General Overview Flashcards
Linguistics def
The study of any aspect of NATURAL HUMAN LANGUAGE.
It is sometimes associated with other academic fields (sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, etc).
Linguistics can be considered as sub discipline of Semiotics which is the study of how “signs” are used to create meaning
Semantics : first time this term is used
By Michel Bréal in Essai de Semantique 1897
Semantics def
Studies how human language is used to create meaning
Subdiscipline of linguistics
Lexical Semantics
the study of meaning of individual words (in and out context).
Semiotics
study of all signs (body language, sheets music..). Seem to be sth ++ human = need to create signs that represent something. Humans tell story and tell story by using signs
Semantics / Semiotics / linguistic
→ Linguistic a part of semiotics
→ → Semantic = a part of linguistic
Semiotics → Linguistic → Semantic
Lexicology is about
Lexicology is about definitions :
People who make dictionnaries
lexicographers
Polysemy example
POLYSEMY (play & key)
a play = like a movie but in a theater (- used)
verb that indicate an action : often related to sport or games
THE particularity
THE because it doesn’t have a real meaning ! Some words have more meaning than others “key” has more meaning than “the”
Collocation
when 2 words go together. Ex: play football, play music..
Meaning
Signification,
= idea that a word conveys
How to explain the meaning of something ? 2 solutions :
you can show it (ex : this is a table) = most satisfying answer
you can use other words to explain what you think is the meaning
Structuralism
meaning is created through a combination of conceptually independant pieces (double articulation)
3 types of phonetics
articulatory
acoustic
auditory
articulatory phonetic
sound production in the mouth : voiced / unvoiced stops / fricative
→ the sounds we make with our mouths, throat, nose.. when we are speaking. Speech production in the human body
acoustic phonetics
how sound travels through the air
→ how the sounds wave, travel once they leave my mouth until they get to you
auditory phonetics
how the human ear receives sounds of human language
Phonetics def
study of sounds as they are made by human beings
Difference Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics = physics & biology : how human being physically make sounds. Rules don’t change from one place to another : SSss has the same wave length etc.
VS Phonology = How each language is going to chose certain sounds to pay attention to and other sounds to ignore. (permet d’eviter too much cognitive charge). → Ex : English speaker cannot do the french “r” because it didn’t existed in English ! A french speaker = extra effort to make the “th” sound !
→ Cultural = very first level of Grammar = rule 0 that a language uses to construct itself.
Phonology
How sounds are used to create meaning
Phoneme def + exemple
unit of sound used to produce meaning. A phoneme doesn’t mean anything.
Phonemes [b] a unit of sound used to produce meaning (building block)
→ the phoneme /b/ doesn’t have any meaning. It’s only in connection to other sounds that we will get meaning in contrast.
double articulation def + example
fundamental language phenomenon consisting of the use of combinations of a small number of meaningless elements (sounds, that is, phonemes) to produce a large number of meaningful elements (words, actually morphemes)
⇒ double articulation = phonemes of a language working to create contrast that themselves can create meaning.
⇒ /b/ /a/ /t/ has no meaning alone but when put together ⇒ BAT
2 levels to language
→ phonetic building bloc
→ phonemic building bloc
minimal pairs
2 words in which there is only one phonological difference.
→ If you take phoneme /b/ /a/ /t/ it creates the word BAT
/k/ /a/ t/ ⇒ CAT
The meaning comes in contrasting them !
Hair / bear
Hair / Her = vowel changes
Phoneme & someone that doesn’t speak your language
Sbdy that doesn’t speak your language might not hear the diff btw 2 phonemes and assume that they are the same.
Ex : english speaker Amor et Amour
Morphemes
smallest piece of language that has meaning
morpheme /s/ : /Kat/ VS /Kats/ ⇒ indicates plural.
ou /s/ pour 3PS in ENglish
2 kind of morphemes
free morphemes
bound morphemes
2 types of free morphemes
lexical morphemes
Functional morphemes
2 types of bound morphemes
Derivational morphemes
Inflectional morphemes
free morphemes def
can exist by themselves, don’t need any help to have meaning
lexical morphemes + catgory
A lexical morpheme is one that can actually stand on its own without the aid of other morphemes to imply meaning. In order to do so, a lexical morpheme must be a full word.
words easiest to define : have meaning and use them everyday
→ we often say this class of lexical morpheme is OPEN : you can add more word to this category (50 years ago there was not “radar” “internet” = open set to which we can add more words as we discover more things or we decide to create new words because it’s cool.
ex : bat, school..
Functional morphemes
A functional morpheme (as opposed to a content morpheme) is a morpheme which simply modifies the meaning of a word, rather than supplying the root meaning.
No diff btw grammatical morphemes and functional morphemes
example (such as -s for plurals or -ing to imply the act of doing something),
in articles, prepositions, demonstrative pronouns…we cannot discover or invent a new preposition. Pronouns (= they’re grammatical, they change according to who speaks : example if I say I diff than if tracy says I)
bound morphemes
they cannot be used by themselves
“re” in “reconstruct”, the “ing” in “walking” : “ing” alone doesn’t have any meaning except when attached to free morpheme.
They are always going to be added to a free morpheme.
→ Derivational morphemes
meaningful units that can be added to another word and allow to create a new word. : adjective like “quick→ quickly” “harsh→harshly” = deriving a new word from an existing word. They’re usually going to change morpheme category and create sth that can be recognised as a new word.
Inflectional morphemes
==> Their function is grammatical : always almost added to a noun, a adjective, to a verb. Ex : S to noun = plural, to a verb = 3Ps singular
⇒ All the inflectional morphemes that exist in English : they look like a closed class.
grammar (syntax) def
Systematic rules governing language structure (specifically the structure of sentences)
SVO = Subject, Verb, Object
Tense present / past I walk /ed
Aspect
→ Rule for putting words together in a sentence
All of these are rule driven: meaning
they are predictable, and when someone doesn’t respect it ⇒ you can identify as ungrammatical sentence.
The rule stops right where semantics starts
We don’t have rules for semantics : no rule to explain you when to use the word “key” or it would be long & complicated, long and complicated rules are inefficient.
unhappily analysis
un = bound morpheme = not
ly = sth turns adjective into adverb
⇒ some of the meaning of the word unhappily cannot be described by these rules
Lexicology
the study of words, their history, definition, derivations and use
Lexicography
study / science of making dictionaries
Semantic
meaning (signification, denotation) in language (words, phrases, sentences, discourse / text)
→ about what the word means.
“what does X means” VS “what X is”
⇒ Semantic : describe & try to explain how
Pragmatics
In opposition to structuralism
the role of context and “speaker meaning”
→ how we do things with language that cannot always be explained by the meaning of language.
→ it shows that what words mean depend at least as much as what we want them to mean as some inherent qualities.
→ takes a step away from the idea that “words have some content” ⇒ Words have meaning : but meaning is highly subjective and submitted to context
2 examples pragmatics
we’re sitting in a room and I say “it’s cold in here”,
meaning : it’s cold = litteral
meaning : someone has to do sth according to what I said
⇒ most of the time : person next to the window “maybe I should close the window”
or
ex : How are you ? don’t want to have answer
=> real answer : maintain social relation
The cooperative principle, Grice :
Under normal circumstances : you can assume that the person you’re talking to makes an effort to understand you and being understood
4 maxims
quality = telling the truth
quantity = right amount of information
relevance = the window : if you are next to the window go close it
manner = adapt the way you speak, speak clearly
4 maxims
quality = telling the truth
quantity = not saying too much or too little
relevance =why are telling me this ?
manner = communicating clearly
Discourse analysis : def + ex
what makes a “text” : cohesion, coherence in written text, turn taking
ex : political discourse can be analysed.
→ if grammar agree on what order to put words in BUT possible to finish with perfectly grammatical sentences but with an incoherent text
diachronic
across times.
synchronic
we’re comparing diff language forms that exist at the same time
Sociolinguistics + example
language in a social context, William Labov “fourth floor”
→ post-vocalic r in N-York is socially stratified : the “r” in “fourth floor” turns out : the higher you’re socially the higher you’ll pronounce the r and the lower you are the less you will say r
⇒ It is not randomly distributed & depends on socio-economics styles
Psycholinguistic
It is about how the brain manages to learn & use human languages.
→ language as a cognitive function, language in the brain Charles Osgood, Oliver Sacks
De Saussure
: the words we use have an arbitrary relationship with the meaning they have. Relation btw signifer and signified is arbitrary.
Sign : significant + signifier
