MODULE INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS

VIEWS ABOUT LANGUAGE

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this chapter, learners should be able to:
1. Explore the different views about language.
2. Explain the processes how language differs from the different views.
3. Acknowledge the beauty of language from the different views.

1. The Structuralist
Believes that language can be described in terms of observable and verifiable
data as it is being used. They also describe language in terms of its structure and
according to the regularities and patterns or rules in language structure. To them,
language is a system of speech sounds, arbitrarily assigned to the objects, states,
and concept to which they refer, used for human communication.

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 Language is a means of communication.

Language is an important means of communicating between humans of their
ideas, beliefs, or feelings. Language gives shape to people‟s thoughts, as well as
guides and controls their activity.
 Language is primarily vocal.
Language is speech, primarily made of
vocal sounds produced by the speech
apparatus in the human body. The primary
medium of language is speech. Speech is
language; the written record is but secondary
sounds of the language. While most
languages have writing systems, a number of
languages continue to exist, even today, in the spoken form only, without any written
form. Linguists claim that speech is primary, writing secondary. Therefore, it is
assumed that speech has a priority in language teaching.

 Language is a system of systems.

Language is not a disorganized or a chaotic combination of sounds. Sounds
are arranged in certain fixed or established, systematic order to form meaningful
units or words. For example, no word in English start starts with bz-, lr- or zl-
combination, but there are those that begin with spr- and str- (as in spring and
string). In like manner, words are also arranged in a particular system to generate
acceptable but the group of words “Vince bought new book a” is not acceptable as
the word order of the latter violates the established convention in English grammar,
the Subject-Verb-Object or S-V-C word order.

Language is a system of structurally related elements or „building blocks' for

the encoding of meaning, the elements being phonemes (sounds), morpheme
(words), tag meme (phrases and sentences/ clauses). Language learning, it is
assumed, entails mastering the elements or building blocks of the language and

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learning the rules by which these elements are combined, from phoneme to
morphonic to word to phrase to sentence.

 Language is arbitrary.
There is no inherent
relation between words of a
language and their meanings or
the ideas conveyed by them. Put
another way, there is no one to
one correspondence between the
structure of a word and the thing
it stands for. There is no reason
why an animal that flies is called
ibonin Filipino, pajaroin Spanish, bird in English. Selection of these words in the
languages mentioned here is purely accident of history that native speakers of the
languages have agreed on. Through the years the year‟s reference to such animal
has become an established convention that cannot be easily changed.

That language is arbitrary means that the relationship between the words and
the „things' they denote is merely conventional, i.e. native speakers of English, in
some sense, agreed to use that sounds /dog/ „dog‟ in English because native
speakers of English „want' it to be.

1. The transformationalist
Believes that language is a system of knowledge made manifest in linguistic
forms but innate and, in its most abstract form, universal.
 Language is a mental phenomenon. It is not mechanical. Language is innate.
The presence of the language acquisition device (LAD) in the human brain
predisposes all normal children to acquire their first language in an amazingly
short time, around five years since birth.

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 MODULE INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS

 Language is universal. It is universal in the sense that all normal children the
world over acquire a mother tongue but it is also universal in the sense that, at a
highly abstract level, all languages must share key features of human languages,
such as words into phrases and clauses; and all languages have transformation
rules that enable speakers to ask questions, negate sentences, issue orders,
defocus the doer of the action, etc.

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 Language is creative. It enables naïve speakers to produce and understand

sentences they have not heard nor used before.

2. The Functionalist
Believes that language is a dynamic system through
which members of community exchange information. It is a
vehicle for the expression of functional meaning such as
expressing one‟s emotions, persuading people, asking
and giving information, making people do something for
others.
This view of language emphasizes the meaning and functions rather than the
grammatical characteristics of language, and leads to a language teaching content
consisting of categories of meaning/notions and functions rather than of elements of
structure and grammar.

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3. The Interactionists
Believes that language is a vehicle for establishing interpersonal relations and
for performing social transactions between individuals. It is a tool for creating and
maintaining social relations through conversations. Language teaching content,

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 MODULE INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS

according to this view, may be specified and organized by patterns of exchange and
interaction.

4. Rationalist Paradigm.
According to the rationalist, which gave rise to the nature perspective, the
processes of the human intellect (e.g., sensation, perception, thinking, and problem
solving) are characterized by principles of organization. These processes of
cognition are qualitatively different from the fairly disorganized events that occur in
the observable world. The organizing principles and processes that characterize
cognitive structures are said to enable humans to make sense of events in the world.
From this perspective, speaking and understanding language are considered
fundamentally human traits that are biologically determined. In contrast, reading and
writing require explicit teaching to develop these abilities and are learned with much
more effort and repetition, typically in a school setting (Catts & Kamhi, 2005; Sakai,
2005).

Biological Bases for Rationalists:

Although Chomsky was among the first to suggest that
humans possess linguistic knowledge at birth, the psychologist
Eric Lenneberg (1967) provided much of the groundwork
for the view that language is biologically based. He
argued that language, like walking but unlike
writing, shows evidence of the following
properties:

Little variation within the species.

Lenneberg argued that all languages are
characterized by a system of phonology, words, and syntax.

Specific organic correlates. Lenneberg argued that like walking but unlike writing,
there is a universal timetable for the acquisition of language. He suggested that

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critical periods exist for second-language learning as well as for rehabilitation after
language loss due to injury or insult to brain function.

Heredity. According to Lenneberg, even with environmental deprivation, the capacity

for language exists—although it might be manifested in the use of signing, as seen
in individuals with hearing impairment.

No history within species. Lenneberg argued that because we have no evidence for
a more primitive human language, language must be an inherently human
phenomenon. (Lenneberg, 1967)

5. A Contemporary View.
Pinker and Jackendoff (2005) maintain that Chomsky Minimalist View is
inadequate because it ignores 25 years of research in the areas of phonology,
morphology, syntactic word order, lexical entries, and the connection of a grammar
to language processing, all of which are critical for a theory of language acquisition.

To know more about the topics please click the link below:
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Pinker and Jackendoff (2005) address more

challenging questions, such as “What is included
in the language faculty?” by arguing that the
language faculty is an adaptation for the
communication of knowledge. This specialized
language faculty triggers the development of
linguistic knowledge that uses at least four
different mechanisms for conveying semantic
relations: hierarchical structure, linear order,
agreement, and case.

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 MODULE INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS

According to these authors, the four mechanisms are sometimes used

redundantly. In arguing against the Minimalist Program, Pinker and Jackendoff
suggest that how the specialized language faculty is characterized must be based
on existing research, not on a program or theory that is incompatible with the facts.
In the more recent incarnations of the “nature” paradigm, Pinker (2006) addresses
the question, “What are the innate mechanisms necessary for language learning to
take place?” Certain cognitive accomplishments, such as the representational
function (i.e., the ability to represent objects or ideas mentally), are known
prerequisites for language to unfold. Furthermore, metacognitive control or executive
functioning that serves to monitor the incoming stimuli, the motor output, and the
learning that takes place must be accounted for as well. Finally, individuals must
operate with an unfolding theory of mind (i.e., the ability to attribute mental states
such as beliefs, intents, desires, knowledge, pretend, to oneself and others, and to
understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from
one‟s own) (Premack and Woodruff, 1978) as the “language instinct” or the language
faculty does its work.

DISCUSSION POINTS:
1. What view/views about language that presented more comprehensive? And
why?
2. Differentiate the rationalists to contemporary view of language.
3. Is there any common denominator of those views? Prove your answer.

POST-DISCUSSION ACTIVITY:
 Work in pairs and discuss the contribution of those views to language
development. List down your answers in one-half crosswise yellow paper.

https://www.coursehero.com/file/p71kaa8/believe-that-
language-can-be-described-in-terms-of-observable-and-verifiable/

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