The document provides an overview of key concepts in linguistics including what language is, how it is distinct from animal communication, its special features, where it came from, and how to best view and study it. It discusses questions about language, Hockett's design features that make human language unique, different types of writing systems, differences between speech and writing, how languages use rules and paradigms to generate sentences, and the relationship between competence and performance.

1. L O T S O F I N F O R M A T I O N T O D A Y
W E ’ L L C O V E R M A N Y O F T H E S E I D E A S W I T H
G R E A T E R D E P T H
1.1 What is language?

2. S O M E Q U E S T I O N S
Looking more closely at
language

3. Some questions
 How do we ‘do’ language?
 What makes human language distinct from forms of
animal communication?
 What are the special features of language?
 Where did language come from?
 How is it best to view language?
 What can we know about language?
 Where do we start?

4.  Don’t get too bogged down with the theory.
 Language is amazing and extremely complicated, yet
we do it naturally.

5. O N E M U S T L E T P E O P L E T A L K , S I N C E F I S H C A N ’ T .
P O L I S H P R O V E R B
Design features

6. How is human language special?
 In the 1960s, the American linguist Charles Hockett
developed a list of features  differences between
human and animal communication.
 Many of these are shared with other animals to some
extent, particularly primates.
 It is the use of all these features together that makes
human language unique.

7. Hockett’s design features – Match ‘em up!
Features Definition
Duality of
patterning
We use language to talk about language.
Productivity We can use language to create false beliefs in
others.
Displacement Children learn language as part of their
socialisation into their families and communities.
Reflexiveness Language is organised at the level of forms and
the level of meanings.
Traditional
transmission
The same meaning can be expressed in an
unlimited way across languages.
Prevarication Language has the ability to formulate new
expressions and utterances based on words and
sentence patterns.
Arbitrariness We can use language to talk about things that are
not actually present.

8. Hockett’s design features – Match ‘em up!
Features Definition
Duality of
patterning
Language is organised at the level of forms and
the level of meanings.
Productivity Language has the ability to formulate new
expressions and utterances based on words and
sentence patterns.
Displacement We can use language to talk about things that are
not actually present.
Reflexiveness We use language to talk about language.
Traditional
transmission
Children learn language as part of their
socialisation into their families and communities.
Prevarication We can use language to create false beliefs in
others.
Arbitrariness The same meaning can be expressed in an
unlimited way across languages.

9. Other design features
 Broadcast transmission and directional
reception:
 When we speak (or sign) all can hear (or see). We chose to
listen to who we want.
 Transitoriness
 Language sounds exist for only a brief period of time, after
which they are no longer perceived.

10.  Interchangeability
 We can say anything we can hear (accurate or not).
 Queen ants produce chemical scents that no other ants can
produce
 Total feedback
 Speakers of a language can hear their own speech and can
control and modify what they are saying as they say it.
Similarly, signers see, feel, and control their signing.
 Specialization
 The purpose of linguistic signals is communication and not
some other biological function. When humans speak or sign, it
is generally intentional.

11. R E L A T I N G F O R M T O M E A N I N G
Signs

12. Signs come in lots of shapes and sizes
 The study of signs is known as semiotics
 Ways that meaning is expressed and attributed, ranging
across the domains including:
 body language,
 art,
 music,
 literature,
 The meanings attributed to signs vary according to the
culture and context in which they are found.
 Signs exist when a particular form carries a conventional
meaning.
 Pay attention to signs in English and your LS!

13. The semiotic triangle
Signifier
[gʌl] (spoken)
word on page
picture, expression
Mental concept
Actual gull
Signified

14. Types of signs
 Signs vary in the strength of their relationship to the
meaning they represent.
 Iconic signs – direct representation
 Indexical signs – physical or causal connection
 Symbolic signs – only conventionalised relationship

15. Examples?
 Iconic signs
 Indexical signs (harder)
 Symbolic signs
 Can you think of examples of each type the we
commonly encounter?

16. Iconic signs
 Iconic signs involve a direct
representation or imitation of
the meaning of the sign.
 Iconicity in language:
 ideophones (words such as kira kira
‘glitter’, garagara ‘rattle’ and buku
buku ‘bubble’ in Japanese).
 onomatopoeia (roosters say cock a
doodle doo in English, kokekokkō in
Japanese and kukariku in Russian).
 vowel lengthening (It went for a
looooong time).

17. Onomatopoeia in English
 Groups of 2
 Think of 20 examples of onomatopoeia in English.
 You may only use two animal sounds.
 Go!

18. Onomatopoeia in English
 chirp
 roar
 buzz
 ribbit
 burp
 cough
 mumble
 chomp
 clap
 snort
 gulp
 bang
 thud
 boom
 clang
 spash
 dribble
 squirt
 crackle
 crunch
 fizz
 rattle

19. Onomatopoeia in Spanish
 Word
 miau
 pam, pum
 chinchín
 plaf
 chocar
 tintinear
 traquetear
 zumbar
 susurro
 gargarizar
 English translation
 meow
 bang, pop
 clink
 splat
 crash
 jingle
 rattle, clatter
 buzz
 whisper
 to gargle

20. Onomatopoeia in French
 https://www.talkinfrench.com/french-
onomatopoeia/#tab-con-11
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqLGP3_b1Nc

21. Onomatopoeia in German
 Word
 Piep Piep
 Mampf Mampf
 Hatchu
 Schnarchen
 Klingeln
 Schlürfen
 English translation
 peep peep
 munch/chew
 achoo
 snore
 ring
 slurp

22. Onomatopoeia in Japanese
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0avgeqICbx0

23. Indexical signs
 Indexical signs have a direct physical or causal
connection to their meaning that can be inferred by
the observer.
 Smoke is indexical of fire: smoke is a signifier and fire is
the thing that it signifies.
 A great deal of modern machinery makes use of indexical
signs, beeping and flashing to tell the user something.
 Accents are also indexical, giving information about
where someone is from.

24. Symbolic signs
 Symbolic signs are signs in which there is “no
resemblance” between the signifier and the signified.
 The relation between the signifier and the signified is
based solely on convention.
 Human communication is highly symbolic; there is
no natural and no necessary connection between
words and their meaning.

25. Words for this…

26. Iconic, indexical, or symbolic

27. N O T Q U I T E A N Y T H I N G G O E S
How arbitrary are signs?

28. Are signs only symbolic?
 Broadly speaking, linguistic signs are arbitrary -
symbolic signs.
 But there is also a level of iconicity involved:
 bash, mash, stash, crash, dash, lash, hash, rash, brash, clash,
trash, splash and flash
All involve forceful, often destructive contact and its
results.
 Big vowels for big things – Oh – Oaf, bloat
 Small vowels for small things – ee – tweet, petite,
shrink

29. S P E A K I N G , W R I T I N G A N D S I G N I N G
Writing systems

30. Writing – the basics
 Writing is a way of representing an originally spoken
language in a visual mode.
 Writing is secondary to speech, as well as to sign
language, for reasons including the following:
 Writing systems were invented after humankind began using
speech.
 Spoken language is found in all human communities; writing
is not.
 Children learn to speak before they learn to write.
 Spoken language is more frequently used than written
language, even in literate communities.
 Spoken language is more expressive than written language.

31. Types of writing systems
1. Logographic systems have symbols for each
word/morpheme. Examples include ‘character’ based
languages, like Chinese and Japanese.
English examples include 3 for ‘three’ and $ for ‘dollar’.
2. Syllabic systems tell us how to pronounce the words
using symbols for each syllable.
Cherokee syllabary and the Japanese kana.
An example in English might be something like bar-b-q.
3. Alphabetic systems have symbols that represent the
separate sounds that make up a syllable

32. Japanese writing systems
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFq2Y43DY0U

33. Identify differences between speech and writing,
considering the following factors:
• Location of audience
• Feedback from audience
• Use of paralinguistic cues (loudness of voice,
rate of speech, facial expressions, etc.)
• Permanence
• Context-dependent
• Association with literary genre
• Use of standard variety of the language
• Focus of educational efforts
• Planning time

34. Differences between speech and writing
Speech Writing
Location of audience
Feedback from audience
Use of paralinguistic cues
(loudness of voice, rate of
speech, facial expressions, etc.)
Permanence
Context-dependent
Association with literary genre
Use of standard variety of the
language
Focus of educational efforts
Planning time
present absent
Available in real time Not readily available
Can be used Cannot be used – word
choice, punctuation,
emoticons and emoji are
alternative options
Usually transitory Often long-lasting
Yes No
Less strong More strong
Less expected
More expected
(especially in formal
writing)
Limited attention Extensive attention
Restricted Often extensive

35. I N F I N I T E U S E O F F I N I T E M E A N S
Rules and paradigms

36. Getting forms organised
 So far we have established that language is made up
of signs – in spoken language, words and these signs
have conventionalised meanings but how do we get
from words to sentences to texts?
 Time is an important dimension to language – words
come out of the mouth or off the pen one after
another – but how do we know the order to put them
in? And why do they sometimes change their form?

37. Strings of words in order
 Languages vary in terms of how strict the ordering of words is
 In English sentences the ordering is strict.
1. My boyfriend's sister hates cats.
 The order of the elements are also fixed. In the phrase my
boyfriend’s sister. Other orders are not acceptable in English:
2. my sister boyfriend’s boyfriend’s my sister
boyfriend’s sister my sister my boyfriend’s
a. (A la hermana de mi novio) le molestan los gatos.
b. Le molestan los gatos (a la hermana de mi novio).
c. Los gatos le molestan (a la hermana de mi novio).
d. (A la hermana de mi novio) los gatos le molestan.

38. Paradigms
 Words in many languages occur in sets of different
forms. In English, for example, the words hate and
take have the following forms:
Label hate take
3rd person singular present hates takes
plain present hate take
past hated took
infinitive hate take
past participle hated taken
present participle hating taking

39. Grammaticality
 We can say that a sentence is well-formed when it
follows the grammatical rules for the language.
 It has words in the right order and words of the right
forms.

40. Grammaticality – Come up with one of each:
1. Grammatical sentences.
1. Easy to interpret and intuitively correct.
2. Ungrammatical sentences.
1. Not easy to interpret and are intuitively wrong.
3. Semantically troubling sentences.
1. Grammatical, but do not make sense.

41. O N B E I N G R I G H T
Prescription and description

42. Worrying about what is ‘right’ language
 The idea of grammaticality is one way in which we
can think about examples of language being ‘right’
and ‘wrong’.
 Many people spend a lot of time and emotional
energy worrying about their own or other people’s
‘wrong’ use of language.
 Who do you know like this?
 But linguistics has a much wider understanding of
‘rightness’ than grammaticality.

43. Language varies
 One of the most important complicating factors in
thinking about ‘right’ language is that language
choices are grammatically and socially determined.
 In fact the grammatical and the social intersect so
that different social groups follow different
grammatical rules.
 Because social choices are connected to the status of
different social groups, some of these rules are
sometimes seen as being more ‘right’ than others.

44. Approaches to ‘rightness’
 An important distinction that linguists make is
between descriptive and prescriptive approaches to
language.

45. Prescriptive approaches
 Place value judgements about language at the centre
of the frame.
 Often associated with standard varieties of major
languages.
 Focus on the documentation and promotion of
norms about language use.
 Sadly often also associated with the denigration of
behaviours and practices that fall outside these
norms.
 There are only two varieties: the good one and the
bad one!

46. Descriptive approaches
 A descriptive approach focuses on describing what
people say and do with language.
 Tries to learn about language more generally based
on these observations
 It also tries to avoid personal value judgements
about how language is being used.
 Descriptive approaches observe the value
judgements of ourselves and others and incorporate
them into language description (rather than
imposing them on bystanders).
 Most linguists try to take this approach.

47. Prescriptive vs descriptive
 Thoughts?
 Are there language “rules” that you often break?
 Who decides what the “rules” are?
 Who suffers when they don’t speak “correctly”?

48. C O M P E T E N C E A N D P E R F O R M A N C E
Breaking all the rules

49. Competence and performance
 We fall short of the grammatical targets we set for
ourselves.
 Transcript of a conversation will show missed words,
words in the wrong order or form, and other slips of
the tongue
 If we showed these errors to the speaker, they would
know they had made an error – though they may not
have noticed it at the time
 How and why can competence be so different from
performance?

50. Competence
 Competence relates to what speakers ‘know’ about
how language is meant to work
 It has to do with the rules we have learned and
internalised unconsciously by simply being part of a
speech community
 We might not be able to say what these are, we know
when something goes wrong
 Language acquisition involves the development of
grammatical competence over time
 Once established, grammatical competence is a fairly
stable thing

51. Performance
 Performance relates to the way speakers actually use
language from one moment to another.
 Performance is susceptible to all sorts of contextual
influences.
 If we are tired, distracted, upset, nervous, and so on,
this can have an effect on whether or not the
language that we produce matches what we might
consider to be correct or competent uses of language.

52. Communicative competence
 Communicative competence is the ability to use language
appropriately according to the communicative norms of
our society/a particular situation.
 Examples include being able to apologise, tell a joke or
invite someone to dinner.
 Our ability to do these things well depends on our basic
understanding of what is appropriate at any given time.
 A range of contextual factors may contribute to our
performance: tiredness, distraction and strong emotions
(or drink!) are all factors that can interfere with our
ability to communicate effectively.

53.  Is there a point in which you’ll feel like you have true
“competence” in your LS?

54. H O W A N D W H Y L A N G U A G E S C H A N G E
Language across time

55. Two approaches to language (study)
 Synchronic approaches study the state of a
language at a particular period (a snapshot in time).
 Diachronic approaches take a historical
perspective and analyse the changes that have taken
place across time (a series of snapshots over time).
 Both are important for a complete picture of any
language.

56. Snapshots over time
 On the next slide, you will see two varieties of
English – one from a dialect from Northern England
written in 1349 and one from today.
 Comparing the two varieties, what types of changes
can you see between the two texts?
 On the other hand, what has stayed the same?

57. Snapshots over time
Twa lyves þat er þat cristen men lyfes: ane es called actyve lyfe
Two lives there are that Christian men live: one is called active life
for it es mare bodili warke: another, contemplatyve lyfe
for it is more bodily work: another contemplative life
for it es in mare swetnes gastely
for it is in more sweetness spiritually
Actife lyfe es mykel owtward and in mare travel
Active life is much outward and in more travail
and in mare peryle for þe temptacions þat er in þe worlde
and in more peril for the temptations that are in the world
(The text is a passage from The Form of Living, by Richard Rolle.)

58. L A N G U A G E A F T E R T H E M O T H E R T O N G U E
Second language acquisition

59. Second-language acquisition
 SLA refers to any language acquired after the first. It
therefore also includes competence in three or even more
languages.
 Terms like ‘bilingual’ and ‘multilingual’ are by no means
clear cut, and we should recognise them as falling along a
continuum from native-like fluency to limited ability
(e.g., understand but not produce).
 Research on SLA is interested in how people acquire
second (and subsequent) languages, how SLA differs
from first-language learning, and explaining differences
between individual learners.

60. Similarities and differences to FLA
 SLA can differ heavily from FLA. Learners may be older,
and the quality and variety of input may differ heavily
(especially when studying a language outside of a nation
where it is spoken).
 Early attempts at speaking a second language typically
involve: a preliminary silent period, formulaic chunks,
telegraphic speech, and then awareness of the
desirability of grammatical correctness.
 As with FLA, the language gets worse before it gets
better. This is called U-shaped performance, and it
should be taken to represent progress.

61. F E A T U R E S T H A T H E L P A N D I N T E R F E R E
Interference and transfer

62. Language correspondence
 1. Language A has a trait (unit, pattern, etc) similar
to that in Language B
 Something in common
 2. Language A has a trait similar to a trait in
Language B, but different in form, function,
frequency, or distribution
 Something similar but with important differences
 3. Language A has a trait that Language B does
not have or corresponds with a different trait in
Language B
 Something that doesn’t exist or works differently

63. Think of examples
 1 – Similar traits (sounds, words, structures)
 2 – Traits that seem similar but have some
differences
 3 – Traits that the languages don’t share or
are very different
 Think of examples from these three
categories.

64. German/English
 1 – Similar traits (sounds, words, structures)
 I have four classes.
 Ich habe vier Klassen.
 2 – “Informationen” is plural in German. What
mistake could German speakers make in English
?
 “informations”
 3 – Cases in German
 der Hund, den Hund, dem Hund, des Hundes
 subject, direct object, indirect object, possession

65. German/English Cognates
 Akzent
 Apfel
 Banane
 Buch
 Katze
 Docktor
 trinken
 energie
 Fieber
 Insekt
 Küche
 leben
 Schule
 accent
 apple
 banana
 book
 cat
 doctor
 drink
 energy
 fever
 insect
 kitchen
 live
 school

66. Transferencia
 Group 1 -
 Traits in common
 Help learners aquire
the L2
 Groups 2 and 3
 different traits
 Interferes with use of
L2
 Cause problems for
students
Negative transfer
Positive transfer

67. Keep in mind
 Pay attention to the traits of your LS that we cover.
 What traits result in positive transfer?
 Similar traits that help you with LS?
 What traits result in negative transfer?
 Different traits that interfere with LS?

68.  Read the descriptions of the “case study” languages,
pp. 21-32. What strikes you as interesting about one
(or more) of these languages?

69. Homework
 Read For the Love of Language, Chap. 4, pp. 82-95
 Answer Reading Questions on Canvas