The science of human language
Language is the subject matter of linguistics
What is language?
SET /REPERTOIRE
TOOL
MEANS OF INTERACTION
KINESICS
FLEXIBLE
Creative
Rule-governed
Arbitrary
Discrete
To acquire
Fully-fledged
Sound /Phonetics /Phonology
Word/Morphology
Sentence/Syntax
Meaning/Semantics
Tacitly
Gender
Breach
Finite set of rules / infinite
Linguist
To be under oath
NEOLOGISM
GURU
SCHOOLS OF LINGUISTICS
School /Trend /Approach /Frame of Thinking
Principles / Underpinnings
The History of Linguistics is split into :
a.Before a science
b.After a science
Before it was established as a science ( a human science)Linguistics was in
fact ‘ Traditional Grammar’. Traditional Grammar: Prescriptive
Traditional Grammarians
Manuals of Rules of Prescription
THE GREEKS
The 5th century BC
The dominance of Philosophy
All academic disciplines were considered as part pf Philosophy. Grammar , too.
The focus was on ‘ written language’.
Grammar= The Art of Writing.
Language , for the Greeks , is a set of regular patterns.
Grammar is the systematic way of studying these patterns.
SANSKRIT ; particles
The Greeks were the first to use the notion ‘Parts of Speech’. Plato : Nouns and Verbs.
The Essay on Use Of Language And Linguistics In The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver
While reading The Poisonwood Bible, I was fascinated by Kingsolver’s extensive use of Lingala, the language used in the region of the Congo where the Price family lives. Lingala is a language in which each word has several meanings, and Kingsolver has the characters in the story use language to reflect themselves. Kingsolver also masterfully wields words to connote subtle ideas throughout ...
Aristotle: Conjunction;
Tense
Thrax : Adverbs , Participles,
Pronouns ,
Prepositions.
VERBAL
Let’s eat , Grandma !
Parts of Speech:
Open-class:Noun;Verb;Adjective;Adverb
NEOLOGISM
Closed-class:Pronoun;Article;Preposition;Conjuction;
Interjection.
EXHAUSTIVE
The Naturalists vs The Conventionalists
One of the hottest debates in the times of the Greeks:
Nalturalit view vs Conventionalist view
Plato Artstitole
Imitation Arbitrariness
of Nature
Use of language is taken for granted.
Language is a means of communication.
Linguistics is the scientific study of this means.
‘Folk Linguistics’ / ‘Ethno-linguistics’ is the beliefs that we have about language and about its origin. Theories of the Origin of Language.
Divine Theory
‘Folk Linguistics’ has developed into curiosity and awareness about ‘Language’ and later into ‘Linguistic Science’. Linguistics is a human science / Human Sciences / The Humanities. This science has not grown from scratch , but from its past. Every science has a past.
The past of Linguistics is traditional and modern.
Traditional Grammar is prescriptive and subjective ; it is not independent. Modern Linguistics is descriptive and independent. It is subject to a clear methodology and adopts the principles and techniques of modern science.
TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS
The Greeks
The Greek philosophers were interested in language.
