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University of Madras
Syllabus with effect from 2020-2021
BA English Literature
[2nd Year, 4th Semester]
ASPECTS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE – PAPER II
Unit 1: Introduction
1.1 What is
Linguistics? – Linguistics as a science
Introduction
The
word ‘Linguistics’ has been derived from Latin lingua (tongue) and istics
(knowledge or science). Etymologically, therefore, linguistics is the
scientific study of language. But it is the study not of one particular
language but of human language in general. It studies language as a universal and
recognizable part of human behaviour. It attempts to describe and analyze
language. The field of linguistics comprises understanding of the place of
language in human life, the ways in which it is organized to fulfil the needs
it serves, and the functions it performs. So linguistics is that science which
studies the origin, organization, nature and development of language
descriptively, historically, comparatively and explicitly, and formulates the
general rules related to language.
Diachronic
(historical) linguistics studies the development of language through history,
through time, for example, the way in which French and Italian have evolved
from Latin. Synchronic linguistics investigates how the people speak and use
language in a given speech community at a given time. In Comparative
linguistics one is concerned with comparing two or more different languages.
Linguistics,
therefore, is the science that describes and classifies languages. The linguist
identifies and describes the units and patterns of the sound system, the words
and morphemes, and the phrases and sentences that is the structure of language
as completely, accurately, and economically as possible.
Is
Linguistics a Science?
Linguistics
is the scientific study of language. Like all other sciences linguistics has a
well-defined subject matter, viz. natural languages, living or dead; it employs
careful methods to observe, record and analyse the various phenomena related to
its subject matter and hopes to present unprejudiced, objective and verifiable
descriptions. The approach and methodology of linguistics is scientific. It is
as inductive as a science could be, and is based on observations, formation of hypothesis,
testing, verification, tentativeness and predictiveness. Like a scientist a
linguist observes his data. Some of his methods of observation include simple
listening, phonetic transcription, and the use of various instruments, such as
oscillograph, sounds pectograph, kymograph, chromograph, mingograph,
laryngoscope, endoscope, sonograph, autophonoscope, breathing flask, strobolaryngoscope,
electric vocal tract, pitchmeter, intensity meter, speech stretcher, formant graphing
machine, etc. Records and cassettes made in these ways help in various kinds of
objective description. A linguist has his language laboratory too.
Again,
like a scientist a linguist develops hypotheses, makes generalized statements
and tests them against the fact of languages. When a linguist or a phonetician
makes a statement about languages, he makes it on the basis of observation.
First he observes linguistic events. He finds some similarities and contrasts
on the basis of which he makes sound generalizations. On the basis of these generalizations
hypotheses are formulated to account for the events. These are tested by
further observations, and out of them is constructed a theory of how language
works. From the theory are derived methods for making statements about
linguistic events. The statements link the theory to the events it is set up to
account for, and they can now be evaluated by reference both to the theory and
to the events: the best statements are those which make maximum use of the
theory to account most fully for the facts.
The
linguist also hopes to be in position to make prediction about unobserved
linguistic data on the basis of those observed, and build a general theory
which would explain and relate all the facts to be found in individual
languages. Predictions about grammars and dictionaries can be made by him. And
finally like a true scientist, he is constantly engaged in discovering more
about languages, in refining his methods of investigation, and in constructing
better theories. He also tries to find out linguistic universals.
Like
any scientific discipline, linguistics too is not static. Viewpoints and
theoretical methods in the field, change even in fundamental ways from time to
time, and different aspects come to receive primary focus at different times.
Linguistics has more than its share of unresolved controversies and unsolved
questions, which is a part of its fascination and challenge.
Finally, the closeness of Linguistics with other natural sciences like mathematics, physics, physiology, biology, zoology, etc., is another proof of its scientific nature. ‘It touches on physics through acoustics, on physiology through the structure of the human vocal organs, on zoology through the comparative study of the communicative systems of living beings.’ A glance on any book on transformational-generative grammar would convince any objective onlooker how linguistics is becoming more and more scientific. Furthermore, as mentioned by R. H. Robins, linguistics in its operations and statements is guided by three canons of science:
(1) exhaustiveness, the adequate treatment of all the relevent material;
(2) consistency, the absence of contradiction between different parts of the total statement, and within the limits imposed by the two preceding principles; and
(3) economy, whereby, other things being equal, a shorter statement or analysis employing fewer terms is to be preferred to one that is longer or more involved.
Consequently, linguistics is getting more and more technical and sophisticated every day. Yet it is not a pure science. Its position, says R. A. Hall, is between the natural and social sciences, like that of geology. To Robins it is an ‘empirical science’, and within the empirical sciences it is ‘one of the social sciences’, because its subject matter concerns human beings, and is very much different from that of natural sciences.
Nevertheless,
linguistics is the scientific study of language. It may be inductive or
deductive; it is, however, objective, precise, tentative and systematic; it is
concerned with reportable facts, methods, and principles; it works by means of
observations, hypotheses, experiments and tests, postulates, and inferences; it
makes generalization and predictions; it formulates theories; its products are descriptive,
verbal or algebraic statements about language.
1.2 Nature and scope of Linguistics
We have discussed the definition and nature of linguistics. The question that arises immediately now is: what areas and what aspects of language study is the linguist interested in? In a broad way language is the expression of human thought, and all thought is expressed through language, hence all knowledge of the universe may fall within the scope of linguistics, and the scope may be a complex mess.
Yet linguistics being a science, has got to be a systematic discipline. So the questions: what kind of behaviour does the linguist want to investigate? or what is the scope of linguistics?—need to be answered. A linguist has to study and describe language which is an enormously complex phenomenon. He, therefore, concentrates at any one time on one of the many different, though interrelated, aspects of his subject matter. His subject matter, broadly speaking, is the data of language, or the facts of language as it is spoken and written.
A full understanding of the various components of language and their relations with the rest of the world outside language, thus, would constitute the right scope of linguistics, which can roughly be represented by the figure 1.1 borrowed from Jean Aitchison:
Thus general linguistics covers a wide range of topics and its boundaries are difficult to define. In the centre is phonetics, the study of human speech sounds. A phonetician is concerned with the actual physical sounds, the raw material out of which language is made. He studies the position of the tongue, teeth and vocal cords during the production of sounds, and records and analyses sound waves. Around the central core are various branches of linguistics which are being rapidly developed at the present time: such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, mathematical linguistics, hilosophical linguistics, anthropological linguistics, stylistics and language teaching.
1.3 Synchronic and Diachronic approaches
Synchronic
linguistics deals with systems, diachronic with units. These two approches have
to be kept clearly apart and pursued separately. Saussure considered synchronic
linguistics to be more important: “the first thing that strikes us when we
study the facts of language is that their succession in time does not exist in
so far as the speaker is concerned. He is confronted with a state. That is why
the linguist who wishes to understand a state, must discard all knowledge of
everything that produced it and ignore diachrony.”
1.4 Branches of study
Introduction
Linguistics
is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken
into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning,
and language in context. The earliest known activities in descriptive
linguistics have been attributed to Panini around 500 BC, with his analysis of
Sanskrit in Ashtadhyayi.
The
first subfield of linguistics is the study of language structure, or grammar.
This focuses on the system of rules followed by the users of a language. It
includes the study of morphology (the formation and composition of words),
syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these
words), and phonology (sound systems). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics
concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds and nonspeech sounds, and
how they are produced and perceived.
The
study of language meaning is concerned with how languages employ logical structures
and real-world references to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as to
manage and resolve ambiguity. This category includes the study of semantics
(how meaning is inferred from words and concepts) and pragmatics (how meaning
is inferred from context).
Linguistics
also looks at the broader context in which language is influenced by social,
cultural, historical and political factors. This includes the study of
evolutionary linguistics, which investigates into questions related to the
origins and growth of languages; historical linguistics, which explores language
change; sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic
variation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the
representation and function of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which
looks at language processing in the brain; language acquisition, on how
children or adults acquire language; and discourse analysis, which involves the
structure of texts and conversations.
Although
linguistics is the scientific study of language, a number of other intellectual
disciplines are relevant to language and intersect with it. Semiotics, for
example, is the general study of signs and symbols both within language and
without. Literary theorists study the use of language in literature.
Linguistics additionally draws on and informs work from such diverse fields as
acoustics, anthropology, biology, computer science, human anatomy, informatics,
neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and speech-language pathology.
Branches
of Linguistics
Historical
Linguistics
Historical
linguists study the history of specific languages as well as general
characteristics of language change. One aim of historical linguistics is to
classify languages in language families descending from a common ancestor, an
enterprise that relies primarily on the comparative method. This involves
comparison of elements in different languages to detect possible cognates in
order to be able to reconstruct how different languages have changed over time.
Some historical linguists, along with non-linguists interested in language
change, have also employed such tools as computational phylogenetics. The study
of language change is also referred to as “diachronic linguistics”, which can
be distinguished from “synchronic linguistics”, the study of a given language at
a given moment in time without regard to its previous stages. Historical
linguistics was among the first linguistic disciplines to emerge and was the
most widely practised form of linguistics in the late 19th century. However, a
shift in focus to the synchronic perspective began in the early twentieth
century with Saussure and became predominant in western linguistics through the
work of Noam Chomsky.
Semiotics
Semiotics
is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication,
signs, and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems, including
the study of how meaning is constructed and understood. Nonetheless, semiotic
disciplines closely related to linguistics are literary studies, discourse
analysis, text linguistics, and philosophy of language. Semiotics, within the
linguistics paradigm, is the study of the relationship between language and
culture. Historically, Edward Sapir and Ferdinand De Saussure’s structuralist
theories influenced the study of signs extensively until the late part of the
20th century, but later, post-modern and post-structural thought, through
language philosophers including Jacques Derrida, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault,
and others, have also been a considerable influence on the discipline in the
late part of the 20th century and early 21st century. These theories emphasise
the role of language variation, and the idea of subjective usage, depending on
external elements like social and cultural factors, rather than merely on the
interplay of formal elements.
Types
of Linguistics
Linguistics
and Other Branches of Knowledge
Keeping
in view the interdisciplinary relationship between Linguistics and other
branches of knowledge with which it is associated, David Crystal has explained
various types of linguistics, each type named after the branch of knowledge
with which it is connected or on whose method and concepts it bases its
conclusions. These types, as enumerated by Crystal are as follows:
1.
Apthropological Linguistics: The study of language variation and use in
relation to the cultural patterns and beliefs of the human race, as investigated
using the theories and methods of anthropology.
2.
Applied Linguistics: The application of linguistic theories, methods, and
findings to the elucidation of language problems that have arisen in other
domains. The term is especially used with reference to the field of foreign
language learning and teaching, but it applies equally to several other fields,
such as stylistics, lexicography, translation, and language planning, as well
as to the clinical and educational fields below.
3.
Biological Linguistics: The study of the biological conditions for language
development and use in human beings, with reference both to the history of
language in the human race and to child development.
4.
Clinical Linguistics: The application of linguistic theories and methods to the
analysis of disorders of spoken, written, or signed language.
5.
Computational Linguistics: The study of language using the techniques and
concepts of computer science, especially with reference to the problems posed
by the fields of machine translation, information retrieval, and artificial
intelligence.
6. Educational
Linguistics: The application of linguistic theories and methods to the study of
the teaching and learning of a language (especially a first language) in
schools and other educational settings.
7.
Ethnolinguistics: The study of language in relation to ethnic types and
behaviours, especially with reference to the way social interaction proceeds.
8.
Geographical Linguistics: The study of the regional distribution of languages
and dialects, seen in relation to geographical factors in the environment.
9.
Mathematical Linguistics: The study of the mathematical properties of language,
using concepts from such fields as algebra, computer science, and statistics.
10.
Neurolinguistics: The study of the neurological basis of language development
and use in human beings, especially of the brains control over the processes of
speech and understanding.
11. Philosophical
Linguistics: The study of the role of language in the elucidation of philosophical
concepts, and of the philosophical status of linguistic theories, methods, and
observations.
12.
Psycholinguistics: The study of the relationship between linguistics behaviour
and the psychological processes, (e.g. memory, attention) thought to underline
it.
13.
Sociolinguistics: The study of the interaction between language and the
structure and functioning of society.
14.
Statistical Linguistics: The study of the statistical or quantitative
properties of language.
15.
Theolinguistics: The study of the languages used by biblical scholars,
theologians, and others involved in the theory and practice of religious
belief.
1.5 Descriptive,
Historical and Comparative Linguistics
General
linguistics includes a number of related subjects involved in the study of
language as understood in the preceding paragraphs. General linguistics can
broadly be divided into three sub-divisions descriptive linguistics, historical
linguistics and comparative linguistics.
1.
Descriptive linguistics is concerned with the description and analysis of the
ways in which a language operates and is used by a given set of speakers at a
given time. The time may be present. The time may equally well be the past,
where adequate written records are available. Nor is the descriptive study of a
particular language concerned with the description of other languages at the
same time. Descriptive linguistics is often regarded as the major part of general
linguistics, and certainly the fundamental aspect of the study of language.
2.
Historical linguistics is the study of developments in languages in the course
of time. It is the diachronic study of the language. It studies language
change, and the causes and results of such changes as have occurred from time
to time.
3.
Comparative linguistics is concerned with comparing from one or more points of
view two or more different languages. Comparative linguistics traces the
evolution of language and, by comparing one with another, establishes the
relationships between them. This comparison is generally done between the
languages which are genetically related, that is, those that have developed
from some common source.
Comparative
and historical linguistics may be said to have begun in 1786, the date when Sir
William Jones made the famous statement pointing out that Greek, Latin,
Sanskrit, Celtic and Germanic appeared to have sprung from a common source. The
old name for the subject was Comparative Philology.
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