ALS152

INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

ASSIGNMENT 1
REFLECTIVE PAPER

LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

PREPARED BY:
MUHAMMAD SUFI ISKANDAR BIN RODZMAN
2018280192
MLG1202B

PREPARED FOR:
PN SUMARNI MAULAN
9th May 2019
 Language and Society
There is no accounting for how many words that exist in English language. In my experience,
writing stories and poems has shown that how flexible the language appears and there is a
plenitude of different words which can substitute the other yet connote the same meaning. In
my perusal of English dictionary and books, I have noticed certain patterns among words that
recur frequently, and with the exposition to the study of linguistics, I opine that I now have a
better understanding of them.

Morphology is the study of word formation. I like to think that this is the most interesting branch
of linguistics as there is no definite theory on how words precisely formed, but it is known that
most commonly used English words are descended from a single tongue known as Proto-
Germanic. Linguistics Society of America (LSA) says that ‘Other Germanic languages include
Dutch, German, Icelandic, Swedish, and more. All of them arose from a single language,
called Proto-Germanic by linguists, which was spoken over 2500 years ago.’ (Thomason,
n.d.). Though what I have noticed are the English affixes which recur quite often in words such
as ‘biology’. The suffix ‘-ology’ appended at the end of the word is often used to denote a field
of study. ‘Bio’ is similarly a prefix that can be joined with plenty of other words such as
‘bioluminescence’. These affixes are what we call as bound morphemes. These morphemes
are essential in our daily life. As a storywriter, I mostly use ‘-ness’ to convey abstract ideas by
adding it to certain words for rhetorical purpose, like ‘endlessness’, although most of them do
not appear in dictionary. Again, this shows how flexible English is.

Not only adding the suffix ‘-ology’ to ‘bio-’ alters the appearance of the word, but it similarly
gives a new meaning. Under morphology, this is known as the derivational morphemes. In my
observation, I have fortunately lived to see some new words surface such as ‘memeology’
which alludes to the study of internet memes. In this sense, the content word is ‘meme’ which
has been given a derivational morpheme. This is a clear testimony to how flexible the English
language is and gives us creative access to invent new words. Though there is a limitation of
coming up with a new word as long they conform to the phonological rules of English language.
I still recall watching Spongebob Squarepants where Patrick coined a new term ‘wumbology’
which meant the study of ‘wumbo’, though I remain clueless to this day what ‘wumbo’ really
denotes.

While ‘biology’ is a noun, it can be further expanded by adding another morpheme. ‘Biological’
is the result of the morpheme ‘bio’ following the addition of two more bound morphemes ‘ology’
and ‘ical’. It now functions as an adjective. To make it an adverb, simply add the suffix ‘ly’ in
the end to form the word ‘biologically’. Now we see that even an inconsequential change can
bring a significant whole new meaning to a word. I have discerned that plenty of us tend to
confuse between ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ too, a mistake which I have once committed before as
well, although they are respectively verbs and nouns, the message remains the same which
is a small change can bring about a vastly different or new meaning. These are all the patterns
that I have descried throughout my invaluable years of experience of studying English.

I hope that upon reading this essay, you realise that language is not just about putting words
in correct order to propitiate the grammarians, but also in considering the meanings that these
words carry, which is why we should always be careful in using them, similarly having
effectively testified the flexibility of English language. In conclusion, morphology is indeed the
most interesting facet of English language.
 References
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2018). An Introduction to Language (11 ed.).
Singapore: Cencage Learning Asia Pte Ltd.

Thomason, S. (n.d.). Language Variation and Change. Retrieved April 20th April, 2019, from
Linguistics Society of America: https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/language-
variation-and-change