Introduction to Linguistics Flashcards
Basic notions of the study field
De Saussure’s profile in linguistic community
Name his achievments and clarify importance
He is a structualist.
Established semiology/semiotics.
Introduced the concept of a LINGUISTIC SIGN.
-signifier (sound, word, image, physically existent thing: apple)
-sign (the object/thing: a red apple)
-signified (the mental concept, thought: a sort of a healthy, fresh fruit)
What is language? (according to De Saussure)
- a system of signs used for communication of a language community. (la langue)
- utilisation of these signs for conceptual thoughts or utterances (la parole)
le langage = la langue + la parole (ability to create the signs and utilise them for conceptual thoughts)
What is Linguistics?
It is a scientific study of language, its structure (syntax), formation (morphology) and performance (phonetics, sociolinguistics, for instance)
Great Vowel Shift
15th-17th century. Vowels became shorter.
Signified the shift from Middle English to Modern English
Old English Period
450-1066
- first inscriptions
- Beowulf was written aprroximately around 1000
- similar in terms alphabet to Middle English (ME), BUT LACKS CAPITAL LETTERS!
- kennings (vivid descriptions through compounds: whale-road = sea)
- Viking invasion during 8th-9th century drastically impacted the language
“English language creators”: Angles (“Angli”, 6th century), Celts, Saxons, Jutes, Roman conquerors
Middle English Period
1066-1500
- After Norman Conquest
- French borrowings
- Written texts start to appear approximately during 13th century. First in first Latin, then in English
- Middle English poetry was influenced by French literary tradition
- Intensive and Extensive borrowings (French-English Bilingualism)
- The start of the Great Vowel Shift
- Reduction of inflectional endings, forms
Early Modern English
1500-1800
- Renaissance has a great impact (lots of loanwords from other languages: Latin, Greek, European languages)
- Increased literacy
- The Great Vowel Shift still in progress
- Shakespeare influence
- 1611 - King James Bible
- 1530-1660 - Restoration of language and fastest lexical growth
- 1755 - Dictionary of the English Language (Samuel Johnson)
Modern English
1800-present
- Scientific vocabulary and industrial revolution
- “New Englishes” (varieties)
- American English is predominant (USA is a leading economic power)
- Simple system of inflection
- Accentuated (stressed)
- More than 30% of most frequent words are of OE origin (AmE)
- Back-formation (words are created by the opposite to affixation process: editor to edit, etc), blends (breakfast + lunch = brunch)
- TRIPLETS (sets of 3 words that come from different time periods and constitute a formal hierarchy):
1. OE (colloquial)
2. French (neutral, literary)
3. Latin (formal/scientific)
EXAMPLE: kingly (OE), royal (French), regal (Latin)
Kachru’s Circles
- The inner circle = native speakers (UK, USA, Australia), countries with English as a primary lamguage
- The outer + extended circle
English language is the second influential due to colonisation and leading institutions (India, Nigeria, Belize) - The expanding circle
English as a crucial L internationally (other countries)
Native English Vocabulary
Where do all the words come from?
- Anglo-Saxon words
short and concrete, often used
(body parts, calendars, landscape, common words, common adjectives, animals): love, cow, arm, land
**- Celtic words **
derive from Latin (ass, hermit)
very limited amount (lake, bin, rock, peak)
river and place names! (Thames, York, Leeds, London)
no more than 200 loanwords from Celtic
- Latin words
major influence (clothing, buildings, settlements, military, legal institutions, commerce!): belt, shoemaker, tile, wall, city, road, monk, butter, pepper, cheese
**- Scandinavian loanwords
**
second major influence (viking raids)
Scandinavian placenames: Yorkshire, Lincolnshire
+ those that end in -by (meaning “farm”, “town)
Derby, Rugby, Grimsby
+ those that end in -thorte (meaning “village”)
Althorpe, Linthorpe
“son” in personal names (Davidson, Johnson)
“are” - Scandinavian influence
+ words with “sc-/sk-“ (scrub, skill, skin)
- Greek loanwords
- French Loanwords
1066 - the language of government and upper classes
French affixes: “-tion”, “trans-“, “con-“, “-ment”
precious stones’ names
animals as food (beef, pork)
culinary processes
- German + Dutch Loans
- a lot of words came from American-Dutch contact (waffles, cookie, boss, Santa Claus)
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Popular/Learned Loanwords?
What are they?
Popular loanwords - transmitted orally, non-specialised communication (plant, wine, road)
Learned loanwords - came through Church or scholarly influences (clerk)
What is “denotation”?
Direct meaning, conceptual = basically signification
What is “connotation”?
Associative meaning, has a stylistic layer
7 types of meaning by Leech
- denotative/conceptual/cognitive (literal meaning)
- connotative (associative, not explicitly stated: fork, spoon = kitchen tools)
- affective/emotive (relates to the speaker (hatred, politeness))
- thematic (a message is delivered in a specific way unknown to the receiver)
- social (determined by social circumstances/culture)
- reflective (a word has multiple conceptual meaning)
- collocative (the meaning is acquired through co-occurring words)
What is a “sememe”?
The content of a lexeme
