People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Kasdi Merbah University, Ouargla
Faculty of Letters and Languages
Department of Letters and English Language

Linguistics: Lectures for 2nd-year LMD

Students

Dr. Drid Touria

Academic Year
2015-2016
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Course Description and Aims

Following the first-year course, in which students are introduced to the field of
linguistics, the present series of lectures aims at providing second-year students with a
thorough survey of the various theories and approaches of modern linguistics known in
the 20th century, pursuing a chronological sequence and focusing on the strengths and
weaknesses of each. Not only does the course highlight the theoretical affinities and
discrepancies between the various approaches, it also underscores the innovations
brought about in every phase of the evolution of linguistic theory as to the understanding
of the nature of language. The first section of the course covers the linguistic structural
approach, which prevailed in the first half of the century, and its immediate successors
both in Europe and in America. The second section is concerned with the popular ground-
breaking approach characterizing the sixties, transformational generative grammar. The
third section introduces the interdisciplinary fields of sociolinguistics and
psycholinguistics. The ultimate objective of the course is to trace the progress of
linguistics over decades for the purpose of equipping second-year students with
background theoretical knowledge, which could assist in fathoming other language
related disciplines, especially those of an applied or a pedagogical nature.

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Contents

Course Description and Objectives…………………………………………………………………… 2

Contents……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
General Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
Section One : Structural Linguistics...................................................................... 6
Unit 1. European Structuralism.............................................................................. 6
I. Ferdinand de Saussure........................................................................... 6
A. Saussure’s View of Language............................................................. 6
B. Saussure’s Dichotomies ……………………………………………………..…………. 7
II. Structural Schools in Europe.................................................................. 8
Unit 2. American Structuralism.............................................................................. 10
I. Features of American Structuralism........................................................ 10
II. American Structuralists……………………………………………………………………… 10
A. Franz Boas…………………………………………………………………………………….. 10
B. Edward Sapir…………………………………………………………………………………. 11
C. Leonard Bloomfield……………………………………………………………………….. 11
1. Immediate Constituent Analysis…………………………………………………. 11
2. Weaknesses of ICA……………………………………………………………………… 12
Unit 3. Post-Bloomfieldianism............................................................................... 14
I.Tagmemics................................................................................................ 14
II. Systemic Grammar (Neo-Firthian linguistics)......................................... 15
III. Stratificational Grammar....................................................................... 15
IV. Distributionalism ……………………………………………………………………………… 16
Section Two: Linguistics in the 1960s……………………………………………………………… 17
Unit 4: Origins of Transformational generative grammar (TGG)……………………….. 17
I. Noam Chomsky and TGG......................................................................... 17
II. Criticism of Structural Linguistics........................................................... 17
A. Corpus Analysis................................................................................... 17
B. Surface Analysis ................................................................................. 18
C. The Behaviourist Attitude .................................................................. 18
D. Languages Diversity............................................................................ 19
Unit 5: Key Concepts in TGG……………………………………………………………………………… 20
I. Competence and Performance ............................................................... 20
II. Deep structure and Surface Structure ................................................... 21
III. The Mentalist Attitude ......................................................................... 21
IV. Language Universals ............................................................................. 22
V. Chomsky’s Definitions of Language and Grammar ............................... 22
Unit 6: Methodology of TGG……………………………………………………………………………. 24
I. The Classical Theory (1957)..................................................................... 24
II. The Standard Theory (1965)................................................................... 26

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Unit 7: Recent Developments and Criticism of TGG.............................................. 31

I. Recent Developments.............................................................................. 31
II. Criticism of Transformationalism............................................................ 31
A. Generative Semantics.......................................................................... 31
B. Case Grammar……………………………………………………………………….......... 32
Section Three: Interdisciplinary Fields of Linguistics………………………………………. 34
Unit 8: Introduction to Sociolinguistics ................................................................. 34
I. Scope of Sociolinguistics ......................................................................... 34
II. Branches of Sociolinguistics .................................................................. 34
III. Aspects of the Relationship between Language and Society ............... 35
A. The Physical Environment …………………………………………………………….. 35
B. The Social Environment ………………………………………………………………… 35
C. Social Values …………………………………………………………………………………. 36
Unit 9: Redefining Competence............................................................................. 38
I. Communicative Competence................................................................... 38
II. Components of Communicative Competence........................................ 39
A. Linguistic Competence........................................................................ 39
B. Sociolinguistic (pragmatic) Competence............................................. 39
C. Discourse Competence........................................................................ 39
D. Strategic Competence......................................................................... 40
III. The Ethnography of Speaking.................................................................. 40
IV. Components of Speech Events ............................................................... 41
Unit 10: The Speech Act Theory……………………………………………………………………….. 42
I. Speech Acts………………………………………………………………………………………….. 42
II. Levels of Speech Acts………………………………………………………………………….. 42
III. Classification of Speech Acts………………………………………………………………. 43
Unit 11: Introduction to Psycholinguistics............................................................. 44
I. Definition.................................................................................................... 44
II. History....................................................................................................... 44
III. First language acquisition........................................................................ 44
IV. Second Language Acquisition.................................................................. 45
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 46

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General Introduction

The study of language has held the interest of scholars in various civilizations and
along centuries. A bulk of accumulating knowledge on language issues has been given the
name “traditional grammar” on account of its being non-scientific in perspective.
Kaleidoscopic in nature, traditional grammar was an amalgam of approaches dating back
to the 4th century BC and continuing till the late 19th century. At the outset of the 20th
century, the study of language took a new direction as scholars of the time recognized the
limitations of traditional grammar. The outcome was the emergence of linguistic science
or linguistics. Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Its aim is to provide systematic
methods for analysing and describing languages. It is a science in the sense that it
analyses its material, namely language_ spoken or written, and makes general statements
that encapsulate the unbounded range of phenomena that fall within the scope of
language and relate them to rules and regularities. Like all sciences, linguistics has
undergone several changes. The models or grammars proposed about language, one
after the other, add more insights about language and try to give it a more adequate
description, that which reflects a native speaker’s knowledge of it.
The conception of language and its elements had changed as linguistics evolved.
The early linguistic theory was predominantly structural in approach, highlighting
especially a non-historical, descriptive treatment of language systems. Indeed,
structuralism, applied to the field of language, was the point of departure of modern
linguistic theory. The pioneering ideas of structuralists both in Europe and in America had
widespread repercussions in the first half of the century. It was not until the 1960s that
structuralist thoughts were scrutinized essentially due to their over-concentration on the
formal treatment of language, neglecting every non-observable aspect. Growing out of
dissatisfaction with these structuralist ideas, linguistic innovations started to take place in
the late 1960s. Transformational generative grammar, led by Noam Chomsky,
reconsidered the place of meaning in linguistics and went beyond the visible facets of the
sentence postulating the existence of underlying structures of a sentence other than its
surface. Again, the Chomskyian ground-breaking framework was called into question by
scholars who, on the one hand, sought to alter the syntax-based account of language
and, on the other, attempted to broaden the scope of linguistic description beyond
linguistics to involve related disciplines in which language has a prominent position. The
multi-disciplinarity of such fields as sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics assisted linguists
to account for a number of facets in language whose description could not be done within
linguistics alone.

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Section One: Structural Linguistics

Unit 1: European Structuralism

Introduction

The theory we now call structuralism is not confined to a single discipline. In

essence all structuralism revolves around the concept of system, seen as the whole, and
the internal contrasts within it. Structuralist ideas in linguistics have developed in Europe
and America concurrently and autonomously at the beginning of the 20th century. The
two variants were different in many ways because each had its own history and
precursors. Linguistic work in Europe had a very long tradition. It was conducted on
written, already studied languages; while in America, it was the by-product of
anthropologists’ interest in learning about the native Amerindian vanishing tribes’
languages, which have never been described before and whose nature required the
description of language from a fresh angle. In spite of such a disparity, they shared the
conception of considering language a system and used descriptive tools in their analysis.

I. Ferdinand de Saussure

Structural linguistics in Europe was initiated with the publication of Cours de

Linguistique Générale of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857- 1913). The book
was edited and published by his students in 1916. It presents a series of lectures that
Saussure gave in Geneva. It was a novelty in linguistic thinking during the 1920s and
1930s. Despite being originally a comparative philologist himself, Ferdinand de Saussure
is considered the founder of structuralism. Saussure’s work was principally non-historical
and descriptive. This linguist is well distinguished for his view of language and for his dual
concepts presented in the form of dichotomies, which have become a tradition when
discussing Saussure’s theory.

A. Saussure’s View of Language

Prior to the 20th century, linguists took an atomistic view of language: it was seen
as a compilation of individual elements, for instance, speech sounds, words and
grammatical endings. This was an item-centred analysis. Ferdinand de Saussure put
forward a very different view where language is seen as structured system of relation
oppositions. In structuralism, units (sounds, morphemes, sentences, meanings . . .) can be
defined only by reference to their relationships to the other units in the same language.
They are mutually defining entities. They derive their identity from their
interrelationships. Every unit is a point in a structure, and it has no significance by itself.

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x x x x

x x x

x x x
Atomistic view (collection of individual items) Structural view (network of relations)
XXxXxx
The structural view of language

B. Saussure’s Dichotomies

Various theoretical dichotomies can be extracted from Saussure’s work. This has
become a tradition. He made a clear distinction between several new concepts:
langue/parole, syntagmatic/paradigmatic relationships, synchronic/diachronic studies
and signifier/signified.

Syntagmatic relationships exist between items in a sequence. They are also called linear,
co-occurrence, sequential or horizontal relations. By contrast, paradigmatic relationships
hold between existing items and other items in the same language that can take the same
position in the sequence: between actual elements and their substitutes. Taken together,
all elements form a class, a system. These relationships are also called associative,
substitution, vertical relationships. According to Saussure, language, then, has a two-
dimensional structure.

Contrary to the entirely historical view of language of the earlier hundred years,
Saussure emphasised the value of seeing language from two dissimilar views, which he
called synchronic and diachronic. A synchronic approach to language studies investigates
the state of language at a particular phase of its development without allusion to its
history. Saussure referred to this state as an état de langue. In order to study this,
linguists will collect samples of language within a fixed period, describing them not
considering any historical factor which might have influenced the state of language up to
that time. The time factor is irrelevant. A diachronic approach, in contrast, is the study of
the history of a language, focussing on language change in pronunciation, grammar or
vocabulary. This approach deals with the never ending successions of language states. A
diachronic study presupposes a synchronic study. Saussure emphasised that modern
linguistics should be synchronic in perspective.

state
past
state 1
state 2
3
Present
Synchronic Vs. Diachronic studies

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Saussure distinguished between three main senses of language, and then he

emphasized two of them. He sees that langage is composed of two aspects langue and
parole. These terms have obtained a wide approval in modern linguistics, without any
specific translations in European languages. Langage is the hereditary propensity of
human speech present in all normal human beings. For its correct development, it needs
the appropriate environmental prompts. It is a natural bequest distinguishing the human
species. Langue refers to the abstract system shared by all the speakers of the same
language, like English, Arabic, French, etc. It is an underlying system of abstract rules of
lexicon, grammar and phonology which is implanted in each individual’s mind resulting
from his nurture in a given speech community. Being peculiar to the speech community,
langue is something which the individual can make use of but cannot influence by
himself. It has a social nature according to Saussure. Parole refers to the real speech of
the individual, an instance of the use of system. It is the concrete side of language.
According to Saussure, it is langue that should be the primary concern of the linguist.

One of the concepts introduced by Saussure in his linguistic theory is the linguistic
sign. He regards langue as a system of arbitrary signs. First, he defines the sign as a
relationship between two equally participating characteristics: the signifié (signified) and
the signifiant (signifier). The first refers to an idea or a concept, the second to a form or
an acoustic image. The sign is a meaningful entity, and it is the basic unit of
communication. Arbitrariness of the linguistic sign means that there is no inherent or
inevitable link between the signifier and the signified: it is a matter of convention within a
speech community.

II. Structural Schools in Europe

Structuralist ideas have gained a wide recognition in Europe following Saussure’s

death. Many linguistic schools in Europe promoted structuralism, especially in Geneva,
Prague, London, Copenhagen and France. These schools have subjected Saussure’s ideas
to extension as well as criticism. Important in these works is the linguists’ attempt to
build on the model laid down by Saussure himself.

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School Main figures Areas of interest

Geneva School - Charles Bally - Langue/parole opposition
- Albert Sechehaye - Relationships of linguistics with
- Henri Frei psychology and sociology
- Revisiting syntagmatic and paradigmatic
relationships

Prague school - Vilém Mathesius - Phonology, phonemes, distinctive

- Serge Karcevskij features
- Roman Jakobson - Criticism of synchronic/ diachronic
- Nikolaj S. Trubeckoj dichotomy

Copenhagen - Viggo Brøndal - Relationship between language and logic

School - Louis Hjelmslev - Glossematics
- Extending langue/parole dichotomy

French - Émile Benveniste - Remarks on the notion of arbitrariness

structuralism - Andre Martinet - Functional view of language

London School - Gustave Guillaume - Modification to langue/parole

- Lucien Tesnière dichotomy
- Daniel Jones - Theory of valency in syntax
- John R. Firth - The physical definition of phoneme
- R. H. Robins - Relationship between language and
- M. A. K. Halliday context (prosodic phonology)

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Unit 2: American Structuralism

Introduction
It is agreed upon that the American linguistic studies emerged from the institutes
of anthropology rather than from the institutes of languages. The American scholars were
anthropologists who developed structural ideas far away from European work. They
worked on existing languages, the Amerindian languages. Field work techniques of
anthropologists characterized their approach. These languages did not have written
records or previous descriptions_as opposed to the European languages. Therefore, their
historical aspects were discarded. The Amerindian languages were very different from the
European ones. Thus, American structuralists, avoiding the prescriptive attitude, were in
need to develop fresh descriptive frameworks fitting these languages’ actual features.
American work emphasised the uniqueness of each language’s structure, similar to the
European tradition. The leading figures of the American structural studies were Franz
Boas, Edward Sapir, and Leonard Bloomfield.

I. Features of American Structuralism

In order to avoid the dangers implicit in traditional grammar, American linguists

had the following aims:
 To describe current spoken language, not dead languages;
 To focus on language form as a sole objective, thus neglecting meaning to a
subordinate place;
 To perform the description of language using an organized, unprejudiced and
meticulous method which allows the analyst to extract the grammar of a language
from a corpus of recorded data in a quasi- mechanical way following four steps:
a) Field recordings of a corpus of data;
b) Segmentation of the utterances of the corpus at different levels: phoneme,
morpheme, word, group, clause and sentence;
c) Listing an inventory of forms thus obtained from each level and stating the
distribution (possible environment) of the forms;
d) Classifying the forms (by giving them names) and utterances of the language
being studied.
Only such an essentially classificatory method could enable them, it was thought, to
concentrate systematically without any predetermined framework, on the unique
structure of the language under examination.

II. American Structuralists

A. Franz Boas (1859–1942)

Boas was the leading figure in anthropological work in early 20th century.
Interested in describing the Amerindian cultures, particularly American Northwest ones,

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Boas focused on languages because they represented the best channel for classifying the
aboriginal cultures. He objected to the use of grammatical categories of the Indo-
European languages in describing Native American languages. For him, such a tradition
would distort the features of these languages. The most important publication of Franz
Boas was the Handbook of American Indian Languages (1911–1941).

B. Edward Sapir (1884–1939)

Edward Sapir was one of the students of Franz Boas. He was himself an
anthropologist and a linguist at the same time. His important publication was his book
Language (1921). Adopting a descriptive approach, he studied, together with Boas, a
number of Amerindian disappearing languages. By and large, Sapir’s approach to
language was based on the exploration of the relations with literature, music,
anthropology and psychology. His outlooks on language insist on its impact on every part
of human life.

Sapir is well-known for a theory called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (also relativity,
determinism, Humboldtism, or Whorfian Hypothesis). Developed after his death in the
1950s, it was the product of the beliefs of both Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-
1941) on the relationship of language to thought. According to the strong version of the
theory, our vision of the world is heavily determined by our language: the grammatical
structures of a language shape its speakers’ perception of the world. Much criticism was
levelled at the Sapir and Whorf hypothesis; for example, translating between languages is
possible, and this process does not impose a change in world view. On that basis, a
weaker version of the hypothesis appeared, stating that language influences thought.

C. Leonard Bloomfield (1887–1949)

Leonard Bloomfield is the father of modern American linguistics. His masterpiece

in linguistic studies Language (1933), established the track of the scientific study of
language in the United States till the early 1950s. Crucial in Bloomfield’s work was his
influence by behaviouristic psychology, which rejects all that is non-physical or non-
observable in search of being empiricist in approach. He conceived of language basically
as couples of stimuli and responses. Bloomfield maintained that language should be
studied like a natural science. Most importantly, he made influential contributions to the
development of vigorous tools for the analysis of language.

1. Immediate Constituent Analysis (ICA)

In addition to his remarkable contribution to the fields of phonology and

morphology, Bloomfield’s name is usually attached to a pioneering syntactic theory called
immediate constituent analysis (ICA). Basically, ICA is an explicit method of analysing
sentences grammatically by dividing them into their component parts. It is structural in
nature because it no longer considers a sentence as a sequence or string of isolated

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elements, but it is made up of layers of groups or constituents. A constituent is a group of

words or morphemes with closer relationships between one another than between the
elements of the other groups or constituents within the same sentence. The constituent
is part of a larger unit.

The methodology of ICA consists in splitting a sentence up into two immediate

constituents, which are analysable into further constituents. This process of
segmentation continues until the smallest indivisible units, the morphemes, are reached.
The latter are called the ultimate constituents, and each is given an identifying label. As a
principle, the partition in ICA is binary. Let us take Bloomfield’s classical example “Poor
John ran away”. To show divisions in this sentence, it is possible to use two ways:

- Bracketing

( ( ( poor) (John) ) ( (ran) (away) ) )

123 3 3 32 23 3 3 321

- Tree diagram

1. Poor John ran away layer 1

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Poor John ran away layer 2

layer 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Poor John ran away

adj N V particle layer 3
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to ICA, a sentence is not seen a string of elements but it is made up of layers of
constituents (or nodes). Thus, constituent structure is hierarchical.

2. Weaknesses of ICA

In spite of its popularity and scientific rigour, ICA was shown to involve inherent
limitations because as a model of language description, its descriptive framework did not
cover all the aspects of language that constitute the knowledge of a native speaker, and it
contained some analytical inconsistencies. The main weaknesses for which this analysis is
reprimanded are the following:
a) In some sentences, it is not always clear where the division should be;
b) ICA does not indicate the role or function of constituents as they are not labelled.
When parsing is done, some implied grammatical information is included
(circularity of argument);

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c) In ICA division is arbitrarily binary, while some sentences may have alternative
analyses;
d) The analysis in ICA does not go beyond the morpheme;
e) Because it focuses only on the surface of the sentence (formal properties), ICA
cannot show the syntactic relationship between sentences which are superficially
different (active/passive, positive/negative) and fails to show the differences
between sentences which are superficially similar;
f) ICA cannot handle lexical and syntactic ambiguity in the sentence;
g) ICA does not demonstrate how to form new sentences;
h) ICA cannot handle sentences with discontinuous elements;
i) ICA cannot handle complex sentences.

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Unit 3: Post-Bloomfieldianism

Introduction

Many scholars believed that linguistic science had reached at Bloomfield’s time a
plateau of immovability and unquestioned fundamentals. Nevertheless, a number of new
developments have taken place in the subject involving grammar, phonology, semantics
and other aspects of linguistics. Bloomfield’s successors, in the 1940s and 1950s, took his
ideas to extremes in developing American structuralism. The Post-Bloomfieldian era was
an era of a very rapid change both in theory and methods. Most of the theories are
developments that stemmed from dissatisfaction felt about some aspects of the
previously acknowledged model. Indeed, they started from their acquaintance with
“Bloomfieldian” linguistics by either refutation or adjustment of its principles. The main
approaches of the post-Bloomfieldian era are the following.

I. Tagmemics

It is a system of analysis developed by Kenneth Pike (1912–2000) in the 1950’s.

This theory tried to get away from the over-concentration of Bloomfieldians on classes at
the expense of functions. The theory focuses on the need to relate linguistic forms and
functions. Pike developed the notion of tagmeme: a conceptual unit which combines two
ideas, which had previously been disassociated, i.e. class (V, VP, N, NP, Adj, Adv,..) and
function (subject, predicate, object, complement, head, predicator, modifier. . .).

Tagmeme = place + class

(slot) + (filler)

function + form
A sentence is analysed into a sequence of tagmemes, each of which simultaneously
provides information about the class to which it belongs and the item’s function in a
higher structure. The tagmeme is symbolised as follows:

Symbol representing function : symbol representing the class of the filler

Example:
“John kicked the ball” can be analysed as follows: Sent = S: NP + P : V + O : NP

Word structures, phrases, and clauses are also dealt with in terms of tagmemes. Different
sizes of units and tagmemes are called levels, a key notion in this theory. It is said that
tagmemics is a “reaffirmation of function in a structuralist context”.

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II. Systemic Grammar (Neo-Firthian linguistics)

The theory was presented in The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching (1964)
by M.A.K Halliday. He was one of the disciples of the British Professor of general
linguistics J. R. Firth (1890-1960), known for his theories of “context of situation”. In its
essential formulation, the theory was called scale and category grammar. Later in its
modified model in the 1970’s it was called systemic grammar. Halliday used the
categories of structure, system, unit, and class, as well as three scales (rank, delicacy, and
exponency) that connected the categories with one another and with the data. The
systemic grammarians’ view of language is that language has three levels: (1) substance,
(2) form, and (3) situation. The units in language are arranged in ranks. Meaning is
included in the analysis, and it is stated in the context of situation.

Situation (extra-
Form linguistic
Substance
phenomena)
phonology / meaning is
orthography stated in the
Phonic Lexis context of situation
graphic Grammar
III. Stratificational Grammar
(vocab)
The theory was formulated (structures)
by the American linguist S.M. Lamb (b. 1929) in the
late 1950’s. It views language as a system of related layers (strata) or ranks of a sentence.
So, language is a hierarchical system. Language is thought to have four strata:
semotactics, lexotactics, morphotactics, and phonotactics. Stratificational grammar aims
at giving a clarification of all kinds of linguistic processes, i.e., concerning both
competence and performance: it shows, therefore, a “cognitive” approach that separates
it from classical post-Bloomfieldian theories and makes it closer to generative grammar,
even though it is very different from it both in doctrines and methodology.

Criticism:

i. The three deal only with simple sentences,

ii. All three are classificatory: concerned with identifying, classifying and naming
linguistic units,
iii. These approaches, in addition to ICA, are formal. They consider only the surface of the
sentence, neglecting the deep structures,
iv. Some of these theories include meaning in the analysis. Meaning is important because
language is a meaningful activity,
v. Neo-Firthian linguistics takes a broad view of language, even larger than TGG because
it includes the situational context into the analysis.

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IV. Distributionalism

Distributionalism is a branch of American structuralism developed in the 1940s

and 1950s. Its goal is an experimentally verifiable, objective description of the relations
inherent in the systems of individual languages, excluding all subjective and semantic
factors. The notion of distribution is a central feature of American work. It was introduced
by Zellig S. Harris in his book Methods in Structural Linguistics (1951). In fact, Harris
developed Bloomfieldianism to its extremes, and paved the way for the appearance of
transformational generative grammar, being Chomsky’s teacher.
The structure of each individual language can be described by means of
experimental methods, the so-called discovery procedures, in which essentially two
analytical steps are applied: (a) segmentation of the material through substitution. i.e.
through paradigmatic interchangeability of elements having the same function
(paradigm); and (b) classification of elements as phonemes, morphemes, among others,
on the basis of their distribution and environment in the sentence.
Distribution is the number of possible environments (contexts or positions) in
which a particular linguistic item (phoneme, morpheme, phrase, and clause) can occur in
a given language. Every item has specific distributional properties. The following types of
distribution can be distinguished:
 Equivalent distribution: when elements occur in identical environment either in (i)
free variation without distinguishing meaning, (e.g. in the alternation of [i:] and
[ay] in either) or in (ii) contrastive distribution distinguishing meaning (e.g. initial
/g/, /k/, /t/ in game, came, tame)
 Partially equivalent distribution: two elements occur largely, but not exclusively,
in the same environment, in which either (i) the distribution of one element
includes that of the other, e.g. the distribution of the velar plosives /k/ and /g/
includes that of the velar nasal /ŋ/ since the first two occur word-medially and
word-finally, while the last one does not occur word-initially; or (ii)the distribution
of two elements overlaps (also: partially complementary), /h/ and /ŋ/ both of
which occur word-medially (inherent, angle), while only /h/ occurs word-initially
(heart) and only /ŋ/ occurs word-finally (song).
 Complementary distribution: two elements never occur in the same environment,
e.g. [t] and [th] are said to be in a relation of complementary distribution since the
latter does not occur after word-initial /s/.

Distribution is used to determine and define different basic linguistic elements:

equivalent distribution uncovers phonemes functioning as distinguishers of meaning,
while complementary distribution uncovers allophones and allomorphs, among others.

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Section Two: Linguistics in the 1960s

Unit 4: Origins of Transformational Generative Grammar

Introduction

From the late 1950s onwards, structural linguistics has sometimes been used with
less popularity because supporters of generative linguistics initiated by Noam Chomsky
have regarded the work of American structuralists as too limited in conception. They have
argued that it is essential to go further than the position of items to produce a grammar
which reflects a native speaker’s knowledge of language.

I. Noam Chomsky and TGG

Transformational Generative Grammar (also TG grammar, TGG) is a theory of

grammar which attempted to provide a model for the description of all languages. It was
launched and dominated by Avram Noam Chomsky (b. 1928), and it may be said to have
officially begun with the publication of his book Syntactic Structures in 1957 (the classical
theory) though some of the theory had been prefigured a few years before in
introductory papers by Chomsky as well as in articles by Zellig Harris. Chomsky’s early
work falls into two related points:
1. Criticism of structuralism
2. New formulation of linguistic theory

Chomsky has considerably modified his ideas since 1957. Undeniably, the best known
theoretical position is that of Aspects of the theory of Syntax (written in 1965) or the
Aspects Model, a position that Chomsky himself has called the Standard Theory. It is, in
fact, the most recognized version of the theory since it added important considerations to
the study of language. TGG was revolutionary and it is, undoubtedly, the most forceful
and prominent in the century. No linguist who wishes to keep track of contemporary
developments in the field can afford to overlook Chomsky’s theoretical contributions.

II. Criticism of Structuralism

For Chomsky, structural linguistics involved some weaknesses in conceptions and

in methodology.

A. Corpus Analysis

For American structuralists, an empirical science studies only observable

phenomena. For descriptive purposes, a language was defined in terms of a corpus. A
linguistic corpus has a level of phonological structure, a level of morphological structure
and a level of syntactic structure. They believed that when all elements of the corpus
were grouped and labelled at each level, the grammar of the language was complete.

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Structural grammars offer an inventory of forms and constructions which appear in a

limited corpus; they do not provide the rules needed to construct an endless range of
possible grammatical sentences. For Chomsky, a corpus can never represent the whole
language, but will only cover an incomplete and a selective sample of it because language
is infinite and creative in nature. TGG supporters suggest that instead of describing a
corpus, a linguist can arrive at an inclusive grammar of language by describing its
underlying system of rules, which is not contained within the corpus, but lies beyond it, in
the minds of the speakers. The study of this system is more important than the study of
the actual sentences.

B. Surface Analysis (taxonomic analysis)

Structural grammars only describe the surface structure of sentences. They cannot
effectively handle important grammatical facts (which are part of a native speaker’s
knowledge of language), like the relationship between active and passive sentences,
positive, negative and interrogative sentences, and the deep dissimilarities that exist
between superficially identical sentences. The following sentences are seen to be
structurally similar if their analysis considers only their surface layer, but if another layer
is considered, they would be revealed to be dissimilar.

Examples

- John is eager to please.

- John is easy to please.

- Pierre a conseillé à Jean de consulter un spécialiste.

- Pierre a promis à Jean de consulter un spécialiste.

Chomsky and others criticized structuralist and post-Bloomfieldian theories as a whole as

being based on a representation of a sentence in terms of surface structure alone. Such
approaches are unsuccessful in distinguishing the surface from the underlying structures
of a sentence.

C. The Behaviourist Attitude

Bloomfieldians were influenced by behaviourism. Behaviourism is a psychological

theory of learning which takes into account only visible facts, excluding concepts like
“mind”, “ideas” and so on. For behaviourists, learning a language is similar to learning any
other behaviour (to walk, to eat, to write . . .). It is a mechanical process based on habit
formation. Learning is controlled by an external factor (a stimulus) which produces a
response. This response is learnt when it is repeated and positively reinforced. This
process is called conditioning. Language is learnt just by imitation of previously heard
language, and the learner is passive when doing this. Chomsky had been the opponent of

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behaviourism. He tried to show the unproductiveness of this view and the

inappropriateness of its terminology to the acquisition and use of human language.

D. Languages’ Diversity

Bloomfield and his followers emphasised the structural diversity of languages

following Boas . They tended to overstate the divergences between languages and have
placed excessive accent on the principle that every language is a unique law. To arrive at a
complete understanding of each language’s structure, a linguist adopts a descriptive
approach to the data.

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Unit 5: Key Concepts in TGG

Introduction

The criticism of structuralism laid the basic foundations of TGG, causing modern
linguistics to make a colossal footstep in the course of its development. TGG involved
certain new concepts about language as a reality and about the way it should be
analysed.

I. Competence and Performance

Chomsky's objection to analyses of corpora is based on the distinction that he

draws between two concepts: competence and performance.
Competence refers to a person's internalised grammar (knowledge) of his
language. This means a native speaker's ability to produce and understand sentences,
including sentences they have never heard before. It also includes a person's knowledge
of what are and what are not sentences of a particular language. So, it is the code which
underlies all utterances in a given language. A speaker's linguistic competence enables
him to produce only grammatical and well-pronounced sentences, and to avoid the
generation of ungrammatical and mispronounced sentences, and to recognise whether
sentences are synonymous, ambiguous, simple, complex, etc. For Chomsky, linguistics
should be concerned with competence. The latter is purely linguistic.

Competence is a linguistic code

(set of rules)

This is similar to Saussure's concept of langue, but Saussure stressed the social aspect of
langue (the collective shared knowledge), whereas Chomsky stressed the individual
nature of competence: He sees it as a set of processes possessed by the individual and
developed in him as part of his maturation. “Langue” is extracted from utterances after
they were produced, but “competence” is the system which creates sentences never
heard before.
Performance, on the other hand, refers to the realisation of this code in actual
situations. It is the person's concrete use of language in producing and understanding
sentences. Performance represents only a small sample of the utterances of language and
is influenced by external non-linguistic factors such as lapses of memory, lapses of
attention, malfunctioning of the mechanisms related to speech, stress, fatigue, noisy
surroundings and so on. As a result, a speaker may produce false starts, changes of plan in
mid-course, restructuring of what the speaker wants to say, etc.

Performance is the use of the

code in actual situations.

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For Chomsky, “performance” is not the object of study in linguistics (but

psychology). For Saussure, however, “parole” does provide the data from which
statements about “langue” can be made.

II. Deep Structure and Surface Structure

Chomsky, rejecting the formal analysis of sentences, distinguishes two levels of

syntactic struucture in a sentence: the surface structure and the deep structure. The
surface structure (SS) is the syntactic structure of the sentence which a person speaks or
hears: it is the observable form of the sentence. Chomsky argues that any analysis based
on the surface structure encounters difficulties. Therefore, another level of sentence
structure should be taken into account. The deep structure (DS) is much more abstract
and is considered to be in the speaker's mind. It refers to certain important
generalisations about the structure of the sentence which are different from its surface.
The deep structure contains all the syntactic information needed for the understanding of
a given sentence. The deep structure is converted into a surface structure after the
application of a specific kind of rules called transformational rules (TRs).

DS TRs SS
Examples
_ John is eager to please. (I)
_ John is easy to please. (II)

In the deep structures of these two sentences, it is clear that “John” is either the subject
of pleasing or its object.

This distinction between surface and deep syntax became a major dichotomy in
TGG, and, for many people, it is the main difference between the old and new
approaches to syntax. For Chomsky, grammar is not confined to formal description but it
should incorporate the internal processes that take place in the speaker's mind.

III. The Mentalist Attitude

According to Chomsky, language is creative and behaviourism is totally unable to

explain creativity. He argues that the comparison of the sentences a speaker has heard
(the input) with the sentences a speaker produces (the output) shows differences
between them. That is to say, the output contains sentences the speaker has never heard
before. On the basis of this evidence, one can deduce that there is “something” between
the input and the output. Chomsky calls it the language acquisition device (LAD)

Input LAD output

The LAD is an inborn capacity (a genetic mechanism or apparatus) which is present in the
brain right from the beginning and which enables children (by the age of 3 to 4) to extract
the rules of language from speech when they are exposed to it and to use them

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productively. Animals do not possess this capacity. For this reason, their learning of
language-like behaviour stops at a definite stage even if they are exposed to it.

Language acquisition takes place not as a result of imitation (stimulus + response)

but as a result of the functioning of the LAD. In fact, what happens is that the child, when
exposed to adult language, tries mentally to form hypotheses about its rules, then he
tests the validity of these rules continuously and adapts them until he internally masters
the abstract system of rules that adults have as part of their competence. So, language
acquisition is part of the maturational process.

A set of
abstract
Input rules

……….
Competence 1 2 3 4 5 ……… final Competence (adults' system)

Functioning of the LAD

(Creative construction/ testing hypotheses)

This view about language learning is called mentalism. It is based on the premise
that human beings possess minds.
IV. Language Universals

Chomsky sees that linguistic theory should be concerned with linguistic universals,
i.e with the common characteristics between human languages. According to him, the
deep structure is common, and languages differ only at the level of transformational rules
which produce different surfaces.

V. Chomsky's Definitions of Language and Grammar

For Chomsky, "A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in
length and constructed out of a finite set of elements."(Syntactic Structures, p.13). This
definition concerns all languages (natural and man-made). It implies the following points:
 Language is a collection of the infinite number of possible sentences.
 Every sentence is finite in length.
 Every sentence is made up of elements that can be collected in a set, and that
can be counted (sounds, morphemes and words)
 Language is defined in terms of “sentences”

Language is a creative, dynamic

force, capable of making infinite
use of finite means
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Grammar is defined as "a device which generates all and only the grammatical
sentences of a language." This definition implies the following points:
 The sentence is the basic unit to be described by grammar.
 A grammar generates sentences. That is to say, it produces an infinite number of
sentences out of precisely specified rules. (A word taken from maths = to
“generate” is to act as a base of a given set
 The rules of generative grammar represent knowledge.
 A grammar generates “all and only” the grammatical (intuitively accepted as well-
formed) sentences of a language. That is to say, grammar should be able to
generate all possible grammatical sentences of the language, and it excludes the
ungrammatical (ill-formed) ones.

Grammaticality is the most

important thing in the description
of sentences.

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Unit 6: The Methodology of TGG

Introduction

The description of sentences in TGG is based on the operation of several types of

rules which constitute the components of grammar. It is important to note that there are
differences between the two versions of TGG, the Classical Theory of 1957 and the
Standard Theory of 1965, in the types, the number, the status and the order of
components.

I. The Classical Theory

In this version, grammar consisted of three components:

1. The phrase structure component ( consists of phrase structure rules)
2. The transformational component ( consists of transformational rules)
3. The morphophonemic component (consists of morphophonemic rules)
The following diagram shows how the grammar outlined in this version was organised:
1 2 3
Initial Phrase Transformational Morphophonemic
structure component Phonemic
element S component
representations
component
of sentences

nt
A.(S)Phrase Structure Rules

Phrase structure rules (rewriting rules) expand the sentence (S), the largest unit of
grammar into smaller units. They show the internal grammatical structures of
constituents using symbols. There is always one symbol to the left of the arrow. The
arrow means: “is to be rewritten as” and it has one direction. Each symbol represents a
constituent. Some of these rules are categorical (they translate abstract elements into
other abstract elements); others are lexical (they translate the abstract elements into
concrete vocabulary items. PS rules are ordered and each one is derived from some
previous one. It is possible to use a phrase marker (a diagrammatic representation) to
show PS rules. It is a tree diagram which has branches (lines) and nodes (dots). One node
above the other on a diagram dominates the lower node.

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S initial string

NP VP

NP

Art N V Art N terminal string

Rewriting rules for the verb element
The verb element can have its own rewriting rules:
(1) VP Aux + MV+…..
(2) Aux Tense + (Modal) + (have+ en) + (be+ ing)
(3)Tense past
present

Rule (1) indicates that the VP contains (an) auxiliary (s) and a main verb. Other elements
are possible depending on the pattern of sentences (SVO, SVC, SVOC, SVC…). The other
structures of VP are related to the type of verb used (transitive, intransitive, copular). So,
rule (1) can have the following forms:
VP Aux + MV + NP
VP Aux + MV + Adj
VP Aux + MV + NP + Adj

Rule (2) indicates that the auxiliary element contains:

- Tense (obligatory): English sentences must have a tense.
- A modal auxiliary (optional): English sentences can have mood)
- A perfect auxiliary (optional): English sentences can have a perfect aspect
expressed in the auxiliary “have” which needs a past participle morpheme “en”.
- A progressive auxiliary (English sentences can have a progressive aspect
expressed in the auxiliary “be” which needs a present participle morpheme
“ing”.

Rule (3) indicates that there are 2 tenses in English (present or past)

When rule (2) is used with rule (3) we can generate all possible combinations of auxiliaries
with ain verbs in all active declarative sentences in English.

B. Transformational Rules

Transformational rules operate on the output of PS rules: they depend on the

application of PS rules. Such rules do not involve the division of sentences into smaller
units, but the alteration or rearrangement of a structure in various ways. They convert

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one string into another, or we say they “derive” one structure from another and assign to
it another P-marker. TRs are more heterogeneous and more complex than PS rules. TRs
take the following form: A+B+C+D+E a+b+c+d+e (a string of elements appears on
the left of the arrow, and another on the right). TRs have many types.

 Affix hopping (affix shift/ flip-flop transformation)

This rule places affixes (endings/ inflections, like tense, en, ing )in the position to which
they belong
 Negative transformation
This rule places “not” after the tense and the first element of the auxiliary
 Yes-No question transformation
This rule takes the tense and the first element of the auxiliary and moves them to the
front of the string.
 Do-insertion transformation
This rule inserts “do” after tense in some negative and interrogative sentences.
 The contraction transformation
This rule attaches the contracted negative (n’t) to the element that proceeds “not”. It is
applied after affix hopping.
 The passive transformation
It changes the position of NPs, adds (be+en) before the main verb and it introduces “by”
in the surface structure before the second NP.
 The particle movement (permutation)
This rule changes the place of the particle in two-constituent verbs to the right of the
object.
 Indirect object movement
This rule changes the position of the indirect object to the end of sentence and inserts
“to” or “for” before it.
 The restrictive clause transformation.
This rule replaces the NP in the embedded sentence which is identical to an NP in the
matrix sentence by a relative pronoun and moves it to the front of S2
 The infinitive transformation
This rule changes S into a (to-infinitive)

C. Morphophonemic Rules

Morphophonemic rules are a set of rules that turn the symbols in terminal strings
(the abstract morphemes) into phonological representations of their actual spoken form
(strings of phonemes or actual phonetic sounds).

II. The Standard Theory

A. The Types of Components in this Model

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The Aspects grammar (the standard theory) was organized into three major
components: the syntactic, the phonological and the semantic. The syntactic component
has two components: the base and the transformational component. This organization
is outlined below:

A. Syntactic Component
(i) The Base
(a) PSG rules
(b) Lexicon (with rules of lexical insertion)
(ii) Transformational Component
B. Semantic Component
C. Phonological Component

In this model Chomsky added the Semantic component because meaning should have the
same formal treatment as syntax. Semantics was introduced as an essential part of the
grammatical analysis of a language.

B. The Relationship between the Components

It is possible to show the relationship between all these elements in the following
diagram:

Generative components

Base Transformational
Initial
component component
Element

Semantic Phonological
component component
Interpretive components

Meaning Sound

As shown in the diagram, the Syntactic Component is “generative” and the other
components are “interpretive”.

The Syntactic Component generates both a surface structure and a deep structure
for every sentence. How? The deep structure is the output of the Base rules of the

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Syntactic Component. The surface structure is the output of the Transformational rules of
the Syntactic Component. The Base Rules are similar to PS rules of the 1957 version. In
order to get the deep structure, The Base rules, in turn, use two types of rules: PS rules
and the Lexicon.
PS rules and the lexicon were combined in the 1957 version in the 1 st component
(PSG). This combination of two operations in the same component produced deviant
sentences because the individual rewriting rules could not indicate the restrictions on the
choice of words.
e. g. - John frightens sincerity*.
- Colourless green ideas sleep furiously*.
- The blue girl followed a paper in a young dress*.
Phrase structure rules state the basic combinations (structures) that are permissible (i.e.
they show which structures are grammatical and which are ungrammatical) using labels
like N, V, and NP… They turn symbols into other symbols (categorical).
When using words in sentences a native speaker's knowledge indicates that words
do not occur in the same syntactic contexts:
e. g. - John arrived
- John arrived Mary.* (no object needed)
- John ate fish.
- John takes.* (object needed)
Even words that are syntactically similar can have some restrictions according to their
meanings:
e.g. - John drinks water.
- John drinks bread.* (“drink” + liquid object)
- Sincerity admires John.* (“admire” + animate subject)
The verbs in these sentences have the same syntactic features (all are transitive), but
combine with different lexical items in each case.
The Lexicon inserts words from the appropriate syntactic and semantic categories
to the terminal strings of PS rules. The idea of breaking down word meaning into small
components (features / markers) was originally developed by Katz and Fodor (1963) in a
separate semantic theory. The Lexicon provides lexical entries (or a dictionary) for all the
lexical items in the language with all the information about them in the form of syntactic
and semantic features (Selectional Restrictions). There are two types of selectional
restrictions, introduced by Chomsky in the Aspects model, as part of the lexicon. It is
possible to show them in the following diagram:

Strict
subcategorisation indicate the syntactic contexts
st
1 type features (rules)
Lexicon

2nd type Selectional indicate the semantic contexts

features (rules)

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The deep structure is the output of the Base Component and the input to the
Semantic Component. The Semantic Component operates on the deep structure. It uses
what Katz and Fodor call projection rules, which interpret the meaning of each sentence.
Their role is to combine the meanings of the units of the strings in the tree diagram and
continue up the tree combining larger and larger units until the meaning of the entire
sentence is arrived at. They amalgamate the abstract markers of the individual items and
specify which set of markers goes with (or matches) which.

Examples:
- John admires sincerity. (Meaningful: the markers of {John} and the markers of
{admire} can be combined because they match each other.)
- Sincerity admires John. (Meaningless: The markers of {sincerity} and
the markers of {admire} cannot be combined because they do not
match each other.

The result of this process is an interpretation of the meaning of a sentence on the basis of
the meanings of the individual items. Interpretation takes place before transformation.
The use of this kind of rules will solve the problem of lexical ambiguity.

The Transformational Component changes the deep structure into a surface

structure by rearranging the elements of the DS (Similar to the 1957 version), and the
Phonological Component is equivalent to the Morphophonemic Component of 1957. The
Phonological Component takes the surface structure (the final rearranged morphemes) as
its input and produces a phonetic representation of the sentence. Obviously there is no
link between the phonological and semantic components. This explains the arbitrariness
of the linguistic sign.

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Summary

Ps rules
1
Syntactic The Base
Component

Lexicon

Semantic Meaning of
Deep structure the sentence
component

Tranformational
component

Surface Pronunciation
Phonological
structure of the
component sentence

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Unit 7: Recent Developments and Criticism of TGG

Introduction

The theory of language proposed by Noam Chomsky should not be thought of as a

non-changing model persisting till the present day. The innovations brought about by this
grammar of language are undeniably revolutionary, in the sense that language was
scrutinized from a radically different angle. Notwithstanding, Chomsky himself has
subjected his own model to successive changes and extensions. On the other hand,
several linguists have questioned his ideas and proposed alternative conceptions of
language.

I. Recent Developments

Chomsky has made several modifications to his own theory, producing the
Extended Standard Theory (in the early 1970s). By the late 1970s, another version called
the Revised Extended Standard Theory appeared. In 1981, Chomsky published Lectures
on Government and Binding in which he proposed a radically and a far more complex
theory called Government-and-Binding Theory (G.B). Finally, he put forward the
Minimalist Programme.

II. Criticism of Transformationalism

Much criticism was levelled at Chomsky's work. It was partly related to the way
sentence description was undertaken, particularly the syntactic and the semantic
components of TGG and the relationship between them; and partly related to the
adequacy of this theory to account for all the aspects of a native speaker's competence.
There are numerous critical accounts of TG theory, but focus will be laid on some points
only.
A. Generative Semantics

Generative semantics (developed by Lakoff, McCawley, Ross, Postal and others

around 1968) took as a point of departure the Standard Theory of Chomsky (1965), in
which a sentence was seen as organised syntactically on two chief levels: That of deep
structure and that of surface structure, and in which the syntactic component represents
the base (it generates sentences) while the semantic component has only an interpretive
role of what is already generated by the base.
The supporters of Generative Semantics propose that the roles of the syntactic
and semantic components should be reversed. The generative process should start by
producing strings of semantic clusters (which specify the semantic markers of individual
words and the semantic relations between them). The syntactic component has an
interpretative role. It operates on the output of the semantic component. The advantage

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of this reversal of roles is to account for similarities between sentences that are not
reflected in the deep structure.
e.g. - Harry sold the car to John.
- John bought the car from Harry;
To be able to show the similarity between these two sentences ( which TGG fails to
show), one has to start first with the analysis of the semantic features of the verbs “sell”
and “buy” ( they have a reciprocal relationship). For this theory, the speaker begins by
generating the basic semantic content of “what he wants to say”, only then he/she goes
on to cast it in an appropriate syntactic form. Chomsky regards this as a restatement of
TGG.

B. Case Grammar

Case Grammar is an influential grammatical analysis that emerged out of TGG (It is
a type of it). It was devised in the late 1960s by the US linguist Charles Fillmore (b. 1929).
Like generative semantics, case grammar considers semantic information prior to
syntactic information: Meanings are generated first, and these are correlated with
sentence structure via syntactic and other rules. This is shown in the following diagram:
Initial element

Semantic component (including a set of cases)

Transformational component

Surface structures
Example:
1. Johnagent opened the door with the key
Surface subjects (the deep relationship to
2. The keyinstrument opened the door. the verb is different)
3. The doorgoal opened.
4. John used the key to open the door.
5. It was the key that opened the door.
6. It was john who opened the door with the key.

In all these sentences, the NP “the key” has the same underlying functioninstrument despite
the various surface realisations (subject in (2), object in (3), complement in (5), and an
adverbial phrase in (1)). In (1) and (6), the phrase “John” is always the doer of the action
agent
despite the different surface (subject, complement).
It appears from these sentences and others that the functional relationships
between NPs and verbs are a good deal far more complex than what was suggested by
Chomsky. Function is independent of the syntactic information. In case grammar the verb
is regarded as the most important part of the sentence, and has a number of semantic
relationships with various noun phrases. These relationships are called cases. The
underlying structure of the sentence contains a verb and one or more unordered noun

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phrases, each noun phrase being associated to the verb in a particular case relationship.
For Fillmore, the cases of NPs form the deep structure (the base): they satellite the VP,
and their order is not important in their description. By applying transformations to them
they are shifted to get their surface positions. With this analysis we have moved from the
view that the base of a grammar is purely syntactic to the view that the base of grammar
is chiefly semantic, and it takes the form of cases.

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Section Three: Interdisciplinary Fields of Linguistics

Unit 8: Introduction to Sociolinguistics

Introduction

At the outset of the second half of the 20 th century, an increasing appreciation of

the interconnectedness between language and society has led to the expansion of a
relatively innovative sub-discipline within macro-linguistics, i.e. sociolinguistics. Before
that, much of linguistics had totally ignored such kind of relationship. Language is in fact a
social phenomenon. It is not an isolated phenomenon. A study of language without
reference to its social context unavoidably leads to the omission of some complex and
interesting aspects of language. Society may be seen as one of the variables along which
language changes. Because society is so complex a notion, the scope of sociolinguistics is
very wide-ranging.

I. Scope of Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is an interdisciplinary subject between linguistics and sociology. It

studies the way language interacts with society because linguistic and social problems are
closely related. Sociolinguistic research is thus work which is intended to achieve a better
understanding of human language by studying it in its social context. It includes a lot of
branches. Society is used in its widest sense to cover a spectrum of phenomena to do
with race, nationality, regional and political groups, social class, educational level, age,
sex, and the interaction of individuals within groups. Language use changes according to
these factors; thus sociolinguistics focuses on language change within society.

sociology linguistics

Sociolinguistics

II. Branches of Sociolinguistics

Linguists diverge as to what they incorporate under sociolinguistics. Many linguists

limit its scope to the detailed study of the micro-processes of interpersonal
communication. This view takes the individual in small intra-group interactions as its
centre of attention (speech acts, conversation analysis, speech events, sequencing of
utterances). This outlook shares areas of common interest with psychology. This is often
referred to as micro-sociolinguistics. It includes face-to-face interaction and conversation
analysis. The linguist takes into account the extra-linguistic factors, which were previously
excluded from linguistic investigation (gesture, spacial proximity, eye contact)

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Others extend sociolinguistics to interaction at the large inter-group level within

one society or between two societies. It relates variation in the language used by a group
of people to social factors (such as the study of language choice in bilingual or
multilingual communities, language planning, and language attitudes). These are referred
to as macro-sociolinguistics, or they are considered/ sociology of language. This view is
more sociological in perspective and has clear ties with sociology itself, economics,
anthropology and political science, depending on the nature, composition and size of the
group.

III. Aspects of the Relationship between Language and Society

The effect of society on language has three dimensions: the effect of the physical
environment, the effect of the social environment and the effect of social values.

A. The Physical Environment

The physical environment (geographical environment) in which a society lives is

reflected in language in the structure of its lexicon, the way in which distinctions are
made by means of single words. What is vital for survival is lexicalised. Lexical gaps are
filled up by paraphrasing when translating from one language into another. (e.g. red dates, fine
snow, small table, etc)

Examples:

 In Eskimo there several words which correspond to types of snow.

 Lapp languages of northern Scandinavia have many words associated with reindeer.
 Bedouin Arabic has a large camel vocabulary.
 Some dialects of Arabic in the south of Algeria have a large vocabulary associated
with dates
 There is a rich wheat vocabulary in regions where wheat is grown.
 There is a rich palm tree vocabulary in regions where palm tree parts are used to
make different things.

B. The Social Environment

The social environment (social organization or the way society is structured) can
also be reflected in language and can have an effect on the structure of vocabulary. What
is vital in the social structure is also lexicalized. If the structure of society changes, this
will be reflected in the words (some words may disappear). A good example is the
kinship system. Family relationships are reflected in kinship vocabulary. Kinship relations
are shown in language depending on many factors: respect, generation distance, social
function, etc.

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Examples

 English speaking societies use terms like: father, mother, son, daughter,
grandson, granddaughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, grandfather,
grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousin…
 Arabic-speaking societies: there are two distinct words for “paternal uncle” and
“maternal uncle”. This distinction is important in these societies.
 In Njamal language in Australia:
“mamma” is translated in English “ father”, “uncle”, “male cousin of parent” (all
males of the same generation having the same social function)
“maili” is translated in English “father’s father” or “ daughter's son's wife's sister”
(all members of the family who are 2 generations distant from the person either
up or down)
 In Algeria, the words “sidi” and “lalla” are used to refer to the eldest brother and
the eldest sister respectively. (This is related to respect)

Social values are reflected in some languages in the use of sexist language, that is
to say, language that is patronising or contemptuous towards one sex, usually women.
Sexist language has been under attack by feminist movements for several decades now.
There are attempts to eliminate it, for example , the use of words like “chairperson”,
“firefighter”, “letter carrier”, “human beings”, the use of pronouns like “they”, “their” ,or
even using “she” or “her”, to refer to both sexes. Some even tried to invent neutral
pronouns in English.

Examples

- In English, pronominalisation of some nouns like “person” is by the pronoun “he” not
“she”, even when addressing a mixed group.
- Another case is found in the asymmetrical function of these words: master / mistress,
courtier/ courtesan, bachelor / spinster
- The following words are male-oriented: postman, chairman, fireman, man (referring to
human beings)

C. Social Values

The values of society can have an effect on its language. You can learn a lot about
a society's values from the way language is used.There two phenomena in which social
values can be seen in language: Tabooism and religious expressions.

Taboo is the behaviour that is believed to be supernaturally forbidden, or

regarded as immoral or improper; it is strongly prohibited or inhibited for irrational
reasons. This is reflected in language in words or expressions which are not said. There
are inhibitions in their use. Taboo words have rules of use that everybody within the
speech community has to adhere to. Taboo words are offensive (insulting). They are a

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good reflection of the system of moral or religious values and beliefs of the society in
question. They differ from society to another. Taboo words are usually replaced by words
and expressions which are less shocking. These are called euphemisms: they are more
polite than some other words.

Some expressions in language show the importance of religion in society. Some

ways of addressing people also reflect the influence of religion. These words are not used
in other languages and cannot be translated.

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Unit 9: Redefining Competence

Introduction

An important innovation in sociolinguistic research was the redefinition of the

notion of competence. The notion of competence was reformulated by the American
linguist and anthropologist Dell Hymes in the late 1960s as a reaction to Chomsky’s view.
The shift occurred as a result of including the social variables in describing language.

I. Communicative Competence

Competence was defined by Chomsky as a person's internalised knowledge of

language, which enables him to produce only grammatical sentences and to avoid
ungrammatical ones. In this sense, competence is linguistic or grammatical. That is to
say, it is limited only to the rules for producing well-formed sentences (the internal rules
of language structure). When a person knows the formal linguistic rules, he is considered
“linguistically” competent.

However, if one observes how people actually use language, it is clear that some
linguistically correct sentences are not suitable for some contexts, and they cause failure
in communication. Similarly, certain incorrect sentences can be quite appropriate in a
given context.

e.g. - Hi, guy / Good morning sir

- His mother / his female parent
- I won’t go with you/ I’m afraid I can’t go with you
- Give me a pay rise / I was wondering if it is possible to give me a pay rise.

Sociolinguists observed that it is important to know also about how to use the
grammatical sentences appropriately in a particular context. In fact, in addition to rules of
grammar that indicate how to construct well-formed sentences, a native speaker
possesses another set of rules of use (speaking rules) which show how to use sentences
appropriately).

On the basis of this, the notion of competence was redefined to include social
context and its components as an essential element. So, sociolinguisticss, in the works of
Dell Hymes, extends the Chomskyan concept of “linguistic” competence to the concept of
communicative competence, which they define as the knowledge of how to use language
appropriately: what a speaker needs to know to communicate appropriately within a
particular speech community. Hymes was particularly critical of Chomsky’s idea of
linguistic competence and his failure to account for linguistic variation. For him, linguistic
competence will only produce a “social monster”. According to Hymes (1972),

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A normal child acquires knowledge of sentences, not only as grammatical,

but also as appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to
speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where,
in what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish a repertoire
of speech acts, to take part in speech events, and to evaluate their
accomplishment by others. (p. 277-8)

II. Components of Communicative Competence

Several models have been proposed to account for the components of

communicative competence. Recent academic and experimental research on
communicative competence is largely based on three models of communicative
competence: the model of Canale and Swain, the model of Bachman and Palmer and the
description of components of communicative language competence in the Common
European Framework (CEF). In Canale and Swain’s Model (in the 1980s), four
components are proposed.

A. Linguistic Competence

It is knowledge of the phonology, grammar and lexicon of the language.

Grammatical competence is mainly defined in terms of Chomsky’s linguistic competence.
It is concerned with mastery of the linguistic code (verbal or non-verbal) which includes
vocabulary knowledge as well as knowledge of morphological, syntactic, semantic,
phonetic and orthographic rules. This competence allows the speaker to use knowledge
and skills required for comprehension and production of the literal meaning of utterances.
B. Sociolinguistic (Pragmatic) Competence

It is the knowledge of the rules of speaking or the appropriateness rules. Along the
lines of Hymes’s principle of the appropriateness of language use in a range of social
situations, the sociolinguistic competence includes knowledge of rules and conventions
which lie beneath the suitable comprehension and language use in diverse sociolinguistic
and sociocultural contexts.

C. Discourse Competence

It is the knowledge of how to construct longer stretches of language

conversations, speeches, email messages, newspaper articles …) and how to understand
them as a coherent whole. Canale (1983, 1984) described discourse competence as
mastery of rules that determine ways in which forms and meanings are combined to
achieve a meaningful unity of spoken or written texts. The unity of a text is enabled by
cohesion in form and coherence in meaning.

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D. Strategic Competence

Strategic competence consists of knowing the verbal and non-verbal

communication strategies that are evoked to compensate for breakdowns in
communication due to insufficient competence in one or more components of
communicative competence. These strategies include paraphrase, circumlocution,
repetition, reluctance, avoidance of words, structures or themes, guessing, changes of
register and style or modifications of messages. This means how to recognise and repair
communication breakdowns, how to behave when you do not understand a word, how to
express oneself if one does not find a word, etc.

III. The Ethnography of Speaking (Communication)

Hymes proposes a kind of sociolinguistic analysis that he calls the ethnography of

speaking or the ethnography of communication. Its aim is to specify clearly how speech
forms differ according to social context in a given speech community. Having all such kind
of information in mind enables the speaker to use language appropriately in social
interaction within the speech community. The ultimate goal of this approach is to
formulate a universal theory of language and human behaviour.

This research is based on field work: observations, asking questions, participating

in group activities. Description should not be approached in terms of preconceived
categories and processes. Data are collected in naturalistic settings. Data collection can
also involve library research for background information, artistic and folkloric analyses.

Hymes proceeds by determining the following communicative unit or elements in

ethnographic studies:

 Speech community: It is the group who share the same linguistic repertoire and
the same rules for speaking and interpretation of speech performance,
sociocultural understandings and presuppositions with regard to speech.
 Speech situation: It is the context within which speaking occurs: meeting, hunting,
eating, party, classroom lesson, a church service, a trial, etc. Speech situations
have a consistent set of activities.
 Speech events (or communicative events): they are verbal conversations (an
instance of speech exchange consisting of a sequence of utterances) e.g. an
exchange of greetings, an enquiry, a sermon, a job interview, etc. Speech events
are governed by fixed rules and norms which may be different in different
communities. Several speech events may occur successively or even
simultaneously in the same situation (e.g. different conversations in a party). The
aim of the ethnography of speaking is to find an exhaustive list of speech events
and their related parts).

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 Speech acts: They are utterances seen as functional units in communication.

Speech acts make up speech events: a request, an assertion, an apology, a
greeting, a prohibition, a promise, an invitation…

IV. Components of Speech Events

Act
sequence
Ends Key

Participants Instrumentalities

Components
Setting of speech
events
Genre

- Setting including the time and place, physical aspect of the situation such as
arrangement of a room;

- Participants identity including personal characteristics such as age, sex, social status,
relationships with each other;

- Ends including the purpose of the event itself as well as the individual goals of the
participants

- Act sequence or how speech acts are organised within a speech event and what topics
are addressed;

- Key or the tone and manner in which something is said or written;

- Instrumentalities or linguistic code i.e. language, dialect, variety and channel i.e. speech
or writing;

- Norm or the standard socio-cultural rules of interaction and interpretation;

- Genre or type of event such as letter, poem, letter.

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Unit 10: The Speech Act Theory

Introduction

The Speech Act Theory is an approach that stresses the function of bits of
language: It is concerned with the functional classification of speech. It belongs to the
domain of pragmatics i.e. the study of meaning in its social context, which is contrasted
with semantics, which deals with purely linguistic meaning. It was put forward by the
British philosopher J. L. Austin in his book How to Do Things with Words (1962) edited and
published after his death. The theory was developed by a number of others, notably the
British philosopher John Searle.

I. Speech Acts

Austin believes that the function of speech is not only “constate” things. Speech is
used to suggest, to make a promise, to invite, to make a request, to prohibit, to give an
order, to offer an apology, and so on. It is used to perform an action in a given context.
Utterances are viewed as “acts”, as something that we “do”. The speech act is an
utterance intended to convey communicative force. It is a bit or a unit of social
interaction. It is a communicative activity defined in connection with the intentions of
speakers as they speak and the effects they have on listeners. According to this
perspective, "Language functions as a piece of human behaviour. It is a mode of action
and not an instrument of reflection" (Malinowski). In the field of language teaching,
speech acts are usually referred to as functions of language.

II. Levels of Speech Acts

According to Austin, each utterance has three kinds of meaning. A speech act has
three levels:
 The locutionary meaning (the propositional meaning): It is the literal meaning of the
utterance. It is conveyed by the particular words and structures which the utterance
contains (saying something). For example, if the pupil says to a teacher, "it is hot in
here" the locutionary meaning would concern the warm temperature of the classroom.
So, we can say it is to be found in the lexico-grammatical structure of the sentence. It is
controlled by the speaker.
 The illocutionary meaning: It is the inherent social function of the utterance (doing by
speaking). For example, the illocutionary meaning of "it is hot in here" is a request to
turn down the heater. Illocutionary meaning is to be determined according the
context. It is the functional meaning and is controlled by the speaker too.
 The perlocutionary meaning: The result or effect (action or state) that is produced by
the utterance in that given context (The effect of what you say). It is the response of
the receiver, for example, the action of turning off the heater. This meaning is not
controlled by the speaker.

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Example
- Utterance: I'll call a lawyer.
- Locutionary act: the speaker is going to call a lawyer in a future time.
- Illocutionary act: a promise… (Depending on the context)
- Perlocutionary act: the hearer is pleased.

Today, the term speech act is usually restricted to the illocutionary act and its effect is
referred to as the “illocutionary force”.

III. Classification of Speech Acts

Speech acts are usually classified according to their illocutionary meaning. Usually
the meanings are explicitly stated in verbs, but sometimes they are implicit. The
philosopher Searle established a five part classification of speech acts.
 Representatives: A speech act which represents states or events in the world, such
as asserting, claiming, reporting, describing, predicting, believing, swearing, …
 Expressives: a speech act that expresses the expresses the speaker's psychological
attitude toward some state of affairs , for example, apologizing, congratulating,
thanking, deploring, condoling, welcoming, greeting, …
 Directives: A speech act that has the function of getting the listener do something,
for example, commanding, requesting, urging, inviting, pleading…
 Commissives: A speech act that commits the speaker in varying degrees to do
something, for example, promising, threatening, vowing…
 Declarations: A speech act that alters a state of affairs in the world, for example,
baptizing, sentencing, arresting, marrying, nominating, naming…

Illocutionary acts are related to the external situation where speech takes place:
the components of the speech event. It is impossible to understand their meaning in
isolation without reference to such factors. And since the structure of speech events
differs from community to another, the interpretation of speech act illocutionary
meanings is not the same in different communities. So a native speaker's knowledge of
his language incorporates his knowledge of the way speech acts are formulated and
interpreted in a given community.

Conclusion

This kind of classification of utterances is of great importance for the sociolinguist.

It is obvious here that there is a remarkable shift from considering language as an isolated
system, where meaning is to be extracted from the internal structure of the sentence, to
a wider perspective which stresses the close ties between language and its context of
use.

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Unit 11: Introduction to Psycholinguistics

Definition

It is the branch of knowledge which studies the mental aspects of language,

especially its acquisition, storage, comprehension, and production. It is a branch of both
linguistics and psychology, though their mode of study tends to differ: linguists usually
draw inferences from observations of spontaneous speech, whereas psychologists mostly
prefer to use controlled experiments. It overlaps with a wider, more general field known
as the psychology of language, which includes the relationship of language to thought,
and with an even wider one, the psychology of communication, which covers almost
anything connected with communication, including its non-verbal aspects.
Psycholinguistics includes the study of speech perception, the role of memory, concepts
and other processes in language use, and how social and psychological factors affect the
use of language. Psycholinguistics, as the study of language and the mind, is usually
distinguished from neurolinguistics, the study of language and the brain.

I. History

Useful observations about how the mind deals with language date from at least
the end of the 18th c, especially in the form of diary studies of child language. For
example, the natural historian Charles Darwin reported on the linguistic progress of one
of his children in the journal Mind (1877). The British psychologist Francis Galton is
usually regarded as the first person to do psycholinguistic experiments, when he tried to
investigate his own and other people's word associations.

Psycholinguistics remained a minor branch of psychology for the first half of the
20th C., concerned with words rather than with sentence structure, and affected mainly
by behaviourist principles. Many people date psycholinguistics proper from the mid-
1960s, when a rise of interest followed on from the work of Noam Chomsky, who argued
that language was likely to be genetically programmed. Chomsky's ideas triggered a flood
of work by both linguists and psychologists on child language acquisition, and also an
interest in finding out whether his theory of transformational-generative grammar had
“psychological reality”, in the sense of reflecting the way people store or process
language. Because Chomsky repeatedly revised his theories, a number of psychologists
decided that linguistic theory was too changeable to provide a secure basis for their work.
The field has therefore become somewhat split, even though it continues to expand.
Considerable progress has been made in major areas like child language acquisition,
second language acquisition, speech comprehension, and speech production.

II. First Language Acquisition

First language acquisition is the child’s learning of his or her first or native
language. Traditionally, and especially in monolingual societies, “first” and “native”

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language were used synonymously. With the expansion of cross-cultural communication,

the two terms become more distinct. For example, children may acquire some knowledge
of another language from a nurse or a relative before they acquire their native language,
e.g. the language of the country they live in. Thus, a Chinese child born in the United
States may first learn Chinese from her parents, and learn English later from English-
speaking children and adults.

Children all over the world show similarities in the way they acquire language,
whose development appears to be maturationally controlled (pre-programmed to
emerge at a particular point in development, providing that the environment is normal
and the child unimpaired). Moreover, at each stage, child language is not just a
substandard form of adult language, but an independent system with rules of its own.
The following stages are identified by psycholinguistic research:

Age Accomplishment Examples

0-2 months crying (express hunger and discomfort)
2-4 months cooing (express satisfaction or pleasure) aaaa, oooo
4-9 months babbling gagaga
9-18 months one-word utterances (referring to people juice; mama
and objects in baby’s life)
18 months - Two-word utterances; the beginning of more juice
2 ½ years syntax expanding to three-word juice fall down
utterances Daddy go?
2 ½ years - 4 telegraphic stage: expanded syntax and I eated bread
years vocabulary; omit key grammatical
markers and function words

III. Second Language Acquisition

Second language acquisition (SLA) is defined as the process of becoming

competent or proficient in a second or foreign language, from the first use of a language
item to its advanced applications at a later stage. As a field of research, SLA is a fairly new
interdisciplinary subject with most of its empirical research done since the 1960s. It is
largely based on theories and research methods developed in the fields of education,
psychology, linguistics, anthropology, foreign languages, English as a second language,
and linguistics. In the United States, researchers study the way nonnative speakers
acquire English phonology, syntax, and pragmatics. The purpose of SLA studies is to
describe and explain the way second languages are learned in terms of both linguistic and
communicative competence. The object of second language acquisition is to find more
effective ways of teaching and learning foreign languages, and assumes that such
research can affect the way foreign languages are learned.

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