1. All languages are equally complex and capable of expressing ideas. There are no primitive languages - the vocabulary of any language can expand. 2. Descriptive linguistics focuses on objectively describing how a given language is actually used by its native speakers, rather than judging what is correct or incorrect. 3. Black English, also known as African American Vernacular English, is a systematic dialect with its own rules rather than just random errors. It is as complex and logical as Standard English.

1. CHAPTER 2:
A. FACTS ABOUT UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
B. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE OF
LANGUAGE
Reporter: Jessa B. Marquez
Course: MAEd-EE1
Term: 2nd Sem. S.Y. 2018-
2019
Subject: Introduction to
Linguistics

2. Regarding the universality of a language, it is interesting to note the
following:
1. No language or variety of a language (called a dialect) is superior to
any other in a linguistic sense. Every grammar is equally complex and
logical and capable of producing an infinite set of sentences to
express any thought. If someone can be expressed in one language or
one dialect, it can be expressed in any other language or dialect. It
might involve different means and different words, but it can be
expressed (Searle, 1976).
2. No grammar, therefore no language is either superior or inferior to
any other. Languages of technologically underdeveloped cultures are
not primitive of ill-formed in any way. Indigenous dialects or
languages also have grammar.

3. 1. There are no “primitive” languages – all languages
are equally complex and equally capable of expressing
any idea in the universe. The vocabulary of any
language can be expanded to include new words for
new concepts.
2. All languages change through time (just like the
climate!).
3. The relationship between the sounds and meanings
of spoken languages and between the gestures (signs)
and meanings of sign languages are for the most part,
arbitrary.

4. 4. All human languages utilize a finite set of
discrete sounds (or gestures) that are combined
to form meaningful elements or words, which
themselves form an infinite set of possible
sentences.
5. All grammars contain rules for the formation
words and sentences of similar kind.
6. Every spoken language has a class of vowels
and a class of consonants defined by a finite set of
sound properties or features.

5. 7. Similar grammatical categories (for
example, nouns, verbs) are found in all
languages.
8. There are semantic universals, such as
“male” or “female”, “animate” or “human”
found in every language in the world.
9. Every language has a way of referring to
past time, negating, forming questions,
issuing commands, and so on.

6. 10. Speakers of all languages are capable of producing
and comprehending an infinite set of sentences.
11. Syntactic universals reveal that every language has a
way of forming sentences and concretizing them.
“Mathematics is a difficult subject to study.”
“I know that mathematics’ problem is difficult to solve
and arrive at a correct solution.”
“The Math professor knows that mathematics is not an
easy subject among students to take and study.”

7. 12. Any normal child, regardless of where he or
she was born, is capable of learning any language
to which he or she is exposed.
13. The differences we find among language
cannot be due to biological reasons. We all speak
“human language.”
14. In language, we share in the magic that opens
the world to us.

8. Descriptive Linguistics Deals with describing the system
of a given language and “how” it operates on that particular
given language.
• The individual who is analyzing the language is not interested
in what is correct or incorrect, or what should or should not
said, but rather in what actually is said by the speakers of a
given language or dialect.
• Linguists like Charles Fries uses this approach especially in
knowing for instance, how Spanish speakers actually speak
language today and what sounds an English speaker who
studies Spanish must learn in order to sound like a native
Spanish speaker.

9. • Linguists believe that almost anything a native
speaker say is “correct” in a certain sense. They also
believe that the so called “errors” the native
speakers made in his/her own language are almost
never the same real errors foreigner makes when
she/he learns to speak the language.

10. Example: A non-native Spanish speaker, for instance,
mixes up the verb “ser” with “estar” (both verbs
equivalent in English verb “to be”), and is confused
with using the “imperfect” and the “preterite” (this is
the English “past tense” form of verb), or forgets
whether “caro” (a car) is pronounced with a single
tap /r/ or the thrill /rr/ sound. Note: carro is
“expensive” in the Spanish language and it is
considered as an “adjective” and pronounced with a
thrill /rr/.

11. Regarding the English Language, linguists such as
William Labov has investigated the syntactic structures
of several languages, one of them is that of the Black
English.
Linguists who have been studying Black English realize
that it is not slang but a dialect with an origin and
structure different from that of Standard English (Diller
1977).

12. It has a rich vocabulary and a system of forms and
tenses as “logical” as those of Standard English.
However, low-income black children whose primary
language is Black English have consistency performed
below the expected norms on standardized tests pf
vocabulary and reading readiness. For this reason in the
early 1960’s, some psychologists and educators
planned a program to remedy what they considered a
language deficit in these children.

13. Everyone notices the differences between pronunciation of
Black English and Standard English. For example, “find,” and
“found,” may be pronounced almost exactly alike in Black
English, and “that” may be pronounced as “dat” in the same
way the word “mouth” as “mout,” and “help” as “hep”. The
differences in grammar are more difficult to hear. Grammarians
once assumed that Black English simply dropped suffixes and
tense distinctions at random, but now they believe that Black
English is based on a systematic grammar and adheres
consistently to its own rules. For example, “I don’t go,” “I done
gone,” “I have done gone,” “I done been gone.” Each expresses
a different state of affairs in varying verb tenses.

14. It is the syntactic differences that have often been
used to illustrate the “illogicality” of Black English; yet
it is just such differences that point up to the fact that
Black English is as syntactically complex and as
“logical” as Standard American English. Consider the
following sentences in Black English when the verb is
negated:
“He don’t know nothing.”/
“He ain’t got none.”/
“He don’t like nobody.”

15. In Black English, when the verb is negated, the
indefinite something, someday, and some become the
negative indefinites nothing, nobody and none. In Standard
English, if the verb is negated the indefinites becomes
anything, anybody, and any. If in the negative sentence in
Standard English the forms nothing, nobody and none are
used, then the verb is negated. The speakers of both Standard
American and Black English know how to negated sentences;
the rules are essentially the same, but differ in detail. Both are
strictly rule-governed, as in every syntactic process of every
dialect in every language in the world.

16. For a descriptive linguist, one must learn many rules if one
wants to speak a language correctly, that is, the way a native
speaker speaks it. One must learn rules which the native speaker
knows unconsciously and never violates. In other words, one must
avoid making mistakes no native would ever make, and when one
makes these mistakes, he or she is wrong in a way that no native
speaker is ever wrong. The so-called errors committed by native
speakers are really stylistic or usage variants which are determined
for the most part by geographical, social and educational factors.
Therefore, it is the job of a language to teach students to speak the
language the way it is spoken by educated native speakers, since
the students are obviously trying to become educated regardless
of the language he or she is speaking while he/she is doing it.

17. Subject: Modern Educational
Technology
Term: 2st Semester S.Y. 2018-
2019
Discussant: Jessa B. Marquez
Topic: Direct, Purposeful
Experiences
and Beyond