general linguistics

Question 1

bottom up processing

Answer 1

looking at individual meanings or grammatical characteristics of the most basic units of the text, and moving from these to trying to understand the whole text

Question 2

Aim of E-language linguistics

Answer 2

Elucidate properties of existing collected language samples

Question 3

Aim of I-language

Answer 3

Elucidate systematic nature of language as a property of the human mind

Question 4

Performance Chomsky definition

Answer 4

‘The actual use of language in concrete situations’

Question 5

Competence Chomsky definition

Answer 5

‘The speaker-hearer’s knowledge of language’

Question 6

Ideal speaker-listener quote

Answer 6

‘Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with the ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogenous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge in actual performance’

Question 7

Bloomfield definition of E language

Answer 7

The totality of utterances that can be made in a speech community

Question 8

E grammar definition

Answer 8

A system that generates all and only:

• the totality of utterances of a speech community (Bloomfield)
• the set of pairs of sentences and meanings (Lewis)

Question 9

What’s The I in I language for?

Answer 9

Individual, internal, intensional

Question 10

I language definition

Answer 10

A system of the mind/brain that generates the structures associated with language

Question 11

Sound system

Answer 11

Series of rules which dictate what sounds letters can make
(For example in the English sound system is the rule that the sound ‘velar n’ can only occur at the end of words but not at the beginning)

Question 12

Lecturer-given definition of word

Answer 12

One or more sounds that in combination have a specific meaning assigned by language

Question 13

Cultural evidence for language being considered essential for personhood

Answer 13

Bantu languages in Africa distinguish between kintu (human nonperson) and muntu(person)
Kintu->muntu when acquire language

Question 14

Difference between a language and the concept Language

Answer 14

Language = human ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication

language = specific example of such a system (eg Spanish)

Question 15

Hockett’s 7 features of language

Answer 15

Duality
Productivity 
Arbitrariness
Interchangeability 
Specialisation
Displacement 
Cultural transmission

Question 16

Noam Chomsky language and humanity quote

Answer 16

‘When we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the ‘human essence’, the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man.’

Question 17

Only communication system apart from human language that has feature of displacement

Answer 17

Bees waggle dance (talks about things far away whereas otherwise animal communication systems can only deal with the here and now)

Question 18

saussure’s concept of the nature of language

Answer 18

The nature of languages is a structured system of linguistic signs or units that organise the mass of confused thoughts that fill our minds

Question 19

what did aristotle think about language

Answer 19

Language is a symbolic system that represents the world of our experience as it is contained within the mind

Question 20

simple answer what does it mean to know a language

Answer 20

have a command of a systematic connection between sound and meaning

Question 21

Saussure’s big contribution

Answer 21

‘Course in General Linguistics’ - published 1915 (way before Chomsky) posthumously from collation of student notes. The Course manifests a shift towards the establishment of systems

Question 22

2 parts of a linguistic sign or unit

Answer 22

• > signified //concept/meaning// the ‘idea’ of a chair, the actual chairs existent in the world
• > signifier //sound-image// the word ‘chair’, ‘chaise’, ‘silla’, ‘sedia’

Question 23

why would saussure say language isn’t just an arbitrary naming system

Answer 23

There is a strong relationship between the signified and signifier; you cannot divide thought from sound, nor sound from thought, “… an idea becomes fixed in a sound and a sound becomes the sign of an idea”

Question 24

saussure 2 ways to accrue linguistic value

Answer 24

conceptual and material

Question 25

conceptual linguistic value

Answer 25

what differentiates one concept (signified) from another

Question 26

material linguistic value

Answer 26

what differentiates one sound-image from another

Question 27

Saussure quote about how signs are differentiated in themselves and related to each other

Answer 27

‘in language, there are only differences without positive terms’

Question 28

saussure on how we differentiate between different concepts (signifieds)

Answer 28

Concepts are purely differential and defined not by their positive content but negatively by their relations with the other terms of the system. Their most precise characteristic is in being what the other are not.” (117) For example, if something isn’t ‘hot’ or ‘cold,’ it must be ‘warm.’ If something is ‘good,’ it means it is not ‘average’ or’ excellent.’

Question 29

saussure on how we differentiate between different sound-meanings

Answer 29

the phonic differences
Again a negative difference ie this sound-image has sounds which aren’t the sounds in another one
As Saussure explained “Phonemes are characterized not, as one might think, by their own positive quality but simply by the fact that they are distinct. Phonemes are above all else opposing, relative entities.” (119)
The word is not its sound alone but its unique distinctive sounds. Its ‘phonic differences’ enable us to distinguish it from other ‘sound images.

Question 30

productivity (as a feature of language)

Answer 30

the vocabulary of any given language can be used to construct a theoretically infinite number of sentences

Question 31

Bertie Russell quote on the debate over whether animals can have language

Answer 31

“No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest”