Module 1: Introduction to Linguistics Flashcards
What do linguists study?
The mind - they study the unconscious knowledge that speakers have about their language.
A linguist is interested in figuring out unconscious “rules” that people know about their language.
What is linguistic theory?
A model of what speakers know about language. Linguists build their models based on indirect evidence, such as speakers behavior and judgments about language.
Method for theoretical linguist
Investigate speakers judgments about sentences.
Infer properties of the internal linguistic system of the informants that would account for their judgments
Formulate hypotheses about the structure of what they cannot observe based on what they can observe.
Observable data > Make hypothesis > Form theory
Pragmatics
Study of how language is affected by the context in which it occurs.
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and anthropology.
Study of sentence meaning in context
Semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the study of meaning-making, the study of sign process (semiosis) and meaningful communication. It is not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition called semiology, which is a subset of semiotics.
Language
Language is a system that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance and use of complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so; and a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics.
Dialect
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language’s speakers
The other usage of the term “dialect”, often deployed in colloquial settings, refers (often somewhat pejoratively) to a language that is socially subordinated to a regional or national standard language, often historically cognate or genetically related to the standard language, but not actually derived from the standard language. In other words, it is not an actual variety of the “standard language” or dominant language, but rather a separate, independently evolved but often distantly related language
Word
In linguistics, a word is the smallest element that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical meaning. … The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the abstract concept behind either
Five main components of language
The five main components of language are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. Along with grammar, semantics, and pragmatics, these components work together to create meaningful communication among individuals.
Phoneme
Smallest unit of sound that may cause a change of meaning within a language but that doesn’t have meaning in itself.
An indivisible unit of sound in a given language.
Morpheme
Smallest unit of a word that provides a specific meaning to a string of letters (which is called a phoneme). There are two types of morpheme: Bound and Free
The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning, such as “un-“, “break”, and “-able” in the word “unbreakable.”
Lexeme
Set of all the inflected forms of a single word
Syntax
Set of rules by which a person constructs full sentences
Context
How everything within language works together to convey a particular meaning
Grammar
Set of rules for generating logical communication
