INTRO TO LINGUISTICS

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INTRO TO LINGUISTICS
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KNOW LEARNED QUESTIONS

• KNOW
• LEARNED
• QUESTIONS

• What do you know about linguistics, if
  anything?
• What did you learn about linguistics that
  particularly stands out?
• Identify one question or idea this has topic
  raised for you.

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Linguistics is

• The study of the nature and structure of language
  and languages.

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Varieties of Linguistic Study

• Historical Linguistics The study of the
  histories and pre-histories of languages, with
  the discovery of ancient connections between
  languages, and with the study of language change.

http//www.lsadc.org/info/ling-fields-socio.cfm
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Varieties of Linguistic Study

• A person interested in historical linguistics
  could study words within the English language
  that have been borrowed from other languages,
  such as Latin
• Latin loans organum (organ), rosa (rose), scola
  (school)
• prior (prior), hymnus (hymn), credo (creed)
• Or, might study the historical roots of the Nova
  Scotian dialect by looking at patterns of
  immigration.

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Varieties of Linguistic Study

• Sociolinguistics studies language as it
  represents fundamental dimensions of social
  behavior and human interaction. It is concerned
  with
• language attitudes among large populations on a
  national level
• the fact that language tells us how we organize
  our social relationships within a particular
  community
• how people manage their language in relation to
  their cultural backgrounds.

http//www.lsadc.org/info/ling-fields-socio.cfm
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How We Study Language(s)

• Language is studied in four main ways
• Phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax
• Semantics

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How We Study Language(s)

• Phonology
• The study of the systems and patterns of speech
  sounds in a language.
• A phoneme is the smallest unit of meaningful
  sound that can distinguish words in a language.
• You can use minimal pairs, such as pin and
  bin , as evidence for phonemes each means
  something different, but they only differ in
  terms of one sound.

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How We Study Language(s)

• Phonemes are not universal different languages
  have different units of meaningful sound.
• Compare the phonemic alphabets of German,
  Spanish, and English
• http//www.uiowa.edu/acadtech/phonetics/

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How We Study Language(s)

• Morphology
• The study of the internal structure of words,
  and of the rules by which words are formed.
• A morpheme is the smallest unit of linguistic
  meaning (not to be confused with a phoneme, which
  is the smallest unit of meaningful sound).
• pin and bin are each single morphemes, that
  are comprised of a single syllable.

http//www.ling.udel.edu/arena/morphology.html
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How We Study Language(s)

• A single word may be composed of more than one
  morpheme though. For example
• Two morphemes
• Coy ish
• Desire able
• Three morphemes
• Coy ish ness
• Desire able ity
• Four morphemes
• Un desire able ity
• Gentle man li ness
• More than four morphemes
• Un gentle man li ness

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How We Study Language(s)

• How many morphemes do you count in the following
  words?
• Coquettishness
• Frankly
• Exceedingly
• Pestles
• Antidisestablishmentarianism

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How We Study Language(s)

• Syntax
• The study of the structure and ordering of
  components within a sentence.
• When looking at syntax, we notice and examine
  parts of speech (subject, verb, noun, pronoun,
  adjective, etc.) and word order.
• For example, most English sentences tend to
  follow a Subject-Verb-Object order
• The dog ate my flash drive.
• Monica gave Starr a blue dress.

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How We Study Language(s)

• Semantics
• The study of the meaning of words, phrases, and
  sentences.
• Semantic change is when a word changes meaning.
  It can become wider in meaning or narrower, or
  more positive or more negative. An example is the
  word 'bad', which has changed meaning from
  negative to positive in some contexts.

http//www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/knowledge-
wiki/semantics
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Attitudes in the Study of Language(s)

• There are two dominant attitudes or approaches to
  the study of language(s) Prescriptive
  Descriptive

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Attitudes in the Study of Language(s)

• PRESCRIPTIVE APPROACH

• DESCRIPTIVE APPROACH

• The view that one variety of language has an
  inherently higher value than others, and that
  this ought to be imposed on the whole of the
  speech community.
• Especially applied to grammar, vocabulary
  pronunciation
• Uses ideology of correctness

• Its main aim is to describe and explain the
  patterns of usage which are found in all
  varieties of the language, whether they are
  socially prestigious or not.
• In other words, this approach does not condemn
  dialects as ugly, incorrect, or illogical,
  simply because they adhere to different rules

Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the
English Language. New York Press Syndicate of
the U of Cambridge, 1995.
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Attitudes in the Study of Language(s)

• What attitudes do you believe are found in the
  education system? Why?
• Do you agree that there is/are varieties of
  language that have an inherently higher value
  than others? Why or why not?
• Why might prescriptive attitudes be viewed as
  oppressive by some?

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KNOW LEARNED QUESTIONS

• KNOW
• LEARNED
• QUESTIONS

• What do you know about linguistics, if
  anything?
• What did you learn about linguistics that
  particularly stands out?
• Identify one question or idea this has topic
  raised for you.