Lingphon Module
Linguistics is often defined as the field of study devoted to the scientific study of natural
language. It can be either Applied or Theoretical in nature. Mainstream Linguistics is
predicated on at least three core assumptions:
that there is a transcendental form, structure or systemic core common to all
language (what Saussure calls 'langue' and Chomsky 'competence') which may be
scientifically studied;
that linguists should seek to neutrally describe, rather than prescribe, the
properties of languages; and
that spoken language is prior to and more fundamental than written forms of
language.
Levels of Language
Phonetics the study of the "physiology involved in the production of speech
sounds" and of the "transcription systems used to represent"
Phonology: the study of the "organisational principles that determine the patterns that speech
sounds are subject to"
Morphology: the study of the "properties of words and word-building rules"
Syntax: the study of the "structure of sentences and phrases"
The Lexicon of a given language is its vocabulary.
Semantics: the study of the production and reception of the meaning of words, phrases and
sentences.
Pragmatics: the study of the process of communication in the course of which language is
put to use, that is, the practical use of language made by individuals and groups in specifiable
circumstances. There are several goals: to explore how the production and reception of the
meaning of a proposition is shaped by various aspects of the context in which language-use
occurs, not least the social status of those involved; the establishment of the speaker's
intention; the study of implicatures (i.e. the difference between manifest and latent levels of
meaning); the study of impediments to clear communication such as ambiguity; etc.
Note: To sum up, the system or structure of a language (langue or competence) can be
described at four different levels, which form the core areas of linguistics, sometimes called
microlinguistics: 1)Phonetics and Phonology, 2) Morphology, 3) Syntax, and 4) Lexicology/
Lexicon and semantics.
Branches of Language
Branches of linguistics are sometimes referred to as macrolinguistics. Most of these are
interdisciplinary fields because they overlap with other sciences. The first four branches arc concerned
with language variation, and are therefore often subsumed under the label variational linguistics: 1)
Diactology is at the interface between linguistics and geography. It is the study of regional
variation within a language. 2) Sociolinguistics: It connects linguistics with sociology. It is
concerned with language variation according to age, sex, social class, etc. 3) Ethnolinguistics
overlaps with anthropology and investigates language variation and the part language plays in
ethnic groups. These three branches study the way language is used in different speech
communities. They are therefore often referred to as sociolinguistics, which is then used in a
broader sense as a superordinate term. The language variety spoken in a particular speech
community is referred to as a lect. Thus we speak of dialects, sociolects, and ethnolects. The
characteristic speech of an individual person is called an idiolect.
4) Discourse analysis, text linguistics, and stylistics are related branches that also deal with
language variation. Unlike the first three branches, however, they do not look at the way
language is used in different speech communities, but rather at the language characteristics of
different text types, especially beyond the sentence level. The language of these text types is
communicated either through the medium of speech (e.g. personal conversations, broadcast
discussions, lectures) or through the medium of writing (e.g. personal letters, academic
papers). And even though linguists are primarily interested in spoken language, one important
field of study, which connects linguistics with literary science, is the characteristic use of
language in works of literature.
The next four branches of linguistics are not concerned with language variation:
5) Contrastive linguistics describes the similarities and differences between two or more
modern languages, especially in order to improve language teaching and translation.
6) Psycholinguistics overlaps with psychology and explores mental aspects of language, such
as language learning. 7) Neurolinguistics overlaps with medical science and investigates the
connection between language and the nervous system. It is especially interested in the
neurological processes necessary to produce speech sounds and in language disorders.
(8) Computational linguistics [Computerlinguistik] overlaps with artificial intelligence.
Some of its concerns are machine translation, automatic speech recognition, and speech
simulation.
Useful definitions about these branches and others:
Psycholinguistics (or Psychology of Language) is the study of the psychological and
neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, produce, and understand language. It
explores the cognitive processes that make it possible both to generate and comprehend
meaningful propositions. Neurolinguistics is devoted specifically to the study of the neural
mechanisms in the human brain that are responsible for these processes.
Cognitive Linguistics is the view that language is best explained by reference to an
understanding of the processes of human cognition in general, that is, an effect or function of
those basic underlying mental faculties that are common to all humans and studied by
cognitive science.
Anthropological Linguistics is the branch of Linguistics that studies language through the
prism of anthropological accounts of human nature. Linguistic Anthropology is the branch of
Anthropology that studies humans via linguistic accounts of the languages that they use.
Where the former brings anthropological methods to bear on the study of language, the latter
brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems. In both cases, however, a link
is drawn between between language, on the one hand, and human biology and culture, on the
other.
Sociolinguistics (or the Sociology of Language) is the study of relationship between
linguistic variation and change, on the one hand, and differences in social structure, on the
other. It explores the effect of any and all aspects of society on the way language is used by
focusing on how 'lects' differ between speech communities (more or less discrete groups of
people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves)
separated by certain social variables (e.g. ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education,
etc.) and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social
class or socio-economic classes.
Discourse Analysis is a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing
written, spoken or signed forms of language use (speech, written texts, sign-language, etc.).
Stylistics is the study of varieties of language whose properties position that language in
context. For example, the language of advertising, politics, religion, individual authors, etc.,
or the language of a period in time, all arguably derive from and thus are explicable with
reference to a particular socio-historical situation.
Phonostylistics is a branch of stylistics which investigates the expressively stylistic
properties of articulation and intonation ( see the functions of intonation).
Comparative (or Synchronic or Descriptive) Linguistics: the study of language variation,
that is, the linguistic differences that distinguish individuals and communities from each
other. Comparative Linguistics seeks to determine the relatedness of given languages by
grouping them into language families.
Historical (or Diachronic) Linguistics: the study of language change, that is, "how
languages change over time" . Historical Linguistics has four main concerns: to describe and
account for observed changes in particular languages, to describe the history of speech
communities, to reconstruct the pre-history of languages, and to develop general theories
about how and why language changes.
All the different sub-disciplines of linguistics (levels and branches of linguistics) discussed above are
recapitulated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Levels and Some Branches of linguistics
What are phonetics and phonology?
Phonetics
Phonetics first of all divides, or segments, concrete utterances into individual speech sounds.
It is therefore exclusively concerned with parole or performance. Phonetics can then be
divided into three distinct phases: (1) articulatory phonetics, (2) acoustic phonetics, and (3)
auditory phonetics.
(1) Articulatory phonetics describes in detail how the speech organs, also called vocal
organs or articulators [Sprechwerkzeuge], in the vocal tract [Mundraum] are used in order to
produce, or articulate, speech sounds. (2) Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties
of speech sounds, i.e. the way in which the air vibrates as sounds pass from speaker to
listener. A spectrograph is a machine that measures the sound waves [Schallwellen] and
depicts them as images, called spectrograms or sonograms, showing the duration, frequency,
intensity, and quality of the sounds. (3) Auditory phonetics investigates the perception of
speech sounds by the listener, i.e. how the sounds are transmitted from the ear to the brain,
and how they are processed.
Owing to its close association with physics (and also with medicine), phonetics is
sometimes considered a natural science, rather than a level of linguistics in the narrow sense.
But no matter how we classify it, phonetics is an indispensable prerequisite for phonology,
and is therefore an integral part of all introductions to linguistics. In the language departments
of most universities, however, the study of phonetics is largely restricted to articulatory
phonetics because of its applications to the learning and teaching of pronunciation. For that
reason, too, we will only be concerned with articulatory phonetics, and phonology.
Phonology
Phonology deals with the speakers' knowledge of the sound system of a language. It is
therefore exclusively concerned with langue or competence, Phonology can be divided into
two types/ kinds: (1) segmental phonology and (2) suprasegmental phonology.
(1) Segmental phonology is based on the segmentation of language into individual speech
sounds provided by phonetics. Unlike phonetics, however, segmental phonology is not
interested in the production, the physical properties, or the perception of these sounds, but in
the function and possible combinations of sounds within the sound system.
(2) Suprasegmental phonology, also called prosody, is concerned with those features of
pronunciation that cannot be segmented because they extend over more than one segment, or
sound. Such features include stress [Betonung], rhythm, and intonation (also called pitch
contour or pitch movement [Tonbdhenbewegung]}.
Figure 2 : The Different Spheres of Phonetics and Phonology
The notion of a standard variety
In all linguistic research, we have to define the language variety that we are concerned with
by delineating the speech community and/or the text type. For example, we can investigate
the Manchester dialect, the language used in e-mail messages, or the speech of children in
conversations with their peers.
In language teaching, on the other hand, it is customary to use a more idealized standard
variety, or simply standard [hocbsprachliche Variante], as a model. A standard variety is the
form of a language that is generally associated with educated speakers. And even though it
may have a regional base, we regard it as regionally neutral in that it can be found anywhere
in a country. A standard is therefore a sociolect, rather than a dialect. The standard variety of
English in Great Britain is called Standard British English (popularly referred to by such non-
linguistic terms as King's English, Queen's English, BBC English, or Oxford English). The
standard variety spoken in the United States is called General American (English) or Standard
American English.
More Details about Phonology
In addition to what have been discussed above about phonology, it is also included topics as
phonological alternation ( how the pronunciation of a sound changes through the application
of phonological rules, phonotactics ( the phonological constraints on what sounds can appear
in what positions in a given language) as well as prosody, the study of suprasegmentals and
topics such as pitch, tone, intonation and rhythm.
Phonotactics
It is concerned with the study of the sound combinations which are allowed in a given
language. Every language has a specific phonotactic rules that describe the way in which
phonemes can be combined in different positions (initial, medial, and final). For example, in
English the stop+ fricative cluster /gz/ can only occur in medial (exhaust) or final (legs), but
not in initial position, and /h/ can only occur before, never after, a vowel. The restrictions are
partly language-specific and partly universal.
Supersegmental Feature ( also Prosodic Feature)
The term coined by American structuralists for a distinctive feature that unlike a
phoneme cannot be segmented individually from linguistic utterances, e;g. differences in
Juncture, stress, Pitch, accent, intonation, syllable breaks.
Pitch
It is a place where something happens, a high place or position, and a height or level from
which to go up or down, as in music. A term used generally in phonetics for the level of the
voice.
Pitch is an important phonetic characteristic. It is related to the frequency of the vibration
of the vocal folds: The faster the vocal folds vibrate, the higher the pitch.
Pitch can distinguish meaning at a suprasegmental level: It shapes the intonation of connected
speech. Pitch movement tell us, for example, whether a sentence like She speaks English is
meant to be a statement or a question (See “Intonation” below). Pitch cannot, however,
change the function of an individual sound within the sound system of English. By contrast, in
over half the languages of the world, a change of pitch can change the function of a sound, i.e.
the basic meaning of a word can be changed simply by varying the pitch of one of its sounds.
These languages are called tone languages. Many Asian and native American languages are
tone languages, and there are more than 1,000 tone languages in Africa alone. English belongs
to the non-tone languages. Pitch is therefore not a distinctive feature in the phonology of RP
or any other English accent.
Illustration:
In tonal languages, pitch is distinctive.
Tone languages are the languages that use pitch of individual syllables to contrast meanings
as in the cases of Nupe language (a language spoken in Nigeria) and Thai language (a major
language spoken in Thailand) . For example in Nupe ( a language spoken in Nigeria), the
pronunciation of ba with a low pitch means “ to count”; whereas the pronunciation of ba
with a high pitch means “to be sour”.
Thai is a language that has contrasting pitches, or tones. The same string of “segmental”
sounds represented by [naa] or [na:] will mean different things when spoken with a low pitch,
a mid pitch, a high pitch, a falling pitch from high to low, or rising pitch from low to high .
Thai therefore has five linguistic tones:
1) naa with [ _ ] low tone “ a nickname”.
2) naa with [ ̶ ] mid tone “nice paddy”
3) naa with [ ‾ ] high tone “Young maternal uncle or aunt”
4) naa with [¬] falling tone “face”
5) naa with [ ] rising tone “thick”
In non-tone languages, pitch is not distinctive as in the case of English language. In English,
whether you say Cat with a higher pitch or a low pitch, the meaning of Cat remains the same.
Tone of voice
Tone of voice, also called voice quality, tonal quality, or timbre, refers to the difference
in "colour" that we hear between two voices when they produce a sound with otherwise
exactly the same phonetic features (purely phonetic and distinctive). This can be compared
with the difference that we hear between two musical instruments. The different tones of
voice are produced by different patterns of vibration of the vocal folds, which, in turn, cause
different combinations of sound waves that nevertheless result in the same sound quality.
Tone of voice is a feature of spoken language as well as of the pronunciation of individual
sounds. The tone of voice makes us characterise the voice of a speaker as female, feminine,
male, masculine, harsh, breathy) murmured, creaky, or thin, for example. It enables us to
recognise a particular speaker or to describe the speaker as female or male, young or old,
angry or exhausted, etc.
Intonation (See “Pitch” above).
In languages that are not tone languages, such as English, pitch still plays an important role.
It is the pitch contour of the phrase or sentence that is important.
e.g., John is going as a statement with a falling pitch, but as a question with the pitch rising
at the end.
Languages that use pitch syntactically —for example, to change a sentence from a statement
to a question—or in which the changing pitch of a whole sentence is otherwise important to
the meaning are called intonation languages.
Some Useful Clarifications
1st clarification:
Tone and intonation are two types of pitch variation, which are used by speakers of many
languages in order to give shape to utterance. More specifically, tone encodes morphemes,
and intonation gives utterances a further discoursal meaning that is independent of the
meanings of the words themselves.
2nd clarification:
Indo-European languages such as English and Hindi are not considered tone languages but
they use intonation in different ways.
3rd clarification
The following illustrations are useful to deepen your knowledge about these concepts
4th Clarification/ The Functions of Intonation
This part of discussion is very important since it illustrates some functions of intonation such
as (Emotional intonation, Grammatical intonation, Informational intonation, Textual
intonation, and Psychological intonation). Read carefully these functions since it is related
directly to the points cited in your new program (syllabus).
5th Clarification