WEEK 1: introduction Flashcards
What is a language?
A system of conventional spoken, manual, or written symbols by means of which human beings as members of a social group and participants in its culture express themselves
What are the human language properties?
- Displacement
- Productivity
- Arbitrariness
- Discreteness
- Duality
- Cultural Transmission
What are 2 main functions of a language?
- Nominative - we name things
- Communicatice - we use those names to communicate
Language functions defined by Roman Jakobson:
- Referential
- Phatic
- Poetic
- Conative
- Emotive
- Metalingual
What does language and culture influence?
Human beliefs, realities, actions
What is paralanguage?
Difference in spoken and written communication?
Non-linguistic means of signalling meaning
In speech: gesture, facial expression, intonation, etc.
Written communication: arrangement on page, choice of interface
Multimodal = text accompanied by other modes of communication (pictures, diagrams)
What is textual analysis?
A way for researchers to gather information about how other humans make sense of the world
What is a text?
A level bigger than sentences, a set of coherent words that present message
What is culture?
Consists of whatever one has to know/believe to operate in a manner acceptable by its members
Includes - cultural behaviour, knowledge, artifacts or products of activity
What is linguistic relativity hypothesis?
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - says that grammar and vocab influences how we perceive the world —> language influences the way we think of the world
Who is Ferdinand de Saussure?
A Swiss linguist, one of the fathers of 20th century linguistics
What are the main contributions of Ferdinand de Saussure?
- Langue
- Parole
- Paradigm
- Syntagm
- Synchrony
- Diachrony
- Arbitrariness of sign
What is langue and parole?
Langue = system of sign/rules used by community for communication (grammar, vocab, syntax, etc)
Parole = speech, actual use of language
What is paradigm?
Relation btw words and grammatical structure - where the substitution is possible without the change in meaning/function
e.g. The cat/dog/parrot lives in my home
- allows us to make different combinations of meaning
What is syntagm?
Linear relationship btw words in a sentence, paragraph, text
Change in word position in a sentence can change the meaning
John bit the dog
The dog bit John
