胡壮麟Chapter 1.doc

第一部分 各章节提纲笔记 Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics 1.1 Why study language? 1. Language is very essential to human beings. 2. In language there are many things we should know. 3. For further understanding, we need to study language scientifically. 1.2 What is language? Language is a means of verbal communication. It is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. 1.3 Design features of language The features that define our human languages can be called design features which can distinguish human language from any animal system of communication. 1.3.1 Arbitrariness Arbitrariness refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meanings. 1.3.2 Duality Duality refers to the property of having two levels of structures, such that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization. 1.3.3 Creativity Creativity means that language is resourceful because of its duality and its recursiveness. Recursiveness refers to the rule which can be applied repeatedly without any definite limit. The recursive nature of language provides a theoretical basis for the possibility of creating endless sentences. 1.3.4 Displacement Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of conversation. 1.4 Origin of language 1. The bow-wow theory In primitive times people imitated the sounds of the animal calls in the wild environment they lived and speech developed from that. 2. The pooh-pooh theory In the hard life of our primitive ancestors, they utter instinctive sounds of pains, anger and joy which gradually developed into language. 3. The “yo-he-ho” theory As primitive people worked together, they produced some rhythmic grunts which gradually developed into chants and then into language. 1.5 Functions of language As is propos