HEL
Why study
English?
What’s a
Language?
A system: highly structured and operates
according to a set of principles, or rules, known as its GRAMMAR.
Constitutive rules;
descriptive deduced from study of
the language
not regulatory
rules; prescriptive imposed on the language
Descriptive
grammar
e.g.: an article always precedes its
referent
no
varity of English allows “dog the”
Primarily ORAL/AURAL
written
version is a highly specialized, relatively recent innovation
--often a crude
representation of the spoken version)
the
problem of “that’s not how it’s spelt”
the
problem of dictating norms from a composition class on spoken English
we
don’t speak in sentences, paragraphs and pages
INNATE: we are
genetically designed to learn A human language:
ANY
human language (no particular one).
Must be learned,
from other human beings (TV does not work).
List of
characteristics: read over: do these make sense?
Big one: All languages change over time
Components of all Languages
(here comes some terminology):
Phonology:
sound system
Morphology: form and
formation of words
both
how new words are formed, and the various forms that words take on to express
different meaning
(for the latter, inflected languages have a much more
developed morphology).
Units: Morphemes: smallest unit of meaning: a linguistic atom.
Free: root; stand on
its own as a word
Bound:
has real meaning, but must be joined to other morphemes to create a word:
Affixes (suffix
and prefix):
Inflectional:
have grammatical rather than lexical meaning
Latin has dozens
e.g., noun inflectional
suffixes
Modern English
has 8
- s (pl.),
-
’s (poss.),
- er (comp.),
- est (superl.),
- s (3rd sing. pres.),
- ed (past),
- ed (past
part),
- ing (pres.
part).
Derivational:
used for forming new words (tons):
un-,
mis-, re-, -tion, -ness,
pre-
etc.
Free
morphemes/words:
…Those with lexical
meaning
(verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs)
…those with grammatical
meaning
(
= function words: conjunctions,
prepositions, articles, pronouns)
“it’s a word
that …”
Syntax: arrangement of
words into larger units
word order, etc.
Syntax and
Morphology are closely related:
as
language decreases inflectional morphology, it increases syntactical rigidity
Semantics: Levels
of meaning: some subcategories, let’s not worry too much about them; denotation connotation, yes?
Pragmatics: Language in its
social context
Jump to phonology
Linguistic
Change:
All languages Change
All languages Change
All
languages Change
Every parent in
the history of mankind has complained about the way their kids speak
Why would the
French not want to allow an influx of Arabic influence: reminds them of their
colonial past and racism?
Why are Spaniards
so critical of S. American English? Because S.A. has a population 10x bigger than all of Spain, much less
the speakers of its prestige dialect.
RP—Explain RP— British English:
a quaint fading dialect spoken by a minority of inhabitants on a damp, North
Sea island.
Language change
is not degradation
Language change
does not hinder the expressiveness of language
Language change
does not undermine the grammar of a language
Slowing change:
o Having
a written of form of the language
o being
a colonial language (like US English)
o Political
stability
“Preventing
Change”: Extreme cases like Iceland
But even this is
false; the result of concerted efforts to archaize their language to match a
hypothetical ideal.
Linguistic Sign:
Arbitrary, Symbolic, Conventional
“cat” refers
to a feline because we all agree that it does
Origin
of Language? No Idea.
Does Chad Thompson every touch on
this?
Attitudes Toward
Change (not reality):
Belief in degradation of language;
why?
o Nostalgia
o Most
overt indicator of ethnic and national identity
o A
means to perpetuate social class prejudice
§ Preserve
social barriers
§ you
can’t fire because he’s black/Asian/Hispanic, but you can because he’s
“difficult to understand”
o Belief
in superiority of highly inflected languages: “We must preserve or
inflections!” Whom
o Misguided
admiration for the Written form
§ Value
of written form is real; and written standard is a blessing; but this is quite
distinct from spoken language, which is primary
o Evolution
towards higher state? Says Otto
Jespersen, the Dane
Prescriptive vs.
Descriptive