Linguistics
What is Language? – We are all insiders
(387 Words)
Language is a fundamental aspect of human communication, and as speakers, we are all insiders to the language or languages we use. Consequently, for many purposes, we may take the concept of language for granted. However, closer examination reveals considerable variation within what is commonly understood as a single language. For example, although English is spoken across the world, the English used in Glasgow differs significantly from varieties spoken in other contexts, such as Jamaica. Therefore, there is no single, uniform form of spoken or written ‘English’; rather, there are numerous varieties, often referred to collectively as ‘Englishes’.
This variation raises important questions about how languages should be defined and distinguished from one another. As Hermann Paul (1880) observed, “We must, in reality, distinguish as many languages as there are individuals.” This statement highlights the extent to which individual speakers develop distinctive linguistic patterns and illustrates the difficulty of establishing clear boundaries between different languages and varieties.
Linguists are frequently asked how many languages exist worldwide. Estimates generally place the number at approximately 5,000 to 6,000, although the precise figure is difficult to determine. This difficulty arises partly because definitions of what constitutes a ‘language’ can vary between countries, cultures, and linguistic communities. Consequently, the distinction between a language and a dialect is not always straightforward.
The relationship between language and social and political factors is captured by Max Weinreich’s well-known observation from 1945: “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” This statement suggests that the distinction between a language and a dialect may be influenced not only by linguistic differences but also by political, cultural, and social considerations. In this sense, it may be more productive not to focus excessively on rigid definitions, but instead to recognise that both ‘language’ and ‘dialect’ are terms used to describe forms of speech that are perceived as distinct.
Ultimately, linguistic variation exists at both the individual and societal levels. Every speaker uses language in a somewhat unique way, meaning that it could be argued that every individual possesses their own linguistic system. Nevertheless, the differences between individual speakers are generally limited enough to allow effective communication. Language can therefore be understood as a shared and flexible system of sounds, words, and structures that enables members of a linguistic community to communicate and understand one another.
I did not mean it like that! Language at its best (or worst).
(972 Words)
Language works in many ways and what someone says may well not truly get to the core of their true meaning or the point they were trying to get across while at the same time the receiver is stumped or takes offense. In the piece of writing, I will try to explain that the English language has many meanings, descriptions, and stumblings that we wonder how someone was actually trying to make their point and did they (or others)really know what they were saying.
In a famous Bertrand Russell’s sentence construction, we can see that we do not hold consistent opinions on facts. On a BBC program in the 1940s, Russell conjugated an “irregular verb” as “I am firm; you are obstinate; he is a pig-headed fool.” These constructions provide excellent illustrations of the varying emotional associations of words and the empathy of meaning.
What Russell was illustrating was the power of words to convey attitudes (connotations) as well as meanings (denotations).
Moreover, think about the following statements and how they convey their meanings: I am sexually adventurous, you are promiscuous, he is a slut.
We recognise connotation as ‘the emotional implications and associations that a word may carry’ and denotation as ‘the direct or dictionary meaning of a word’.
Dog = man’s best friend (connotation)Dog = four legged animal (denotation)
In an age where people are highly sensitive to what is said about religion, ethnicity, or even sexuality, antiquated stereotypes of someone’s hair colour can still emanate one’s perception of a person. Passing statements are said without true acknowledgement. Epithets to categorise people can be totally unacceptable. You only have to look at the examples below to see this.
But, language can work in reverse where a supposedly openly offensive word like ‘fuck’ cannot actually have the denoted meaning. For example, Bono upon receiving an award at the Golden Globes in 2003 exclaimed that it was ‘fucking brilliant’. Now, was this use of the expletive word offensive, or was it just an exclamation of the excitement at winning the award? It cannot be indecent as what is more than ‘brilliant’ without the punch in the statement he wanted.
So, do we take statements to actually mean what they say? Bono was telling us how excited and thrilled he was to win an award. What he was saying encapsulated that moment and the literal meaning came across clearly. It is strange in that case that the Federal Communication Commission reasoned that the word had no connotation other than referring to the act of fornication, and was therefore always indecent. Go figure! Well, George Callin did.
(If you are easily offended, I would advise you not to watch the George Carlin video)
So, language does not have any connotation we should take it literally all the time. Is that right?
For example, during the final days at Denver’s old Stapleton airport, a crowded United flight was cancelled.
The single agent was re-booking a long line of very inconvenienced and frustrated travellers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk in front of all the others. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, “I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS.”
The agent replied, “I’m sorry sir. I’ll be happy to try to help you, but I’ve got to help these folks first, and I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”
The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly so that all the passengers behind him could hear, “Do you have any idea who I am?”
Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled warmly and grabbed her public address microphone. “May I have your attention please?” she began, her voice bellowing throughout the entire terminal. “We seem to have a passenger here at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come forward to the gate.”
With the folks behind him in line now laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United agent, gritted his teeth, and spat out the words, “F… you.”
Without flinching in the least, the agent smiled politely and said, “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but I’m afraid that you’ll have to stand in line for that, too.”
We have to understand that language comes at us on multiple levels, rather than as a direct parse of the content of the sentence. In everyday life, we anticipate our interlocutor’s ability to listen between the lines and slip in requests and offers we feel we can’t blurt out directly (Pinker, 2008).
But, one has to be careful. A famous sketch from the Seinfeld show highlights the gravity of taking what someone says too literally.
So why don’t we say what we actually mean? Would it not just get out of the way all this politeness and double meaning? Why spend minutes or hours getting round to the point of the conversation?
Whimpertaives are another example of us going through the motions of being polite and less direct. People prefer to be asked nicely although it does take away the power of the person saying the statement or asking the question. Still, it would be better if a person was on a dinner date to be on their best behaviour where a sense of decorum prevailed. However, statements or questions can be overstretched.
Can you…..? (a stupid question)
I was wondering if… (a pointless rumination)
It would be great if you could… (a gross overstatement)
Politeness keeps people placated. A person can really be too blunt as if they were bossing someone about but what if we came out with what we really meant, would it not expose too much? Ricky Gervais’ Invention of Lying shows us how it is done.
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How Young Learners Learn Languages – True or False
(960 words)
For this writing task, I was asked to give my response to 5 statements about how young learners learn languages. I will answer true or false statements 1- 5 and explain why.
1) Babies are unable to respond until they are at least 6 months old.
Is this True or False?
2) Babbling has an element of the meaning of which the young child is aware.
Is this True or False?
3) Children may sometimes use words in a way different from an adult’s understanding of the language item.
Is this True or False?
4) Grammar rules cannot usually be taught to young children.
Is this True or False?
5) Repetition plays an important part in first language acquisition.
Is this True or False?
1) Babies are unable to respond until they are at least 6 months old. T/F
This is false. From the moment a baby enters the world to eight weeks, the process of language acquisition is in motion. They begin to cry and make little sounds; this exercises the vocal organs and gives them practice in controlling the flow of air through their mouth and nose. They respond to their mother by looking at her when she speaks. If a stranger speaks, the baby will respond differently than to their mother’s voice. The tone, pitch, volume, and intonation of a speaker’s voice make the baby respond differently. The baby shows a response by crying, body movements, babbling, and laughing.
2) Babbling has an element of the meaning of which the young child is aware. T/F
This is true. Language can be said to be a progression of the process which means that there is progressive emergence. Babbling plays a part in this. It can be said that language comes with age and with the form of the body where the child grows and their cognitive senses form. For instance, at 6-7 weeks the baby will be experimenting with coos and chuckles. Then at 3-4 months, the child will start to babble; making rough speech sounds. Most babbling consists of a small number of sounds, which suggests the child is preparing the sounds they will need to speak the language it is exposed to. The baby is aware as the babbling noises tend to closely approximate the language spoken in their environment. When they imitate adult sounds they are scaffolding their language for later development. Learning is intimately linked with the progressive surfacing of a child’s vocabulary and syntax.
3) Children may sometimes use words in a way different from an adult’s understanding of the language item. T/F
This is true. Younger children do not have an adult’s understanding of language; they have their own way of saying things as far as they approximate them. They are born with a special ability to discover for themselves the underlying rules for their language system. For example, a child can tell you in his verbal sounds that the dog their family has, has gone outside. He may say ‘doggie’ and point or say ‘doggie out’. This utterance may just be a few grunts but significantly the point of it is; is that the child is telling you the dog has exited the house. Speech in children can be recognised by the way a child generally uses one pivot word plus one or two additional words, such as ‘Mummy go shops’, ‘Give dolly’. Telegraphic speech as it is known like this is marked by its own grammar, especially in terms of structure. These pivot words tend to occupy a consistent position in the sentence and the word order reflects the order of adult utterances, the only difference being that in telegraphic speech the less semantically important words disappear.
4) Grammar rules cannot usually be taught to young children. T/F
This is true if we were to say that a teacher or parent tries to formally teach a child grammar. Grammar is acquired naturally; it doesn’t need to be taught so formally especially to younger students. Grammar rules taught formally can be just too hard for some children to comprehend. Learning can be modeled on the natural environment although learning needs to accentuate the rate of language acquisition. Role-play, games that highlight interesting and thought-provoking activities can have grammar subconsciously delivered where the learner is using the appropriate language without realizing that the teacher is teaching a specific grammar point. The child will gradually pick up the grammar rules by interaction. They are not pressured. Grammar becomes secondary to the learners actually trying to speak. Their language can be facilitated by the teacher. There is the fact that if the teacher tries to the child’s sentence to the correct version, it often fails. For example:
A child looks at their dolly and says question and answer.
Child: What colour?
Mother: (You mean) what colour IS IT?
Child: Red
Grammar is a progressive discovery. It seems that the child can only learn when the time is right.
5) Repetition plays an important part in first language acquisition. T/F
This is true. This does not mean a child will learn a language by repetition. Repetition helps by the way of the instructor, be that the mother or teacher who replies to the learner’s comments. The child speaks differently from a normal adult. The repetition is done when the child speaks and the mother or teacher repeats and reinforces the child’s speech with their way of saying the utterance.
Child: Daddy come
Mother: Yes, here’s Daddy
Child: Nice doggie
Mother: Yes, he’s a nice doggie isn’t he?
With this type of repetition, encouraging responsiveness, the child will develop. She will keep the child’s word order and add on the rest. The emphasis is on the child’s meaning and not on grammatical structures.
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The Study of Language
(613 words)
Linguistics is the systematic study of language and, as such, should ideally be approached objectively. However, a fundamental methodological difficulty arises from the fact that humans are studying an aspect of their own behaviour and cognition. Moreover, language is the principal means through which we describe and analyse language itself. This reflexive relationship may introduce subjective assumptions that would potentially be less influential if language were being studied by an entirely external observer.
Communication is not exclusive to humans; numerous species use sounds and other signals to convey information. Although the precise complexity and semantic structure of non-human communication remain subjects of investigation, it is reasonable to consider how variations in factors such as pauses, pitch, tone, and repetition may contribute to the transmission of meaning. Visual stimuli may also assist in establishing associations between particular signals and specific situations or behaviours. For example, a child’s scream or a snake’s hiss commonly occurs in particular contexts and may function as a signal of distress, threat, or danger. By observing recurring sounds within different environmental and behavioural contexts, researchers can therefore develop hypotheses concerning the potential meanings and functions of these signals.
Humans possess a particular advantage in the study of language because we are capable of distinguishing between involuntary physiological sounds, such as sneezing or coughing, and deliberate linguistic communication. We recognise that language consists of structured units, including words, which combine according to particular grammatical and semantic principles. Nevertheless, it is important to avoid assuming that linguistic units possess identical meanings across different languages. Words are embedded within the cultural and conceptual systems of the communities that use them, and consequently, their meanings may not correspond precisely to apparently equivalent terms in another language.
For example, the Navajo term shima is commonly translated into English as ‘mother’. However, such a translation may not fully encompass the conceptual range of the original term. Its meaning can extend beyond the biological relationship implied by the English word ‘mother’, incorporating broader notions associated with nurturing and the giving of life. Consequently, concepts such as the earth or trees may be understood within a broader semantic framework associated with motherhood. This illustrates the limitations of assuming that direct lexical equivalents necessarily possess identical semantic or cultural significance across languages.
Another important consideration, particularly in relation to English, is the distinction between written and spoken language. Orthographic representation does not always correspond directly to phonetic realisation; that is, the spelling of a word does not necessarily indicate how it is pronounced. This discrepancy creates challenges for the systematic representation and comparison of speech sounds and contributed to the development of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The IPA provides a standardised system for representing the sounds of spoken language, enabling researchers to describe pronunciation independently of conventional orthographic systems. In this respect, the IPA represents a highly systematic and scientific approach to the analysis of language. There is also a certain methodological irony in the fact that a specialised symbolic system must be employed to describe and analyse the sounds of the languages through which humans ordinarily communicate.
The scope of linguistics extends beyond the analysis of language itself and intersects with numerous other academic disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. Although linguistics is sometimes classified within the humanities because of its close relationship with culture, society, and human thought, its methodologies frequently involve systematic observation, empirical investigation, classification, and analysis. Consequently, linguistics occupies an interdisciplinary position, combining aspects of both the humanities and the sciences. Its scientific character derives not simply from the subject matter it investigates, but from the systematic and evidence-based methods employed to understand the structure, development, acquisition, and use of human language.
Language – In Time And Space
A look at how the English language is constantly evolving. Words used, and the meaning of those words change over time. For example, in the 1940s a “wireless” was the word used to describe what we now call a “radio.” Today, “wireless” has taken on a totally new meaning, associated with “wireless headphones”, “wireless internet” etc..
Variation is a term used to explain the process whereby two native English speakers can understand each other but may not speak exactly the same i.e. Scottish, Australian etc. Variation is the product of change. Populations with common languages separated over time, the forms of speech changed independently and thus the languages separated. This variation is seen in the form of different dialects and accents.
There have been many studies relating to the variation of detail within the English language. An easy variation to identify is that between English dialects when pronouncing words that end in “er.” From the 19th century onwards, local dialects in Northern England began to drop the “er” and replace it with an “a” sound. For example, “butter” became “butta” , “shiver” became “shiva” etc. This variation was also carried into forms of English that developed in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Studies have also illustrated that social status can determine language variation. Speakers with a higher social status and education are more likely to pronounce words in their full and proper form. Studied in the field of Sociolinguistics.
Another theory of language variation looks at the separation of human populations across the globe. Language (as a form of communication) is a naturally inherited characteristic of the human species. Particular forms of language are aspects of specific human societies. As these societies drifted apart over time, languages developed independently of each other. Studied in the field of cultural linguistics.
The mastery of speech develops in early childhood. Language structure is fixed before the teens. Other theories look at language change being consistent with societal changes. There is also the theory that language changes from one generation to the next, and the speech mastered is determined by that spoken in communities in which children grow up.
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