THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
Nineteenth Century - Historical linguistics.
Plato and Aristotle made major contributions to the study of the language. Plato, for example, is said to have been the first person to distinguish between nouns and verbs.
1786: birthdate of linguistics.
On the 27th of September, 1786, an Englishman, Sir William Jones read a paper to Royal Asiatic Society in Calcutta pointing out that Sanskrit (the old Indian Language), Greek, Latin, Celtic and Germanic all had striking structural similarities.
In the last quarter of the Century, a Group of scholars centered around Leipzing, and nicknamed the “Young Grammarians” claimed that language change is regular.
They argued that if, in any Word of a given dialect, one sound changes into another, the change will also affect all other occurrences of the same sound in similar phonetic surroundings.
Early-to mid-20th Century - Descriptive linguistics.
In the 20th Century, the emphasis shifted from language change to language description. The linguists began to concentrate on describing single languages at one particular point in time.
The Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), is sometimes labelled “the father of modern linguistics” because of his change of emphasis.
De Saussure´s crucial contribution was his explicit and reiterated statement that all language items are essentially interlinked. All linguistics since de Saussure is structural, as “structural” in this broad sense merely means the recognition that language is a paterned system composed of interdependent elements, rather than a collection of unconnected individual items.
Hi insistence that language is a carefully built structure of interwoven elements initiates the era of structural linguistics.
This state of affairs changed with the publication in 1933 of Leonard Bloomfield´s comprehensive work entitled simply Language, which attempted to lay down rigorous procedures for the description of any language.
Bloomfield considered that linguistics should deal objectively and systematically with observable data. She was more interested in the way items were arranged that in meaning. He concludes ‘the weak point in language study, and will remain so until human knowledge advances very far beyond its present state.’
Mid-to late 20th Century - Generative linguistics and the search for universals.
In 1957 Noam Chomsky, published a book called Syntactic Structures. This book started a revolution in linguistics. He transformed linguistics from a relatively obscure discipline to PhD students. Chomsky has shifted attention away from detailed description of actual utterances, and started asking questions about the nature of the system which produces the output.
Chomsky points out that anyone who knows a language must have internalized a set of rules which specify the sequences permitted in their language.
A grammar which consist of a set of statements or rules which specify which sequences of a language are possible, and which impossible is a generative grammar. The particular type of generative grammar favored by Chomsky is a so-called transformational one.
Plato and Aristotle made major contributions to the study of the language. Plato, for example, is said to have been the first person to distinguish between nouns and verbs.
1786: birthdate of linguistics.
On the 27th of September, 1786, an Englishman, Sir William Jones read a paper to Royal Asiatic Society in Calcutta pointing out that Sanskrit (the old Indian Language), Greek, Latin, Celtic and Germanic all had striking structural similarities.
In the last quarter of the Century, a Group of scholars centered around Leipzing, and nicknamed the “Young Grammarians” claimed that language change is regular.
They argued that if, in any Word of a given dialect, one sound changes into another, the change will also affect all other occurrences of the same sound in similar phonetic surroundings.
Early-to mid-20th Century - Descriptive linguistics.
In the 20th Century, the emphasis shifted from language change to language description. The linguists began to concentrate on describing single languages at one particular point in time.
The Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), is sometimes labelled “the father of modern linguistics” because of his change of emphasis.
De Saussure´s crucial contribution was his explicit and reiterated statement that all language items are essentially interlinked. All linguistics since de Saussure is structural, as “structural” in this broad sense merely means the recognition that language is a paterned system composed of interdependent elements, rather than a collection of unconnected individual items.
Hi insistence that language is a carefully built structure of interwoven elements initiates the era of structural linguistics.
This state of affairs changed with the publication in 1933 of Leonard Bloomfield´s comprehensive work entitled simply Language, which attempted to lay down rigorous procedures for the description of any language.
Bloomfield considered that linguistics should deal objectively and systematically with observable data. She was more interested in the way items were arranged that in meaning. He concludes ‘the weak point in language study, and will remain so until human knowledge advances very far beyond its present state.’
Mid-to late 20th Century - Generative linguistics and the search for universals.
In 1957 Noam Chomsky, published a book called Syntactic Structures. This book started a revolution in linguistics. He transformed linguistics from a relatively obscure discipline to PhD students. Chomsky has shifted attention away from detailed description of actual utterances, and started asking questions about the nature of the system which produces the output.
Chomsky points out that anyone who knows a language must have internalized a set of rules which specify the sequences permitted in their language.
A grammar which consist of a set of statements or rules which specify which sequences of a language are possible, and which impossible is a generative grammar. The particular type of generative grammar favored by Chomsky is a so-called transformational one.
APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND LINGUISTICS
DESCRIPTIVE SYNTAX
The descriptivist approach was initiated by Saussure and developed in the United States. In Europe, many anthropological linguists continued descriptive research on native-American languages. Many of these linguists were not drawn into the generative linguistics, and instead either pursued research as part of typological or functional linguistics, or contributed to the development of sociolinguistics.
In Great Britain, the descriptive tradition continued in the 1950’s and 1960’s with the work of Palmer and Quirk. Much of the British descriptive research was applied to dictionaries and pedagogical reference grammar.
At the present time, this line of linguistic research is becoming more popular in analyzing the corpuses increases. Sociolinguistic research compare oral and written varieties of languages and make extensive use of descriptive grammars. Lexicographers and grammarians base their dictionaries and reference grammars on the results of corpus data bases.
FUNCIONAL AND TUPOLOGICAL THEORIES
Language has been adapted to the needs of humans to communicate, and grammars reflects this adaptation.
Halliday:
- The functional aspect of his grammar is captures by the division of grammar into ideational, interprersonal, and textual components and by his typology of language uses (instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, etc)
- Emphasis on discourse and language function in actual use
- Halliday’s influence has increased as a result of the strong emphasis on discourse and communication now prevalent in applied linguistics. As well as of its compability with sociolinguistics, cognitive-strategy research, composition research, educational research on emergent literacy, communicative approaches to language teaching, and computer-programming applications for natural discourse.
Keenan and Comrie:
- Generalization of grammar relations:
SUB > OBJ > IND OBJ > OBLIQUE OBJ > OBJ OF COMPARISON
- Their interests lies primarily in examining how discourse exerts influence on the shape and frequency of occurrence of syntactic constructions in various contexts. They are primarily syntacticians and would not call themselves discourse analysts; with the exception of Thompson and Givón.
There is one final group of functional linguists who examine how language is used in terms of its pragmatic functions.
Austin, Searle and Grice:
- They explored how language use creates meanings that ae conveyed by the context of utterance more than by the literal meanings of words.
Halliday:
- The functional aspect of his grammar is captures by the division of grammar into ideational, interprersonal, and textual components and by his typology of language uses (instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, etc)
- Emphasis on discourse and language function in actual use
- Halliday’s influence has increased as a result of the strong emphasis on discourse and communication now prevalent in applied linguistics. As well as of its compability with sociolinguistics, cognitive-strategy research, composition research, educational research on emergent literacy, communicative approaches to language teaching, and computer-programming applications for natural discourse.
Keenan and Comrie:
- Generalization of grammar relations:
SUB > OBJ > IND OBJ > OBLIQUE OBJ > OBJ OF COMPARISON
- Their interests lies primarily in examining how discourse exerts influence on the shape and frequency of occurrence of syntactic constructions in various contexts. They are primarily syntacticians and would not call themselves discourse analysts; with the exception of Thompson and Givón.
There is one final group of functional linguists who examine how language is used in terms of its pragmatic functions.
Austin, Searle and Grice:
- They explored how language use creates meanings that ae conveyed by the context of utterance more than by the literal meanings of words.
ANTROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
In the 1950’s began to formulate an approach to language which was discourse-based and centered around analyses of speech events and variations in the uses of language in changing contexts. Bright, Ferguson, Fishman, Gumperz, Haugen, and Hymes, became founders of a new research field now known as sociolinguistics.
Hymes proposed that the real object of linguistic research should be the study of communicative competence; that is linguistics should study how language is performed in different contexts with different people, on different topics, for different purposes.
In 1960’s, Hymes argued that performed-based research agendas should be organized around communicative events and should focus on various aspects of the event, including addressor, addressee, channels, codes, setting, message form, topic, and the event itself.
1970’s: Researchers helped define sociolinguistics as the study of language variation and its relations to different social contexts, thus building upon a greatly expanding earlier research on dialect variation and language-contact phenomena.
1980’s: the increasing importance given to social network as a source of explanation for specific linguistic and social behavior provided a bridge between variationist and interactionist research.
Sociolinguistics are still not very interested in the study of written discourse.
Sociolinguistics may investigate socially related language uses that have great importance in terms of language-based problems to be studied, and sociolinguists like applied linguists, often turn their research in the direction of practical application.
There are many research areas that are solely sociolinguistic and other research areas that are solely applied-linguistic in nature.
Applied linguists explore many areas which are not within the domain of sociolinguistics at all: language teaching and language learning; second-and-foreign language teaching/learning language testing and evaluation; language therapy; lexicography; translation, etc.
Hymes proposed that the real object of linguistic research should be the study of communicative competence; that is linguistics should study how language is performed in different contexts with different people, on different topics, for different purposes.
In 1960’s, Hymes argued that performed-based research agendas should be organized around communicative events and should focus on various aspects of the event, including addressor, addressee, channels, codes, setting, message form, topic, and the event itself.
1970’s: Researchers helped define sociolinguistics as the study of language variation and its relations to different social contexts, thus building upon a greatly expanding earlier research on dialect variation and language-contact phenomena.
1980’s: the increasing importance given to social network as a source of explanation for specific linguistic and social behavior provided a bridge between variationist and interactionist research.
Sociolinguistics are still not very interested in the study of written discourse.
Sociolinguistics may investigate socially related language uses that have great importance in terms of language-based problems to be studied, and sociolinguists like applied linguists, often turn their research in the direction of practical application.
There are many research areas that are solely sociolinguistic and other research areas that are solely applied-linguistic in nature.
Applied linguists explore many areas which are not within the domain of sociolinguistics at all: language teaching and language learning; second-and-foreign language teaching/learning language testing and evaluation; language therapy; lexicography; translation, etc.
6. LINGUISTIIC RESEARCH AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Tagmemic has been the primarily language-analysis approach used by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) researches in their efforts to produce resources for Bible translations in every language around the world.
PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
Phonetics and phonology have a number of changes over the last 25 years, and phonology in particular has been subject to major theoretical revisions.
MORPHOLOGY
Applied-linguistics research on lexicography, terminology development, second-language acquisition, and language teaching is still employing descriptive approaches that have been in use for some time.
SYNTAX
1. Chomsky’s earlier approaches to syntax are still proving influential in that many introductions to syntax courses in applied-linguistics programs are modifications on both past and current Chomskean linguistics.
2. Descriptive approaches to syntax have had a strong influence on applied linguistics over the last decade, both with regard to the training of graduate students and trachers, and in terms of research. Descriptive research may be considered typical. The descriptive syntax texts have been used for grammar courses and for source references in language policy and planning.
3. Functional systematic approach of Halliday. (Discourse Analysis)
SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS
SEMANTICS
PRAGMATICS
PRAGMATICS
Semantics has been important to applied linguistics.
Research in second-language acquisition and lexicography have both used lexical semantics as a resource for research on how words may be related, and on how they differ in various ways.
Had has much greater impact on applied linguistics, primarily because the issues raised and the theories developed directly inform discourse analysis.
Important concepts developing out of pragmatics include speech-act theory.
SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
The most important area of research for applied linguistics is the field of discourse analysis, and the contributions of discourse analysis made by sociolinguists are central.
It has been a major focus of language teaching, curriculum design, language testing, classroom-centered research, and the study of language use and language problems un professional contexts.
Other direct contribution from sociolinguistics includes the fields of conversational analysis and conversational style.
Conversational analysis also encompasses research on conversational style, though the topic is often recognized as a distinct area of research.
No comments:
Post a Comment