Language & Communication
Introduction
Language = a finite system of elements and principles that make it possible for speakers to
construct sentences to do particular communicative jobs.
1. Grammatical competence = the part of the system that allows speakers to produce
and interpret grammatical sentences.
2. Communicative competence = the knowledge included in grammatical competence
plus the ability to use that knowledge to accomplish a wide range of communicative
jobs.
All languages:
- Are made possible by the same genetic information.
- Are processed by the brain in basically the same ways.
- Share certain fundamental ‘design features’ and structural characteristics that enable
them to work the way they do.
Understanding and explaining the properties which are universal to all languages – as well as
those which vary across languages – is the fundamental job of the linguist.
Modularity
Phonetics = the production and interpretation of speech sounds.
The study of the sounds of human language.
Phonology = studies the organization of raw phonetics in language overall as well as in
individual languages.
The study of the sounds in a particular language. Every language has its own set of
sounds, which can be combined to pronounce any word in that language.
Morphology = the study of structure within words.
Syntax = the study of the structure of sentences.
Lexicon = the repository of linguistic elements with their meanings and structural properties.
Discourse = organization of language above and beyond the sentence.
Discreteness
Discreteness divides the continuous space of sound or meaning into discrete units.
The ability to use shorter units and combine them, instead of continuous sounds.
“Why does back differ from pack?”
Precisely what is discrete varies from one language to another, but all languages have the
property of discreteness.
Constituency
Constituents = a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical
structure.
‘She sat down.’
‘The smart woman sat down.’
‘The tall, dark-haired, smart woman with the red sweater sat down.’
Constituents can be replaced by other constituents, but not by a series of words that is not a
constituent. Constituents can be moved, but you can only move a complete constituent.
Recursion and productivity
Recursion = a property of systems which allows a process to be applied repeatedly.
,In language we can combine constituents to produce an infinite variety of sentences of
indefinite length.
The recursiveness of language has profound implications; no one can learn a language by
memorizing all the sentences of that language.
All languages are potentially infinitely productive.
Neologisms = newly coined words, which occur all throughout history and society.
A bona fide word is:
- Morphological
- Phonological
- Understandable
- Not supposed to be in dictionaries! ‘Bling’
Slang = words which are not used frequently enough to ever make it into a dictionary.
A native speaker of a language unconsciously ‘knows’ the principles and can use them to
produce and interpret variety of utterances.
Arbitrariness
Arbitrariness = the absence of any natural or necessary connection between a word’s
meaning and its sound or form. Arbitrariness is one of the characteristics shared between all
languages.
With few exceptions, words have no principled or systematic connection with what they
mean. Even onomatopoetic words that are supposed to sound like the noise – are arbitrary
and vary from language to language.
Arbitrary is not randomness! It means that, for example, the sounds that one language uses
and the principles by which they are combined are inherently no better or worse than those
of any other language.
Negative concord = ‘I didn’t see nobody’
Reliance on context
Languages rely on the connection between form and context!
Variability
Variability is one of the most important properties of language. Speakers vary the language
they use to signal their social identities and also to define the immediate speech situation.
People also use their variety of language to signal membership in a range of overlapping
social groups.
We might be able to eliminate a lot of discrimination against speakers of ‘nonstandard’
varieties if more people understood that each language and dialect of a language is a
coherent, and equally valid, system.
The descriptive approach
Each language is equally ‘functional’ at meeting the communicative needs of its own speech
community.
,Phonetics & phonology: the sounds of language
Speaking means using your vocal tract (lungs, trachea, larynx, mouth and nose) to get are
moving and vibrating, and then shaping that movement in different ways.
Trachea = windpipe
Larynx = Adam’s apple
Vocal folds = stembanden
The faster the vibration, the higher the pitch of the voice.
Primates have no pharynx, so they will never learn to talk.
Active articulators: lips (can be opened/closed/pushed/spread) and tongue.
Tongue front, tongue tip, tongue blade, tongue body, tongue root
Passive articulators: alveolar ridge, postalveolar region, hard palate, soft palate (velum).
Velar port = the opening in the back of the mouth that connects the mouth and nose.
Uvula = the little pink pendulum you can see hanging down in the back of your mouth.
Articulation
1. Airstream mechanism
Pulmonic egressive = air moving out from the lungs, most sounds used by most of the
world’s languages are pulmonic egressive.
2. Vocal folds
Voiced = sounds produced with vocal fold vibration. (Sounds without vocal fold vibration are
voiceless) (example [z] and [s])
Aspiration = for some sounds, initial [p] in pop, the vocal folds are held apart far enough and
long enough to allow an extra puff of air to exit the mouth at the end of the [p].
3. Velum, open or not?
Velum open nasal sound
Velum closed oral sound
4. Which active articulator and constriction, yes or no
Active articulators: lips, tongue front, tongue body, tongue root
Constriction = place of articulation (1)
What sort of constriction = the manner of articulation (2)
(1) Place of articulation
Bilabial labiodental dental alveolar postalveolar palatal velar uvular
retroflex pharyngeal epi-glottal glottal
(2) Manners of articulation
The manners of articulation include: stop, fricative, affricate, approximant, and vowel.
Stop = letters in which the airflow out of the mouth is completely cut off. [p] [t] [k]
Fricatives = letters in which the air passes through a narrow constriction that causes the air
to flow turbulently and thus create a noisy sound. [s] [z] [f] [v]
Affricates = letters that consist of a plosive and then a fricative. [ch]
Approximants = letters produced by bringing one articulator close to another without
actually touching it.
Laterals = l-sounds
Rhotics = r-sounds
Obstruents = oral stops, fricatives, affricates; they make noise by obstructing the airflow.
Sonorants = nasal stops, approximants, vowels; they make audible sounds not by obstructing
the airflow, but by letting the air resonate.
, Writing sounds: transcription
Phonetic transcription = writing down using a phonetic alphabet.
IPA = International Phonetic Alphabet
! Learn the consonants in IPA
Suprasegmentals = aspects of speech that influence stretches of sounds larger than a single
segment, including length, tone, intonation, syllable structure and stress.
Vocal tract choices:
1. How should I get air moving? Generally, this will be pulmonic egressive: air forced out
of the lungs.
2. Which active articulator should I use: lips, tongue tip, tongue body, tongue root or
larynx?
3. What kind of construction should I make: stop, fricative, affricate, approximant or
vowel?
