Linguistics Schools of Thought

1. LINGUISTICS
Instituto Superior “Josefina Contte”
Ciencias del Lenguaje
2018

2. BRIEF HISTORY OF
LINGUISTICS

3.  -Before the 19th century, language in the western
world was of interest mainly to philosophers: Greek
philosophers Plato and Aristotle made major
contributions to the study of language.

4. -1786 regarded as birthdate of linguistics
An Englishman, Sir William Jones pointed
out that Sanskrit (the old Indian language)
Greek, Latin, Celtic and Germanic all had
striking structural similarities and concluded
that these languages must spring from one
common source.

5. Sir William Jones

6. Early 19th century
Four best known scholars in the linguistic
science of the early 19th century are:
1.Dane r Rask
2.J Grimm
3.F .Bopp
4.Von Humboldt

7. Wilhem von Humboldt
 The Prussian statesman, von Humboldt conceived
a theory of “inner” and “outer” form in language.
 a structural conception…
outer - the raw sounds the language;
inner - the pattern of grammar - meaning imposed
upon the raw material and differentiated languages.

8. Another idea of Humboldt is language as
dynamic - an activity…not the product of
activity…not a set of actual utterances produced
by speakers but the underlying principles or
rules.
These ideas influence - or emerge again in -
Ferdinand de Saussure’s structuralism and
Noam Chomsky’s transformational-generative
grammar

9. In the mid 19th century Darwin
Published his famous Origin of Species,
putting forward the theory of evolution. It
seemed natural to attempt to chart the
evolution of language alongside the evolution
of species.

10. Modern linguistics
Modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th and early
20th centuries with the shift of focus from historical
concerns of changes in languages over time, to the
idea that a language can be viewed as a self
contained and structured system situated at a
particular point in time.
This forms the basis for structuralist linguistics.

11. In the 20th century
The emphasis shifted from language
change to language description.
Linguists began to concentrate on
describing single languages at one
particular point in time, in a static or
synchronic study of a given state of
the language.

12. Ferdinand de Saussure
A Swiss scholar (1857-1913) is labelled “the
father of modern linguistics”

13. His students collected together his lecture
notes after his death and published them
under the title Course In General Linguistics
(1915).
His crucial contribution was his explicit and
reiterated statement that all language items
are essentially interlinked.
He suggested that language was like a game
of chess, a system in which each item is
defined by its relationship to all the others.

14. STRUCTURALISM
Historically de Saussure's ideas may be put
under three heads.
1.He formalized and made explicit the
fundamental and indispensable dimensions
of linguistic study
synchronicdescriptive linguistics
diachronichistorical linguistics.

15. Synchronic vs. diachronic
Synchronic (linguistics)---languages are studied
at a theoretic point in time: one describes a
‘state’ of language, disregarding whatever
changes might be taking place.
Diachronic----languages are studied from point of
view of their historical development – for
example, the changes which have taken place
between Old and Modern English could be
described in phonological, grammatical and
semantic terms.

16. Diachronic and synchronic
Linguistics
Synchronic study: exploring contemporary
use
Diachronic study: examining of a linguistic
phenomena or describing the language
change over time (Historical Linguistics)
Synchronic-
bvertical
Diachronic-
horizontal

17. 2. He distinguished
linguistic competence of
the speaker and
the actual phenomena or
data of linguistic
utterances
as langue and parole.

18. LANGUE VS. PAROLE
 Langue--- the language system shared by a
community of speakers (French, meaning
"language") It describes the social, impersonal
phenomenon of language as a system of signs
 Parole--- the concrete act of speaking in actual
situations by an individual speaker. (meaning
"speech") It describes the individual, personal
phenomenon of language as a series of speech
acts* made by a linguistic subject

19. Similar pairs of concepts have
been developed by a number
of theorists, such as
Langue-system-code-
language-competence-form
and
Parole-use-message-verbal
behaviour-performance-
function

20. 3. His theory of signs has been very
influential.
His linguistic sign is a union of the
signifier (the form, sound)
signified(the meaning, function).
THE RELATIONSHIP OF SOUND AND
MEANING IS ARBITRARY.

21. The Prague school
The Prague school is a tradition of linguistic
thought that is associated with a group of
Czech and other linguistic circle of Prague,
established in 1926.
The group held regular meetings and
published a journal.
The primary interest of the circle was
phonological theory.

22. The Prague school…
Prague school phonology succeed in
placing the notion of the phoneme in the
centre of linguistic theory, as one of the
most fundamental units.
They also made contributions to the field of
syntax.

23. Phonetics and phonology
 Phonetics and phonology were dominant in early
modern linguistics.
 The international phonetic association (IPA)was
established in 1886 by a group of European
phoneticians. The British phonetician Henry sweet
was one of the leading figures in phonetics in 2nd
half of the 19th century.
 Sweet and polish linguist Courtenay were
independently instrumental in development of the
notion of the phoneme or distinctive sound.

24. Around the beginning of the
20th century
 -in America linguistics began as an offshoot of
anthropology. anthropologists were eager to record the
culture of the fast-dying American-Indian tribes, and the
American-Indian languages were one aspect of this.
 There were no firm guidelines for linguists to follow when
they attempted to describe exotic languages.

25. STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS IN
AMERICA
1. Franz boas
2. Edward Sapir
3. Leonard Bloomfield

26. Franz boas
Franz boas is considered the
founder of American
linguistics and American
anthropology.
A major concern for him was
to obtain information as
native American languages
and cultures before they
disappear.

27. Edward Sapir
 Edward Sapir (boas' student) was highly
admired during is life and is still something
of a hero to many linguists.
 He published extensively in both linguistics
and anthropology, did first hand field work
on many American Indian languages,
contributed to historical linguistics and
wrote theoretical works.

28. - Bloomfield and American
structuralism
 -This state of affairs changed with the
publication in 1933 of Leonard Bloomfield’s
comprehensive work entitled simply
Language, which attempted to lay down
rigorous procedures for the description of
any language.

29.  Blomfield’s predominant concern was to establish
linguistics truly as a science of language.
 His main concern was
1. to delimit the role of linguistics in relation to other
sciences
2. to develop the principles and concepts of linguistics
into a well balanced and unified structure.

30. He restricted the object of
linguistic enquiry to the
formal characteristics of
linguistic utterances.
”In the division of scientific
labour, the linguist deals only
with the speech signal”.

31.  The data for a linguistic science:
set of verbal utterances which constitutes a corpus.
The task of the linguist is:
to study the corpus of utterances and to discover
regularities and structures,
i.e. the langue in the specimen of parole.
His thesis helped linguistics to establish itself as an
autonomous field.
Bloomfield wanted linguistics to become an empirical,
descriptive science.

32. The principal value of Language lies
 in the closely argued and balanced presentation
of the essential concepts which enable the
linguist to analyse a language from sound to
sentence.
 It is balanced in that it gives approximately
equal weight to the different levels of the
analysis: phonology, morphology and syntax.
 It omits however the semantic component.

33. CONSEQUENCES
 -Bloomfield had immense influence and the
so-called “Boomfieldian era “ lasted for
more than twenty years.
 Linguists in the Bloomfieldian tradition
continued to operate with the concepts
developed by Bloomfield, to refine them and
to use them for more rigorous descriptions
of languages.

34. CONSEQUENCES
 The outcome was, in the forties and fifties,
many well-ordered, objective, detailed and
informative presentations of linguistics or of
particular aspects of language.

35. THE ANTHROPOLOGIST MALINOWSKY
stated that “the real linguistic fact is the full
utterance within its context of situation”.
He observed Language of the South Sea
islanders which could only be understood
associated with their culture

36. Firth (1890-1960) (British),
following Malinowsky argued that
language must be studied at all levels in its
context of situation and with emphasis on
meaning.

37. The linguist has to study the “TEXT”, i.e.,
the corpus of utterances
 in their linguistic environment or context,
i.e., in relation to surrounding language
items,
 in their context of situations, i.e., in relation
to nonverbal constituents which have
bearing on the utterance, such as persons,
objects and events.

38. Neo-Firthian Theory
A British linguist Michael Halliday elaborated
and systematized the theoretical concepts
originally suggested by Firth who had led the
development of linguistics in Britain at about
the same period during which structuralism
made headway in America.

39. Michael Halliday (British)
(1925)
On the basis of Firthian ideas, presents a synthesis of
concepts which aims at being
 theoretically powerful
 useful to apply in the
 description of natural languages.

40. A linguistic description is on three levels:
1) substance (phonic or graphic), phonetics
and phonology examine the phonic
substance, graphology the graphic
2) form
grammar and lexicology
3) Context
semantics studies the context which
relates linguistic form to non-linguistic
events.

41.  THE DESCRIPTION OF ANY LANGUAGE
REQUIRES FOUR FUNDAMENTAL
THEORETICAL CATEGORIES
 1) UNIT
 a stretch of utterance that carries a
grammatical pattern e.g. sentence or phrase
 2) STRUCTURE
 an arrangement of elements in relation to
other elements e.g. subject and predicate.

42.  THE DESCRIPTION OF ANY LANGUAGE REQUIRES
FOUR FUNDAMENTAL THEORETICAL CATEGORIES
 3) CLASS
 is illustrated by such paradigmatic concepts as noun
and, verbs
 4) SYSTEM
 is applied to closed sets of items as personal
pronouns, tenses, or aspects.
 “With these four basic categories…it is possible to
describe the grammar of all languages”.

43. His scheme was an ambitious attempt to develop
a theory of a high degree of universality.
 IN GRAMMAR
morpheme
word
phrase or group
clause
Sentence
IN PHONOLOGY
the rank scale has the units
Phoneme
syllable
foot
tone group.

44. Noam Chomsky and linguistic theory
since 1957
The main stream of linguistics since 1957, the year in which
Chomsky's ‘Syntactic Structures’ appeared, has been
dominated by Noam Chomsky.
It is difficult to overestimate his impact on both linguistics and
contemporary ideas in general.

45. Chomsky’s Tranformational
Generative Grammar
 Early sixties to about 1967 transformational
generative grammar widened its scope in his
second major work Aspects of the Theory of
Syntax
1967 to the early seventies shift of emphasis
from syntax to semantics (generative

46. Chomsky’s Tranformational
Generative Grammar
 He introduced the notion of deep and
surface structure and the difference
between competence and performance and
he recognized the existence of common
elements, the universals, underlying all
natural languages.

47. Unlike the bloomfieldians, Chomsky
brought back Mentalism.
For him the goal of grammar is to
account for the native speaker’s
competence, defined as what a native
speaker knows of hisher language.

48. A generative grammar is a system
of formal rules, principles and
parameters which makes explicit
the finite mechanism available to
the brain to produce infinite
sentences.

49. He pointed out that a Linguistics
Analysis could be done without
reference to MEANING.
He investigated an area which had a
little progress: SYNTAX (a new look
was necessary).

50.  He pointed out that as all humans are rather
similar, their internalized language mechanisms
are likely to have important common properties.
 In his view, a grammar must be designed so that
“by following its rules and conventions we could
produce all or any of the possible sentences of
the language”.

51.  Human beings may be well pre-programmed
with a basic knowledge of what languages in
general are like, and how they work.
 Chomsky has given the label UNIVERSAL
GRAMMAR (UG) to this inherited core, and he
regards it as a major task of linguistics to
specify what it consists of.
 He also introduced the idea of LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION DEVICE (LAD).

52. In his review of skinner’s verbal
behavior he refuted the
behaviorist psychology.
He believed that language is
rooted in the biology, not
behavior.

53. Transformational Generative
Grammar
He developed new directions
giving emphasis from SYNTAX
to SEMANTICS

54. What is LINGUISTICS?
The scientific or logical examination of any
aspect and property of language.
Lyons(1968): “Linguistics is the scientific
study of language by means of controlled
and emprically verifiable observations with
reference to some general theory
oflanguage structure”.

55. Linguistics is a theoretical
science. It formulates explanations which are designed to
account for the phenomena of language.
 Theories in Linguistics as in other discipline, demand verification:
do the statements made about language explain the phenomena
encountered in natural languages?
 Linguistics is not only theoretical. It is also an empirical science
making detailed observations on particular languages to confirm or
refute generalizations.
 Linguistics, therefore, observes and analyzes data found in
natural languages.
 Linguistics is accordingly not only a theoretical but also a descriptive
discipline.

56. Characterization of Linguistics today
Linguistics as an independent field of study,
a university discipline with different
specializations within it and areas of
application, with its own professional
organizations, journals and scholarly meetings
is a creation of the 20th century, and more
specially a phenomenon of the period after
World War II.

57. How does linguistics work?
What steps does it follow to be scientific?
How does it reach its findings and
conclusions?
1. Introspection: intuition
2. Observation
3. Descrition
4. Hypothesizing
5. Experimentation
6. Modeling
7. Theorizing

58. Important distinctions in
linguistics
Speech and writing
Descriptive vs. prescriptive
Synchronic vs. diachronic
langue vs. parole
Competence and performance
Functionalism and formalism

59. Oral Language Vs Written
Language
 Language was first in spoken mode
 Speech is not the same as writing or vice versa.
 Carefully organising ideas in mind while writing.
 Ideas bore in mind instantly and spontaneously in speech
 Hovewer oral language is richer than written language.

60. Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
They represent two different types of linguistic study.
Descriptive---to describe the fact of linguistic usage as they
are, and not how they ought to be, with reference to some
real or imagined ideal state.
Prescriptive---a term used to characterize any approach
which attempt to lay down rules of correctness as to how
language should be used.

61. Competence and performance
Competence---- a person’s knowledge of his language, the system
of rules which he has mastered so that he is able to produce and
understand an indefinite number of sentences, and to recognize
grammatical mistakes and ambiguities.
Performance---the actual realization of language knowledge,
language seen as a set of specific utterances produced by
language speakers, as encountered in a corpus.

62. Functionalism and formalism
FUNCTIONALISM OR FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS
 refers to the study of the form of language in reference to their social
function in communication.
 It considers the individual as a social being and investigates the way in
which she/he acquires language and uses it in order to communicate
with others in her or his social environment.
 Representative: M. A. K. Halliday, Systemic functional grammar

63.  FORMALISM OR FORMAL LINGUISTICS
 is the study of the abstract forms of language
and their internal relations. It fixes on the forms
of languages as evidence of the universals
without considering how these forms function in
communication and the ways of social life in
different communities.
 Representative: Noam Chomsky,
Transformational-generative grammar

64. Contemporary approaches to linguistics
Formal approach Functional approach
In formal approach
linguistic structures
are independent of
their functions and
meaning.(syntactic)
In functional approach
Linguistic structure
are motivated by
functional and
cognitive
forces.(semantic)

65. How does linguistics differ from
traditional grammar?
 Linguistics is descriptive not prescriptive: do not
prescribe rules of “correctness”.
 Language changes all the time: linguist do not
judge but observe this:
different to ----- different from
 Linguists regard the spoken language as
primary not the written.
 Writing systems are derived from the vocal sounds

66. Who is a linguist?
 Anyone who studies a language with a purpose to
describe and explain any topic related to language.
 Not always need to form a theory. But it will be
sufficient to produce a body of observations that are
systematic, or even to systematically state what is
already known for description or pedagogical
purposes.
 Observers rather than participants

67. o The linguist is also interested in the language of the people who,
by a rigid conception of a standard language, do not talk
”properly”: the language of small children and foreigners.
o
o His interest can be focused, without condescension or
condemnation, on non-prestigious as well as prestigious
varieties.
o Another language variety that is examined is the interlanguage
or the variety that second language learners develop, as well as
the variety native speakers adopt when talking to babies and to
foreigners: baby talk and foreigner talk.

68. Misconceptions about linguists:
Capable of speaking many languages
Confused with translators and interpreters
But they can write a grammar of a language
she cannot speak.
A linguist is interested in all languages of
the world.

69. CORE FIELDS OF
LINGUISTICS
-THE COMPONENETS OF MICROLINGUISTICS-
 MICROLINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION
–an analytic approach to the language-
 Phonetics: production and perception of sounds
 Phonology: use of sounds in language
 Morphology: word formation
 Syntax: sentense structure
 Semantics: meaning of words and how they combine into
sentences.

70. MACROLINGUISTIC
INVESTIGATION
-a holistic approach to the language-
 Pragmatics: which link language with external world
 Sociolinguistics: the study of language and society
 Historical linguistics: the study of language change:2Ds:
diachronic and synchronic change. Till F.De Sausser,
diachronic approach
 Psychological linguistics: the study of language and mind
 First language acquisition
 SLA

71. MACROLINGUISTIC
INVESTIGATION
-a holistic approach to the language-
 Applied linguistics (Educational linguistics, speech pathology, application of
linguistics to language teaching)
 Anthropological linguistics: the study of language in cross-cultural setting.
 Compuatational Linguistics: the use of computers to simulate language and
its workings=fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence
 Stylistics: the study of language and literature= text linguistics
 Philosophical linguistics: the link between language and logical thought.
 Linguistics typology: the study of different language types. For ex:
isolating(analytic) chinese: one morpheme one word, no affiixes, agglutinating,
inflecting: Latin, Greek, English. Deep/depth change according to the function in
a sentence.

72. Pedagogical
Grammar/Linguistics
 Designed for language teaching purposes
 For syllabus designers and language teachers
 Based on usefullnes and ease of learning
 Exercises, explanations, descriptions.
 The contents and the priorities changes from one
context to the next as different fields arise.
 It prescribes the teaching of the most learnable
aspects of grammar, pronunciation and
vocabulary.

73. Still an open question today
was there an original single language ?
(monogenesis)
or did language come about
independently in a number of places?

74. and related to this...
are similarities among the languages of the
world evidence of a single ultimate source,
due to genetic factors (innate language
system)
or due to certain preferences naturally
arising independently?

75. Bibliography:
Aichitson, J. Linguistics
Stern,H.H. Fundamental
concepts of language
teaching. Chapter 7