signsexisting purelyin the abstract space of langue.
Meanwhile, historical pragmaticshas also come intobeing. The field did not gain linguists'
attention until the 1970s, when two different schools emerged: the Anglo-American pragmatic
thought and the European continental pragmatic thought (also called the perspective view). The
s tudy of the speaker's meaning focusing not on the phonetic or grammatical form of an utterance
but on what the speaker's intentions and beliefs are.
● Thestudy of the meaning in contextand the influencethat a given context can have
n the message. It requires knowledge of the speaker's identities, and the place and
o
time of the utterance.
● Thestudy of implicatures: the things that are communicatedeven though they are
not explicitly expressed.
Thestudy of relative distance, both social and physical,between speakersin order to
●
understand whatdetermines the choice of what is saidand what is not said. The
study of what is not meant, as opposed to the intended meaning: what is unsaid and
unintended, or unintentional.
● The study of therole of pragmatics in the developmentof children with autism
spectrum disordersor developmental language disorder (DLD).
In addition to these sub-fields, there are a number of other sub-fields that
cross-cut them:
Historical linguistics
he study of how languages change over time, addressing such questions as why
T
modern English is different form Old English and Middle English or what it means to
say that English and German are “more closely related” to each other than English
and French.
Sociolinguistics
he study of how language is used in society, addressing such questions as what
T
makes some dialects more “prestigious” than others, where slang comes from and
why it arises, or what happens when two languages come together in “bilingual”
communities.
Psycholinguistics
he study of how language is processed in the mind, addressing such questions as
T
how we can hear a string of language noises and make sense of them, how children
can learn to speak and understand the language of their environment as quickly and
effortlessly as they do, or how people with pathological language problems differ
from people who have “normal” language.
Neurolinguistics
he study of the actual encoding of language in the brain, addressing such
T
questions as what parts of the brain different aspects of language are stored in, how
language is actually stored, what goes on physically in the brain when language is
processed, or how the brain compensates when certain areas are damaged.
Computational linguistics
earning and understanding a language involves computing the properties of that
L
language that are described in its phonology, syntax, and semantics. The challenge
of describing this process connects linguistics with computational issues at a very
fundamental level. How could syntactic structures be computed from spoken
language, how are semantic relations recognized, and how could these
computational skills be acquired?
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