Alan Garnham Talking about Language

1
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

• TALKING ABOUT LANGUAGE

2
LANGUAGE A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• A transmitter who encodes information into a
  signal.
• The physical transmission of the signal.
• A receiver who decodes the signal to recover the
  information encoded by the transmitter.

3
LANGUAGE A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

• BUT in the case of language there is ALSO the
  question of the encoding of thoughts into
  language and the recovery of that information by
  the receiver.
• COMPARE the transmission of a linguistic message
  (e.g., by MORSE CODE, FAX, or whatever) and the
  transmission of thoughts from one mind to
  another.

4
HOW LANGUAGE WORKS

• In its basic form (spoken) language uses a
  sequence of sounds to convey meanings.
• The meanings to be conveyed can be very complex,
  and the sound system must therefore be able to
  convey that complexity.
• Because sounds and meanings are very different
  kinds of things, there have to be rules (which
  again turn out to be complex) for relating the
  sounds to the meanings.

5
DESIGN FEATURES OF LANGUAGE (Hockett)

• 1. Vocal-Auditory Channel
• 2. Broadcast Transmission /Directional Reception
• 3. Rapid Fading
• 4. Interchangeability
• 5. Total Feedback
• 6. Specialisation

• 7. Semanticity
• 8. Arbitrariness
• 9. Discreteness
• 10. Displacement
• 11. Productivity
• 12. Traditional Transmission
• 13. Duality of Patterning

6
DESIGN FEATURES OF LANGUAGE (Aitchison)

• 1. Vocal-Auditory Channel
• 2. Semanticity
• 3. Arbitrariness
• 4. Displacement
• 5. Productivity
• 6. Traditional Transmission
• 7. Duality of Patterning
• 8. Structure dependence
• 9. Spontaneous usage
• 10. Turn taking

• 1 - 7 are in Hockett's list
• 8 relates to more recent thinking about human
  languages
• 9 and 10 relate to claims about what talking
  apes can't do.

7
LINGUISTICS THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

• Languages (and Language more generally) can be
  studied in a way that makes little reference to
  psychological questions about how it is used.
• The study of language is called linguistics
• From what has been said before, linguistics must
  describe systems of sounds, systems of meanings,
  and rules for relating sounds and meanings.

8
BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS1. STUDY OF SOUNDS

• Phonetics
• What sounds do languages use?
• What sounds make a difference?
• Phonology
• How do sounds fit together in particular languages

9
BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS2. STUDY OF MEANING

• Semantics
• What do words mean?
• What do sentences/passages literally mean?
• Pragmatics
• What messages are actually conveyed?

10
BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS3. RULES FOR RELATING
SOUNDS AND MEANINGS

• Morphology
• Principles for constructing complex words
  (inflexional and derivational)
• Syntax
• How do words get put together into larger groups?

11
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

• The study of the representations, mechanisms, and
  processes that underlie our ability to acquire
  and use language.

12
PSYCHOLINGUISTICSTHE BEHAVIOURIST VIEW

• According to behaviourists, language is Verbal
  Behavior (Skinner, 1957) and its acquisition and
  use can be described by general principles of
  learning theory (e.g., reinforcement and
  conditioning).

13
PSYCHOLINGUISTICSTHE CHOMSKYAN VIEW

• Chomsky (1959), in an extended review of
  Skinner's book, argued that behaviorist
  principles could not explain our linguistic
  abilities, and that human infants had inbuilt
  knowledge of the kinds of rules that linguists
  discover when they study language.
• These ideas resonated with the cognitive
  revolution in psychology and have (more or less)
  held sway ever since.