Language & Linguistics

Question 1

essential components of a communication model

Answer 1

1. sender (speaker/reader)
2. recipient/addressee (hearer/reader)
3. extralinguistic referent (der außersprachliche Referent; das worüber wir reden)
4. message
5. channel (oral communication -> sound waves to transport spoken speech; light for written speech; any communication is reciprocal (role of speaker and recipient can be switched at any time))
6. code ( codieren von Sprachen, damit Adressat sie encodieren kann z.B: this Beer is terrific)

Question 2

functions of language (Roman Jakobson)

Answer 2

1. emotive/expressive (Sender -> I feel lonely)
2. appellative (Receiver -> close the window please)
3. referential (Referent -> the earth revolves around the sun)
4. phatic (Channel -> “mhm” showing that you are still listening)
5. poetic (Message -> raising attention, parallel sentence structures; have a break have a kitkat)
6. metalingual (Code -> paraphrase)

Question 3

Human vs. Animal communication

Answer 3

Animal communication and the human language ist completely different.

1. displacement (talk about absent things)
2. arbitrarines (Beliebigkeit)
3. productivity ( metalinguistic function -> creating new words)
4. cultural transmission (we learn withing the culture we are born into)

Question 4

Saphir Whorfs hypothesis

Answer 4

Relation between language and thought:

• linguistic determinism: Language determines thought
• linguistic relativism: (weak version of above) Language influences thought

Question 5

structuralist approach

Answer 5

1. index: non-arbitrary signs
2. symbols: representational signs, motivated (similarities, idealised)
3. signs: completely arbitrary (based on conventions)

-> Language is a system of arbitrary signs

Question 6

Ferdinand de Saussure

1. components
2. characteristics

Answer 6

The Father of modern Linguistic (cours de linguistique generale 1916)
Linguistic sign consists of two essential components:
- signifier (significant, das Bezeichnende; sound sequence)
- signified (signifies, das Bezeichnete; extralinguistic referent that a sound frequency refers to)

characteristics:
- arbitrary, conventional, constant, ever-changing, linear

Question 7

central linguistic dichotomies

Answer 7

language vs. parole: language = abstract language system; parole = actual realisation of the language system in spoken speech)
synchronic vs. diachronic (synchronic = look at a language at a given point in time; diachronic = language development in the course of time)
syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic (sytagmatic = how are linguistic signs combined with each other?; paradigmatic = what elements could possibly replace others)

Question 8

notions of grammar

Answer 8

prescriptive vs. descriptive approaches to grammar

prescriptive: they dictate rules for how to use a language correctly and proscribe incorrect language use
descriptive: simply describe the status quo of a language; what we can see, how language is used by the majority of language users without making any value judgments

Question 9

grammaticality & acceptability

Answer 9

grammaticality: linguistic structures account to rules in a certain language
acceptability: speakers intuition about wellformedness of sentences in their language

Question 10

Noam Chomsky

Answer 10

• founder of Generative Linguistics
• language is innate, allowing for judgements of grammaticality and acceptability
• assumption of a universal grammar that is part of the human language skills biologically provided (language acquisition device), compared to a switch board approach: the baby is tuned in the language as it is exposed to
• non empiricist theory of language