English As Aworld Language

ENGLISH AS AWORLD LANGUAGE

-official language in over 60 countries

-approximately 500 – 1000 million people

-every continent

-the three main oceans

-can be language used in multilingual society, semi-official replaces other languages... in general has position of world language

-is mother tongue in more countries (Canada, USA, GB, Australia)

-spread of Eng. around the world

-3 circles:

inner circle – comprises countries in which Eng. is mother tongue (Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa). Language in institution, traditional basies Eng. is spread from.
outer circle – countries connected to the 1st spread (India, Nigeria, Singapore, Ghana,.. the countries of Commonwealth) not native language for people living here but is dominant language spoken there. Chief institutions – educational, government... use Eng. but it is not native.
expanding circle – most people speak Eng. as a foreign language (Brazilians, Egyptians, Asians, we...). Eng. is taught here as a foreign language (probably not connected to colonization)

Spread/movement of English- started in 16th century roughly. England had great power over colonies: America, Asia and Australia. Later in the 18th century was spread to Africa and South Pacific. In the 20th century 2 important factors caused English to become No. 1 language: the USA was the biggest country with the best economy; the British colonies fell down and the countries adopted the English language. (– consequences of WW II.; migration; but ECONOMIC – after WW II. – collapse of British colonial power – many newly created independent countries adopted Eng. as official language.)

2 factors helping English with spreading:

EXPANSION OF BRITISH COLONIAL POWER – due to colonization, trade, conquest
APPEARANCE OF THE USA LEADING COUNTRY - economic power in the world

PEOPLE LEARN ENGLISH BECAUSE OF:

-historical reasons – due to the legacy of the USA & British imperialism. Governments, Parliaments, Gov. agencies, schools...

-internal political reasons – typical of India – Eng. serves as a symbol of national unity as neutral means of communication. There are more than 3 hundred native languages in India so that English spoken in institutions, official communication...

-external economic reasons – USA has leading power – if you want to be a rovnocenny partner you have to speak Eng.

-practical reasons – used in international pleas, maritime, air traffic, emergency services, tourism

-intellectual reasons – in the middle ages it was latin – lingua franca – now English is. most academic, scientific, technical information is in English nowadays. If we produce something new and want to be accepted by the world, we use Eng. Than academic conferences are in Eng.

-entertainment reasons – pop music, pop culture, film, video games, computers, windows, mobile communication, advertising; drug traffic, pornography

-MY reasons – to meet people, like the language, to read literature in originals, wider book market, travelling...

Varieties of English: (there are many varieties of Eng.)

three types of linguistic variety:

-regional (geographical) – based on English spoken in different regions (American – British – South Africa – Australia...) dialects in England, Scotland... different dialects and accents in different regions

-functional – based on the principals that use different language to different situations (with friends – with teachers – with grandparents...)

-social – connected with division of society into different social groups (age – educated – uneducated – social status...)

Standard English – there was no “Stur” who codified it. SE is normed English spoken by people so that they are understood although there are many accents. It is used in media, books, taught to foreigners and at schools, widely understood, but not widely spoken – official one, the grammar and spelling is the same, but the pronunciation differs.

STANDARD ENGLISH

THE PROPERTIES OF LANGUAGE

-animals use language to meet their partner, the language is very simple

-human language is the perfect one.

Language – a structured system of mutually related signs which are typical of an arbitrary and conventional relationship to the entities in the extra-linguistic reality.

Extra-linguistic reality – svetokolonás.everything around us

Sign – the natural language is represented by signs (jazykmáznakovúpovahu). Written or spoken word is a sign word with certain meaning.
There is an arbitrary relationship between a linguistic sign /form/ and its meaning /content/ - Arbitrariness - there is no natural relationship between them. That´s why different languages use different signs. There is a particular form to denote the particular reality.
Conventional system –
Structured system – that is closely related – syllables – words – sentences – texts
Levels of language: (language – a group of units. structures are relations between the units. the language as a structured system can be shown as a pyramid – different levels:

discourseautonomous

syntacticdeals with the

lexicalsemantic – meaning & how it´s

morphologicalshown in different

phonic – soundsstages

Language plane – plane of form/expression; plane of meaning/content – there is a correlation between them at any language level. If you want to express certain meaning, you have to give it correct form.

A correlation between the plane of form /expression) and the plane of meaning (content)
discreteness
duality /double articulation/ - we´ve got limited number of phonemes but we can combine them. 47 phonemes can be combined to 500-page book
productivity /creativity, open-endedness/ - people can use language to create new words, sentences. This creativity is open-ended.This is only for human language.

Discreteness – sounds “b” & “p” are very similar. So if we use them in words like “back” & “pack”, they are discreet/identical.
Duality – (double articulation) – language is organised on two layers: 1. limited sets of units that don´t have meaning on their own, e.g. n, m, t, a, e; 2. limited sets of units from which we can create indefinite number with the meaning, e.g. met, meat, ten. Language is very economical, 44 phonemes are enough to write a book.
Productivity – (creativity, open - endendness – infinite) – able to create new words, meanings anytime
Reciprosity– inter changeability – the producer of a linguistic signal /speaker/ can at the same time be a receiver of a signal /listener/
Communicative displacement – e.g. – if a dog is barking, something is happening right now – in a human language, we are able to talk about past, future, places we have never been to, fairies, Santa Claus (unreal things) => complex language isn´t limited
Cultural transmission – we inherit colour of the eyes, hair... from our parents, but not the complex language (e.g. adoption of a Korean boy into the US family – he will speak English – so you speak the language that other people around you speak. We inherit just the preposition to speak the language. The language of animals is given instinctly.

MORPHOLOGICAL LEVEL OF THE HUMAN LANGUAGE

-talks about morphology

-the first time used in biology (19th century used in linguistics)

-morphe – form

-logos – study

study of word forms
study of internal structure of words
study ofwhat the words are composed of

Morpheme – the smallest unit of grammar with which some meanings or grammatical functions are associated, e.g.: the successful painter finally showed his unsigned masterpieces

CATEGORIES OF MORPHEMES:

free vs. bound
free – can exist on their own as words
bound – have to be attached to other morphemes
derivational (affixes) – they influence the meaning of the morphemes strongly (happy vs. unhappy). They may change the word class, important in word formation (paint – painter). They can be prefixes (in front of other morpheme) e.g. unhappy, asleep, reopen; or suffixes (at the end of morpheme) e.g. childhood, homeless, friendship
inflectional– don´t change the meaning & the word class. They indicate certain grammatical function. There are 8:
Plural (cats);nouns
Genitive case (Peter´s)
3rd person singular present tense (sits)
present participle (singing)verbs
past tense (played)
past participle (beaten)
comparative degree (older)adjectives
superlative degree (oldest)

Paradigm – set of all the inflectional morphemes which a word may take (play – s, ing, ed, er)

monofunctional vs. polyfunctional
monofunctional – has one function – “un”
polyfunctional– has several functions at the same time – “s” (3rd person, present simple, plural)

There is no purely analytical language and no purely synthetical language in the world.

ANALYTICAL LANGUAGES – also called isolating – English, Chines, Thai are typical analytical languages. In an ideal analytical language words consist of only 1 morpheme and they are not combined. (We have also words of more morphemes but in general...)

-the inflections are reduced to minimum (in Eng. only 8).

-the relations between words are expressed by prepositions and other auxiliary words.

-the word order in analytical languages is more or less fixed. You can´t simply change the word order without changing the meaning.

We may combine morphemes into words.

SYNTHETICAL LANGUAGES –latin is typical; we combine morphemes into (large) words.

They can be:

AGGLUTINATING - the languages use esp. monofunctional morphemes & their position is fixed. Typical agglutinating languages: Hungarian, Finish, Turkish – if you want to use eg plural or dative... you must use different morphemes.
INFLECTING – use polyfunctional morphemes. We can combine morphemes into words without restrictions. Sometimes it´s difficult to divide words into morphemes. But we have conjugation types and declension types. Word order is relatively free in general. Typical languages are: Slovak, Baltic, Celtic languages. Paradigmes; you can use declensions of certain type to all members of a given type.

Morphology also studies words.

A word is a minimal free unit consisting of 1 or several morphemes, which express a unified semantic concept.

It is good to study words not isolated but in groups. So we created WORD CLASSES (PARTS OF SPEECH) – groups of words with common features – nouns – and subclasses: common and proper nouns; non-count and count nouns... the smaller the class, the more common features.;

Traditional classification by romans:

WORD CLASSES:

nouns,

adjectives,

pronouns,

verbs,

adverbs,

prepositions,

conjunctions,

particles,

interjections,

numerals,

determiners.

Grammatical categories:

Nouns: number, case, gender, definiteness – určitosť – according to articles

Verbs: person, number, tense, aspect – aspekt – mávlastnostislovenskéhovidu, ale nie je to toisté, voice – rod (činný, trpný), mood – spôsob

LEXICAL LEVEL

It studies words in general from a different point of view. It deals with lexical components of the language, which are words, and their combination. All words in a language can be termed – vocabulary/lexicon. It is not an alphabetical list of words. It is a very complex & complicated system. In any language the number of words is very large. In English about 500.000 or more. But in communication we use much less, roughly 5.000 words in general. Active vocabulary – words you make active use of in every day communication. There are also words which you do not use in every day speech, but do understand them – passive vocabulary. Every person uses a special part of vocabulary – idiolect. It is unique for every person. The way how you combine words, phrases you use, word order... Education, environment, age, gender, creativity, intellectual abilities, social status – all these things influence the idiolect.

Vocabulary is the least stabile system because it is constantly changing (compared to morphology or syntax...).

Vocabulary is studied by – lexicology and lexicography.

Lexicology – deals with structure of voc., the usage, origin and properties of words.

Lexicography – deals with the procedures and principals of writing/compiling dictionaries.

LEXICOLOGY– studies the structure of the vocabulary, usage, origin and properties of words, word formation, etymology, lexical semantics, study of idioms

changes in the vocabulary:

disappearence of words:
shortening – the longer words are replaced by shorter (refrigerator – fridge)

because the word is not used any more or was replaced e.g. refrigerator => frige; perambulator => perm

identically pronounced words – used to avoid misunderstanding (write, right, play wright, rhytm)
disappearance of the object in extra-linguistic reality – the words we don´t use just dissapear
borrowing from other languages, e. g. tucker – nieman disappeared; “take” – from Scandinavian

new words appear in the language
word-formation – creating new words by already existing material
borrowing (“loan words”) – adopting words from other languages. We usually modify spelling, pronunciation, change grammar (western, bojkot, víkend, gentleman...) The source of loan words is dependent on 1. historical factors – vine, collonisation; 2. the necessity to name new things. Translation loans (calques) – literal translations (superman – from a German word)
coinage – creating completely new words – we do not use material already existing compared to “word-formation”, e.g. inventions (telephone)

Word-formation

principal processes:
derivation - using morphemes, suffixes, prefixes to derive new words – wooden, useful, reader, disobedient, unable, rebuild
compounding - two rules/bases are joint together – bookcase, worldwide, blackboard, well-known, housekeep
conversion - we use a word in a new word class in the same form without adding any derivatory elements - prefixes or suffixes
N – V: a nurse – to nurse
Adj – V: dry – to dry
Adj – N: criminal – a criminal
N – Adj: a secret – secret (love, door)
minor processes
blending – it´s the fusion of 2 words, when we join first part of one word and second part of the other (smog – smoke + fog; brunch – sbreakfast + lunch; motel – motocar + hotel; chunnel – channel + tunnel; manorexia – man + anorexia)
back-formation (N – V) – verb is back-formation of noun (babysitter – babysit; beggar – beg; television – to televise; but word player – to play was derivation). It is subtracting of a supposed ethics on the basis of analogy
shortening – a reduction of the length of words:
clippings – by taking one or several syllables off
advertisement – ad
influenza – flu
telephone – phone
acronyms - from initial letters of a set of words
CD, VIP, FBI – some are read alphabetically
AIDS, NATO, UNO – are read as words

Borrowing

We usually adapt the words to the situation in new languages. We usually modify spelling, phonetic structure.

(western, bestseller, star – v slovenčineudomácnené v pôvodnejforme; bojkot, dabing, doping, dispečing, džem, džez, džin, džús, autokemping, klub, slogan, smoking, stres, víkend – boliupravené; dizajn/design, džentlmen/gentleman, koktail/kokteil, manager/manažér...)

the sources of loanwords is dependent on:
historical factors – colonization
the necessity to name new things
translation loans (calques) – literal translations “derUebermensch – Superman”

Etymology – studies the origin of words.

In the past there were 3 languages from which majority of words were borrowed:

-Latin – wine, cup, street, pound, cross;

-French – crown, people, state, peace, justice, beef;

-Scandinavian – leg, skin, knife, happy, they, wrong

-English was influenced also by – Italian – piano, opera, umbrella; Spanish – cigarette, potato, guitar; Dutch – yacht, iceberg; Arabic – alcohol, admiral, coffee; Chinese – tea; German – hamburger; Czech – pistol

LEXICOGRAPHY - the theory and practice (or processes and principles) of compiling dictionaries

Dictionary – a reference book, which lists and explains the words of one language or gives translations into another language and provides us with some additional information. It contains information about pronunciation, forms of the word, word class, grammar, varieties in English – American, British, example sentences, derivations, style (formal/informal), collocations, phrases (change your mind), phrasal verbs, synonyms, opposites, idioms, origin...

Types of dictionaries:

encyclopaedic – provide special information, linguistic & encyclopaedic – people, history...
linguistic – explanatory (word is explained in the same language) and translational (explain the word by giving equivalence in particular language.

general – entire vocabulary, general
specialized – particular part of vocabulary
aimed at a part or aspect of the vocabulary: idioms, phrasal verbs, collocation dictionary, etymology, neologisms, pronouncing, modern slang, synonyms
aimed at special groups of users:
Children´s Dictionary
Advanced Learner´s Dictionary
aimed at particular spheres or activities:
law
physics
philosophy

size:
small dictionaries (<30000)
medium dictionaries (<90000)
large dictionaries (>90000)

Best known English dictionaries:

Oldest – written in 1755 by Samuel Johnson – A Dictionary of the English Language

Famous – written by James Murray in 1933 – The Oxford Dictionary –

-in 1989 new edition;

-contains 500000 words;

-23 volumes;

-22000 pages;

-costs 600 £, 1250 €;

-the largest dictionary

US – 1828, written by Noah Webster – An American Dictionary of the English Language

-codifies the US English

-simplifies the English spelling

-combines linguistic encyclopaedic information

-sold the copyright – Marrian-Webster Dictionary

LEXICAL LEVEL

LEXICAL SEMANTICS

-studies the meaning of words and their relevance/equivalence (?)

-we study what the word means conventionally rather than what people mean by them in different occasions

-conventional meaning of words – people agreed

conceptual(denotational) meaning – is present in any word. It is the basic meaning of the words – basic dictionary meaning; in fact it is the definition of the words. It makes the communication possible as everyone knows/understands the meaning. It includes the essential components of meaning (needle – instrument for sewing, long, sharp, of steel... ).(It is direct meaning.)
associative(connotational) meaning – is not present in all words. It expresses certain attitude or emotion which is connected to the words. In this way we differentiate words which are stylistic colouring (ask, questions)and emotional colouring (thin = slim in positive way; skinny in negative way)

-ask /neutral/ = question /more formal/ = interrogate /most formal/ - have the same meaning but the stylistic colouring is different

-skinny - negative, but the same denotational meaning: slender/slim/lean – positive

-moist – nice /cake/ but damp/wet have negative meaning

-the denotational meaning is the same but connotational meaning is different

Semantic features – components of meaning

-man – human, adult, male

-father – human, adult, male

-boy – human, non-adult, male

-mother – human, adult, female

-girl – human, non-adult, female

-some features in common

Componential analysis – we state some components of meaning and compare if they are present in the words

CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS