Language Pt 2
P. 126
Language Acquisition among children__
Language acquisition requires – learning the meaning of words
Learning the grammatical structure of the language
A complex process, takes a number of years to master (some never do)
Imitation may be the most common way that language is learned – since words are arbitrary there is often no logical connection between a word and its meaning.
Parents all over the world modify their normal speech when speaking to young children to help the young ones learn. To get and keep the attention of little ones adults may speak in a higher pitch, use the child’s name frequently and use only simple sentences – stick to talking about the here and now. Elongation of vowel sounds and words, change in tone and rhythm, and exaggeration are all used to get and keep a child’s attention.
Describing in words what the child is doing or seeing
Baby talk
Diminutive words – doggie, kitty
Euphemisms for toilet terms
Expressions for certain actions – “bye bye”, night-night
Repetition
The fact that children can produce totally unique sentences instead of only repeating what they’ve been told leads linguists to believe that there is a genetic predisposition to learning language sounds and grammatical structure.
Noam Chomsky believes that all humans are born with a blueprint or basic linguistic plan that he calls “universal grammar”. Children from any part of the world are not blank slates when it comes to language but have a built in outline of a limited set of grammatical rules. As children listen to the language around them they determine which of these rules apply to their surroundings – the learning process then, according to Chomsky, is a constant editing process where grammatical rules are gathered until they conform to those of adult speech.
Along the way children reject the various principles or rules useful for other languages because they do not apply to their own language – so as they learn to speak they master a specific grammar system that has been imbedded in a universal grammar.
STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE –
Every language has a logical structure.
People learning a new language are usually confused by it until they understand the underlying structure and how the parts interrelate.
What sounds are used, what those sounds convey, vary
Human languages have two aspects of structure
A sound or phonological structure and a grammatical structure
Phonology involves the study of the basic building blocks of a language and is comprised of units of sound called phonemes, and how these phonemes are combined.
`The study of grammar involves identifying recurring sequences of phonemes called morphemes – the smallest units of speech that convey a meaning
Descriptive linguists – whose job it is to make explicit the structure of any given language, study the sound system and the grammatical system of as many different languages as possible.
Phonology –
The first step in describing any language is to determine the sounds that are used.
Human have huge vocal range
Each language uses a finite number of phonemes – minimal units of sound that signal a difference in meaning
English contains sounds for 24 consonants, 9 vowels, 3 semivowels and some other sound features for a total of 46 phonemes. Other languages vary from 15 to 100
Our 26 letters do not cover the total inventory of phonemes in the English language – English is a very inconsistent language –
Read – reed, read – red, meet – meat, -- phoenetic alphabet now used to take into consideration all the phonemes in the world’s languages
V and b, English and Spanish
Morphemes –
Phonemes have no meaning in themselves. When combined into Morphemes they begin to form words. Morphemes are the smallest unit of language that has meaning. Most words are made up of two or more morphemes
Cat –s -- cat is a free morpheme, it means something on its own,
S is a bound morpheme and only has meaning when used with other morphemes
Grammar – the structure, or scaffold of a language
Two parts – morphology – how morphemes are formed into words and syntax – the principles that guide how words are arranged into phrases and sentences
In some languages word meanings are determined by the way morphemes are combined. In others by the order of words in a sentence.
Mary fix Tom phone
Morphological revision – Mary fixed Tom’s phones
In English –Tense, number and relationship are all defined
Other languages require other types of information –
Ex. In Latin or Czech a noun ending will determine if the noun is a direct object or a subject in a sentence.
Spanish and French – male or female, gendered nouns
Navajo verbs change according to their use – to handle changes depending on the size and shape of the object being handled.
Syntax deals with arrangement of words and phrases into sentences – in English adjectives generally preceed nouns described – white horse, in Spanish it follows caballo blanco.
Order of words determines – at least in part – the meaning conveyed in any language.
Language Change –
When linguists look at the sound system or the structure of a language they are engaging in synchronic analysis
When linguists study how languages change over time, they are engaged in diachronic analysis.
Historical linguists may study changes in a single language – like the changes from Old English to Middle English to Modern English
Comparative linguists study changes that have occurred in one language over time as well as the historical relationship of languages to one another.
Language changes over time to reflect actual use – spelling changes, word use changes
Language changes when culture changes – fogy
Language changes when acted on by external forces – invading armies, internet, texting
Language changes through borrowing from other cultures –
Necessity – techonological terms
Prestige – Cuisine versus food
60% of English words today come from Old English
40% come from outside sources
30% are French
3% are Latin
2% are Scandinavian
Less than 1% are German or Dutch
Language Families –
1880’s Sir William Jones – common ancestral languages
Evolution of language similar to that of biological organisms
Comparing similar language words and word roots to determine protolanguage and language families
250 language families today, 6000 mutually indistinguishable langugages
60 in New Guinea, 26 in Australia, 20 in Africa, 37 in Europe and Asia,
150 in the Americas
Every language has internal variations (dialects) and ongoing relationships (share features) with neighboring languages
Languages drift apart very slowly, beginning as dialects and evolving into independent languages
Are some languages superior to others?
Navajo verbs are far more accurate at describing the nature of action -- when speaking of a horse in motion the choice of verb for will tell you about the way the horse is progressing – walking, running, trotting, galloping
You can convey the same information in English but it requires that you use many more words.
But Navajo is not as flexible as English in other ways, no separate nouns for plural ideas
Dog or dogs, child v. children. There are no adjectives because all descriptive information is contained in the verb used. All third person pronoun is singular, plural and gender nonspecific. (Use of “he” for most of this, even when talking about inanimate objects and women)
Sociolinguistics p. 140
The relationship between language and social structure – code switching
Terms of address: Chosen to reflect appropriately the relative social status of the two parties
Use of first names between equals – friendly informal relationships
Use of titles and last names – a more formal relationship
Variant between parties, unequal relationship
Address may vary according to setting –
Diglossia
Two varieties of the same language are spoken by the same person at different times under different social circumstances
Low vs. high language
High – literacy, education, religion, political forums
Low – marketplace, informal settings, tv, radio, between friends and relatives
Spanglish – blending of two languages
Specialized vocabularies – community of practice