Foundations Flashcards
1
Q
What does the message model assume about the function of language?
A
The message model of communication assumes that language is ALWAYS used to communicate, but only includes the representational function. In this way it is very limiting.
2
Q
What is the process of linguistic communication according to the message model of communication?
A
- A sender (speaker, writer, signer) will take their imperceptible thought or idea and ‘send’ it to the receiver through a code (perceptible sounds, writing, signs) which the receiver is able to interpret.
- Language is the means/instrument which makes encoding possible
- Language is the means/instrument which also makes decoding possible
3
Q
Encoding
A
the ‘transfer’ or ‘packaging’ of imperceptible thoughts and ideas into a perceptible code
4
Q
Decoding
A
the ‘unpacking’ of imperceptible ideas and thoughts from a perceptible code
5
Q
What are the assumptions of the message model of communication? (How does it work?)
A
a) Language is a mental system
b) Which is used to convey information
c) Through the encoding and decoding of meaning
6
Q
What is the container metaphor?
A
It uses a “container” metaphor to conceptualise language.
The container metaphor:
* Linguistic expressions are like containers.
* We pack information into the containers through encoding and send them to a receiver
* The receiver unpacks the meaning through decoding and gets the information
There are some example expressions to support this theory, e.g., ‘get the idea across’, ‘put your thoughts into words’, ‘her words carry meaning’, ‘I got the message’
7
Q
What does the way we talk about language reveal?
A
The way we talk about language reveals the way we think about language and communication.
8
Q
What does the message model of communication prove?
A
It proves that language has an informative function, that is made possible through the encoding and decoding of linguistic meaning.
The informative function is also known as the representational function.
9
Q
Representational function
A
describe things or states of affairs, or to report or record events. Conveys statements that can be described as true or false.
10
Q
How does the message model of communication account for language misunderstandings and communication breakdowns?
A
The message model attributes language misunderstandings and communication breakdowns due to imperfect or sloppy encoding or decoding.
11
Q
What are problems of the message model?
A
- Language does not only have a representational function; it also has several other functions which the Message Model does not account for – e.g., compulsive function or practice function.
- Verbal communication involves more than mere encoding and decoding of linguistic communication, context is required as well, or even sometimes the speaker means something entirely different than what they are saying.
- There is a critical difference and need to distinguish between the linguistic meaning of what is said, and what the speaker’s intended meaning is.
- The linguistic meaning is just a bare outline of the full meaning of what the speaker intends to communicate.
- To understand the speaker’s intended meaning the hearer has to make use of facts/clues/guidelines that are provided through the WORDS (linguistic utterances) and the CONTEXT in which they are being used.
- Context refers to the social, physical and linguistic context.
- What the receiver decodes is not necessarily what the speaker intended for while encoding.
12
Q
What are the communicative functions of language?
A
- Representational function
- Persuasive function
- Instrumental/performative function
- Regulating function
- Conceptual/denotative function
- Metalinguistic function
- Social/phatic function
- Expressive/emotive function
- Aesthetic function
- Ludic/playful function
- Identifying/personative function
- Questioning function
13
Q
What are the non-communicative functions of language?
A
- Compulsion function
- Practice function
14
Q
Persuasive function
A
persuade someone to think, believe, decide or accept something; to try and influence someone’s attitude towards something
15
Q
Instrumental / performative function
A
Use language not only to say something, but also to do something that can result in a new situation; e.g., use formal or ceremonial language to change reality.
Language shifts our perception of reality. E.g., “I hereby pronounce you husband and wife”
16
Q
Regulating function
A
Regulate or influence someone’s physical, linguistic or non-linguistic behaviour.
E.g., a parent’s instruction
17
Q
Conceptual / denotative function
A
form concepts / mental representations of things, thus making it possible to refer to (and think about) such things.
18
Q
Metalinguistic function
A
refer to and talk about elements of language itself.
19
Q
Expressive / emotive function
A
express emotions, feelings, sensations, etc… or try to influence those of someone else
20
Q
Social / phatic function
A
to create, confirm or sever social relationships
21
Q
Aesthetic function
A
create linguistics things that others find beautiful, pleasing, thought-provoking, interesting etc…
22
Q
Ludic / playful
A
Ludic function - take part in amusing language games
E.g., riddles, jokes, puns
23
Q
Identifying / personative
A
express your identity, e.g., geographical origin, social group, ethnicity, age, gender, educational level, occupation, beliefs, idiosyncrasies
24
Q
Questioning function
A
attempt to elicit information from someone, typically by means of questions
25
Non-communicative function of language
language used without the intention to convey thoughts, ideas, information, feelings, etc… to someone else
26
Compulsive function
language use that falls outside the control of the sender; usually found with people who have a physiological or mental problem e.g., people who have become senile or who have suffered a stroke
27
“Practice” function
Normally found with young children who are in the process of acquiring a language; language often forms part of a game – used as a “toy”, similar to physical toys; in the
28
What are the two main types of knowledge of a language?
* Knowledge of the structure (grammatical)
* Knowledge of the use (pragmatic) (in context, whether it I appropriate to say something to someone, or when it is appropriate (sociolinguistics)
29
What are the 4 main components of grammatical and pragmatic knowledge?
1. Phonetic knowledge
2. Semantic knowledge
3. Morphological knowledge
4. Syntactic knowledge
29
Pragmatics
the meaning that language conveys in context, based on what the speaker intends
30
Phonetic knowledge (speech sounds and sound system)
* Knowledge of the separate speech sounds that occur in that language
* Knowledge of the permissible sound distribution patterns of that language
* Separate speech sounds are investigated in the broad study area of phonetics
31
Semantic knowledge (meaning system)
* Knowing of the meaning system of the language
* Knowing a language entails knowing more than just the sound stream of a language, you need knowledge of the meaning behind it too
32
Morphological knowledge
(structure and formation of complex words)
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Syntactic knowledge
(structure and formation of phrases and sentences)
34
Permissible sound distribution
which sounds are able to occur in that language, how they fit together and in what sequence
35
What are the three sub-areas of phonetics?
1. Articulatory phonetics (the production of speech sounds with articulatory organs)
2. Auditory phonetics
3. Acoustic phonetics (sound graph, shows plosive sounds, friction etc…)
Seeing mouth movements can influence what we’re hearing. Known as the McGurk effect.
36
What does knowledge of a sound structure of a language include?
1. Knowledge of sound combinations
2. Knowledge of sound processes (ease of articulation, your articulatory organs are still in the previous articulatory movement or already preparing for the next sound) (assimilation) (nasalisation)
3. Knowledge of stress, intonation, tone patterns (in English the stress is usually placed on the first syllable vowel of the NOUN and the second syllable vowel of the VERB if the words for the noun and verb are the same)
Differences between the phonetic-phonological knowledge of speakers give rise to different accents, dialects etc…
37
What is the relationship between form/function and meaning?
Natural relationship vs arbitrary relationship.
natural relationship - the meaning can to a large extent be deduce from the form and vice versa.
arbitrary relationship - accidental relationship between form and meaning, the meaning cannot be deduced from the form, and vice versa
Perhaps there is a natural relationship with onomatopoeia? However, each language has a different sound for e.g., the sound of the dove. So there is no natural onomatopoeic relationship either.
38
Morphological knowledge
knowledge of word structure and formation of complex words in a particular language.
39
Information on morphological knowledge...
* Complex words are built up out of smaller units with linguistic meaning or grammatical function – morphemes.
* Morphemes occur in fixed orders – e.g., unfriendliness, friendlinessun, nessfriendliun
* Knowledge of word formation processes:
- Plurals
- Diminution
- Derivation
- Compounding
* Morphological knowledge enables fluent speakers to judge whether complex words are morphologically well-formed or ill-formed.
* Knowledge of existing words is stored in a speaker’s mental lexicon, a type of “technical dictionary” in the mind.
40
Lexical knowledge
Phonetic-phonological knowledge + semantic knowledge + morphological knowledge
41
What does it involve to know a language? What does your knowledge of a language consist of?
Grammatical knowledge + pragmatic knowledge
42
Note:
When considering grammatical competence always consider it from a first language/native speakers’ perspective.
43
Grammatical knowledge
The sum of the main four types of knowledge (made up of phonetic-phonological knowledge + semantic knowledge + morphological knowledge + syntactic knowledge). Note: Also known as the grammatical competence.
44
Where is grammatical knowledge found?
* Situated in the mind, it is a mental capacity that we have.
45
To what degree is grammatical competence unconscious?
* Grammatical competence is unconsciously acquired, unconsciously used, speaker largely unconscious of content
* Note: Even though its unconsciously used there are situations in which one does prepare what they are going to say beforehand E.g., to make their register more formal to address their listener and achieve their intended purpose. Social anxiety and social hesitance does not equate conscious language usage.
46
What does grammatical competence allow us to do?
* Portrayed as a system of FINITE rules and principles that allow us to create and deploy an INFINITE amount of sentences and utterances
* Grammatical competence enables speaker to make grammatical judgements about well-formedness of ill-formedness of words, phrases, sentences
* Judgements are sometimes uncertain because there are varying sociolects, idiolects and dialects, e.g., African American, “I didn’t do nothin’!”
* Enables speaker to be linguistically creative so that they can (in principle) produce and understand an infinite number of mostly new, well-formed sentences, free of any external or internal stimuli.
This means that we can talk about things outside of ourselves that are not stimulus prompted, e.g., talking about one’s future spouse when you haven’t even met them.
Grammatical competence is not influenced by non-linguistic factors – e.g., saying you’re hungry without being hungry. That means that it’s not influenced by how you feel.
* Grammatical competence underlies the language behaviour of the speaker.
47
Language behaviour
the understanding, forming and judging of words, phrases and sentences
48
Note:
See table on 'grammatical competence vs linguistic performance'
49
Note:
Your language performance does not detract from your language competence.
50
Garden path sentence
An example of bad linguistic performance
E.g., “Fat people eat accumulates…”
* Decoding the sentence before it even finishes
* Interpreter comes to the wrong conclusion
* Goes back to the beginning to decode sentence again
* Gets the correct answer
* Therefore, the understanding was the problem that indicates poor linguistic performance, not poor grammatical competence
51
Note:
See sentences vs utterances table in notes
52
Internalised grammar
the speaker’s grammatical competence, the grammar that they subconsciously carry around in their brain
* I-language
* Abstract mental capacity unable of being directly observed
* FINITE: consists of a finite number of rules and principles (of four distinct types – Phonetic-phonological, semantic, lexical, syntactic) and a lexicon
53
Lexicon
the vocabulary of a language including words and expressions
54
Descriptive grammar
simplified model of Internalised grammar, a scientific description of a speaker’s grammatical competence
* Concrete model of a mental capacity (I-language)
* FINITE: consists of a finite number of rules and principles (of four distinct types – Phonetic-phonological, semantic, lexical, syntactic) and a lexicon
* Describes the characteristics of a given language, those which distinguish that particular language from other languages
* Describes the rules and principles that are spontaneously acquired and used in language behaviour
* Constructed by grammarians in the broad study field of descriptive grammar
55
Universal Grammar
The ABILITY we are born with that allows us to acquire any language to which we are primarily exposed
* Known as the general theory of language
* A scientific description of those structural features that are found in all human languages
* Describes the universal features of language in the form of general principles
* The blueprint/pre-knowledge that we are born with that we use to acquire language in our brains, an inherent understanding of how to acquire language (not to comprehend it)
* Model of biologically-based language faculty (the genetic programming which enables a child to acquire a grammatical competence of any language to which they are exposed).
* Constructed by general linguists in the study area of general linguistics
56
The headedness principle
a head first language or a head last language. The determiner phrase of a head first language will always come first. This concept will be expanded upon when we do child language acquisition.
57
How are all of these principles (types of grammar) interwoven?
Starts with inherent language faculty (universal grammar) -> with sufficient exposure goes through various stages of development -> grammatical competence is developed as the final/stable state -> this grammatical competence can be described in the form of descriptive grammar (language model).
58
Pedagogical Grammar
The grammar used to teach people a second language / foreign language (or a dialect of a language) in another language that they already know
* Uses a different language as a comparative form of reference
* Uses metalinguistic knowledge (unlike first language acquisition which doesn’t require metalinguistic knowledge, just occurs through development of universal grammar into grammatical competence)
* Assumes that the learner is already a fluent speaker of another language/dialect, and uses comparisons with such a language/dialect to teach the target language
* Can be very useful if based on good descriptive grammar and it is very closely interlinked with descriptive grammar because you teach a descriptive grammar which is closely interlinked (a model of) to the I-language/internal grammar/grammatical competence
59
Prescriptive/normative grammar
Norms/standards/guidelines that specify the so-called “correct”, “pure” or “civilised” use of a given language.
* In English prescriptive grammarians try to impose Latin grammar rules on English and perceive Latin as the ‘golden standard’
* Written prescriptivism is different to oral prescriptivism
* Prescribes what users of a language SHOULD do, not what they DO do. Descriptive grammar describes what users of a language actually DO.
* It is unscientific and is often based on naïve ideas of what is “logical”, “pure”, “correct”, “beautiful” or civilised in a particular language
* Mainly influences written language
* E.g., Infinitives may not be split, avoid double negatives, don’t end a sentence on a preposition. However, these rules are often senseless when applied to English, where each of these occurrences has a particular purpose to serve.
* Usually prescriptive lists/judgements are usually based on prejudices that relate to social classes and ethnic groups.
* People are judged not only by their appearance and possessions but also by the way that they express themselves, which often leads to stigmatization and negative attitudes.
60
What are the typical features of human languages?
1. The use of the vocal-auditory channel
2. Total feedback
3. Arbitrariness
4. Semanticity
5. Duality of patterning
6. Cultural transmission
7. Displacement
8. Reflexivity
9. Creativity
10. Structure dependency
61
Which of these features are unique to human languages?
COMPLETELY:
1. Total feedback
2. Duality of patterning
3. Reflexivity
4. Creativity
5. Structure dependency
TO AN EXTENT/DEBATED:
1. Arbitrariness
2. Semanticity
3. Cultural transmission
4. Displacement
62
Which features of language are shared by human and animal languages?
1. Use of the vocal-auditory channel
TO AN EXTENT/DEBATED:
1. Arbitrariness
2. Semanticity
3. Cultural transmission
4. Displacement
63
Use of the vocal-auditory channel
Advantages of using the vocal auditory channel:
* Communication is possible while performing other actions
* Communication is possible over long distances
However:
* It is not a necessary feature of communication – sign language, written language and braille are all effective forms of communication
* The use of the vocal-auditory channel is not unique to humans
64
Total feedback
* Speakers are able to hear their own speech and can monitor it (e.g., make corrections)
* Unique to human language systems – total feedback is not found in animal languages
* Different to other communication systems – e.g., traffic signs (visual communication system, unable to monitor, edit, update it as you go)
65
Arbitrariness
* Human language is a symbolic system, meaning that there is arbitrary relation between form and meaning
* On the other hand, animal languages usually have a more direct/natural relationship – more obvious e.g., dogs bark louder the more aggressive they are (animals respond to stimuli, humans communicate in a stimuli-free way)
* However, some animal languages do show purely arbitrary relationship E.g., an aggressive sea-gull will turn its back and pull up grass
66
Semanticity
* Human languages have specific language signals (words) refer to specific objects/actions/states
E.g.,
Sel (French) = sodium chloride
Salt (English) = sodium chloride
Sout (Afrikaans) = sodium chloride
All three words refer to the same very specific substance
* However, in animal languages it is unclear whether an animal sign refers to a specific object or rather provides general information about the total situation e.g., the velar monkey communication.
* A cry could indicate a specific animal, a specific type of danger, or just a level of danger. It is unclear.
67
Duality of patterning
* Separate language units can be recombined in different orders to create new meanings
* Further evidence for this comes from language errors, like spoonerism
* It does matter in which order we string together separate units of meaning – e.g., spelling
68
Cultural transmission
People are not born with a specific human language, they are born with the ABILITY to acquire that language (universal grammar).
* This feature is absent from almost all animal languages – most animals are born with a complete knowledge of their communication system.
* Even if the baby animal takes time to adjust they are most likely learning how to use their vocal chords, not necessarily using the language.
Exceptions to cultural transmission being unique to humans:
European starlings – require “social teaching” by other starlings for them t learn their song
White-crowned sparrows – learn their local patterns in their first three months by listening to adults
Zebra finches – raised in complete isolation do not sing the same song as they would if raised normally, among other members of their species
Dolphins, whales and bats have the ability to learn new “regional dialects” depending on what they are exposed to
69
Displacement
Language makes it possible to communicate about things (events, objects, places, experiences) that are removed in terms of time and space.
* Past, present, future
* Physically distant things
* Imaginary things
Animals mostly communicate about the here and now. HOWEVER, there are examples of animal displacement.
Examples of displacement in animal “languages”:
Dances uses to communicate the location and quality of nectar.
Round dance: within 1m of hive
Crescent dance: within 6m of hive
Waggle dance: further than 6 m away
70
Reflexivity
We use human language to communicate about human language. Metalinguistic function. Distinguishes human communication from animal communication.
* Possible in all human languages
* Not found in animal languages
71
Creativity
* Ability to produce and understand a potentially infinite number of novel utterances
* Language behaviour not dependent on / determined by external or internal stimuli
* Human language is multi-functional
* Seems to be unique to humans
72
Structure dependency
* Words are combined according to specific patterns or structures, expressed by means of specific language rules
* Fluent speakers have unconscious knowledge of such structures, and can also manipulate certain units in a structure (e.g., phrases) by substituting them with other units, or moving them to other positions.
* Speakers know that a group of words can sometimes be the structural equivalent of one word.
* Also, speakers can arrange chunks of structure according to specific rules.
* Unique to human languages.
(In short, the units of human language [words, phrases, sentences] display internal structure. The rules that are involved in forming such linguistic units operate on the basis of these abstract, underlying structures).
73
What does it mean if a language is generative?
The term "generative" in linguistics refers to the idea that human language is shaped by a set of basic principles that allow speakers to create new words and sentences. These principles are part of our innate language faculty
74
Accidental gap
sound sequence able to occur but not part of the actual vocabulary of a language
75
Systematic gap
when a phonological sound sequence is unable to occur - e.g., ghjk - does not contain any vowels so violates rules of English sound sequences.
