Language

1. Language Basic Principles

2. Communication Systems • All communication systems share 3 features:

3. Communication Systems • Mode — a means of communication, signals or signs

4. Communication Systems 2. Semanticity — The signal means something to users

5. Communication Systems 3. Pragmatic function — Language is a communication system that is used to produce a useful result

6. Communication Systems • Many communication systems share the following 4 features:

7. Communication Systems 4. Interchangeable — all users can emanate or receive signals equally

8. Communication Systems 5. Cultural Transmission — acquired from associating with a community

9. Communication Systems 6. Arbitrariness — relation of signal to its meaning is arbitrary

10. Communication Systems 7. Discreteness — utterances (messages) are made up of distinct units

11. Communication Systems • True language — human language — is characterized by the following two features

12. Communication Systems 8. Displacement — may communicate about things not present in space or time

13. Communication Systems 9. Productivity — • open-ended • can make an infinite number of sentences • can make sentences never made before

14. Human • Understanding the category ‘human’ means recognizing the faculty for displacement and productivity in language • It is these which distinguish human from other forms of life

15. Linguistics signs Linguistic sign — • A spoken form with a conventional meaning • These are the signals that make up a language

16. Iconicity and arbitrariness • Iconic signs— Language: Sound like the thing named by the word Graphemes: Look like the thing/meaning of the word

17. Linguistics signs, iconicity, and arbitrariness Non-arbitrary signs include the following: a. Words such as barnyard sound words or words for natural noises — Such words sound like the thing they represent (iconic)

18. Linguistics signs, iconicity, and arbitrariness These words are adjusted to the phonetics of the language using the word p. 17 (barnyard sound words)

19. Non-arbitrary words These words are Onomatopoeic: their meaning associated with the sound (cats meow; doors creak) These are iconic

20. Non-arbitrary words • b. baby words and kinship words — baba, mama, dada, etc. — have a reasoned relation between the words and the neuromuscular development of infants and small children

21. Non-arbitrary words • Many languages have similar or identical kinship words because these words relate to the simplicity and ease of production of sounds in the developing child

22. Iconicity and arbitrariness • Arbitrary — A. No natural relation between sound and thing B. No reasoned relationship between sound and thing

23. Linguistic signs • Linguistic signs, with a small number of exceptions, are arbitrary. table, mesa, zhuozi dog, perro, gou

24. Iconic written signs • Written signs can be iconic • 人 ‘person’ • 日 ‘sun’ • 月 ‘moon’ • 內 ‘inside’ • 肉 ‘meat’ • 坐 ‘sit’

25. Iconic written signs • secondary iconicity (now that the association is conventional) threw vs. through their vs. there

26. Comm. Systems and Animal Language • Mode (LF 27 – 37) • Semanticity • Pragmatic function • Interchangeability • Cultural transmission • Arbitrariness • Discreteness • Displacement • Productivity

27. Linguistic signs and meaning • What does it mean for a sign to mean something to us? • What is meaning in human language?

28. Basic principles • What do you know when you know a language? [We hope that by the end of the course we can answer that question]

29. Basic principles • Phonetics, phonology — you can use the sound system of the language

30. Basic principles • Morphology — you know and can make words

31. Basic principles • Syntax — you know how to form utterances

32. Basic principles • Semantics — you understand meanings of words and items in the language

33. Basic principles • Styles & Pragmatics — you know how to use the language in different types of situations you know what utterances in the language are used to do