The study of language

1. Amman Arab University
Department of English Language & Translation
The Study of Language
Dr. Khaleel B. Al Bataineh
Hala Smadi
Rahaf Mari
Rania Mohammed
Abdalrhman Salameh
Source: László Varga. 2010. Introduction to English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest

3.  We will start with
 Externalised and internalized
What is language ?
What is language and how did it originate ?
What are the components of the language?
What are the branches of linguistics?
What is the traditional Grammar?
What is the comparative philology?

4.  The language:
 Language is a system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate.
Symbols are things that stand for other things : words, either written or spoken, are
symbols. The rules specify how words are ordered to form sentences.
 We can describe language in a variety of ways : for example , we can talk about
sounds of the language , or the meaning of words , or the grammar that
determines which sentence of language are legitimate. These types of distinctions
are fundamental in linguistics, and these different aspects of language have been
given special names, for example semantics (the study of meaning) syntax ( the
study of word order) morphology ( the study of words and word formation)
pragmatics ( the study of language use) phonetics ( the study of raw sounds ) and
phonology ( the study of how sounds are used within a language).

5. What is the importance of language in the development of society?

6. 2.2 Components of language:
What are the main components of the language?

7. 2.2 Components of language:
The five main components of language are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and
context. Along with grammer, semantics, and pragmatics, these components work together
to create meaningful communication among individuals.
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that may cause a change of meaning within a
language but that doesn’t have meaning by itself.
Phonology includes the phonemes ( basic sounds) and the discrete suprasegmental
elements ( stress patterns, tones, intonation)in the language. The phonological component
also contains rules that regulate how phonemes can be combined in morphemes and
words. For example: the sequences /kaet /and / taek / are phonologically well-formed in
English, but / ktae / or / take/are phonologically ill-formed.
A morpheme is the smallest unit of word that provides a specific meaning to a sting of
letters ( which is called a phoneme).There are two main types of morpheme : free
morphemes and bound morphemes.
Lexeme is the set of all the inflected forms a single word. Syntax is the set of rules by
which a person constructs full sentence. Context is how everthing within language works
together to convey a particular meaning.

8.  Syntax is the component of language that contains the rules for putting together
words in phrases, phrases in sentences. For example: the English sentence, He
went to London. is syntactically well-formed, whereas “To he London went. Is
syntactically ill-formed.

9. 2.3 linguistics and its branches
Linguastics: is the scientific study of language ( i.e. E-language and /or I-
language).
 The product of linguistics is an objective, systematic, and explicit account of some
aspect of language i.e. an explicit grammar.
 A linguist is a person who is professionally engaged in the scientific study of some
aspect of language ( of one particular language or of several languages or human
language in general).

10. Branches of linguistics:

11. 1.Phonology: Is the study of the phonemes and their combinations
in words and morphemes, and also of the discrete suprasegmental elements
in words and sentence. For example: is the study of different sounds and the way
they come together to form speech and words- such as the comparison of the sounds
of the two “ p” sounds in “pop-up”.
An example: of phonology is the study of the movements the body goes through in
order to create sounds-such as the pronounciation of the letter “t” in “bet” , where the
vocal chords stop vibrating causing the “t” sound to be a result of the placement of the
tongue behind the teeth and the flow of air.
Two words that differ by one phoneme- “bat”/ b ae t/
“pat”/ p ae t/.

12. Morphology: Is the study of word derivation and word inflection in terms of
constituent morphemes.
Derivational Morphemes
Morphemes that change the meaning or part of speech of a word they attach to.
Example: happy and unhappy
happy and happiness
Morphology are two types: Free and bound morphemes.
 Free morphemes: are morphemes that can stand by themselves as single words.
For example: open and tour.
 Bound morphemes: are morphemes that cannot normally stand alone and are
typically attached to another form. For example: re-, -ist, -ed, -s (prefixes and
suffixes).
 Free morphemes can generally be identified as the set of separate English word
forms such as basic nouns, adjective, verbs. When free morphemes are used with
bound morphemes attached, the basic word forms are technically known as stems.
For example: undressed and carelessness
 (un-bound=prefix) (dress free=stem) (ed bound=suffix).

13.  Syntax: Is the study of sentence formation.
 Syntax is to know your clauses. There are independent and dependent
clauses. An idependent clauses is one that can stand alone and form a complete
sentence. A dependent clause, however cannot stand on its own. For example:
Hurrying to the door, she picked up her purse and ran. In this sentence hurrying to
the door is the dependent clause and she picked up her purse and ran is the
independent clause.
 Semantics: Is the study of the meaning of words and sentence. An example: A
human can be referred to as a male, femal, child, baby, father or mother.

14.  What is the difference between pragmatism and semantics?
 Pargmatic is close to semantics and the difference is not always quite clear. We
can say that while semantics examines what sentence and words mean in
themselves, pargmatics studies the ways in which they obtain different
interpretations when uttered in different situations. For instance, if I put the
question can you play the piano? To a person I am interviewing in a room where
there is no piano, my utterance will count as a real yes- or- no question. But if I say
the same utterance to a person who is known to be a good pianist, and I point
towards a piano at the same time, my utterance will count as a request to play.
 Semantics studies the meaning of words and their meanings in sentences, while
pragmatics studies the same words and meanings but emphasis on their context.

15. 2.4 Traditional Grammer :
It is a traditional method of language that has been around for generations, and
defines exactly the correct way of writing and speaking.
Having a set of traditional rules for grammer is seen as positive thing by some, who
feel that it holds our language together, keeps it consistent and can benefit our
understanding of it.

16.  Traditional grammar essentially organises our language and keeps the rules
consistent. Some linguists feel that it’s innate to humanity to have certain rules of
grammar, and evidence this with the presence of shared rules across different
languages and cultures.
 With regards to speech, traditional grammar groups words into one of eight
different categories. These are nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives,
prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. You can fit a word into more than one
of these categories, it all depends on the context in which it is used.

17. Another important element of traditional grammar is sentence structure. Traditionally, a
sentence must contain two things: a subject and a predicate. A subject, in this case, is a
thing like a dog, a cat, a person, a place, a bicycle – a noun of some description. A
predicate is a verb of some sort, that says something about the subject. Without these two
things, a sentence is incomplete according to the rules of traditional grammar.
This ties into another key feature of traditional grammar, which is the use of proper
punctuation. One basic rule, for instance, is that each sentence must be concluded with a
punctuation mark of some kind, like a full-stop or a question mark. Other punctuation used
within sentences includes commas, colons, dashes, semicolons or quotations. These are
just a handful of examples - there are plenty more. Each of these elements of punctuation
has a specific set of rules, and they must be used correctly according to these rules for
writing to be grammatically correct.

18. The terms orthodoxy refers to the set of rules and indicative concepts about the structure of
language.

19.  2.5 Comparative Philology :
 Formerly comparative Grammar, or comparative Philology, study
of the relationships or correspondences between two or more languages
and the techniques used to discover whether the languages have a
common ancestor.
 Comparative grammar was the most important branch of linguistics in the
19th century in Europe.
 Also called comparative Philology, the study was originally stimulated
by the discovery by Sir William Jones in 1786 that Sanskrit was
related to Latin, Greek, and German.

20. Comparative method
 An assumption important to the comparative method is the Neogrammarian
principle that the laws governing sound change are regular and have no exceptions
that cannot be accounted for by some other regular phenomenon of language. As an
example of the method, English is seen to be related to Italian if a number of words that
have the same meaning and that have not been borrowed are compared: piede and
“foot”, padre and “father”, pesce and “fish”. The initial sounds, although different,
correspond regularly according to the pattern discovered by Jacob Grimm and
named Grimm’s law after him, the other difference can be explained by other regular
sound changes. Because regular correspondences between English and Italian are far
too numerous to be coincidental, it becomes apparent that English and Italian stem
from the same parent language. The comparative method was developed and used
successfully in the 19th century to reconstruct this parent language, proto-Indo-
European, and has since been applied to the study of other language families.

21. 2.6 The Beginnings of Modern Linguistics in Europe,
Saussure
 Modern linguistics emerged almost simultaneously in Europe in 20 century was
characterized by two features.
 The inheritance of along period if traditional Grammar, and the predominantly
historical interest of 19 century comparative philology. Modern linguistics appeared
as a kind of revolt against this background.
 He was the first to emphasis the difference between(a) language as an he called a
language and (b) language as the realisation (which he called la parole) also he
separated the synchronic and diachronic aspects of language study
 According to Saussure linguistic sings two kind of relationship: syntagmatic and
paradigmatic. The syntagmatic relationsip is a linear ( horizontal, chain)
relationship, for example: the four words in this coffee is strong. The paradigmatic
relationship is a vertical (choice) relationship.

22. 2.7 The Beginnings of Modern Linguistics in America, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
 These languages forced linguistics to adopt an unconventional approach to
language based on objectivity, methodology and frankness. American prescribers
tried to describe each language in its own terms and emphasized the differences
between languages.
 Languages differ infinitely form one another in unexpected ways that is the
essence of linguistics relativism.

23.  Linguistic relativism: Is the assumption that any natural language can be totally different
from other natural languages.
 Sapir and especially Whorf thought that languages not only differed from one another
without limit but also that the language of a community determined the way in which that
community saw the world. This latter view is called linguistic determinism. The
combination of linguistic relativism and linguistic determism became known as the Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis. According to the strong version of the hypothesis the individual is not
free in his experience of the world, because the vocabulary and grammatical categories
of his native language determine the ways in which he can interpret his experience. For
instance: the American linguist boas discovered that in Eskimo there are several
different words for different kinds of snow, whereas in English there is only one generic
term: snow.
 Important differences have become. The English language can paraphrase and say “
snowfall” / “snow packed with strength”/ “soft snow”.