SEMINAR 1

1. LINGUISTICS AS THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE

Linguistics is often called "the science of language," the study of the human
capacity to communicate and organize thought using different tools and
involving different abstract and tactile components.
Linguistics looks at:
 The general phenomenon of human language.
 Different families of languages (example: Germanic, including English,
German, Dutch and Scandinavian, among others).
 Specific languages (example: Arabic, Mandarin and French).
 Communicative codes or behaviors that are not so well defined (example:
the language of recent immigrants, the ways by which bilinguals choose
one or another language in certain settings).
Linguistics is a human science—in fact, one of the foundational disciplines in
the western intellectual tradition—and may be compared with programs such as
sociology, psychology or anthropology.
As with all human sciences, there are several sub-fields in linguistics:
 Phonetics (the study of how speech sounds are made)
 Phonology (how these sounds are organized)
 Morphology (how sounds are organized into units of meaning)
 Pragmatics (the relationship between language signs and language users)
 Semantics (the study of meanings themselves)
 Sociolinguistics (the interaction of language and people or collectives)
 Syntax (how units of meaning come together to create utterances)
Because of its inherently cross-disciplinary nature, linguistics and linguists is
often integrated into such disciplines as communications, sociology, history,
literature, foreign languages, pedagogy and psychology.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and its focus is the systematic
investigation of the properties of particular languages as well as the
characteristics of language in general. It encompasses not only the study of
sound, grammar and meaning, but also the history of language families, how
languages are acquired by children and adults, and how language use is
processed in the mind and how it is connected to race and gender. With close
connections to the humanities, social sciences and the natural sciences,
linguistics complements a diverse range of other disciplines such as
anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, computer science,
health sciences, education and literature. The subfield of Applied Linguistics
emphasizes the use of linguistic concepts in the classroom to help students
improve their ability to communicate in their native language or a second
language.
Important subfields of linguistics include:
 Phonetics - the study of how speech sounds are produced and perceived
 Phonology - the study of sound patterns and changes
 Morphology - the study of word structure
 Syntax - the study of sentence structure
 Semantics - the study of linguistic meaning
 Pragmatics - the study of how language is used in context
 Historical Linguistics - the study of language change
 Sociolinguistics - the study of the relation between language and society
 Computational Linguistics - the study of how computers can process
human language
 Psycholinguistics - the study of how humans acquire and use language
2.CONCEPT OF RESEARCH METHOD IN LINGUISTICS
To begin with, a method is a system of rules and techniques for studying the
phenomena and patterns of nature, society, and thought.
The descriptive method is an explanation of the peculiarities of language units
and their structure and functioning at a certain (given) stage of language
development, i.e. in synchrony.

Stages
Selection of units of analysis (phonemes, morphemes, lexemes) → division of
the selected units
→ classification of the selected units

Comparative and historical method (comparative, linguogenetic)

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A set of techniques and procedures for historical and genetic research of
language families and groups, as well as individual languages, to establish the
patterns of their development.
3. DESCRIPTIVE METHOD
Descriptive method of research can be explained as a statement of affairs as
they are at present with the researcher having no control over variable.
Descriptive research is “aimed at casting light on current issues or problems
through a process of data collection that enables them to describe the
situation more completely than was possible without employing this
method”
Descriptive studies are aimed at finding out "what is," so observational and
survey methods are frequently used to collect descriptive data.
Advantages of Descriptive Research
Effective to analyse non-quantified topics and issues
The possibility to observe the phenomenon in a completely natural and
unchanged natural environment
The opportunity to integrate the qualitative and quantitative methods of data
collection
Disadvantages of Descriptive Research
Descriptive studies cannot test or verify the research problem statistically
Research results may reflect certain level of bias due to the absence of statistical
tests
The majority of descriptive studies are not ‘repeatable’ due to their
observational nature
4.COMPARATIVE-HISTORICAL METHOD
In linguistics, the comparative method is a standardized way to compare
different languages in order to determine their relationship to one another. The
comparative method is based on the principle of regular sound change, which
holds that any changes in the sounds of a language that happen over time occur
in a regular way, with no exceptions. Languages are analyzed using the
comparative method to determine whether they share a common mother
language, a single language from which several others evolve. The comparative
method can also suggest which branches of a language family developed earlier
or later in time.
Historical linguistics uses the language of genetics and familial relationships as
an analogy to discuss the relationships between languages, so two languages
that grew out of a single language - say English and German - are referred to as
sisters, the daughters of a single mother language - in this case the hypothetical
Germanic. Languages with common "ancestry" are grouped together into
families. It is important to note that this is simply analogy, and does not mean
anything about the genetic background of a language's speakers; an English
speaker in the modern world is not necessarily a descendant of someone who
spoke "Germanic".
5.STRUCTURED RESEARCH METHODS
“Distribution” - the occurrence of a lexical unit, relative to another lexical
units of the same levels: words to words, morpheme to morphemes.
In other words, a distribution is the position which lexical unit occupies or may
occupy in the text or in the flow of speech.
Types of distribution:
1. According to the position:
a) Left-hand distributions. (two dogs)
b) Right-hand distribution.(page two)
2. According to syntagmatic functions:
a) Contrastive
b) Non-contrastive
c) Complementary
1. Contrastive distributions – word form variations change the context:
The boy played with the ball yesterday.
The boy was playing with the ball at the same time yesterday.
2. Non-contrastive distributions – no context change:
He learned traffic rules last year.
He learnt traffic rules last year.
3. Complementary distributions – complementary relations in the context:
I watched you
her
him
them dancing.
6.Practical task
1. According to the position:
a) Left-hand distributions. (language of chemistry)
b) Right-hand distribution.(legal language)
2. Contrastive distributions – word form variations change the context:
I’m learning English language now
I studied English language a year ago.
3. Non-contrastive distributions – no context change:
She gone from me yesterday
She went from me yesterday

4. Complementary distributions – complementary relations in the context:

I said you
her
him
Them about the news.
Historical method
Being so valuable, soldiers in the Roman army were sometimes paid with salt
instead of money. Their monthly allowance was called "salarium" ("sal" being
the Latin word for salt). This Latin root can be recognized in the French word
"salaire" — and it eventually made it into the English language as the word
"salary."