语言学01--Chapter One Invitations to Linguistics.ppt

1. Why Study Language? 1.1 Some myths about language Language is only a means of communication. Language has a form-meaning correspondence. The function of language is to exchange information. English is more difficult to learn than Chinese. Black English is not standard and should be reformed. 1.2 Some fundamental views about L Children learn their native language swiftly, efficiently and without instruction. Language operates by rules. All languages have three major components: a sound system, a system of lexicogrammar and a system of semantics. Everyone speaks a dialect. Language slowly changes. Speakers of all languages employ a range of styles and a set of jargons. Languages are intimately related to the societies and individuals who use them. Writing is derivative of speech. 2. What is Language? Language “is not to be confused with human speech, of which it is only a definite part, though certainly an essential one. It is both a social product of the faculty of speech and a collection of necessary conventions that have been adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty”. --Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913): Course in General Linguistics (1916) “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.” --Edward Sapir (1884-1939): Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921) “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates.” --Bernard Bloch (1907-1965) George Trager (1906-1992): Outline of Linguistic Analysis (1942) “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members of a society interact in terms of their total culture.” --George Trager: The Field of Linguistics (1949) “From now on I will consider language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.” --Noam Chomsky (1928- ): Syntactic Struct