Introduction

What is linguistics?
1- Empiricism
2- Exactness
3- Objectivity
Language
a- Linguistic definitions of language
b- Additional linguistic definitions
c-Dictionary definition of language
d-Linguistic definition vs Dictionary
definition
e-Natural language vs Artificial language
f-Characteristics of natural languages
Summary
 What is linguistics?
The term linguistics refers to the scientific
study of language.

That is,
it is based on the systematic investigation of
a body of data within a coherent general
theory of language structure
( i.e body of knowledge that is structured in
ways that characterise it as science rather
than everyday beliefs) .
Its task is to discover and discribe the nature
underlying the language system.
Narrowly, the adjective scientific denotes the application
of three basic criteria:

1- Empiricism
2- Exactness
3- Objectivity

Empiricism, i.e. the linguists investigations should rely

on observation and experiment.

Exactness, i.e. any linguistic theory should be correct in

every detail, and valid in terms of time and place.

Objectivity, i.e. the linguits judgement should be

impartial
A linguist is a scientist who
investigates human language in all
its facets, its structure, its use, its
history, its place in society.
Linguistics is the study of languages
in all their aspects: how is language
structured, how is it acquired, how
is it used in the production and
comprehension of messages, etc.
 A linguist studies the structure of language: how
speakers create meaning through combinations
of sounds, words, and sentences

Like other scientists, linguists examine their

subject matter language objectively. They
are not interested in evaluating good versus
bad uses of language, in much the same
manner that a biologist, for example, does not
examine cells with the goal of determining
which are pretty and which are ugly.
CHARLES F. MEYER ( 2009: 02)
 Language
Language is first and foremost the basic
means of human communication. This
aspect of human behaviour is illustrated
by the well known definition put forward
by the American anthropolinguist,
edward Sapir (1884-1939)
Language is a purely human and non-
instictive method of communicating
ideas, emotions and desires by means
of a system of voluntarily produced
symbols.
 Language
This definition focuses on a set of fundamental
aspects of language, namely:

Language is human specific, i.e. it is used

solely by human beings living within a given
speech community.
Language is not instictive, i.e. it is normally
acquired from infancy as a system of arbitrary
meaningful conventional symbols. Such
sybmbols are primarily speech sounds produced
by the organs of speech, and are complemented
by secondary symbols, mainly the writing
system.
 Language
a- Linguistic definition of language
Language has been defined differently by
linguists according to the general
framework of their theory.

For instance, the swiss linguist, Ferdinand

de Saussure (1857-1913) considers
language as a set of general patterns in
the speech of a community (langue) and
as the speaking act of an individual in a
particular situation (parole).
 Language
Likewise, the American linguist
Noam Chomsky (1929-) views
language as:

The innate capacity of native

speakers to understand and
produce an infinite number of
correct grammatical sentences
(competence) and their actual
realisation in concrete situations
 Language
We notice that both linguists
attempt to specify the core of
linguistic study by dividing
language into two facets.
 Language
For De Saussure, langue refers to the
abstract linguistic system shared by all
the members of a speech community
and perpetuated through generations;
it is the generalised rules of the
language system, i.e., grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciation. It is,
therefore, a social product found only
within the collectivity. Whereas parole
refers to all that which a speaker might
say or understand.
 Language
For Chomsky, competence is
the ability for all native speakers
to understand and produce
sentences which have never
produced before; it is, in this
sense, the set of rules underlying
all grammatical utterances in a
given language. Whereas
performance is the realisation of
these rules in actual situations.
 Language
b- Additional linguistics definitions

A language is a system of arbitrary vocal

symbols by means of which the members of
a society interact in terms of their total
culture. (Trager,1949)

Language is the institution whereby

human communicate and interact with each
other by means of habitually used oral-
auditory arbitrary symbols. (Hall,1964)
 Language
c- Dictionay definitions of
language

Most dictionaries define

language in its most general
sense: a system of
communication, taking into
account both the spoken and
written forms.
 Language
a systematic means of
communicating using
conventinalised signs, sounds,
gestures, or marks. (Longman
New Universal Dictionary)

the system of communication in

speech and writing that is used
by people of a particular country
or area (OALD)
 Language
d- Linguistic definition vs
dictionary definition

While the layman gives equal

importance to both the spoken and
written forms as long as they meet his
communicative needs, the linguist
considers writing and other methods
of representing language secondary to
the basic phenomena of speech.
 Language
e- Natural language vs artificial
language
To restrict the scope of study of linguistics
to natural languages, linguists are careful
enough to draw a clear distinction between
a natural language and so-called artificial
language. The former refers to the native
tongue of a speech community such Arabic,
English, French. Whereas the latter denotes
a man-made system of communication
used by a specific group of human beings
sharing the same interest and purposes.
 Language
Such as BASIC or FORTRAN used
by computer scientists
 Language
f- Characteristics of natural language
Linguists have found that all natural
languages have some features in
common. These features can be
summarised as follows:

Language is a set of speech sounds:

language is primarily a spoken mode of
linguistic communication. The written
mode is merely a secondary medium of
expression which has to be learnt formally.
 Language
Language is a set of systems:
language is not a random set of
sounds. It is a system of rules
governing the correct
combinations of linguistic
elements( sounds, words,
clauses, sentences..) It is a
system of systems ( or sub-
systems: phonological,
grammatical, morphological..)
 Language
Language is creative: Any
normal human being is able to
constract and understand an
infnite number of sentences
which he may have never
produced or heard before. This
creative aspect of human
behaviour diffrentiates natural
languages from other systems of
communication.
 Summary
Linguistics as a science strives to study human
language, namely, its spoken form obeying the
requirements of a scientific method. This
involves empiricism, exactness, and objectivity.
We may discern within language two facets:
langue and parole (De Saussure) and
competence and performance (Chomsky). This
kind of dichotomy helps the linguist restrict his
field of study: the discovery and description of
the general patterns underlying speech
behaviour.
We may also distinguish human languages (also
called natural languages) from other means of
communication in terms of specific
characteristics, mainly speech sounds, a system
of systems and creativity.
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

- Traditional language studies

- Classical grammar
- Assemptions of classical
grammar
- Main contribution of classical
grammar
- Summary
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

Traditional Language Studies, or (TLS) for

short, refers to the scholarly works which
delt with the nature of language prior to the
advent of modern linguistics ( De Saussures
Cours de Linguistique Gnrale (1916) )
which is regarded as the foundation to the
newer trend of linguistics study
(Wells in Joos, 1957: 01)

It (TLS) generaly includes four main types of

grammatical study:
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

1- Classical Grammar
2- Medieval Grammar
3- Pedagogical Grammar
4- Comparative Philology
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

1- Classical Grammar
By classical grammar we mean the investigation
to the nature of language carried out first by the
Greek grammarians in the fifth century B.C.

This period marked the birth of the grammatical

thought in the classical Greece, namely by
Platon (429-347) B.C. and Aristotal (384-322)
B.C.

Classical grammar defines the study of language

(Grammar) as: the technical knowledge of
language generally employed by poets and
writers
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

2- Assumption of classical
grammar

a- Language is writing
Writing is considered as the
primary medium of expression.
Speech is merely an imperfect
copy of writing. This view stems
from the prevalence of the sacred
writings in Greek and Latin.
 TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

b- Language is prescriptive

Since the written classical languages (Greek,

Latin, Arabic ) are regarded as pure, correct and
prestigious, it is essential to prescribe the rules
and norms of correct usage. Grammar, therfore,
becomes the art of writing and speaking well.

In this sense, prescriptive grammar dectates

precisely the usage to be followed by all
speakers and writers.
 TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

c- Classical languages are logical

Classical grammar regards Greek and Latin
as more logical, more advanced and richer
than the so-called primitive languages.
As a result, they are the only written
languages worthy of scholarly study.

This is a subjective judgment.

We notice that an ideal classical
grammar textbook is a compilation of
definitions, rules, and long lists of
irrigularities and exceptions.
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

Examples
Plural forms:
+ s => books
+ es => boxes
+ ies => ladies
Child => children
Ox => oxen

Exception: fish - ship

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

d- Main contributions

Homework

What are the main contributions of

classical grammar?
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR STUDIES

3-Main contributions
Despite of the numerous
misconceptions and false
assumptions about the patterns
underlying language, and the
lack of theoretical systematic
analysis, classical grammar has
at its record a rich technical
vocabulary and sound rules
governing correct usage of
language. Here are its main
- The classification of the patterns
of inflection, and the distinction
between active and passive voice
as well as transitive and
intransitive verbs.

- The classification of all words in

terms of case, gender, number,
tense, voice and mood.
- The classification of words into
eight parts of speech: noun,
verb, article, adjectives, adverbs,
preposition, conjunction and
participle.
 Summary
Traditional Language Studies as an overall
approach is important in two main ways: the
classification of grammatical categories governing
the correct usage of language, and the
implementation of the pedagogical aspects of
language.

However, this type of study was primarily

concerned with making rules about how people
ought to speak and write in total conformity with
the the written variety of the classical languages
(Greek and Latin), and subsequently with the
emerging European standard languages such as
English.
 Summary
It unfortunately dismissed actual speech
as secondary and bad grammar. In so
doing, T.L.S. made the scope of language
study very limited and highly selective on
the basis of rather subjective judgements.

These are the central differences between

the old and the new attitudes towards
languages, the differences between T.L.S.
and Modern Linguistics
Modern Linguistics
Modern linguistics
The advent of modern linguistics in the early
part of the twentieth century came as a
reaction against the inherent shortcomings
of the tradional approaches to language
study. There is a general agreement
among linguists that the founder of
modern linguistics is Ferdinand de
Saussure (1857-1913) who set up a
comprehensive theoretical framework for
the discription of language (descriptive
linguistics).
1-Descriptive linguistics
While the traditional approaches to language
study is normative in its analysis and purpose,
descriptive linguistics, as its name implies,
denotes an investigation of language free of
bias and prior judgement. Indeed, the linguits
first task is to record speech as it is actually
used; he is not concerned with whether
instances of speech are correct or incorrect.
There is nothing objective in the utterances
that indicates that they are right or wrong,
good or bad, elegant or ugly. Therefore, the
new guideline for the linguist is not to
prescribe rules and evaluate language usage
but to describe speech as objectively as
possible.
De Saussures Theoretical
Linguistic Concepts
The comprehensive theoretical
framework for the description of
language laid down by Saussure
consists of a set dichotomies
(terminological distinctions)
specific to linguistic research.
a-langue and parole
Langue is the abstract linguistic
system shared by all members of a
speech community; it is the
generalised rules of language.
According to Saussure, the proper
objective of any linguistic research
is the descprition of such rules.
Ferthermore, language is a social
fact belonging to the community.
 Parole is the actualised language
of an individual. In other words, it is
idiosyncratic and situation-specific.
Another distinction which could
differentiate this dichotomy is to
say that language is the code and
parole is the message.
 Facts of speech

Language
(Faculty of speech)

Langue Code Message

Parole

Social
Individual
Product
product
The linguistic system:
a system of Individual speaking
regularities act: actual language
underlying speech behaviour
behaviour
b- Synchrony and diachrony
Synchronic study of language
denotes an investigation of the
way people speak in a given
speech community at a given
point in time. In other words, it is
the description of language
system (tat de langue) at a
specific stage of its development,
for example, the study of Modern
English and Middle English.
Diachronic study of language deals
with its historical development
through time. In other words, the
changes that language has
undergone over periods of time,
for example, the way in which
Modern English has evolved
from Middle and Old English, or
French and Italian from Latin.
Within the Saussaurian
theoretical framework,
synchronic descriptions take
priority over diachronic studies,
because they represent first the
new orientations in linguistic
research, and secondly they have
the adventage of permitting the
verifiability of data.
 Types of linguistic Study

Synchronic
Diachronic
Language Historical
The study of
as it development
language as
existed at /change of
it exists at
any point in language
the present-
time, e.g. (Sound-
day
provided change,
e.g.
that there borrowing,
Contempora
is sufficient coinage)
ry English
data
c- Linguistic sign

The linguistic sign according to de

saussure consists of two parts:

a concept, the signified (signifi)

and

a sound image, signifier

(signifiant).
The former refers to a concrete object or
abstract idea, while the latter is a set of
sounds or graphic signs by which a
speaker refers to the object or the idea of
which he has a mental (sound) image.

For example the word rose as a (signifier)

may be used to mean a type of flower the
(signified) or the concept expressing love.

(c.f. Course In General Linguistics.

Ferdinand de Saussure)
De Saussure (1916) states that The
linguistic sign unites, not a thing
and a name, but a concept and a
sound-image. The latter is not the
material sound, a purely physical
thing, but the psychological imprint
of the sound, the impression that it
makes on our senses.
The linguistic sign is supposed to
be located in the brain of every
speaker and uniting a concept
(signified) with an acoustic image
(signifier). The linguistic
importance of such concept lies
mainly in its value within the
system.
In this respect, according to De
Saussure language is a system of
signs.
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic
relations

Syntagmatic relations
Linguistic signs are said to be in
syntagmatic relationship when
they combine to form a longer
unit (syntagma). This one is
therefore composed of two or
more consecutive units arranged
in a linear sequence (horizontal)
Paradigmatic relations

Linguistic signs are said to be in a

paradigmatic relationship when
they subtitute one for another in
a given construction (vertical).
Thus, syntagmatic relations denotes
co-occurrence, whereas
paradigmatic relations denotes
substitutability. The aim of the
linguistic description is therefore to
observe the rules of the interplay
of these two axes (vertical-
horizontal) in the systematic
mechanism of language. The
following table illustrate such
interplay:
 Syntagmatic relations

The + boy + likes + the + new + movie

A+ girl + hates + an+ old + dress
He + drives + the + new + car

Paradigmatic relations
Bloomfields Application
Methodology
Even though de Saussures theoretical
assumptions and postulated approach
stimulated new interest in descriptive
linguistics (foundation of the Prague
school of linguistics in 1926), the starting
point of linguistics as an autonomous,
empirical and scientific discipline truly
began with the publication of Leonard
Bloomfields book Language (1933). This
book was the first coherent synthesis of
both theory and application of linguistic
analysis.
Homework

What is the link between

behaviourism and linguistics?
(Bloomfields assumptions)
a-Behaviourism
Bloomfield adopted the behaviourist view to
linguistic discription, i.e., the study of human
behaviour in observable stimulus-response
situations. According to J.B Watson (1878-1958)
the founder of this empirical approach to
spychology, stimulus (S) is any object in the
general environment or any change in the
physiological condition of the animal.
Response (R) is that system or organic
activity that we see emphasized in any kind of
activity. The connection between stimulus-
response can be illustraded using Bloomfields
example.
Jill is hungry, sees an apple. (S)
Jill asks Jack to pick up the apple.
(r) (s)
Jack gets the apple for Jill. (R)

S________r---------s_________ R

This situation can be divided into

three main events:
1- Practical events preceeding the
act of speech (S).

2- Speech: substitute response (r)

substitute stimulus (s).

3- Practical events following the

act of speech (R).
Bloomfield as a behaviourist believes
that learning a language is not different
from learning anything else; it becomes
a habit by the stimulus-response
process. The behaviourists also claim
that we learn by imitation and by
association.

Psycholinguists argue that imitation is

not enough; it is not merely by
mechanical repetition that children
acquire language. They also acquire it by
natural exposure and cognitive learning.
 b- Structuralism
Structuralism refers to the fact that the
language used by a given speech
community has a structure or pattern.

Indeed, the structural approach to

linguistic analysis is based on the view
that language forms are related to one
another in a system. In other words,
each sentence is built up according to
specific and regular rules.
Furthermore, linguistic forms are
significant only if they combine
and contrast in terms of
syntagmatic and paradigmatic
relations; a structural approach
will, thus, deal with the
segmentation and correlation of
each form.
Requirements of scientific
description

Any linguistic analysis is based on

the principle that language is
structured. Therefore, the aim is
to discover and supply precise
information on the language
structure. To do so, the linguist
should be guided by three
essential scientific requirements.
(Robins, 1980:6) :
Exhaustiveness: the adequate
treatment of relevant material.
Consistency: the absence of
contradiction between different
parts of the total statement.
Economy: whereby, other things
being equal, a shorter statement
or analysis employing fewer
terms is to be preferred to one
that is longer or more involved
The application of such criteria
assumed to lead to a greater
amount of objectivity and rigour
in linguistic description; it is this
very focus on objectivity which
characterizes modern linguistics
from other language approaches.
 Summary
Modern linguistic can be defined as
descriptive in method, synchronic in
analysis and language-specific. The
greatest merit of Saussures work is the
clarification of distinctions primortdial to a
clear theory and methodology of linguistics
as a scientific discipline. He also gave
priority to the synchronic analysis of
language as distinct from historical
(diachronic) study, and set up a clear
methodology of linguistic sign in terms of
syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations.
Such terminological specifications
made it possible for other
linguists such as Bloomfield to
propose a scientific methodology
assumed to yield the greatest
amount of objective information
on the structure of a particular
language. This methodology is
based mainly on impericism and
focuses on the form rather than
the meaning of a language.
 Phonology
Introduction
Generally speaking language has
a structure consisting of different
kinds of patterns related to
different levels. The forms of one
pattern are distinct from those of
other patterns. Therefore, the
usual analytic procedure is to
devide the linguistic forms into
separate levels and describe
each level at one time.
The aim is to study one level
using its own techniques and
terminology in order to obtain
precise and detailed knowledge
about its different patterns:
selective focusing.

Despite the fact that language

essentially consists of form and
meaning, the structural approach
focuses mainly on the first
aspect.