Formal Linguistics vs Sociolinguistics
by Peter L. Patrick
Here are some of the differences in approach we might mention b/w formal linguistics & socio-linguistics.
Formal Linguistics
1. Adopts model of Linguistics as a 'physical science'; metaphors are computers, genes; primarily qualitative methods; interested in predictions and invariant laws (e.g. in physics, factors affecting friction are same everywhere)
2. Focuses on biological capacity for language, the property separating humans from animals; concentrates on language universals all humans share; asks, "What is Universal Grammar (UG)?"
3. Investigates genetically-programmed ability to learn language structures
4. Takes any normal person as a source of linguistic data on "their" language, through introspection and intuitions
5. Principally concerned with informational/communication function of language
6. Evidence from "marginal" data: child speech, mistakes, aphasia, 'Genie', deaf/signers; interested in how they shed light on nature of UG
GOAL: seeks to understand & explain language structure through genetically-shared language universals
Sociolinguistics
1. Adopts model of social sciences: studies behavior, uses both quantitative and qualitative methods (incl. statistics); ethnographic & sociological research paradigms; explanation does not imply ability to predict or apply laws. [Employs same linguistic-analysis toolbox as formal linguistics, plus more]
2. Focuses on diversity-- variation-- of language use in different social groups (cultures, ethnicities, societies, nations, genders, ages, occupations, cities, and so forth); asks, "How does social context determine language use?", and "What are the social functions of linguistic diversity?"
3. Investigates socially-constituted and -learned patterns of language use and their interface w/language structure
4. Requires systematic methods of data collection: since every speaker has complex social identity, it must take account of social context & history
5. Concerned with both informational and expressive functions of language
6. Evidence from communities and coherent social settings; also interested in "margins" (e.g. deaf signers, minorities); takes their social/historical context and needs into account
GOAL: seeks to understand & explain language variation through (linguistic & social) context
Some problems with common formal linguistics approaches:
* Often, "evidence in generative linguistics does not consist of observations of events, and therefore... does not [allow] law-like generalizations" (Carr) -
* i.e. it does not fit the model of physical science which it claims to follow
* Focuses on mental phenomena - e.g. sentences, speaker judgments - which are "purely speaker-internal - representations of linguistic realities, which are speaker-external" (Carr)
* Focuses on the deducible competence of an idealized speaker/hearer,
* typically a monolingual 'native speaker' in a stable, homogeneous monolingual community,
* despite massive evidence that such speakers do not exist and would indeed be dysfunctional.
* Limits itself to intuitive data on standard languages by educated, privileged speakers,
* thus perhaps reinforcing non-standard bias and the low status of non-standard speakers.
* "Differences in data" studied are profound: Formal linguists study a much smaller subset of actual language used than sociolinguists.
* "The selection of a data type has a profound influence on the range of phenomena which a model aims to represent and a theory aims to explain" (Schiffrin)
* Lacks or fails to use an explicit methodology for collecting and handling data.
* Does not recognize that typical methods of doing so involve distortions of data due to speaker awareness of observation.
* Consequently, rarely attempts to correct distortions and improve data-handling methods.
* Makes no systematic attempt to consider linguistic bias as a component of human language use that affects their data, methods, and the use to which formal analyses may be put -
* I.e. fails to include language bias as a human (social) fact within the discipline of studying human language.
* Does not recognize the role of social factors in influencing the analyst's reasoning,
* E.g. specifically the social character of standard vs. non-standard languages,
* Or power relations inherent between researcher and speaker that surface in language use.
* Is itself biased as a field of study by the failure to promote non-standard languages as objects of study, and also to promote non-standard speakers as formal linguists within the profession.
* In general, lacks a social critique of itself as a profession -
* of the relation of formal linguistic analysis to language speakers -
* and of the role of formal linguists vis-à-vis the politics of everyday language.
* Some of the above criticisms apply to sociolinguistics too, in varying degrees.
* However, all the above factors are subjects of frequent and serious debate within the field of sociolinguistics, which is continually engaged in identifying and struggling with such problems.
* In a number of areas, such as the testing and extension of methodology, or the promotion of both non-standard languages and speakers, sociolinguistics can document extensive progress.
* Thus key differences exist between formal and socio-linguistics in data, methodology, and social impact.
References, Quotes and Notes:
See Escure (1997: 9-14), Schiffrin (1987:392) and Carr (1994) for some of these points.
"Evidence in generative linguistics does not consist of observations of events, and therefore... the object of inquiry does not admit of law-like generalizations and is thus distinct from the object of physical inquiry." (Carr 1994:392).
According to Carr, generative syntax focuses on the sentence as its central object of inquiry -- despite disclaimers from e.g. Chomsky 1986 to the effect that sentences are part of E-language. "Syntacticians are still busy analyzing sentences, as ever... [and] continue, as ever, to make crucial use of [them... as] evidence for and against hypotheses in syntax" (Carr 1990:401). These sentences and other principal objects of inquiry are purely speaker-internal - representations of linguistic realities, which are speaker-external. In this sense, he argues, the claim that generative linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology is a mistaken one.
Sociolinguists, in contrast, claim to focus on objects of inquiry which are for the most part speaker-external, i.e. linguistic objects of various sorts.
Carr, Philip. 1990. Linguistic realities: An autonomist metatheory for the generative enterprise. CUP.
Carr, Philip. 1994. "Facthood and reality in linguistics: A reply to Love [1992]". Language & Communication 14(4): 391-402.
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of language. NY: Praeger.
Escure, Genevieve. 1997. Creole and Dialect Continua. (Creole Language Library, vol. 18.) Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Towards an empirical base in pragmatics. Review article. Language in Society 16(3):381-395.
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Senin, 04 Januari 2010
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the latter's focus is on the language's effect on the society. Sociolinguistics overlaps to a considerable degree with pragmatics.
It also studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place (dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies.
The social aspects of language were in the modern sense first studied by Indian and Japanese linguists in the 1930s, and also by Gauchat in Switzerland in the early 1900s, but none received much attention in the West until much later. The study of the social motivation of language change, on the other hand, has its foundation in the wave model of the late 19th century. The first attested use of the term sociolinguistics was by Thomas Callan Hodson in the title of a 1939 paper.[1] Sociolinguistics in the West first appeared in the 1960s and was pioneered by linguists such as William Labov in the US and Basil Bernstein in the UK.
Applications of sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics topics
General
Accent
Generative linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
Computational linguistics
Descriptive linguistics
Linguistic pragmatics
Unsolved problems in linguistics
History
History of linguistics
Historical linguistics
People
List of linguists
This box: view • talk • edit
For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of social attitudes that a particular vernacular would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional setting. Sociolinguists might also study the grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and other aspects of this sociolect much as dialectologists would study the same for a regional dialect.
The study of language variation is concerned with social constraints determining language in its contextual environment. Code-switching is the term given to the use of different varieties of language in different social situations.
William Labov is often regarded as the founder of the study of sociolinguistics. He is especially noted for introducing the quantitative study of language variation and change,[2] making the sociology of language into a scientific discipline.
[edit] Sociolinguistic variables
Studies in the field of sociolinguistics typically take a sample population and interview them, assessing the realisation of certain sociolinguistic variables. Labov specifies the ideal sociolinguistic variable to
* be high in frequency,
* have a certain immunity from conscious suppression,
* be an integral part of larger structures, and
* be easily quantified on a linear scale.
Phonetic variables tend to meet these criteria and are often used, as are grammatical variables and, more rarely, lexical variables. Examples for phonetic variables are: the frequency of the glottal stop, the height or backness of a vowel or the realisation of word-endings. An example of a grammatical variable is the frequency of negative concord (known colloquially as a double negative).
[edit] Traditional sociolinguistic interview
Sociolinguistic interviews are an integral part of collecting data for sociolinguistic studies. There is an interviewer, who is conducting the study, and a subject, or informant, who is the interviewee. In order to get a grasp on a specific linguistic form and how it is used in the dialect of the subject, a variety of methods are used to elicit certain registers of speech. There are five different styles, ranging from formal to casual. The most formal style would be elicited by having the subject read a list of minimal pairs (MP). Minimal pairs are pairs of words that differ in only one phoneme, such as cat and bat. Having the subject read a word list (WL) will elicit a formal register, but generally not as formal as MP. The reading passage (RP) style is next down on the formal register, and the interview style (IS) is when an interviewer can finally get into eliciting a more casual speech from the subject. During the IS the interviewer can converse with the subject and try to draw out of him an even more casual sort of speech by asking him to recall childhood memories or maybe a near death experience, in which case the subject will get deeply involved with the story since strong emotions are often attached to these memories. Of course, the most sought after type of speech is the casual style (CS). This type of speech is difficult if not impossible to elicit because of the Observer's Paradox. The closest one might come to CS in an interview is when the subject is interrupted by a close friend or family member, or perhaps must answer the phone. CS is used in a completely unmonitored environment where the subject feels most comfortable and will use their natural vernacular without overtly thinking about it.
[edit] Fundamental Concepts in Sociolinguistics
While the study of sociolinguistics is very broad, there are a few fundamental concepts on which many sociolinguistic inquiries depend.
[edit] Speech Community
Main article: Speech community
Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less discrete group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves.
Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon, distinct social groups like high school students or hip hop fans, or even tight-knit groups like families and friends. Members of speech communities will often develop slang or jargon to serve the group's special purposes and priorities.
[edit] High prestige and low prestige varieties
Main article: Prestige (sociolinguistics)
Crucial to sociolinguistic analysis is the concept of prestige; certain speech habits are assigned a positive or a negative value which is then applied to the speaker. This can operate on many levels. It can be realised on the level of the individual sound/phoneme, as Labov discovered in investigating pronunciation of the post-vocalic /r/ in the North-Eastern USA, or on the macro scale of language choice, as realised in the various diglossias that exist throughout the world, where Swiss-German/High German is perhaps most well known. An important implication of sociolinguistic theory is that speakers 'choose' a variety when making a speech act, whether consciously or subconsciously.
[edit] Social network
Understanding language in society means that one also has to understand the social networks in which language is embedded. A social network is another way of describing a particular speech community in terms of relations between individual members in a community. A network could be loose or tight depending on how members interact with each other.[3] For instance, an office or factory may be considered a tight community because all members interact with each other. A large course with 100+ students be a looser community because students may only interact with the instructor and maybe 1-2 other students. A multiplex community is one in which members have multiple relationships with each other.[3] For instance, in some neighborhoods, members may live on the same street, work for the same employer and even intermarry.
The looseness or tightness of a social network may affect speech patterns adopted by a speaker. For instance, Dubois and Hovarth (1998:254) found that speakers in one Cajun Louisiana community were more likely to pronounce English "th" [θ] as [t] (or [ð] as [d]) if they participated in a relatively dense social network (i.e. had strong local ties and interacted with many other speakers in the community), and less likely if their networks were looser (i.e. fewer local ties).[4]
A social network may apply to the macro level of a country or a city, but also to the inter-personal level of neighborhoods or a single family. Recently, social networks have been formed by the Internet, through chat rooms, MySpace groups, organizations, and online dating services.
[edit] Internal vs. external language
In Chomskian linguistics, a distinction is drawn between I-language (internal language) and E-language (external language). In this context, internal language applies to the study of syntax and semantics in language on the abstract level; as mentally represented knowledge in a native speaker. External language applies to language in social contexts, i.e. behavioral habits shared by a community. Internal language analyses operate on the assumption that all native speakers of a language are quite homogeneous in how they process and perceive language.[citation needed] External language fields, such as sociolinguistics, attempt to explain why this is in fact not the case. Many sociolinguists reject the distinction between I- and E-language on the grounds that it is based on a mentalist view of language. On this view, grammar is first and foremost an interactional (social) phenomenon (e.g. Elinor Ochs, Emanuel Schegloff, Sandra Thompson).
[edit] Differences according to class
Sociolinguistics as a field distinct from dialectology was pioneered through the study of language variation in urban areas. Whereas dialectology studies the geographic distribution of language variation, sociolinguistics focuses on other sources of variation, among them class. Class and occupation are among the most important linguistic markers found in society. One of the fundamental findings of sociolinguistics, which has been hard to disprove, is that class and language variety are related. Members of the working class tend to speak less standard language, while the lower, middle, and upper middle class will in turn speak closer to the standard. However, the upper class, even members of the upper middle class, may often speak 'less' standard than the middle class. This is because not only class, but class aspirations, are important.
[edit] Class aspiration
Studies, such as those by William Labov in the 1960s, have shown that social aspirations influence speech patterns. This is also true of class aspirations. In the process of wishing to be associated with a certain class (usually the upper class and upper middle class) people who are moving in that direction socio-economically will adjust their speech patterns to sound like them. However, not being native upper class speakers, they often hypercorrect, which involves overcorrecting their speech to the point of introducing new errors. The same is true for individuals moving down in socio-economic status.
[edit] Social language codes
Basil Bernstein, a well-known British socio-linguist, devised in his book, 'Elaborated and restricted codes: their social origins and some consequences,' a social code system which he used to classify the various speech patterns for different social classes. He claimed that members of the middle class have ways of organizing their speech which are fundamentally very different from the ways adopted by the working class.
[edit] Restricted code
In Basil Bernstein's theory, the restricted code was an example of the speech patterns used by the working-class. He stated that this type of code allows strong bonds between group members, who tend to behave largely on the basis of distinctions such as 'male', 'female', 'older', and 'younger'. This social group also uses language in a way which brings unity between people, and members often do not need to be explicit about meaning, as their shared knowledge and common understanding often bring them together in a way which other social language groups do not experience. The difference with the restricted code is the emphasis on 'we' as a social group, which fosters greater solidarity than an emphasis on 'I'.
[edit] Elaborated code
Basil Bernstein also studied what he named the 'elaborated code' explaining that in this type of speech pattern the middle and upper classes use this language style to gain access to education and career advancement. Bonds within this social group are not as well defined and people achieve their social identity largely on the basis of individual disposition and temperament. There is no obvious division of tasks according to sex or age and generally, within this social formation members negotiate and achieve their roles, rather than have them there ready-made in advance. Due to the lack of solidarity the elaborated social language code requires individual intentions and viewpoints to be made explicit as the 'I' has a greater emphasis with this social group than the working class.
[edit] Deviation from standard language varieties
A diagram showing variation in the English language by region (the bottom axis) and by social class (the side axis). The higher the social class, the less variation.
The existence of differences in language between social classes can be illustrated by the following table:
Bristolian Dialect (lower class) ... Standard English (higher class)
I ain't done nothing ... I haven't done anything
I done it yesterday ... I did it yesterday
It weren't me that done it ... I didn't do it
Any native speaker of English would immediately be able to guess that speaker 1 was likely of a different social class than speaker 2, namely from a lower social class, probably from a working class pedigree. The differences in grammar between the two examples of speech is referred to as differences between social class dialects or sociolects.
It is also notable that, at least in England and Australia, the closer to standard English a dialect gets, the less the lexicon varies by region, and vice-versa.
[edit] Covert prestige
Main article: Prestige (sociolinguistics)
It is generally assumed that non-standard language is low-prestige language. However, in certain groups, such as traditional working class neighborhoods, standard language may be considered undesirable in many contexts. This is because the working class dialect is a powerful in-group marker, and especially for non-mobile individuals, the use of non-standard varieties (even exaggeratedly so) expresses neighborhood pride and group and class solidarity. There will thus be a considerable difference in use of non-standard varieties when going to the pub or having a neighborhood barbecue (high), and going to the bank (lower) for the same individual.
[edit] Differences according to age groups
There are several different types of age-based variation one may see within a population. They are: vernacular of a subgroup with membership typically characterized by a specific age range, age-graded variation, and indications of linguistic change in progress.
One example of subgroup vernacular is the speech of street youth. Just as street youth dress differently from the "norm", they also often have their own "language". The reasons for this are the following: (1) To enhance their own cultural identity (2) To identify with each other, (3) To exclude others, and (4) To invoke feelings of fear or admiration from the outside world. Strictly speaking, this is not truly age-based, since it does not apply to all individuals of that age bracket within the community.
Age-graded variation is a stable variation which varies within a population based on age. That is, speakers of a particular age will use a specific linguistic form in successive generations. This is relatively rare. Chambers (1995) cites an example from southern Ontario, Canada where the pronunciation of the letter 'Z' varies. Most of the English-speaking world pronounces it 'zed'; however, in the United States, it is pronounced 'zee'. A linguistic survey found that in 1979 two-thirds of the 12 year olds in Toronto ended the recitation of the alphabet with the letter 'zee' where only 8% of the adults did so. Then in 1991, (when those 12 year olds were in their mid-20s) a survey showed only 39% of the 20-25 year olds used 'zee'. In fact, the survey showed that only 12% of those over 30 used the form 'zee'. This seems to be tied to an American children's song frequently used to teach the alphabet. In this song, the rhyme scheme matches the letter Z with V 'vee', prompting the use of the American pronunciation. As the individual grows older, this marked form 'zee' is dropped in favor of the standard form 'zed'.[5]
People tend to use linguistic forms that were prevalent when they reached adulthood. So, in the case of linguistic change in progress, one would expect to see variation over a broader range of ages. Bright (1997) provides an example taken from American English where there is an on-going merger of the vowel sounds in such pairs of words as 'caught' and 'cot'.[6] Examining the speech across several generations of a single family, one would find the grandparents' generation would never or rarely merge these two vowel sounds; their children's generation may on occasion, particularly in quick or informal speech; while their grandchildren's generation would merge these two vowels uniformly. This is the basis of the apparent-time hypothesis where age-based variation is taken as an indication of linguistic change in progress.
[edit] Differences according to geography
Main article: Dialectology
Wiki letter w.svg This section requires expansion.
[edit] Differences according to gender
Men and women, on average, tend to use slightly different language styles. These differences tend to be quantitative rather than qualitative. That is, to say that women make more minimal responses (see below) than men is akin to saying that men are taller than women (i.e., men are on average taller than women, but some women are taller than some men). The initial identification of a women's register was by Robin Lakoff in 1975, who argued that the style of language served to maintain women's (inferior) role in society ("female deficit approach").[7] A later refinement of this argument was that gender differences in language reflected a power difference (O'Barr & Atkins, 1980) ("dominance theory"). However, both these perspectives have the language style of men as normative, implying that women's style is inferior.
More recently, Deborah Tannen has compared gender differences in language as more similar to 'cultural' differences ("cultural difference approach"). Comparing conversational goals, she argued that men have a report style, aiming to communicate factual information, whereas women have a rapport style, more concerned with building and maintaining relationships.[8] Such differences are pervasive across media, including face-to-face conversation (e.g., Fitzpatrick, Mulac, & Dindia, 1995: Hannah & Murachver, 1999), written essays of primary school children (Mulac, Studley, & Blau, 1990), email (Thomson & Murachver, 2001), and even toilet graffiti (Green, 2003).[9][10][11][12]
Communication styles are always a product of context, and as such, gender differences tend to be most pronounced in single-gender groups. One explanation for this, is that people accommodate their language towards the style of the person they are interacting with. Thus, in a mixed-gender group, gender differences tend to be less pronounced. A similarly important observation is that this accommodation is usually towards the language style, not the gender of the person (Thomson, Murachver, & Green, 2001). That is, a polite and empathic male will tend to be accommodated to on the basis of their being polite and empathic, rather than their being male.[13]
[edit] Minimal responses
One of the ways in which the communicative competence of men and women differ is in their use of minimal responses, i.e., paralinguistic features such as ‘mhm’ and ‘yeah’, which is behaviour associated with collaborative language use (Carli, 1990).[14] Men, on the other hand, generally use them less frequently and where they do, it is usually to show agreement, as Zimmerman and West’s (1975) study of turn-taking in conversation indicates.[15]
[edit] Questions
Men and women differ in their use of questions in conversations. For men, a question is usually a genuine request for information whereas with women it can often be a rhetorical means of engaging the other’s conversational contribution or of acquiring attention from others conversationally involved, techniques associated with a collaborative approach to language use (Barnes, 1971).[16] Therefore women use questions more frequently (Fitzpatrick, et al., 1995; Todd, 1983).[9][17][18] In writing, however, both genders use rhetorical questions as literary devices. For example, Mark Twain used them in "A War Prayer" to provoke the reader to question his actions and beliefs.
[edit] Turn-taking
As the work of DeFrancisco (1991) shows, female linguistic behaviour characteristically encompasses a desire to take turns in conversation with others, which is opposed to men’s tendency towards centering on their own point or remaining silent when presented with such implicit offers of conversational turn-taking as are provided by hedges such as "y’ know" and "isn’t it".[19] This desire for turn-taking gives rise to complex forms of interaction in relation to the more regimented form of turn-taking commonly exhibited by men (Sacks et al., 1974).[20]
[edit] Changing the topic of conversation
According to Dorval (1990), in his study of same-sex friend interaction, males tend to change subject more frequently than females. This difference may well be at the root of the conception that women chatter and talk too much, and may still trigger the same thinking in some males. In this way lowered estimation of women may arise.[21] Incidentally, this androcentric attitude towards women as chatterers arguably arose from the idea that any female conversation was too much talking according to the patriarchal consideration of silence as a womanly virtue common to many cultures.
[edit] Self-disclosure
Female tendencies toward self-disclosure, i.e., sharing their problems and experiences with others, often to offer sympathy (Dindia & Allen, 1992; Tannen, 1991:49), contrasts with male tendencies to non-self disclosure and professing advice or offering a solution when confronted with another’s problems.[8][22]
[edit] Verbal aggression
Men tend to be more verbally aggressive in conversing (Labov, 1972), frequently using threats, profanities, yelling and name-calling.[23] Women, on the whole, deem this to disrupt the flow of conversation and not as a means of upholding one’s hierarchical status in the conversation. Where women swear, it is usually to demonstrate to others what is normal behaviour for them.[24]
[edit] Listening and attentiveness
It appears that women attach more weight than men to the importance of listening in conversation, with its connotations of power to the listener as confidant of the speaker. This attachment of import by women to listening is inferred by women’s normally lower rate of interruption — i.e., disrupting the flow of conversation with a topic unrelated to the previous one (Fishman, 1980) — and by their largely increased use of minimal responses in relation to men (Zimmerman and West, 1975).[15][25] Men, however, interrupt far more frequently with non-related topics, especially in the mixed sex setting (Zimmerman and West,1975) and, far from rendering a female speaker's responses minimal, are apt to greet her conversational spotlights with silence, as the work of DeFrancisco (1991) demonstrates.[19]
[edit] Dominance versus subjection
This, in turn, suggests a dichotomy between a male desire for conversational dominance – noted by Leet-Pellegrini (1980) with reference to male experts speaking more verbosely than their female counterparts – and a female aspiration to group conversational participation.[26] One corollary of this is, according to Coates (1993: 202), that males are afforded more attention in the context of the classroom and that this can lead to their gaining more attention in scientific and technical subjects, which in turn can lead to their achieving better success in those areas, ultimately leading to their having more power in a technocratic society.[27]
[edit] Politeness
Politeness in speech is described in terms of positive and negative face.[28] Positive face refers to one's desire to be liked and admired, while negative face refers to one's wish to remain autonomous and not to suffer imposition. Both forms, according to Brown’s study of the Tzeltal language (1980), are used more frequently by women whether in mixed or single-sex pairs, suggesting for Brown a greater sensitivity in women than have men to face the needs of others.[29] In short, women are to all intents and purposes largely more polite than men. However, negative face politeness can be potentially viewed as weak language because of its associated hedges and tag questions, a view propounded by O’Barr and Atkins (1980) in their work on courtroom interaction.[30]
Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the latter's focus is on the language's effect on the society. Sociolinguistics overlaps to a considerable degree with pragmatics.
It also studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place (dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies.
The social aspects of language were in the modern sense first studied by Indian and Japanese linguists in the 1930s, and also by Gauchat in Switzerland in the early 1900s, but none received much attention in the West until much later. The study of the social motivation of language change, on the other hand, has its foundation in the wave model of the late 19th century. The first attested use of the term sociolinguistics was by Thomas Callan Hodson in the title of a 1939 paper.[1] Sociolinguistics in the West first appeared in the 1960s and was pioneered by linguists such as William Labov in the US and Basil Bernstein in the UK.
Applications of sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics topics
General
Accent
Generative linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
Computational linguistics
Descriptive linguistics
Linguistic pragmatics
Unsolved problems in linguistics
History
History of linguistics
Historical linguistics
People
List of linguists
This box: view • talk • edit
For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of social attitudes that a particular vernacular would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional setting. Sociolinguists might also study the grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and other aspects of this sociolect much as dialectologists would study the same for a regional dialect.
The study of language variation is concerned with social constraints determining language in its contextual environment. Code-switching is the term given to the use of different varieties of language in different social situations.
William Labov is often regarded as the founder of the study of sociolinguistics. He is especially noted for introducing the quantitative study of language variation and change,[2] making the sociology of language into a scientific discipline.
[edit] Sociolinguistic variables
Studies in the field of sociolinguistics typically take a sample population and interview them, assessing the realisation of certain sociolinguistic variables. Labov specifies the ideal sociolinguistic variable to
* be high in frequency,
* have a certain immunity from conscious suppression,
* be an integral part of larger structures, and
* be easily quantified on a linear scale.
Phonetic variables tend to meet these criteria and are often used, as are grammatical variables and, more rarely, lexical variables. Examples for phonetic variables are: the frequency of the glottal stop, the height or backness of a vowel or the realisation of word-endings. An example of a grammatical variable is the frequency of negative concord (known colloquially as a double negative).
[edit] Traditional sociolinguistic interview
Sociolinguistic interviews are an integral part of collecting data for sociolinguistic studies. There is an interviewer, who is conducting the study, and a subject, or informant, who is the interviewee. In order to get a grasp on a specific linguistic form and how it is used in the dialect of the subject, a variety of methods are used to elicit certain registers of speech. There are five different styles, ranging from formal to casual. The most formal style would be elicited by having the subject read a list of minimal pairs (MP). Minimal pairs are pairs of words that differ in only one phoneme, such as cat and bat. Having the subject read a word list (WL) will elicit a formal register, but generally not as formal as MP. The reading passage (RP) style is next down on the formal register, and the interview style (IS) is when an interviewer can finally get into eliciting a more casual speech from the subject. During the IS the interviewer can converse with the subject and try to draw out of him an even more casual sort of speech by asking him to recall childhood memories or maybe a near death experience, in which case the subject will get deeply involved with the story since strong emotions are often attached to these memories. Of course, the most sought after type of speech is the casual style (CS). This type of speech is difficult if not impossible to elicit because of the Observer's Paradox. The closest one might come to CS in an interview is when the subject is interrupted by a close friend or family member, or perhaps must answer the phone. CS is used in a completely unmonitored environment where the subject feels most comfortable and will use their natural vernacular without overtly thinking about it.
[edit] Fundamental Concepts in Sociolinguistics
While the study of sociolinguistics is very broad, there are a few fundamental concepts on which many sociolinguistic inquiries depend.
[edit] Speech Community
Main article: Speech community
Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less discrete group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves.
Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon, distinct social groups like high school students or hip hop fans, or even tight-knit groups like families and friends. Members of speech communities will often develop slang or jargon to serve the group's special purposes and priorities.
[edit] High prestige and low prestige varieties
Main article: Prestige (sociolinguistics)
Crucial to sociolinguistic analysis is the concept of prestige; certain speech habits are assigned a positive or a negative value which is then applied to the speaker. This can operate on many levels. It can be realised on the level of the individual sound/phoneme, as Labov discovered in investigating pronunciation of the post-vocalic /r/ in the North-Eastern USA, or on the macro scale of language choice, as realised in the various diglossias that exist throughout the world, where Swiss-German/High German is perhaps most well known. An important implication of sociolinguistic theory is that speakers 'choose' a variety when making a speech act, whether consciously or subconsciously.
[edit] Social network
Understanding language in society means that one also has to understand the social networks in which language is embedded. A social network is another way of describing a particular speech community in terms of relations between individual members in a community. A network could be loose or tight depending on how members interact with each other.[3] For instance, an office or factory may be considered a tight community because all members interact with each other. A large course with 100+ students be a looser community because students may only interact with the instructor and maybe 1-2 other students. A multiplex community is one in which members have multiple relationships with each other.[3] For instance, in some neighborhoods, members may live on the same street, work for the same employer and even intermarry.
The looseness or tightness of a social network may affect speech patterns adopted by a speaker. For instance, Dubois and Hovarth (1998:254) found that speakers in one Cajun Louisiana community were more likely to pronounce English "th" [θ] as [t] (or [ð] as [d]) if they participated in a relatively dense social network (i.e. had strong local ties and interacted with many other speakers in the community), and less likely if their networks were looser (i.e. fewer local ties).[4]
A social network may apply to the macro level of a country or a city, but also to the inter-personal level of neighborhoods or a single family. Recently, social networks have been formed by the Internet, through chat rooms, MySpace groups, organizations, and online dating services.
[edit] Internal vs. external language
In Chomskian linguistics, a distinction is drawn between I-language (internal language) and E-language (external language). In this context, internal language applies to the study of syntax and semantics in language on the abstract level; as mentally represented knowledge in a native speaker. External language applies to language in social contexts, i.e. behavioral habits shared by a community. Internal language analyses operate on the assumption that all native speakers of a language are quite homogeneous in how they process and perceive language.[citation needed] External language fields, such as sociolinguistics, attempt to explain why this is in fact not the case. Many sociolinguists reject the distinction between I- and E-language on the grounds that it is based on a mentalist view of language. On this view, grammar is first and foremost an interactional (social) phenomenon (e.g. Elinor Ochs, Emanuel Schegloff, Sandra Thompson).
[edit] Differences according to class
Sociolinguistics as a field distinct from dialectology was pioneered through the study of language variation in urban areas. Whereas dialectology studies the geographic distribution of language variation, sociolinguistics focuses on other sources of variation, among them class. Class and occupation are among the most important linguistic markers found in society. One of the fundamental findings of sociolinguistics, which has been hard to disprove, is that class and language variety are related. Members of the working class tend to speak less standard language, while the lower, middle, and upper middle class will in turn speak closer to the standard. However, the upper class, even members of the upper middle class, may often speak 'less' standard than the middle class. This is because not only class, but class aspirations, are important.
[edit] Class aspiration
Studies, such as those by William Labov in the 1960s, have shown that social aspirations influence speech patterns. This is also true of class aspirations. In the process of wishing to be associated with a certain class (usually the upper class and upper middle class) people who are moving in that direction socio-economically will adjust their speech patterns to sound like them. However, not being native upper class speakers, they often hypercorrect, which involves overcorrecting their speech to the point of introducing new errors. The same is true for individuals moving down in socio-economic status.
[edit] Social language codes
Basil Bernstein, a well-known British socio-linguist, devised in his book, 'Elaborated and restricted codes: their social origins and some consequences,' a social code system which he used to classify the various speech patterns for different social classes. He claimed that members of the middle class have ways of organizing their speech which are fundamentally very different from the ways adopted by the working class.
[edit] Restricted code
In Basil Bernstein's theory, the restricted code was an example of the speech patterns used by the working-class. He stated that this type of code allows strong bonds between group members, who tend to behave largely on the basis of distinctions such as 'male', 'female', 'older', and 'younger'. This social group also uses language in a way which brings unity between people, and members often do not need to be explicit about meaning, as their shared knowledge and common understanding often bring them together in a way which other social language groups do not experience. The difference with the restricted code is the emphasis on 'we' as a social group, which fosters greater solidarity than an emphasis on 'I'.
[edit] Elaborated code
Basil Bernstein also studied what he named the 'elaborated code' explaining that in this type of speech pattern the middle and upper classes use this language style to gain access to education and career advancement. Bonds within this social group are not as well defined and people achieve their social identity largely on the basis of individual disposition and temperament. There is no obvious division of tasks according to sex or age and generally, within this social formation members negotiate and achieve their roles, rather than have them there ready-made in advance. Due to the lack of solidarity the elaborated social language code requires individual intentions and viewpoints to be made explicit as the 'I' has a greater emphasis with this social group than the working class.
[edit] Deviation from standard language varieties
A diagram showing variation in the English language by region (the bottom axis) and by social class (the side axis). The higher the social class, the less variation.
The existence of differences in language between social classes can be illustrated by the following table:
Bristolian Dialect (lower class) ... Standard English (higher class)
I ain't done nothing ... I haven't done anything
I done it yesterday ... I did it yesterday
It weren't me that done it ... I didn't do it
Any native speaker of English would immediately be able to guess that speaker 1 was likely of a different social class than speaker 2, namely from a lower social class, probably from a working class pedigree. The differences in grammar between the two examples of speech is referred to as differences between social class dialects or sociolects.
It is also notable that, at least in England and Australia, the closer to standard English a dialect gets, the less the lexicon varies by region, and vice-versa.
[edit] Covert prestige
Main article: Prestige (sociolinguistics)
It is generally assumed that non-standard language is low-prestige language. However, in certain groups, such as traditional working class neighborhoods, standard language may be considered undesirable in many contexts. This is because the working class dialect is a powerful in-group marker, and especially for non-mobile individuals, the use of non-standard varieties (even exaggeratedly so) expresses neighborhood pride and group and class solidarity. There will thus be a considerable difference in use of non-standard varieties when going to the pub or having a neighborhood barbecue (high), and going to the bank (lower) for the same individual.
[edit] Differences according to age groups
There are several different types of age-based variation one may see within a population. They are: vernacular of a subgroup with membership typically characterized by a specific age range, age-graded variation, and indications of linguistic change in progress.
One example of subgroup vernacular is the speech of street youth. Just as street youth dress differently from the "norm", they also often have their own "language". The reasons for this are the following: (1) To enhance their own cultural identity (2) To identify with each other, (3) To exclude others, and (4) To invoke feelings of fear or admiration from the outside world. Strictly speaking, this is not truly age-based, since it does not apply to all individuals of that age bracket within the community.
Age-graded variation is a stable variation which varies within a population based on age. That is, speakers of a particular age will use a specific linguistic form in successive generations. This is relatively rare. Chambers (1995) cites an example from southern Ontario, Canada where the pronunciation of the letter 'Z' varies. Most of the English-speaking world pronounces it 'zed'; however, in the United States, it is pronounced 'zee'. A linguistic survey found that in 1979 two-thirds of the 12 year olds in Toronto ended the recitation of the alphabet with the letter 'zee' where only 8% of the adults did so. Then in 1991, (when those 12 year olds were in their mid-20s) a survey showed only 39% of the 20-25 year olds used 'zee'. In fact, the survey showed that only 12% of those over 30 used the form 'zee'. This seems to be tied to an American children's song frequently used to teach the alphabet. In this song, the rhyme scheme matches the letter Z with V 'vee', prompting the use of the American pronunciation. As the individual grows older, this marked form 'zee' is dropped in favor of the standard form 'zed'.[5]
People tend to use linguistic forms that were prevalent when they reached adulthood. So, in the case of linguistic change in progress, one would expect to see variation over a broader range of ages. Bright (1997) provides an example taken from American English where there is an on-going merger of the vowel sounds in such pairs of words as 'caught' and 'cot'.[6] Examining the speech across several generations of a single family, one would find the grandparents' generation would never or rarely merge these two vowel sounds; their children's generation may on occasion, particularly in quick or informal speech; while their grandchildren's generation would merge these two vowels uniformly. This is the basis of the apparent-time hypothesis where age-based variation is taken as an indication of linguistic change in progress.
[edit] Differences according to geography
Main article: Dialectology
Wiki letter w.svg This section requires expansion.
[edit] Differences according to gender
Men and women, on average, tend to use slightly different language styles. These differences tend to be quantitative rather than qualitative. That is, to say that women make more minimal responses (see below) than men is akin to saying that men are taller than women (i.e., men are on average taller than women, but some women are taller than some men). The initial identification of a women's register was by Robin Lakoff in 1975, who argued that the style of language served to maintain women's (inferior) role in society ("female deficit approach").[7] A later refinement of this argument was that gender differences in language reflected a power difference (O'Barr & Atkins, 1980) ("dominance theory"). However, both these perspectives have the language style of men as normative, implying that women's style is inferior.
More recently, Deborah Tannen has compared gender differences in language as more similar to 'cultural' differences ("cultural difference approach"). Comparing conversational goals, she argued that men have a report style, aiming to communicate factual information, whereas women have a rapport style, more concerned with building and maintaining relationships.[8] Such differences are pervasive across media, including face-to-face conversation (e.g., Fitzpatrick, Mulac, & Dindia, 1995: Hannah & Murachver, 1999), written essays of primary school children (Mulac, Studley, & Blau, 1990), email (Thomson & Murachver, 2001), and even toilet graffiti (Green, 2003).[9][10][11][12]
Communication styles are always a product of context, and as such, gender differences tend to be most pronounced in single-gender groups. One explanation for this, is that people accommodate their language towards the style of the person they are interacting with. Thus, in a mixed-gender group, gender differences tend to be less pronounced. A similarly important observation is that this accommodation is usually towards the language style, not the gender of the person (Thomson, Murachver, & Green, 2001). That is, a polite and empathic male will tend to be accommodated to on the basis of their being polite and empathic, rather than their being male.[13]
[edit] Minimal responses
One of the ways in which the communicative competence of men and women differ is in their use of minimal responses, i.e., paralinguistic features such as ‘mhm’ and ‘yeah’, which is behaviour associated with collaborative language use (Carli, 1990).[14] Men, on the other hand, generally use them less frequently and where they do, it is usually to show agreement, as Zimmerman and West’s (1975) study of turn-taking in conversation indicates.[15]
[edit] Questions
Men and women differ in their use of questions in conversations. For men, a question is usually a genuine request for information whereas with women it can often be a rhetorical means of engaging the other’s conversational contribution or of acquiring attention from others conversationally involved, techniques associated with a collaborative approach to language use (Barnes, 1971).[16] Therefore women use questions more frequently (Fitzpatrick, et al., 1995; Todd, 1983).[9][17][18] In writing, however, both genders use rhetorical questions as literary devices. For example, Mark Twain used them in "A War Prayer" to provoke the reader to question his actions and beliefs.
[edit] Turn-taking
As the work of DeFrancisco (1991) shows, female linguistic behaviour characteristically encompasses a desire to take turns in conversation with others, which is opposed to men’s tendency towards centering on their own point or remaining silent when presented with such implicit offers of conversational turn-taking as are provided by hedges such as "y’ know" and "isn’t it".[19] This desire for turn-taking gives rise to complex forms of interaction in relation to the more regimented form of turn-taking commonly exhibited by men (Sacks et al., 1974).[20]
[edit] Changing the topic of conversation
According to Dorval (1990), in his study of same-sex friend interaction, males tend to change subject more frequently than females. This difference may well be at the root of the conception that women chatter and talk too much, and may still trigger the same thinking in some males. In this way lowered estimation of women may arise.[21] Incidentally, this androcentric attitude towards women as chatterers arguably arose from the idea that any female conversation was too much talking according to the patriarchal consideration of silence as a womanly virtue common to many cultures.
[edit] Self-disclosure
Female tendencies toward self-disclosure, i.e., sharing their problems and experiences with others, often to offer sympathy (Dindia & Allen, 1992; Tannen, 1991:49), contrasts with male tendencies to non-self disclosure and professing advice or offering a solution when confronted with another’s problems.[8][22]
[edit] Verbal aggression
Men tend to be more verbally aggressive in conversing (Labov, 1972), frequently using threats, profanities, yelling and name-calling.[23] Women, on the whole, deem this to disrupt the flow of conversation and not as a means of upholding one’s hierarchical status in the conversation. Where women swear, it is usually to demonstrate to others what is normal behaviour for them.[24]
[edit] Listening and attentiveness
It appears that women attach more weight than men to the importance of listening in conversation, with its connotations of power to the listener as confidant of the speaker. This attachment of import by women to listening is inferred by women’s normally lower rate of interruption — i.e., disrupting the flow of conversation with a topic unrelated to the previous one (Fishman, 1980) — and by their largely increased use of minimal responses in relation to men (Zimmerman and West, 1975).[15][25] Men, however, interrupt far more frequently with non-related topics, especially in the mixed sex setting (Zimmerman and West,1975) and, far from rendering a female speaker's responses minimal, are apt to greet her conversational spotlights with silence, as the work of DeFrancisco (1991) demonstrates.[19]
[edit] Dominance versus subjection
This, in turn, suggests a dichotomy between a male desire for conversational dominance – noted by Leet-Pellegrini (1980) with reference to male experts speaking more verbosely than their female counterparts – and a female aspiration to group conversational participation.[26] One corollary of this is, according to Coates (1993: 202), that males are afforded more attention in the context of the classroom and that this can lead to their gaining more attention in scientific and technical subjects, which in turn can lead to their achieving better success in those areas, ultimately leading to their having more power in a technocratic society.[27]
[edit] Politeness
Politeness in speech is described in terms of positive and negative face.[28] Positive face refers to one's desire to be liked and admired, while negative face refers to one's wish to remain autonomous and not to suffer imposition. Both forms, according to Brown’s study of the Tzeltal language (1980), are used more frequently by women whether in mixed or single-sex pairs, suggesting for Brown a greater sensitivity in women than have men to face the needs of others.[29] In short, women are to all intents and purposes largely more polite than men. However, negative face politeness can be potentially viewed as weak language because of its associated hedges and tag questions, a view propounded by O’Barr and Atkins (1980) in their work on courtroom interaction.[30]
Syntax
Syntax
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Syntactic" redirects here. For another meaning of the adjective, see Syntaxis.
For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation).
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In linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek σύνταξις "arrangement" from σύν syn, "together", and τάξις táxis, "an ordering") is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish."
Modern research in syntax attempts to describe languages in terms of such rules. Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find general rules that apply to all natural languages. The term syntax is also sometimes used to refer to the rules governing the behavior of mathematical systems, such as logic, artificial formal languages, and computer programming languages.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Early history
* 2 Modern theories
o 2.1 Generative grammar
o 2.2 Categorial grammar
o 2.3 Dependency grammar
o 2.4 Stochastic/probabilistic grammars/network theories
o 2.5 Functionalist grammars
* 3 See also
o 3.1 Syntactic terms
* 4 Notes
* 5 References
* 6 External links
[edit] Early history
Works on grammar were being written long before modern syntax came about; the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini is often cited as an example of a premodern work that approaches the sophistication of a modern syntactic theory.[1] In the West, the school of thought that came to be known as "traditional grammar" began with the work of Dionysius Thrax.
For centuries, work in syntax was dominated by a framework known as grammaire générale, first expounded in 1660 by Antoine Arnauld in a book of the same title. This system took as its basic premise the assumption that language is a direct reflection of thought processes and therefore there is a single, most natural way to express a thought. That way, coincidentally, was exactly the way it was expressed in French.
However, in the 19th century, with the development of historical-comparative linguistics, linguists began to realize the sheer diversity of human language, and to question fundamental assumptions about the relationship between language and logic. It became apparent that there was no such thing as a most natural way to express a thought, and therefore logic could no longer be relied upon as a basis for studying the structure of language.
The Port-Royal grammar modeled the study of syntax upon that of logic (indeed, large parts of the Port-Royal Logic were copied or adapted from the Grammaire générale[2]). Syntactic categories were identified with logical ones, and all sentences were analyzed in terms of "Subject – Copula – Predicate". Initially, this view was adopted even by the early comparative linguists such as Franz Bopp.
The central role of syntax within theoretical linguistics became clear only in the 20th century, which could reasonably be called the "century of syntactic theory" as far as linguistics is concerned. For a detailed and critical survey of the history of syntax in the last two centuries, see the monumental work by Graffi (2001).
[edit] Modern theories
There are a number of theoretical approaches to the discipline of syntax. Many linguists see syntax as a branch of biology, since they conceive of syntax as the study of linguistic knowledge as embodied in the human mind. Others (e.g. Gerald Gazdar) take a more Platonistic view, since they regard syntax to be the study of an abstract formal system.[3] Yet others (e.g. Joseph Greenberg) consider grammar a taxonomical device to reach broad generalizations across languages. Some of the major approaches to the discipline are listed below.
[edit] Generative grammar
Main article: Generative grammar
The hypothesis of generative grammar is that language is a structure of the human mind. The goal of generative grammar is to make a complete model of this inner language (known as i-language). This model could be used to describe all human language and to predict the grammaticality of any given utterance (that is, to predict whether the utterance would sound correct to native speakers of the language). This approach to language was pioneered by Noam Chomsky. Most generative theories (although not all of them) assume that syntax is based upon the constituent structure of sentences. Generative grammars are among the theories that focus primarily on the form of a sentence, rather than its communicative function.
Among the many generative theories of linguistics, the Chomskyan theories are:
* Transformational Grammar (TG) (Original theory of generative syntax laid out by Chomsky in Syntactic Structures in 1957[4])
* Government and binding theory (GB) (revised theory in the tradition of TG developed mainly by Chomsky in the 1970s and 1980s).[5]
* The Minimalist Program (MP) (revised version of GB published by Chomsky in 1995)[6]
Other theories that find their origin in the generative paradigm are:
* Generative semantics (now largely out of date)
* Relational grammar (RG) (now largely out of date)
* Arc Pair grammar
* Generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG; now largely out of date)
* Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG)
* Lexical-functional grammar (LFG)
[edit] Categorial grammar
Main article: Categorial grammar
Categorial grammar is an approach that attributes the syntactic structure not to rules of grammar, but to the properties of the syntactic categories themselves. For example, rather than asserting that sentences are constructed by a rule that combines a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP) (e.g. the phrase structure rule S → NP VP), in categorial grammar, such principles are embedded in the category of the head word itself. So the syntactic category for an intransitive verb is a complex formula representing the fact that the verb acts as a functor which requires an NP as an input and produces a sentence level structure as an output. This complex category is notated as (NP\S) instead of V. NP\S is read as " a category that searches to the left (indicated by \) for a NP (the element on the left) and outputs a sentence (the element on the right)". The category of transitive verb is defined as an element that requires two NPs (its subject and its direct object) to form a sentence. This is notated as (NP/(NP\S)) which means "a category that searches to the right (indicated by /) for an NP (the object), and generates a function (equivalent to the VP) which is (NP\S), which in turn represents a function that searches to the left for an NP and produces a sentence).
Tree-adjoining grammar is a categorial grammar that adds in partial tree structures to the categories.
[edit] Dependency grammar
Dependency grammar is a different type of approach in which structure is determined by the relations (such as grammatical relations) between a word (a head) and its dependents, rather than being based in constituent structure. For example, syntactic structure is described in terms of whether a particular noun is the subject or agent of the verb, rather than describing the relations in terms of phrases.
Some dependency-based theories of syntax:
* Algebraic syntax
* Word grammar
* Operator Grammar
* Meaning-Text Theory
[edit] Stochastic/probabilistic grammars/network theories
Theoretical approaches to syntax that are based upon probability theory are known as stochastic grammars. One common implementation of such an approach makes use of a neural network or connectionism. Some theories based within this approach are:
* Optimality theory
* Stochastic context-free grammar
[edit] Functionalist grammars
Functionalist theories, although focused upon form, are driven by explanation based upon the function of a sentence (i.e. its communicative function). Some typical functionalist theories include:
* Functional grammar (Dik)
* Prague Linguistic Circle
* Systemic functional grammar
* Cognitive grammar
* Construction grammar (CxG)
* Role and reference grammar (RRG)
* Emergent grammar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"Syntactic" redirects here. For another meaning of the adjective, see Syntaxis.
For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation).
Question book-new.svg
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2007)
Linguistics
Languages of the world
Theoretical linguistics
Cognitive linguistics · Generative linguistics
Phonology · Morphology · Syntax
Lexis · Semantics · Pragmatics
Descriptive linguistics
Anthropological linguistics
Comparative linguistics · Etymology
Historical linguistics · Phonetics
Sociolinguistics
Applied linguistics
Computational linguistics
Forensic linguistics
Language acquisition
Language assessment
Language development
Language education
Linguistic prescription
Linguistic anthropology
Neurolinguistics
Psycholinguistics
Stylistics
Related articles
History of linguistics
List of linguists
Unsolved problems in linguistics
Portal
v • d • e
In linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek σύνταξις "arrangement" from σύν syn, "together", and τάξις táxis, "an ordering") is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish."
Modern research in syntax attempts to describe languages in terms of such rules. Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find general rules that apply to all natural languages. The term syntax is also sometimes used to refer to the rules governing the behavior of mathematical systems, such as logic, artificial formal languages, and computer programming languages.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Early history
* 2 Modern theories
o 2.1 Generative grammar
o 2.2 Categorial grammar
o 2.3 Dependency grammar
o 2.4 Stochastic/probabilistic grammars/network theories
o 2.5 Functionalist grammars
* 3 See also
o 3.1 Syntactic terms
* 4 Notes
* 5 References
* 6 External links
[edit] Early history
Works on grammar were being written long before modern syntax came about; the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini is often cited as an example of a premodern work that approaches the sophistication of a modern syntactic theory.[1] In the West, the school of thought that came to be known as "traditional grammar" began with the work of Dionysius Thrax.
For centuries, work in syntax was dominated by a framework known as grammaire générale, first expounded in 1660 by Antoine Arnauld in a book of the same title. This system took as its basic premise the assumption that language is a direct reflection of thought processes and therefore there is a single, most natural way to express a thought. That way, coincidentally, was exactly the way it was expressed in French.
However, in the 19th century, with the development of historical-comparative linguistics, linguists began to realize the sheer diversity of human language, and to question fundamental assumptions about the relationship between language and logic. It became apparent that there was no such thing as a most natural way to express a thought, and therefore logic could no longer be relied upon as a basis for studying the structure of language.
The Port-Royal grammar modeled the study of syntax upon that of logic (indeed, large parts of the Port-Royal Logic were copied or adapted from the Grammaire générale[2]). Syntactic categories were identified with logical ones, and all sentences were analyzed in terms of "Subject – Copula – Predicate". Initially, this view was adopted even by the early comparative linguists such as Franz Bopp.
The central role of syntax within theoretical linguistics became clear only in the 20th century, which could reasonably be called the "century of syntactic theory" as far as linguistics is concerned. For a detailed and critical survey of the history of syntax in the last two centuries, see the monumental work by Graffi (2001).
[edit] Modern theories
There are a number of theoretical approaches to the discipline of syntax. Many linguists see syntax as a branch of biology, since they conceive of syntax as the study of linguistic knowledge as embodied in the human mind. Others (e.g. Gerald Gazdar) take a more Platonistic view, since they regard syntax to be the study of an abstract formal system.[3] Yet others (e.g. Joseph Greenberg) consider grammar a taxonomical device to reach broad generalizations across languages. Some of the major approaches to the discipline are listed below.
[edit] Generative grammar
Main article: Generative grammar
The hypothesis of generative grammar is that language is a structure of the human mind. The goal of generative grammar is to make a complete model of this inner language (known as i-language). This model could be used to describe all human language and to predict the grammaticality of any given utterance (that is, to predict whether the utterance would sound correct to native speakers of the language). This approach to language was pioneered by Noam Chomsky. Most generative theories (although not all of them) assume that syntax is based upon the constituent structure of sentences. Generative grammars are among the theories that focus primarily on the form of a sentence, rather than its communicative function.
Among the many generative theories of linguistics, the Chomskyan theories are:
* Transformational Grammar (TG) (Original theory of generative syntax laid out by Chomsky in Syntactic Structures in 1957[4])
* Government and binding theory (GB) (revised theory in the tradition of TG developed mainly by Chomsky in the 1970s and 1980s).[5]
* The Minimalist Program (MP) (revised version of GB published by Chomsky in 1995)[6]
Other theories that find their origin in the generative paradigm are:
* Generative semantics (now largely out of date)
* Relational grammar (RG) (now largely out of date)
* Arc Pair grammar
* Generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG; now largely out of date)
* Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG)
* Lexical-functional grammar (LFG)
[edit] Categorial grammar
Main article: Categorial grammar
Categorial grammar is an approach that attributes the syntactic structure not to rules of grammar, but to the properties of the syntactic categories themselves. For example, rather than asserting that sentences are constructed by a rule that combines a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP) (e.g. the phrase structure rule S → NP VP), in categorial grammar, such principles are embedded in the category of the head word itself. So the syntactic category for an intransitive verb is a complex formula representing the fact that the verb acts as a functor which requires an NP as an input and produces a sentence level structure as an output. This complex category is notated as (NP\S) instead of V. NP\S is read as " a category that searches to the left (indicated by \) for a NP (the element on the left) and outputs a sentence (the element on the right)". The category of transitive verb is defined as an element that requires two NPs (its subject and its direct object) to form a sentence. This is notated as (NP/(NP\S)) which means "a category that searches to the right (indicated by /) for an NP (the object), and generates a function (equivalent to the VP) which is (NP\S), which in turn represents a function that searches to the left for an NP and produces a sentence).
Tree-adjoining grammar is a categorial grammar that adds in partial tree structures to the categories.
[edit] Dependency grammar
Dependency grammar is a different type of approach in which structure is determined by the relations (such as grammatical relations) between a word (a head) and its dependents, rather than being based in constituent structure. For example, syntactic structure is described in terms of whether a particular noun is the subject or agent of the verb, rather than describing the relations in terms of phrases.
Some dependency-based theories of syntax:
* Algebraic syntax
* Word grammar
* Operator Grammar
* Meaning-Text Theory
[edit] Stochastic/probabilistic grammars/network theories
Theoretical approaches to syntax that are based upon probability theory are known as stochastic grammars. One common implementation of such an approach makes use of a neural network or connectionism. Some theories based within this approach are:
* Optimality theory
* Stochastic context-free grammar
[edit] Functionalist grammars
Functionalist theories, although focused upon form, are driven by explanation based upon the function of a sentence (i.e. its communicative function). Some typical functionalist theories include:
* Functional grammar (Dik)
* Prague Linguistic Circle
* Systemic functional grammar
* Cognitive grammar
* Construction grammar (CxG)
* Role and reference grammar (RRG)
* Emergent grammar
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Gagasan penting: tatabahasa generatif, tatabahasa umum, tatabahasa transformasional, teori garis-X, hierarki Chomsky, tatabahasa konteks bebas, linguistik minimalisme, Formula Normal Chomsky, rancangan propaganda[1]
Dipengaruhi: Pāṇini, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Mikhail Bakunin, Karl Marx, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Adam Smith, Rudolf Rocker, Zellig Harris, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, George Orwell, C. West Churchman, W.V.O. Quine, Alan Turing.
Mempengaruhi: Colin McGinn, Edward Said, Steven Pinker, John Burke, Tanya Reinhart, Daniel Everett, Morris Halle, Gilbert Harman, Jerry Fodor, Howard Lasnik, Robert Fisk, Neil Smith, Ray Jackendoff, Norbert Hornstein, Jean Bricmont, Marc Hauser, Norman Finkelstein, Robert Lees, Mark Baker, Julian Boyd, Bill Hicks, Ray C. Dougherty, Derek Bickerton, Michael Albert, Rage Against The Machine.
Avram Noam Chomsky (lahir di Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Amerika Serikat, 7 Desember 1928; umur 81 tahun) adalah seorang profesor linguistik dari Institut Teknologi Massachusetts. Salah satu reputasi Chomsky di bidang linguistik terpahat lewat teorinya tentang tata bahasa generatif.
Kepakarannya di bidang linguistik ini mengantarkannya merambah ke studi politik. Chomsky telah menulis lebih dari 30 buku politik, dengan beragam tema. Dan sejak 1965 hingga kini, dia menjelma menjadi salah satu tokoh intelektual yang paling kritis terhadap kebijakan luar negeri Amerika Serikat. Buku-buku bertema politiknya kerap dianggap terlalu radikal untuk diresensi atau ditampilkan media AS.
Selama lima dasawarsa ini, Chomsky telah menjalin kontrak secara langsung dengan lebih dari 60 penerbit di seluruh dunia dan sudah menulis lebih dari 30 buku bertema politik. Dan baris-baris kalimat dalam tulisannya muncul di lebih dari 100 buku, mulai dari karya ilmiah tentang linguistik, politik, hingga kumpulan kuliah, wawancara dan esai.
Daftar isi
[sembunyikan]
* 1 Perjalanan hidup dan karirnya
* 2 Pandangan politik
* 3 Buku-buku dan artikel tentang Noam Chomsky
* 4 Sejarah penerbitan
* 5 Seputar 11 September
* 6 Bibliografi
o 6.1 Linguistik
o 6.2 Politik
o 6.3 Tentang Chomsky
* 7 Filmografi
* 8 Buku di Indonesia
* 9 Referensi
* 10 Pranala luar
[sunting] Perjalanan hidup dan karirnya
Noam Chomsky yang kemudian sering disebut Chomsky dikenal sebagai tokoh intelektual yang berani "melawan arus" mapan (atau istilah populernya sebagai antikemapanan), baik terhadap kalangan kolega yang disebut-sebutnya sebagai "pembebek garis resmi kebijakan Amerika Serikat" ataupun para elit pemerintahan di Amerika Serikat. Tulisan dan artikelnya serta pendapatnya yang sering menyentakkan publik dan elit pemerintahan Amerika Serikat terutama dalam perspektif dia yagn berbeda seputar peran Amerika Serikat di berbagai tempat di dunia mulai dari Nikaragua, Amerika Tengah, Vietnam hingga Timur Tengah.
Pendapatnya yang sering berbeda dengan opini umum dan memberikan perfektif dan arti baru berbagai istilah dan peristiwa, mengundang serangan dari kalangan tertentu, dan pemahaman baru terhadap hal-hal yang tak terbayangkan sebelumnya pada kalangan lainnya. Semua gagasannya yang mengundang kalangan penentang dan pendukung selalu ditampilkan secara berbobot (powerfull).
Masalah antara jarak dan realitas dan pemaknaan media besar dalam berbagai kasus seperti "Perang Dingin", Tatanan Dunia Baru,Demokrasi dan lainnya merupakan objek utama Chomsky. Motivasinya adalah rasa ingin tahu yang besar. Ia selalu terjud dalam berbagai opini yang selalu bertentangan dan berbeda, lalu mencari makna sebenarnya dalam gagasan yang saling bertentangan dan berbeda dan bahkan saling bertabrakan itu. Menurut guru besar linguistik MIT ini, pandangan monolitik media-media besar yang tampil secara konsisten harus dicurigai sebagai upaya untuk mempertahankan status quo yang ada.
Yang mula-mula menjadi inspirasi terbesar ke lapangan ini adalah George Orwell yang karya-karyanya sudah memukau Chomsky semenjak remaja. Novel "Animal Farm, 1984", esai semacam "Language in the Service of Propaganda" atau "Homage to Catalonia", merupakan sedikit dari deretan karya Orwell yang mempengaruhi Chomsky. Chomsky bahkan gemar membandingkan dirinya dengan novelis itu. Untuk mencari kebenaran sejati, Orwell berkelana dari satu tempat ke tempat lain untuk memperoleh informasi dari tangan pertama. Sedangkan Chomsky mengeksplorasi kebenaran itu dari buku dan khasanah teks yang ia baca. Ditambah kegemaran masa kecilnya, membaca seri ensiklopedi Compton.
Noam Chomsky lahir pada 7 Desember 1928 di Pennsylvania, Amerika Serikat. Dibesarkan di tengah keluarga berpendidikan tinggi, pasangan Dr William Zev Chomsky dan Elsie Simonofsky.
Ayahnya dikenal dikenal sebagai ahli gramatika bahasa Ibrani, yang disebut harian New York Times sebagai ahli gramatika bahasa Ibrani terkemuka yang menulis sejumlah karya gramatika bahasa itu. Pada usia 12 tahun, Chomsky sudah membaca salah satu karya berat ayahnya tentang tata bahasa Ibrani abad ke-13. Selain memperkenalkan bahasa dan warisan budaya leluhurnya, Yahudi, ayah Chomsky juga memperkenalkan tradisi intelektual yang kelak melekat dalam diri Chomsky. Sementara ayahnya mewarisi tradisi kebebasan intelektual, ibunya yang memiliki kecenderungan kekiri-kirian (antikemapanan) menekankannya pentingnya keseimbangan untuk bertindak sebagai pemikir yang sekaligus aktivis.
Sang paman, suami kakak ibunya, ikut mempengaruhi arah watak intelektual Chomsky dengan memperkenalkannya tokoh-tokoh pemikiran terkemuka, Sigmund Freud dan berbagai aliran Komunis seperti Karl Marx, Stalinis, Trotskys, Leninisme dan yang lain-lainnya. Toko Pamannya, yang menjual berbagai koran dan majalah di New York, menjadi tempat berkumpulnya para intelektual Yahudi di New York. "Kelas pekerja Yahudi di New York memang berbeda. Intelektualitas mereka sangat tinggi, sekalipun sangat miskin. Banyak di antara mereka yang tidak memiliki pekerjaan . Tapi mereka hidup di tengah lingkungan yang kaya secara intelektual. Saya pikir ini merupakan masa yang paling berpengaruh di masa usia remaja saya." kenang Chomsky.
Yang menarik seperti halnya ditulis dalam buku, Noam Chomsky, "A Life of Dissent" yang ditulis oleh Robert F. Barsky, asisten gurubesar Sastra Inggris di Universitas Western Ontario Kanada, yang disebut-sebut sebagai buku biografi intelektual dan politik Chomsky, Chomsky sempat bersentuhan dengan kelompok-kelompok yang mendorong beremigrasinya kaum Yahudi Amerika ke negeri harapan yang baru dibentuk, Israel. Ia memang tidak secara resmi terdaftar sebagai organisasi Yahudi berhaluan kiri seperti Avukah yang mendorong berdirinya negeri "binasional" (Arab-Yahudi) di Palestina. Tapi karena bersentuhannya dengan kelompok-kelompok tersebut, keinginan untuk tinggal di Israel sempat terlintas di benaknya.
Pada saat tercatat sebagai anggota Harvard's Society Fellow, berdua dengan istrinya, Carol, ia mengunjungi negeri itu pada tahun 1953. Mereka tinggal di kibbutz, pemukiman baru Yahudi di Palestina selama kira-kira enam minggu. Dia menggambarkan lingkungannya itu sebagai miskin, hanya sedikit makanan dan yang lebih penting lagi: "Benar-benar sesuai dengan lingkungan ideologis". Yang terakhir itulah yang kemudian merisaukannya. Bagi dia, tidak mudah menerima lingkungan yang dia sebut sebagai ekslusif dan rasis tersebut.
Ketika ia berada disana, Chomsky melihat bagaimana masyarakat non-Yahudi terpinggirkan, terancam dan ketakutan, pengalaman inilah, yang menunjukkan standar ganda keadilan, membuat dia merasa ragu perlunya membentuk negara Yudaisme untuk etnik Yahudi. Pada masa berikutnya, Chomsky malah dikenal sebagai salah satu intelektual Amerika Serikat yang berani berkonfrontasi secara langsung, menentang pencaplokan Israel atas tanah Palestina. "Satu tanah dua negara, ini merupakan esensi utama masalah Israel-Palestina" katanya dalam buku "The Chomsky Reader".
Watak kritis ini sebagai ahli linguistik yang banyak menulis soal-soal politik internasional, selain dibentuk oleh banyak gagasan yang mempengaruhinya, juga dibentuk dari bidang yang ditekuninya, "Cartesian Linguistics". Menurut Chomsky, sekali ia menerima perspektif Cartesian dalam bahasa, pada tahap berikutnya ia harus mendukung hak alami manusia dan melawan segala macam otoritarianisme yang menindas manusia.
Keterlibatannya di aktivisme politik merembet tidak cuma sebatas menulis artikel. Ia pun mengirim petisidan memprotes berbagai kebijakan luar negeri Amerika Serikat yang dianggapnya menindas negara lain. "Saya menyadari bahwa mengirim petisi, menumbang uang, mengadakan pertemuan itu tak cukup. Saya berpikiradalah penting jika kita ikut ambil bagian secara lebih aktif....dan saya sadar benar apa akibatnya", kata Chomsky.
Dan karena gagasan-gagasannya yang radikal mengenai berbagai soal kebijakan luar negeri Amerika Serikat itu, namanya sempat masuk dalam daftar musuh Gedung Putih pada masa pemerintahan Richard Nixon. Ia pun pernah ditangkap dan diinterogasi petugas kemanan karena gagasan-gagasannya itu, yang kemudian pernah membuat dia bertanya-tanya, apakah dia tinggal di Amerika atau di negeri lainnya.
Tapi ia tidak kenal jera. Ia bahkan menyebutnya sebagai akibat tanggungjawabnya sebagai intelektual. "Bertrand Russell dan Albert Einstein sama-sama dikenal sebagai intelektual hebat. Keduanya sepakat bahanya tengah mengancam umat manusia. Tapi mereka memilih jalan yang berbeda untuk meresponnya. Einstein hidup dengan enak di Princeton dan mengabdikan dirinya semata-mata untuk riset seraya sesekali menyampaika orasi ilmiah, sementara Russell memilih demonstrasi di jalan", kata Chomsky yang memasang foto Russell di ruang kerjanya di MIT. "Ingin tahu hasilnya? Russel dikutuk sementara Einstein dipuji selangit seperti laiknya malaikat. Apakah itu semua mengejutkan kita? Tidak", kata Chomsky yang sadar benar akibat dari pilihannya.
[sunting] Pandangan politik
Chomsky telah menyatakan bahwa "pandangan personalnya adalah merupakan anarkis tradisional, yang berasal dari Masa Pencerahan dan liberalisme klasik" dan dia memuji sosialisme libertarian. Dia merupakan simpatisan anarko-sindikalisme dan anggota serikat IWW. Dia telah menerbitkan sebuah buku tentang anarkisme berjudul "Chomsky on Anarchism" yang diterbitkan oleh kolektif buku anarkis AK Press pada 2006.
Noam Chomsky telah terlibat dalam aktivisme politik sejak Ia menginjak usia dewasa dan mengeluarkan berbagai opininya mengenai politik dan berbagai peristiwa dunia yang dikutip secara luas, dipublikasikan dan didiskusikan. Menanggapi hal tersebut Chomsky berargumen bahwa pandangan-pandangannya merupakan hal yang tidak ingin didengar oleh mereka yang berkuasa, dan untuk alasan inilah Chomsky dianggap sebagai seorang disiden politik Amerika. Beberapa garis besar pandangan politiknya adalah:
* Kekuasaan, kecuali dapat dijustifikasi, tidak dapat dilegitimasi. Mereka yang berada dalam posisi otoritas berkewajiban membuktikan mengapa mereka bisa diangkat ke posisi tersebut dan mengapa hal tersebut bisa dijustifikasi. Jika kewajiban ini tidak bisa dipenuhi, si pemegang otoritas tersebut harus digulingkan. Otoritas pada hakikatnya tidak dapat dijustifikasi. Sebuah contoh bentuk otoritas yang dapat dilegitimasi adalah yang dilakukan orang tua ketika mencegah anak kecil berjalan ke tengah jalan raya.
* Bahwa tidak banyak perbedaan antara perbudakan dan "penyerahan" diri seseorang kepada seorang majikan untuk "disewa", atau "perbudakan dengan upah". Dia menganggapnya sebagi penyerangan terhadap integritas pribadi yang menghancurkan dan melecehkan kebebasan diri kita. Dia berpendapat bahwa mereka yang bekerja di pabrik harus menjalankan pabrik tersebut.
* Kritik yang sangat kuat pada kebijakan luar negeri Amerika Serikat. Secara khusus, dia melihat adanya standar ganda (yang dia sebut sebagai "standar tunggal") pada kebijakan luar negeri yang menceramahi tentang demokrasi dan kebebasan untuk semua orang, ketika pada saat yang sama mempromosikan, mendukung, dan menyekutukan dirinya dengan negara dan organisasi nondemokratis dan represif. Chomsky berargumen bahwa hal tersebut berakibat pada pelanggaran berat hak asasi manusia. Dia juga sering berargumen bahwa campur tangan Amerika pada negara-negara asing, termasuk bantuan rahasia terhadap Contras di Nikaragua, salah satu peristiwa yang Chomsky telah sangat kritis terhadapnya, masuk ke dalam deskripsi standar terorisme.
* Dia berargumen bahwa media massa di Amerika Serikat banyak yang berpraktik sebagai pasukan propaganda dan “keulamaan bayaran” oleh pemerintahan dan perusahaan-perusahaan Amerika Serikat, dengan tiga pihak tersebut yang secara luas saling berkait-kelindan melalui kepentingan yang sama. Dalam referensi terkenal yang merujuk pada Walter Lippmann, Chomsky bersama Edward S. Herman menulis media Amerika memproduksi consent (imaji lewat media untuk memberikan sekutunya semacam hak untuk melakukan sesuatu yang salah secara hukum tapi berhak untuk tidak dituntut) ke dalam benak masyarakat.
* Chomsky menentang “perang terhadap obat-obatan terlarang” (en:war on drugs) global yang dilakukan Amerika, menganalisa kesesatan penggunaan bahasanya, dan dia mengartikannya sebagai “perang terhadap obat-obatan terlarang tertentu”. Dia lebih memilih pendidikan dan pencegahan daripada operasi yang dilakukan polisi atau militer sebagai cara untuk menurunkan penggunaan narkoba. Pada sebuah wawancara pada 1999, Chomsky berargumen bahwa hasil panen seperti tembakau tidak mendapat perhatian pemerintah, sementara hasil panen tak menguntungkan seperti mariyuana secara spesifik menjadi target untuk efek yang dihasilkannya dengan menghukum orang-orang miskin.
“Kebijakan obat-obatan terlarang domestik AS tidak mengikutsertakan tujuan yang jelas, dan para pembuat kebijakan sangat paham dengan hal itu. Jika ini bukan soal mengurangi penyalahgunaan obat-obatan, lalu apa maksudnya? Hal ini sangat jelas bahwa baik dari tindakan-tindakan yang ada saat ini maupun dari catatan sejarah bahwa obat-obatan terlarang sering dikriminalkan ketika diasosiasikan dengan kelas yang disebut “berbahaya”, dan bahwa kriminalisasi dari obat-obatan tertentu dilakukan sebagai teknik kontrol sosial.”
* Kritis terhadap sistem kapitalis Amerika dan bisnis besar, Chomsky mendefinisikan dirinya sebagai sosialis libertarian yang simpati terhadap anarko-sindikalisme dan kritis terhadap cabang Leninis dari sosialisme. Dia juga percaya bahwa nilai-nilai sosialis libertarian mencontohkan perluasan yang konsisten secara rasional dan moral dari pemikiran humanis radikal dan liberal klasik asli yang tak terrekonstruksi pada konteks industri. Secara khusus dia percaya bahwa masyarakat harus diorganisir dan berdasarkan kontrol demokratis dari komunitas dan tempat-tempat kerja. Dia percaya bahwa pemikiran humanis radikal dari dua tokoh utama yang mempengaruhinya, Bertrand Russell dan John Dewey, “berakar dari Masa Pencerahan dan liberalisme klasik, dan mempertahankan karakter revolusionernya.”
* Chomsky pernah menyatakan bahwa Amerika Serikat merupakan “negara paling hebat di dunia”, sebuah komentar yang kemudian dia klarifikasi dengan mengatakan, “Mengevaluasi negara-negara adalah tidak masuk akal dan saya tidak akan pernah memberikan hal-hal semacam itu untuk dipakai pada istilah tersebut, namun beberapa kemajuan Amerika, khususnya pada wilayah kebebasan berbicara, yang telah dicapai oleh berabad-abad perjuangan populer, harus dihargai.” Dia juga mengatakan “Dalam banyak hal, Amerika Serikat adalah negara terbebas di dunia. Yang saya maksudkan tidak hanya dalam hal tatanan kenegaraan, meskipun itu juga benar, tapi juga dalam hal hubungan individu. Amerika Serikat lebih mendekati kondisi tanpa kelas (classlessness) untuk hal hubungan interpersonal dibandingkan hampir masyarakat manapun.
* Menurut Chomsky: “Saya adalah pembicara yang membosankan dan saya menyukai saya seperti itu…Saya tidak yakin orang tertarik pada apapun personanya…Orang tertarik pada isu-isunya, dan mereka tertarik pada isunya karena isunya penting.”
[sunting] Buku-buku dan artikel tentang Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky juga disebut-sebut sebagai Galilleo Galillei atau Rene Descartes masa depan.[rujukan?] Empat ribu penghargaan atas karyanya muncul dalam daftar Arts and Humanites Citation Indeks, dari 1980-1992. Menurut Science Citation Index, sepanjang 1974 hingga 1992, namanya memperoleh penghargaan sebanyak 1619 kali. Termasuk diantaranya adalah Kyoto Prize, semacam hadiah Nobel yang diberikan di Jepang, pada tahun 1988.
[sunting] Sejarah penerbitan
Noam Chomsky berbicara di Forum Sosial Dunia, 2003.
Proses penerbitan buku-buku Chomsky cukup menarik perhatian, mengingat dia jarang sekali berupaya untuk mempublikasikan karya-karyanya. Tampaknya penggemar Chomsky selayaknya berterimakasih kepada editor atau aktivis yang tertarik pada tulisannya, kuliahnya, wawancaranya. Karena melalui antusiasme merekalah, karya-karyanya bisa dibaca oleh audiens yang lebih luas daripada kelompok akademisi saja.
Ketika pertama kali menjalin kerjasama penerbitan, Chomsky memilih penerbit kecil daripada penerbit sekelas Random House. Andre Schiffrir, mantan Direktur Pelaksana di Pantheon yang menerbitkan buku-buku awal Chomsky tentang politik selama tahun 1970-1980, mengenang, "Dia memberikan bukunya untuk kelangsungan hidup penerbit-penerbit kecil."
Meskipun Chomsky mulai membangun reputasinya dan menarik sekelompok kecil penggemar pada era 1970-an dan 1980-an dengan buku-buku linguistik dan sejumlah buku politik, tapi sebenarnya, buku tipis bersampul lunak dan enak dibaca yang diterbitkan oleh penerbit pada era akhir 1990-an yang memperluas penyebarannya baik di toko besar maupun kios-kios buku.
Pada awal 1990-an, Arthur Naiman, saat itu pemilik penerbitan buku-buku komputer, mendengar Chomsky berbicara di radio dan tertarik untuk menerbitkan karyanya. Naiman pun membuka penerbitan baru untuk menampung buku-buku tipis tentang politik dan dicetak dalam jumlah besar. Di bawah nama penerbit Odonian Press, dia menerbitkan empat buku tipis Chomsky antara tahun 1992 dan 1998 dalam seri Real Story. Hingga akhir tahun 2002, masing-masing telah terjual, rata-rata 118.000 kopi.
Greeg Ruggiero, aktivis yang terlibat dalam penerbitan Open Media Pamphlet Series pada era 1990-an, adalah orang yang berperan dalam memperluas audiens pembaca karya-karya Chomsky. Dia kerap menerbitkan pamflet-mudah difotokopi dari kuliah-kuliah Chomsky dan menjualnya di pojok-pojok jalan di kota New York. Setelah terbukti diminati, dia kemudian mengontak kios-kios buku di seluruh negara bagian dan menjual 10 ribu kopi dengan cara itu. Pada 1995, Ruggiero menawarkan serial ini ke Penerbit Seven Stories Press.
Pada Oktober 2003, Metropolitan Book menerbitkan buku Chomsky yang lain yang berjudul Hegemony of Survival: America's Quest for Global Domination. Buku ini merupakan bagian dari American Empire Project yang menerbitkan buku-buku tipis namun berdasarkan argumentasi yang kukuh dari para penulis dan pemikir terkemuka. Terlepas apakah buku tersebut memuat kritik barunya atau tidak, Sara Berstel, wakil dari penerbit ini, yakin bahwa buku ini akan terjual dengan baik. "Dia selalu memiliki sesuatu [yang baru] untuk disampaikan yang tidak dapat diperoleh pembaca di tempat lain," kata Bersthel.
[sunting] Seputar 11 September
Menurut Publishers Weekly, setelah peristiwa 11 September, Chomsky telah menghasilkan dua buku laris yang terjual jutaan eksemplar. Dia juga dinobatkan sebagai penulis buku terlaris bertema politik yang belum tertandingi oleh penulis bertema sama yang ada di AS saat ini.
Di luar bencana yang ditimbulkan oleh serangan 11 September terhadap gedung WTC New York, peristiwa ini juga meroketkan popularitas buku-buku Chomsky. Ketika banyak orang merasa muak dengan sumber-sumber bacaan yang menjadi propaganda pemerintah AS, buku-buku politik Chomsky yang kontroversial seperti 9-11 (Seven Stories, 2001) dan Power and Terror: Post 9-11 (Seven Stories, 2003) menjadi buku laris.
Karena tidak terlalu peduli dengan kegiatan promosi buku-bukunya,Publishers Weekly menjuluki Chomsky sebagai The Accidental Best Seller, penulis terlaris yang sama sekali keluar dari pakem atau praktik-praktik para pengarang best seller modern.
[sunting] Bibliografi
Gagasan penting: tatabahasa generatif, tatabahasa umum, tatabahasa transformasional, teori garis-X, hierarki Chomsky, tatabahasa konteks bebas, linguistik minimalisme, Formula Normal Chomsky, rancangan propaganda[1]
Dipengaruhi: Pāṇini, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Mikhail Bakunin, Karl Marx, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Adam Smith, Rudolf Rocker, Zellig Harris, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, George Orwell, C. West Churchman, W.V.O. Quine, Alan Turing.
Mempengaruhi: Colin McGinn, Edward Said, Steven Pinker, John Burke, Tanya Reinhart, Daniel Everett, Morris Halle, Gilbert Harman, Jerry Fodor, Howard Lasnik, Robert Fisk, Neil Smith, Ray Jackendoff, Norbert Hornstein, Jean Bricmont, Marc Hauser, Norman Finkelstein, Robert Lees, Mark Baker, Julian Boyd, Bill Hicks, Ray C. Dougherty, Derek Bickerton, Michael Albert, Rage Against The Machine.
Avram Noam Chomsky (lahir di Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Amerika Serikat, 7 Desember 1928; umur 81 tahun) adalah seorang profesor linguistik dari Institut Teknologi Massachusetts. Salah satu reputasi Chomsky di bidang linguistik terpahat lewat teorinya tentang tata bahasa generatif.
Kepakarannya di bidang linguistik ini mengantarkannya merambah ke studi politik. Chomsky telah menulis lebih dari 30 buku politik, dengan beragam tema. Dan sejak 1965 hingga kini, dia menjelma menjadi salah satu tokoh intelektual yang paling kritis terhadap kebijakan luar negeri Amerika Serikat. Buku-buku bertema politiknya kerap dianggap terlalu radikal untuk diresensi atau ditampilkan media AS.
Selama lima dasawarsa ini, Chomsky telah menjalin kontrak secara langsung dengan lebih dari 60 penerbit di seluruh dunia dan sudah menulis lebih dari 30 buku bertema politik. Dan baris-baris kalimat dalam tulisannya muncul di lebih dari 100 buku, mulai dari karya ilmiah tentang linguistik, politik, hingga kumpulan kuliah, wawancara dan esai.
Daftar isi
[sembunyikan]
* 1 Perjalanan hidup dan karirnya
* 2 Pandangan politik
* 3 Buku-buku dan artikel tentang Noam Chomsky
* 4 Sejarah penerbitan
* 5 Seputar 11 September
* 6 Bibliografi
o 6.1 Linguistik
o 6.2 Politik
o 6.3 Tentang Chomsky
* 7 Filmografi
* 8 Buku di Indonesia
* 9 Referensi
* 10 Pranala luar
[sunting] Perjalanan hidup dan karirnya
Noam Chomsky yang kemudian sering disebut Chomsky dikenal sebagai tokoh intelektual yang berani "melawan arus" mapan (atau istilah populernya sebagai antikemapanan), baik terhadap kalangan kolega yang disebut-sebutnya sebagai "pembebek garis resmi kebijakan Amerika Serikat" ataupun para elit pemerintahan di Amerika Serikat. Tulisan dan artikelnya serta pendapatnya yang sering menyentakkan publik dan elit pemerintahan Amerika Serikat terutama dalam perspektif dia yagn berbeda seputar peran Amerika Serikat di berbagai tempat di dunia mulai dari Nikaragua, Amerika Tengah, Vietnam hingga Timur Tengah.
Pendapatnya yang sering berbeda dengan opini umum dan memberikan perfektif dan arti baru berbagai istilah dan peristiwa, mengundang serangan dari kalangan tertentu, dan pemahaman baru terhadap hal-hal yang tak terbayangkan sebelumnya pada kalangan lainnya. Semua gagasannya yang mengundang kalangan penentang dan pendukung selalu ditampilkan secara berbobot (powerfull).
Masalah antara jarak dan realitas dan pemaknaan media besar dalam berbagai kasus seperti "Perang Dingin", Tatanan Dunia Baru,Demokrasi dan lainnya merupakan objek utama Chomsky. Motivasinya adalah rasa ingin tahu yang besar. Ia selalu terjud dalam berbagai opini yang selalu bertentangan dan berbeda, lalu mencari makna sebenarnya dalam gagasan yang saling bertentangan dan berbeda dan bahkan saling bertabrakan itu. Menurut guru besar linguistik MIT ini, pandangan monolitik media-media besar yang tampil secara konsisten harus dicurigai sebagai upaya untuk mempertahankan status quo yang ada.
Yang mula-mula menjadi inspirasi terbesar ke lapangan ini adalah George Orwell yang karya-karyanya sudah memukau Chomsky semenjak remaja. Novel "Animal Farm, 1984", esai semacam "Language in the Service of Propaganda" atau "Homage to Catalonia", merupakan sedikit dari deretan karya Orwell yang mempengaruhi Chomsky. Chomsky bahkan gemar membandingkan dirinya dengan novelis itu. Untuk mencari kebenaran sejati, Orwell berkelana dari satu tempat ke tempat lain untuk memperoleh informasi dari tangan pertama. Sedangkan Chomsky mengeksplorasi kebenaran itu dari buku dan khasanah teks yang ia baca. Ditambah kegemaran masa kecilnya, membaca seri ensiklopedi Compton.
Noam Chomsky lahir pada 7 Desember 1928 di Pennsylvania, Amerika Serikat. Dibesarkan di tengah keluarga berpendidikan tinggi, pasangan Dr William Zev Chomsky dan Elsie Simonofsky.
Ayahnya dikenal dikenal sebagai ahli gramatika bahasa Ibrani, yang disebut harian New York Times sebagai ahli gramatika bahasa Ibrani terkemuka yang menulis sejumlah karya gramatika bahasa itu. Pada usia 12 tahun, Chomsky sudah membaca salah satu karya berat ayahnya tentang tata bahasa Ibrani abad ke-13. Selain memperkenalkan bahasa dan warisan budaya leluhurnya, Yahudi, ayah Chomsky juga memperkenalkan tradisi intelektual yang kelak melekat dalam diri Chomsky. Sementara ayahnya mewarisi tradisi kebebasan intelektual, ibunya yang memiliki kecenderungan kekiri-kirian (antikemapanan) menekankannya pentingnya keseimbangan untuk bertindak sebagai pemikir yang sekaligus aktivis.
Sang paman, suami kakak ibunya, ikut mempengaruhi arah watak intelektual Chomsky dengan memperkenalkannya tokoh-tokoh pemikiran terkemuka, Sigmund Freud dan berbagai aliran Komunis seperti Karl Marx, Stalinis, Trotskys, Leninisme dan yang lain-lainnya. Toko Pamannya, yang menjual berbagai koran dan majalah di New York, menjadi tempat berkumpulnya para intelektual Yahudi di New York. "Kelas pekerja Yahudi di New York memang berbeda. Intelektualitas mereka sangat tinggi, sekalipun sangat miskin. Banyak di antara mereka yang tidak memiliki pekerjaan . Tapi mereka hidup di tengah lingkungan yang kaya secara intelektual. Saya pikir ini merupakan masa yang paling berpengaruh di masa usia remaja saya." kenang Chomsky.
Yang menarik seperti halnya ditulis dalam buku, Noam Chomsky, "A Life of Dissent" yang ditulis oleh Robert F. Barsky, asisten gurubesar Sastra Inggris di Universitas Western Ontario Kanada, yang disebut-sebut sebagai buku biografi intelektual dan politik Chomsky, Chomsky sempat bersentuhan dengan kelompok-kelompok yang mendorong beremigrasinya kaum Yahudi Amerika ke negeri harapan yang baru dibentuk, Israel. Ia memang tidak secara resmi terdaftar sebagai organisasi Yahudi berhaluan kiri seperti Avukah yang mendorong berdirinya negeri "binasional" (Arab-Yahudi) di Palestina. Tapi karena bersentuhannya dengan kelompok-kelompok tersebut, keinginan untuk tinggal di Israel sempat terlintas di benaknya.
Pada saat tercatat sebagai anggota Harvard's Society Fellow, berdua dengan istrinya, Carol, ia mengunjungi negeri itu pada tahun 1953. Mereka tinggal di kibbutz, pemukiman baru Yahudi di Palestina selama kira-kira enam minggu. Dia menggambarkan lingkungannya itu sebagai miskin, hanya sedikit makanan dan yang lebih penting lagi: "Benar-benar sesuai dengan lingkungan ideologis". Yang terakhir itulah yang kemudian merisaukannya. Bagi dia, tidak mudah menerima lingkungan yang dia sebut sebagai ekslusif dan rasis tersebut.
Ketika ia berada disana, Chomsky melihat bagaimana masyarakat non-Yahudi terpinggirkan, terancam dan ketakutan, pengalaman inilah, yang menunjukkan standar ganda keadilan, membuat dia merasa ragu perlunya membentuk negara Yudaisme untuk etnik Yahudi. Pada masa berikutnya, Chomsky malah dikenal sebagai salah satu intelektual Amerika Serikat yang berani berkonfrontasi secara langsung, menentang pencaplokan Israel atas tanah Palestina. "Satu tanah dua negara, ini merupakan esensi utama masalah Israel-Palestina" katanya dalam buku "The Chomsky Reader".
Watak kritis ini sebagai ahli linguistik yang banyak menulis soal-soal politik internasional, selain dibentuk oleh banyak gagasan yang mempengaruhinya, juga dibentuk dari bidang yang ditekuninya, "Cartesian Linguistics". Menurut Chomsky, sekali ia menerima perspektif Cartesian dalam bahasa, pada tahap berikutnya ia harus mendukung hak alami manusia dan melawan segala macam otoritarianisme yang menindas manusia.
Keterlibatannya di aktivisme politik merembet tidak cuma sebatas menulis artikel. Ia pun mengirim petisidan memprotes berbagai kebijakan luar negeri Amerika Serikat yang dianggapnya menindas negara lain. "Saya menyadari bahwa mengirim petisi, menumbang uang, mengadakan pertemuan itu tak cukup. Saya berpikiradalah penting jika kita ikut ambil bagian secara lebih aktif....dan saya sadar benar apa akibatnya", kata Chomsky.
Dan karena gagasan-gagasannya yang radikal mengenai berbagai soal kebijakan luar negeri Amerika Serikat itu, namanya sempat masuk dalam daftar musuh Gedung Putih pada masa pemerintahan Richard Nixon. Ia pun pernah ditangkap dan diinterogasi petugas kemanan karena gagasan-gagasannya itu, yang kemudian pernah membuat dia bertanya-tanya, apakah dia tinggal di Amerika atau di negeri lainnya.
Tapi ia tidak kenal jera. Ia bahkan menyebutnya sebagai akibat tanggungjawabnya sebagai intelektual. "Bertrand Russell dan Albert Einstein sama-sama dikenal sebagai intelektual hebat. Keduanya sepakat bahanya tengah mengancam umat manusia. Tapi mereka memilih jalan yang berbeda untuk meresponnya. Einstein hidup dengan enak di Princeton dan mengabdikan dirinya semata-mata untuk riset seraya sesekali menyampaika orasi ilmiah, sementara Russell memilih demonstrasi di jalan", kata Chomsky yang memasang foto Russell di ruang kerjanya di MIT. "Ingin tahu hasilnya? Russel dikutuk sementara Einstein dipuji selangit seperti laiknya malaikat. Apakah itu semua mengejutkan kita? Tidak", kata Chomsky yang sadar benar akibat dari pilihannya.
[sunting] Pandangan politik
Chomsky telah menyatakan bahwa "pandangan personalnya adalah merupakan anarkis tradisional, yang berasal dari Masa Pencerahan dan liberalisme klasik" dan dia memuji sosialisme libertarian. Dia merupakan simpatisan anarko-sindikalisme dan anggota serikat IWW. Dia telah menerbitkan sebuah buku tentang anarkisme berjudul "Chomsky on Anarchism" yang diterbitkan oleh kolektif buku anarkis AK Press pada 2006.
Noam Chomsky telah terlibat dalam aktivisme politik sejak Ia menginjak usia dewasa dan mengeluarkan berbagai opininya mengenai politik dan berbagai peristiwa dunia yang dikutip secara luas, dipublikasikan dan didiskusikan. Menanggapi hal tersebut Chomsky berargumen bahwa pandangan-pandangannya merupakan hal yang tidak ingin didengar oleh mereka yang berkuasa, dan untuk alasan inilah Chomsky dianggap sebagai seorang disiden politik Amerika. Beberapa garis besar pandangan politiknya adalah:
* Kekuasaan, kecuali dapat dijustifikasi, tidak dapat dilegitimasi. Mereka yang berada dalam posisi otoritas berkewajiban membuktikan mengapa mereka bisa diangkat ke posisi tersebut dan mengapa hal tersebut bisa dijustifikasi. Jika kewajiban ini tidak bisa dipenuhi, si pemegang otoritas tersebut harus digulingkan. Otoritas pada hakikatnya tidak dapat dijustifikasi. Sebuah contoh bentuk otoritas yang dapat dilegitimasi adalah yang dilakukan orang tua ketika mencegah anak kecil berjalan ke tengah jalan raya.
* Bahwa tidak banyak perbedaan antara perbudakan dan "penyerahan" diri seseorang kepada seorang majikan untuk "disewa", atau "perbudakan dengan upah". Dia menganggapnya sebagi penyerangan terhadap integritas pribadi yang menghancurkan dan melecehkan kebebasan diri kita. Dia berpendapat bahwa mereka yang bekerja di pabrik harus menjalankan pabrik tersebut.
* Kritik yang sangat kuat pada kebijakan luar negeri Amerika Serikat. Secara khusus, dia melihat adanya standar ganda (yang dia sebut sebagai "standar tunggal") pada kebijakan luar negeri yang menceramahi tentang demokrasi dan kebebasan untuk semua orang, ketika pada saat yang sama mempromosikan, mendukung, dan menyekutukan dirinya dengan negara dan organisasi nondemokratis dan represif. Chomsky berargumen bahwa hal tersebut berakibat pada pelanggaran berat hak asasi manusia. Dia juga sering berargumen bahwa campur tangan Amerika pada negara-negara asing, termasuk bantuan rahasia terhadap Contras di Nikaragua, salah satu peristiwa yang Chomsky telah sangat kritis terhadapnya, masuk ke dalam deskripsi standar terorisme.
* Dia berargumen bahwa media massa di Amerika Serikat banyak yang berpraktik sebagai pasukan propaganda dan “keulamaan bayaran” oleh pemerintahan dan perusahaan-perusahaan Amerika Serikat, dengan tiga pihak tersebut yang secara luas saling berkait-kelindan melalui kepentingan yang sama. Dalam referensi terkenal yang merujuk pada Walter Lippmann, Chomsky bersama Edward S. Herman menulis media Amerika memproduksi consent (imaji lewat media untuk memberikan sekutunya semacam hak untuk melakukan sesuatu yang salah secara hukum tapi berhak untuk tidak dituntut) ke dalam benak masyarakat.
* Chomsky menentang “perang terhadap obat-obatan terlarang” (en:war on drugs) global yang dilakukan Amerika, menganalisa kesesatan penggunaan bahasanya, dan dia mengartikannya sebagai “perang terhadap obat-obatan terlarang tertentu”. Dia lebih memilih pendidikan dan pencegahan daripada operasi yang dilakukan polisi atau militer sebagai cara untuk menurunkan penggunaan narkoba. Pada sebuah wawancara pada 1999, Chomsky berargumen bahwa hasil panen seperti tembakau tidak mendapat perhatian pemerintah, sementara hasil panen tak menguntungkan seperti mariyuana secara spesifik menjadi target untuk efek yang dihasilkannya dengan menghukum orang-orang miskin.
“Kebijakan obat-obatan terlarang domestik AS tidak mengikutsertakan tujuan yang jelas, dan para pembuat kebijakan sangat paham dengan hal itu. Jika ini bukan soal mengurangi penyalahgunaan obat-obatan, lalu apa maksudnya? Hal ini sangat jelas bahwa baik dari tindakan-tindakan yang ada saat ini maupun dari catatan sejarah bahwa obat-obatan terlarang sering dikriminalkan ketika diasosiasikan dengan kelas yang disebut “berbahaya”, dan bahwa kriminalisasi dari obat-obatan tertentu dilakukan sebagai teknik kontrol sosial.”
* Kritis terhadap sistem kapitalis Amerika dan bisnis besar, Chomsky mendefinisikan dirinya sebagai sosialis libertarian yang simpati terhadap anarko-sindikalisme dan kritis terhadap cabang Leninis dari sosialisme. Dia juga percaya bahwa nilai-nilai sosialis libertarian mencontohkan perluasan yang konsisten secara rasional dan moral dari pemikiran humanis radikal dan liberal klasik asli yang tak terrekonstruksi pada konteks industri. Secara khusus dia percaya bahwa masyarakat harus diorganisir dan berdasarkan kontrol demokratis dari komunitas dan tempat-tempat kerja. Dia percaya bahwa pemikiran humanis radikal dari dua tokoh utama yang mempengaruhinya, Bertrand Russell dan John Dewey, “berakar dari Masa Pencerahan dan liberalisme klasik, dan mempertahankan karakter revolusionernya.”
* Chomsky pernah menyatakan bahwa Amerika Serikat merupakan “negara paling hebat di dunia”, sebuah komentar yang kemudian dia klarifikasi dengan mengatakan, “Mengevaluasi negara-negara adalah tidak masuk akal dan saya tidak akan pernah memberikan hal-hal semacam itu untuk dipakai pada istilah tersebut, namun beberapa kemajuan Amerika, khususnya pada wilayah kebebasan berbicara, yang telah dicapai oleh berabad-abad perjuangan populer, harus dihargai.” Dia juga mengatakan “Dalam banyak hal, Amerika Serikat adalah negara terbebas di dunia. Yang saya maksudkan tidak hanya dalam hal tatanan kenegaraan, meskipun itu juga benar, tapi juga dalam hal hubungan individu. Amerika Serikat lebih mendekati kondisi tanpa kelas (classlessness) untuk hal hubungan interpersonal dibandingkan hampir masyarakat manapun.
* Menurut Chomsky: “Saya adalah pembicara yang membosankan dan saya menyukai saya seperti itu…Saya tidak yakin orang tertarik pada apapun personanya…Orang tertarik pada isu-isunya, dan mereka tertarik pada isunya karena isunya penting.”
[sunting] Buku-buku dan artikel tentang Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky juga disebut-sebut sebagai Galilleo Galillei atau Rene Descartes masa depan.[rujukan?] Empat ribu penghargaan atas karyanya muncul dalam daftar Arts and Humanites Citation Indeks, dari 1980-1992. Menurut Science Citation Index, sepanjang 1974 hingga 1992, namanya memperoleh penghargaan sebanyak 1619 kali. Termasuk diantaranya adalah Kyoto Prize, semacam hadiah Nobel yang diberikan di Jepang, pada tahun 1988.
[sunting] Sejarah penerbitan
Noam Chomsky berbicara di Forum Sosial Dunia, 2003.
Proses penerbitan buku-buku Chomsky cukup menarik perhatian, mengingat dia jarang sekali berupaya untuk mempublikasikan karya-karyanya. Tampaknya penggemar Chomsky selayaknya berterimakasih kepada editor atau aktivis yang tertarik pada tulisannya, kuliahnya, wawancaranya. Karena melalui antusiasme merekalah, karya-karyanya bisa dibaca oleh audiens yang lebih luas daripada kelompok akademisi saja.
Ketika pertama kali menjalin kerjasama penerbitan, Chomsky memilih penerbit kecil daripada penerbit sekelas Random House. Andre Schiffrir, mantan Direktur Pelaksana di Pantheon yang menerbitkan buku-buku awal Chomsky tentang politik selama tahun 1970-1980, mengenang, "Dia memberikan bukunya untuk kelangsungan hidup penerbit-penerbit kecil."
Meskipun Chomsky mulai membangun reputasinya dan menarik sekelompok kecil penggemar pada era 1970-an dan 1980-an dengan buku-buku linguistik dan sejumlah buku politik, tapi sebenarnya, buku tipis bersampul lunak dan enak dibaca yang diterbitkan oleh penerbit pada era akhir 1990-an yang memperluas penyebarannya baik di toko besar maupun kios-kios buku.
Pada awal 1990-an, Arthur Naiman, saat itu pemilik penerbitan buku-buku komputer, mendengar Chomsky berbicara di radio dan tertarik untuk menerbitkan karyanya. Naiman pun membuka penerbitan baru untuk menampung buku-buku tipis tentang politik dan dicetak dalam jumlah besar. Di bawah nama penerbit Odonian Press, dia menerbitkan empat buku tipis Chomsky antara tahun 1992 dan 1998 dalam seri Real Story. Hingga akhir tahun 2002, masing-masing telah terjual, rata-rata 118.000 kopi.
Greeg Ruggiero, aktivis yang terlibat dalam penerbitan Open Media Pamphlet Series pada era 1990-an, adalah orang yang berperan dalam memperluas audiens pembaca karya-karya Chomsky. Dia kerap menerbitkan pamflet-mudah difotokopi dari kuliah-kuliah Chomsky dan menjualnya di pojok-pojok jalan di kota New York. Setelah terbukti diminati, dia kemudian mengontak kios-kios buku di seluruh negara bagian dan menjual 10 ribu kopi dengan cara itu. Pada 1995, Ruggiero menawarkan serial ini ke Penerbit Seven Stories Press.
Pada Oktober 2003, Metropolitan Book menerbitkan buku Chomsky yang lain yang berjudul Hegemony of Survival: America's Quest for Global Domination. Buku ini merupakan bagian dari American Empire Project yang menerbitkan buku-buku tipis namun berdasarkan argumentasi yang kukuh dari para penulis dan pemikir terkemuka. Terlepas apakah buku tersebut memuat kritik barunya atau tidak, Sara Berstel, wakil dari penerbit ini, yakin bahwa buku ini akan terjual dengan baik. "Dia selalu memiliki sesuatu [yang baru] untuk disampaikan yang tidak dapat diperoleh pembaca di tempat lain," kata Bersthel.
[sunting] Seputar 11 September
Menurut Publishers Weekly, setelah peristiwa 11 September, Chomsky telah menghasilkan dua buku laris yang terjual jutaan eksemplar. Dia juga dinobatkan sebagai penulis buku terlaris bertema politik yang belum tertandingi oleh penulis bertema sama yang ada di AS saat ini.
Di luar bencana yang ditimbulkan oleh serangan 11 September terhadap gedung WTC New York, peristiwa ini juga meroketkan popularitas buku-buku Chomsky. Ketika banyak orang merasa muak dengan sumber-sumber bacaan yang menjadi propaganda pemerintah AS, buku-buku politik Chomsky yang kontroversial seperti 9-11 (Seven Stories, 2001) dan Power and Terror: Post 9-11 (Seven Stories, 2003) menjadi buku laris.
Karena tidak terlalu peduli dengan kegiatan promosi buku-bukunya,Publishers Weekly menjuluki Chomsky sebagai The Accidental Best Seller, penulis terlaris yang sama sekali keluar dari pakem atau praktik-praktik para pengarang best seller modern.
[sunting] Bibliografi
What is phonology?
What is phonology?
Definition
Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages.
Discussion
The phonological system of a language includes
* an inventory of sounds and their features, and
* rules which specify how sounds interact with each other.
Phonology is just one of several aspects of language. It is related to other aspects such as phonetics, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics.
Here is an illustration that shows the place of phonology in an interacting hierarchy of levels in linguistics:
Comparison: Phonology and phonetics
Phonetics …
Phonology …
Is the basis for phonological analysis.
Is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, discourse, and orthography design.
Analyzes the production of all human speech sounds, regardless of language.
Analyzes the sound patterns of a particular language by
* determining which phonetic sounds are significant, and
* explaining how these sounds are interpreted by the native speaker.
Models of phonology
Different models of phonology contribute to our knowledge of phonological representations and processes:
* In classical phonemics, phonemes and their possible combinations are central.
* In standard generative phonology, distinctive features are central. A stream of speech is portrayed as linear sequence of discrete sound-segments. Each segment is composed of simultaneously occurring features.
*
In non-linear models of phonology, a stream of speech is represented as multidimensional, not simply as a linear sequence of sound segments. These non-linear models grew out of generative phonology:
o autosegmental phonology
o metrical phonology
o lexical phonology
Definition
Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages.
Discussion
The phonological system of a language includes
* an inventory of sounds and their features, and
* rules which specify how sounds interact with each other.
Phonology is just one of several aspects of language. It is related to other aspects such as phonetics, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics.
Here is an illustration that shows the place of phonology in an interacting hierarchy of levels in linguistics:
Comparison: Phonology and phonetics
Phonetics …
Phonology …
Is the basis for phonological analysis.
Is the basis for further work in morphology, syntax, discourse, and orthography design.
Analyzes the production of all human speech sounds, regardless of language.
Analyzes the sound patterns of a particular language by
* determining which phonetic sounds are significant, and
* explaining how these sounds are interpreted by the native speaker.
Models of phonology
Different models of phonology contribute to our knowledge of phonological representations and processes:
* In classical phonemics, phonemes and their possible combinations are central.
* In standard generative phonology, distinctive features are central. A stream of speech is portrayed as linear sequence of discrete sound-segments. Each segment is composed of simultaneously occurring features.
*
In non-linear models of phonology, a stream of speech is represented as multidimensional, not simply as a linear sequence of sound segments. These non-linear models grew out of generative phonology:
o autosegmental phonology
o metrical phonology
o lexical phonology
Phonology
Phonology
Phonology (from Ancient Greek: φωνή, phōnḗ, "voice, sound" and λόγος, lógos, "word, speech, subject of discussion") is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system. When describing the formal area of study, the term typically describes linguistic analysis either beneath the word (e.g., syllable, onset and rhyme, phoneme, articulatory gestures, articulatory feature, mora, etc.) or to units at all levels of language that are thought to structure sound for conveying linguistic meaning. It is viewed as the subfield of linguistics that deals with the sound systems of languages. Whereas phonetics is about the physical production, acoustic transmission and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages to encode meaning. The term "phonology" was used in the linguistics of a greater part of the 20th century as a cover term uniting phonemics and phonetics. Current phonology can interface with disciplines such as psycholinguistics and speech perception, resulting in specific areas like articulatory or laboratory phonology.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Overview
* 2 Representing phonemes
* 3 Phoneme inventories
o 3.1 Doing a phoneme inventory
o 3.2 Phonemic distinctions or allophones
o 3.3 Change of a phoneme inventory over time
* 4 Other topics in phonology
* 5 Development of the field
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 Bibliography
* 9 Some phonologists
* 10 Phonology conferences
* 11 External links
[edit] Overview
An important part of traditional forms of phonology has been studying which sounds can be grouped into distinctive units within a language; these units are known as phonemes. For example, in English, the [p] sound in pot is aspirated (pronounced [pʰ]), while the word- and syllable-final [p] in soup is not aspirated (indeed, it might be realized as a glottal stop). However, English speakers intuitively treat both sounds as variations (allophones) of the same phonological category, that is, of the phoneme /p/. Traditionally, it would be argued that if a word-initial aspirated [p] were interchanged with the word-final unaspirated [p] in soup, they would still be perceived by native speakers of English as "the same" /p/. (However, speech perception findings now put this theory in doubt.) Although some sort of "sameness" of these two sounds holds in English, it is not universal and may be absent in other languages. For example, in Thai, Hindi, and Quechua, aspiration and non-aspiration differentiates phonemes: that is, there are word pairs that differ only in this feature (there are minimal pairs differing only in aspiration).
In addition to the minimal units that can serve the purpose of differentiating meaning (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, i.e. replace one another in different forms of the same morpheme (allomorphs), as well as, e.g., syllable structure, stress, accent, and intonation.
The principles of phonological theory have also been applied to the analysis of sign languages, even though the sub-lexical units are not instantiated as speech sounds. The principles of phonological analysis can be applied independently of modality because they are designed to serve as general analytical tools, not language-specific ones. On the other hand, it must be noted, it is difficult to analyze phonologically a language one does not speak, and most phonological analysis takes place with recourse to phonetic information.
[edit] Representing phonemes
A diagram of the vocal tract
The vowels of modern (Standard) Arabic and (Israeli) Hebrew from the phonemic point of view. Note the intersection of the two circles—the distinction between short a, i and u is made by both speakers, but Arabic lacks the mid articulation of short vowels, while Hebrew lacks the distinction of vowel length.
The writing systems of some languages are based on the phonemic principle of having one letter (or combination of letters) per phoneme and vice-versa. Ideally, speakers can correctly write whatever they can say, and can correctly read anything that is written. However in English, different spellings can be used for the same phoneme (e.g., rude and food have the same vowel sounds), and the same letter (or combination of letters) can represent different phonemes (e.g., the "th" consonant sounds of thin and this are different). In order to avoid this confusion based on orthography, phonologists represent phonemes by writing them between two slashes: " / / ". On the other hand, reference to variations of phonemes or attempts at representing actual speech sounds are usually enclosed by square brackets: " [ ] ". While the letters between slashes may be based on spelling conventions, the letters between square brackets are usually the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) or some other phonetic transcription system. Additionally, angled brackets " ⟨ ⟩ " can be used to isolate the graphemes of an alphabetic writing system.
[edit] Phoneme inventories
[edit] Doing a phoneme inventory
The vowels of modern (Standard) Arabic and (Israeli) Hebrew from the phonetic point of view. Note that the two circles are totally separate—none of the vowel-sounds made by speakers of one language are made by speakers of the other. One modern theory is that Israeli Hebrew's phonology reflects Yiddish elements, not Semitic ones.
Part of the phonological study of a language involves looking at data (phonetic transcriptions of the speech of native speakers) and trying to deduce what the underlying phonemes are and what the sound inventory of the language is. Even though a language may make distinctions between a small number of phonemes, speakers actually produce many more phonetic sounds. Thus, a phoneme in a particular language can be instantiated in many ways.
Traditionally, looking for minimal pairs forms part of the research in studying the phoneme inventory of a language. A minimal pair is a pair of words from the same language, that differ by only a single categorical sound, and that are recognized by speakers as being two different words. When there is a minimal pair, the two sounds are said to be examples of realizations of distinct phonemes. However, since it is often impossible to detect or agree to the existence of all the possible phonemes of a language with this method, other approaches are used as well.
[edit] Phonemic distinctions or allophones
If two similar sounds do not belong to separate phonemes, they are called allophones of the same underlying phoneme. For instance, voiceless stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) can be aspirated. In English, voiceless stops at the beginning of a stressed syllable (but not after /s/) are aspirated, whereas after /s/ they are not aspirated. This can be seen by putting the fingers right in front of the lips and noticing the difference in breathiness in saying pin versus spin. There is no English word pin that starts with an unaspirated p, therefore in English, aspirated [pʰ] (the [ʰ] means aspirated) and unaspirated [p] are allophones of the same phoneme /p/. This is an example of a complementary distribution.
The /t/ sounds in the words tub, stub, but, butter, and button are all pronounced differently in American English, yet are all intuited to be of "the same sound", therefore they constitute another example of allophones of the same phoneme in English. However, an intuition such as this could be interpreted as a function of post-lexical recognition of the sounds. That is, all are seen as examples of English /t/ once the word itself has been recognized.
The findings and insights of speech perception and articulation research complicates this idea of interchangeable allophones being perceived as the same phoneme, no matter how attractive it might be for linguists who wish to rely on the intuitions of native speakers. First, interchanged allophones of the same phoneme can result in unrecognizable words. Second, actual speech, even at a word level, is highly co-articulated, so it is problematic to think that one can splice words into simple segments without affecting speech perception. In other words, interchanging allophones is a nice idea for intuitive linguistics, but it turns out that this idea can not transcend what co-articulation actually does to spoken sounds. Yet human speech perception is so robust and versatile (happening under various conditions) because, in part, it can deal with such co-articulation.
There are different methods for determining why allophones should fall categorically under a specified phoneme. Counter-intuitively, the principle of phonetic similarity is not always used. This tends to make the phoneme seem abstracted away from the phonetic realities of speech. It should be remembered that, just because allophones can be grouped under phonemes for the purpose of linguistic analysis, this does not necessarily mean that this is an actual process in the way the human brain processes a language. On the other hand, it could be pointed out that some sort of analytic notion of a language beneath the word level is usual if the language is written alphabetically. So one could also speak of a phonology of reading and writing.
[edit] Change of a phoneme inventory over time
The particular sounds which are phonemic in a language can change over time. At one time, [f] and [v] were allophones in English, but these later changed into separate phonemes. This is one of the main factors of historical change of languages as described in historical linguistics.
[edit] Other topics in phonology
Phonology also includes topics such as phonotactics (the phonological constraints on what sounds can appear in what positions in a given language) and phonological alternation (how the pronunciation of a sound changes through the application of phonological rules, sometimes in a given order which can be feeding or bleeding,[1] as well as prosody, the study of suprasegmentals and topics such as stress and intonation.
[edit] Development of the field
In ancient India, the Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini (c. 520–460 BC) in his text of Sanskrit phonology, the Shiva Sutras, discusses something like the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme and the root. The Shiva Sutras describe a phonemic notational system in the fourteen initial lines of the Aṣṭādhyāyī. The notational system introduces different clusters of phonemes that serve special roles in the morphology of Sanskrit, and are referred to throughout the text. Panini's grammar of Sanskrit had a significant influence on Ferdinand de Saussure, the father of modern structuralism, who was a professor of Sanskrit.
The Polish scholar Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, (together with his former student Mikołaj Kruszewski) coined the word phoneme in 1876, and his work, though often unacknowledged, is considered to be the starting point of modern phonology. He worked not only on the theory of the phoneme but also on phonetic alternations (i.e., what is now called allophony and morphophonology). His influence on Ferdinand de Saussure was also significant.
Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy's posthumously published work, the Principles of Phonology (1939), is considered the foundation of the Prague School of phonology. Directly influenced by Baudouin de Courtenay, Trubetzkoy is considered the founder of morphophonology, though morphophonology was first recognized by Baudouin de Courtenay. Trubetzkoy split phonology into phonemics and archiphonemics; the former has had more influence than the latter. Another important figure in the Prague School was Roman Jakobson, who was one of the most prominent linguists of the twentieth century.
In 1968 Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle published The Sound Pattern of English (SPE), the basis for Generative Phonology. In this view, phonological representations are sequences of segments made up of distinctive features. These features were an expansion of earlier work by Roman Jakobson, Gunnar Fant, and Morris Halle. The features describe aspects of articulation and perception, are from a universally fixed set, and have the binary values + or −. There are at least two levels of representation: underlying representation and surface phonetic representation. Ordered phonological rules govern how underlying representation is transformed into the actual pronunciation (the so called surface form). An important consequence of the influence SPE had on phonological theory was the downplaying of the syllable and the emphasis on segments. Furthermore, the Generativists folded morphophonology into phonology, which both solved and created problems.
Natural Phonology was a theory based on the publications of its proponent David Stampe in 1969 and (more explicitly) in 1979. In this view, phonology is based on a set of universal phonological processes which interact with one another; which ones are active and which are suppressed are language-specific. Rather than acting on segments, phonological processes act on distinctive features within prosodic groups. Prosodic groups can be as small as a part of a syllable or as large as an entire utterance. Phonological processes are unordered with respect to each other and apply simultaneously (though the output of one process may be the input to another). The second-most prominent Natural Phonologist is Stampe's wife, Patricia Donegan; there are many Natural Phonologists in Europe, though also a few others in the U.S., such as Geoffrey Pullum. The principles of Natural Phonology were extended to morphology by Wolfgang U. Dressler, who founded Natural Morphology.
In 1976 John Goldsmith introduced autosegmental phonology. Phonological phenomena are no longer seen as operating on one linear sequence of segments, called phonemes or feature combinations, but rather as involving some parallel sequences of features which reside on multiple tiers. Autosegmental phonology later evolved into Feature Geometry, which became the standard theory of representation for the theories of the organization of phonology as different as Lexical Phonology and Optimality Theory.
Government Phonology, which originated in the early 1980s as an attempt to unify theoretical notions of syntactic and phonological structures, is based on the notion that all languages necessarily follow a small set of principles and vary according to their selection of certain binary parameters. That is, all languages' phonological structures are essentially the same, but there is restricted variation that accounts for differences in surface realizations. Principles are held to be inviolable, though parameters may sometimes come into conflict. Prominent figures include Jonathan Kaye, Jean Lowenstamm, Jean-Roger Vergnaud, Monik Charette, John Harris, and many others.
In a course at the LSA summer institute in 1991, Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky developed Optimality Theory — an overall architecture for phonology according to which languages choose a pronunciation of a word that best satisfies a list of constraints which is ordered by importance: a lower-ranked constraint can be violated when the violation is necessary in order to obey a higher-ranked constraint. The approach was soon extended to morphology by John McCarthy and Alan Prince, and has become the dominant trend in phonology. Though this usually goes unacknowledged, Optimality Theory was strongly influenced by Natural Phonology; both view phonology in terms of constraints on speakers and their production, though these constraints are formalized in very different ways.
Broadly speaking government phonology (or its descendant, strict-CV phonology) has a greater following in the United Kingdom, whereas optimality theory is predominant in North America.
Phonology (from Ancient Greek: φωνή, phōnḗ, "voice, sound" and λόγος, lógos, "word, speech, subject of discussion") is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system. When describing the formal area of study, the term typically describes linguistic analysis either beneath the word (e.g., syllable, onset and rhyme, phoneme, articulatory gestures, articulatory feature, mora, etc.) or to units at all levels of language that are thought to structure sound for conveying linguistic meaning. It is viewed as the subfield of linguistics that deals with the sound systems of languages. Whereas phonetics is about the physical production, acoustic transmission and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages to encode meaning. The term "phonology" was used in the linguistics of a greater part of the 20th century as a cover term uniting phonemics and phonetics. Current phonology can interface with disciplines such as psycholinguistics and speech perception, resulting in specific areas like articulatory or laboratory phonology.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Overview
* 2 Representing phonemes
* 3 Phoneme inventories
o 3.1 Doing a phoneme inventory
o 3.2 Phonemic distinctions or allophones
o 3.3 Change of a phoneme inventory over time
* 4 Other topics in phonology
* 5 Development of the field
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 Bibliography
* 9 Some phonologists
* 10 Phonology conferences
* 11 External links
[edit] Overview
An important part of traditional forms of phonology has been studying which sounds can be grouped into distinctive units within a language; these units are known as phonemes. For example, in English, the [p] sound in pot is aspirated (pronounced [pʰ]), while the word- and syllable-final [p] in soup is not aspirated (indeed, it might be realized as a glottal stop). However, English speakers intuitively treat both sounds as variations (allophones) of the same phonological category, that is, of the phoneme /p/. Traditionally, it would be argued that if a word-initial aspirated [p] were interchanged with the word-final unaspirated [p] in soup, they would still be perceived by native speakers of English as "the same" /p/. (However, speech perception findings now put this theory in doubt.) Although some sort of "sameness" of these two sounds holds in English, it is not universal and may be absent in other languages. For example, in Thai, Hindi, and Quechua, aspiration and non-aspiration differentiates phonemes: that is, there are word pairs that differ only in this feature (there are minimal pairs differing only in aspiration).
In addition to the minimal units that can serve the purpose of differentiating meaning (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, i.e. replace one another in different forms of the same morpheme (allomorphs), as well as, e.g., syllable structure, stress, accent, and intonation.
The principles of phonological theory have also been applied to the analysis of sign languages, even though the sub-lexical units are not instantiated as speech sounds. The principles of phonological analysis can be applied independently of modality because they are designed to serve as general analytical tools, not language-specific ones. On the other hand, it must be noted, it is difficult to analyze phonologically a language one does not speak, and most phonological analysis takes place with recourse to phonetic information.
[edit] Representing phonemes
A diagram of the vocal tract
The vowels of modern (Standard) Arabic and (Israeli) Hebrew from the phonemic point of view. Note the intersection of the two circles—the distinction between short a, i and u is made by both speakers, but Arabic lacks the mid articulation of short vowels, while Hebrew lacks the distinction of vowel length.
The writing systems of some languages are based on the phonemic principle of having one letter (or combination of letters) per phoneme and vice-versa. Ideally, speakers can correctly write whatever they can say, and can correctly read anything that is written. However in English, different spellings can be used for the same phoneme (e.g., rude and food have the same vowel sounds), and the same letter (or combination of letters) can represent different phonemes (e.g., the "th" consonant sounds of thin and this are different). In order to avoid this confusion based on orthography, phonologists represent phonemes by writing them between two slashes: " / / ". On the other hand, reference to variations of phonemes or attempts at representing actual speech sounds are usually enclosed by square brackets: " [ ] ". While the letters between slashes may be based on spelling conventions, the letters between square brackets are usually the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) or some other phonetic transcription system. Additionally, angled brackets " ⟨ ⟩ " can be used to isolate the graphemes of an alphabetic writing system.
[edit] Phoneme inventories
[edit] Doing a phoneme inventory
The vowels of modern (Standard) Arabic and (Israeli) Hebrew from the phonetic point of view. Note that the two circles are totally separate—none of the vowel-sounds made by speakers of one language are made by speakers of the other. One modern theory is that Israeli Hebrew's phonology reflects Yiddish elements, not Semitic ones.
Part of the phonological study of a language involves looking at data (phonetic transcriptions of the speech of native speakers) and trying to deduce what the underlying phonemes are and what the sound inventory of the language is. Even though a language may make distinctions between a small number of phonemes, speakers actually produce many more phonetic sounds. Thus, a phoneme in a particular language can be instantiated in many ways.
Traditionally, looking for minimal pairs forms part of the research in studying the phoneme inventory of a language. A minimal pair is a pair of words from the same language, that differ by only a single categorical sound, and that are recognized by speakers as being two different words. When there is a minimal pair, the two sounds are said to be examples of realizations of distinct phonemes. However, since it is often impossible to detect or agree to the existence of all the possible phonemes of a language with this method, other approaches are used as well.
[edit] Phonemic distinctions or allophones
If two similar sounds do not belong to separate phonemes, they are called allophones of the same underlying phoneme. For instance, voiceless stops (/p/, /t/, /k/) can be aspirated. In English, voiceless stops at the beginning of a stressed syllable (but not after /s/) are aspirated, whereas after /s/ they are not aspirated. This can be seen by putting the fingers right in front of the lips and noticing the difference in breathiness in saying pin versus spin. There is no English word pin that starts with an unaspirated p, therefore in English, aspirated [pʰ] (the [ʰ] means aspirated) and unaspirated [p] are allophones of the same phoneme /p/. This is an example of a complementary distribution.
The /t/ sounds in the words tub, stub, but, butter, and button are all pronounced differently in American English, yet are all intuited to be of "the same sound", therefore they constitute another example of allophones of the same phoneme in English. However, an intuition such as this could be interpreted as a function of post-lexical recognition of the sounds. That is, all are seen as examples of English /t/ once the word itself has been recognized.
The findings and insights of speech perception and articulation research complicates this idea of interchangeable allophones being perceived as the same phoneme, no matter how attractive it might be for linguists who wish to rely on the intuitions of native speakers. First, interchanged allophones of the same phoneme can result in unrecognizable words. Second, actual speech, even at a word level, is highly co-articulated, so it is problematic to think that one can splice words into simple segments without affecting speech perception. In other words, interchanging allophones is a nice idea for intuitive linguistics, but it turns out that this idea can not transcend what co-articulation actually does to spoken sounds. Yet human speech perception is so robust and versatile (happening under various conditions) because, in part, it can deal with such co-articulation.
There are different methods for determining why allophones should fall categorically under a specified phoneme. Counter-intuitively, the principle of phonetic similarity is not always used. This tends to make the phoneme seem abstracted away from the phonetic realities of speech. It should be remembered that, just because allophones can be grouped under phonemes for the purpose of linguistic analysis, this does not necessarily mean that this is an actual process in the way the human brain processes a language. On the other hand, it could be pointed out that some sort of analytic notion of a language beneath the word level is usual if the language is written alphabetically. So one could also speak of a phonology of reading and writing.
[edit] Change of a phoneme inventory over time
The particular sounds which are phonemic in a language can change over time. At one time, [f] and [v] were allophones in English, but these later changed into separate phonemes. This is one of the main factors of historical change of languages as described in historical linguistics.
[edit] Other topics in phonology
Phonology also includes topics such as phonotactics (the phonological constraints on what sounds can appear in what positions in a given language) and phonological alternation (how the pronunciation of a sound changes through the application of phonological rules, sometimes in a given order which can be feeding or bleeding,[1] as well as prosody, the study of suprasegmentals and topics such as stress and intonation.
[edit] Development of the field
In ancient India, the Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini (c. 520–460 BC) in his text of Sanskrit phonology, the Shiva Sutras, discusses something like the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme and the root. The Shiva Sutras describe a phonemic notational system in the fourteen initial lines of the Aṣṭādhyāyī. The notational system introduces different clusters of phonemes that serve special roles in the morphology of Sanskrit, and are referred to throughout the text. Panini's grammar of Sanskrit had a significant influence on Ferdinand de Saussure, the father of modern structuralism, who was a professor of Sanskrit.
The Polish scholar Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, (together with his former student Mikołaj Kruszewski) coined the word phoneme in 1876, and his work, though often unacknowledged, is considered to be the starting point of modern phonology. He worked not only on the theory of the phoneme but also on phonetic alternations (i.e., what is now called allophony and morphophonology). His influence on Ferdinand de Saussure was also significant.
Prince Nikolai Trubetzkoy's posthumously published work, the Principles of Phonology (1939), is considered the foundation of the Prague School of phonology. Directly influenced by Baudouin de Courtenay, Trubetzkoy is considered the founder of morphophonology, though morphophonology was first recognized by Baudouin de Courtenay. Trubetzkoy split phonology into phonemics and archiphonemics; the former has had more influence than the latter. Another important figure in the Prague School was Roman Jakobson, who was one of the most prominent linguists of the twentieth century.
In 1968 Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle published The Sound Pattern of English (SPE), the basis for Generative Phonology. In this view, phonological representations are sequences of segments made up of distinctive features. These features were an expansion of earlier work by Roman Jakobson, Gunnar Fant, and Morris Halle. The features describe aspects of articulation and perception, are from a universally fixed set, and have the binary values + or −. There are at least two levels of representation: underlying representation and surface phonetic representation. Ordered phonological rules govern how underlying representation is transformed into the actual pronunciation (the so called surface form). An important consequence of the influence SPE had on phonological theory was the downplaying of the syllable and the emphasis on segments. Furthermore, the Generativists folded morphophonology into phonology, which both solved and created problems.
Natural Phonology was a theory based on the publications of its proponent David Stampe in 1969 and (more explicitly) in 1979. In this view, phonology is based on a set of universal phonological processes which interact with one another; which ones are active and which are suppressed are language-specific. Rather than acting on segments, phonological processes act on distinctive features within prosodic groups. Prosodic groups can be as small as a part of a syllable or as large as an entire utterance. Phonological processes are unordered with respect to each other and apply simultaneously (though the output of one process may be the input to another). The second-most prominent Natural Phonologist is Stampe's wife, Patricia Donegan; there are many Natural Phonologists in Europe, though also a few others in the U.S., such as Geoffrey Pullum. The principles of Natural Phonology were extended to morphology by Wolfgang U. Dressler, who founded Natural Morphology.
In 1976 John Goldsmith introduced autosegmental phonology. Phonological phenomena are no longer seen as operating on one linear sequence of segments, called phonemes or feature combinations, but rather as involving some parallel sequences of features which reside on multiple tiers. Autosegmental phonology later evolved into Feature Geometry, which became the standard theory of representation for the theories of the organization of phonology as different as Lexical Phonology and Optimality Theory.
Government Phonology, which originated in the early 1980s as an attempt to unify theoretical notions of syntactic and phonological structures, is based on the notion that all languages necessarily follow a small set of principles and vary according to their selection of certain binary parameters. That is, all languages' phonological structures are essentially the same, but there is restricted variation that accounts for differences in surface realizations. Principles are held to be inviolable, though parameters may sometimes come into conflict. Prominent figures include Jonathan Kaye, Jean Lowenstamm, Jean-Roger Vergnaud, Monik Charette, John Harris, and many others.
In a course at the LSA summer institute in 1991, Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky developed Optimality Theory — an overall architecture for phonology according to which languages choose a pronunciation of a word that best satisfies a list of constraints which is ordered by importance: a lower-ranked constraint can be violated when the violation is necessary in order to obey a higher-ranked constraint. The approach was soon extended to morphology by John McCarthy and Alan Prince, and has become the dominant trend in phonology. Though this usually goes unacknowledged, Optimality Theory was strongly influenced by Natural Phonology; both view phonology in terms of constraints on speakers and their production, though these constraints are formalized in very different ways.
Broadly speaking government phonology (or its descendant, strict-CV phonology) has a greater following in the United Kingdom, whereas optimality theory is predominant in North America.
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:
• to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages;
• to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families (comparative linguistics);
• to develop general theories about how and why language changes;
• to describe the history of speech communities;
• to study the history of words, i.e. etymology.
History and development
Modern historical linguistics dates from the late 18th century and grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents, which goes back to antiquity.
At first historical linguistics was comparative linguistics and mainly concerned with establishing language families and the reconstruction of prehistoric proto-languages, using the comparative method and internal reconstruction. The focus was on the well-known Indo-European languages, many of which had long written histories. But since then, significant comparative linguistic work has been done on the Uralic languages, Austronesian languages and various families of Native American languages, among many others. Comparative linguistics is now, however, only a part of a more broadly conceived discipline of historical linguistics. For the Indo-European languages, comparative study is now a highly specialised field, and most research is being carried out on the subsequent development of these languages, particularly the development of the modern standard varieties.
Some scholars have undertaken studies attempting to establish super-families, linking for example Indo-European, Uralic and other families into Nostratic. These attempts have not been accepted widely because the information necessary to establish relatedness becomes less available as the time depth is increased. The time-depth of linguistic methods is limited because of chance word resemblances and variations between language groups, but a limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed. The dating of the various proto-languages is also difficult. Several methods are available for this but only approximate results can be obtained.
Evolution into other fields
Initially, all modern linguistics was historical in orientation - even the study of modern dialects involved looking at their origins. But Saussure drew a distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics, which is fundamental to the present day organization of the discipline. Primacy is accorded to synchronic linguistics, and diachronic linguistics is defined as the study of successive synchronic stages. Saussure's clear demarcation, however, is now seen to be idealised. In practice, a purely synchronic linguistics is not possible for any period before the invention of the gramophone: written records always lag behind speech in reflecting linguistic developments, and in any case are difficult to date accurately before the development of the modern title page. Also, the work of sociolinguists on linguistic variation has shown synchronic states are not uniform: the speech habits of older and younger speakers differ in ways which point to language change. Synchronic variation is linguistic change in progress.
The biological origin of language is in principle a concern of historical linguistics, but most linguists regard it as too remote to be reliably established by standard techniques of historical linguistics such as the comparative method. Less standard techniques, such as mass lexical comparison, are used by some linguists to overcome the limitations of the comparative method, but most linguists regard them as unreliable.
The findings of historical linguistics are often used as a basis for hypotheses about the groupings and movements of peoples, particularly in the prehistoric period. In practice, however, it is often unclear how to integrate the linguistic evidence with the archaeological or genetic evidence. For example, there are a large number of theories concerning the homeland and early movements of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, each with their own interpretation of the archaeological record.
Sub-fields of study
Comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. Languages may be related by convergence through borrowing or by genetic descent, thus languages can evolve and are also able to cross-relate.
Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language, and comparative linguistics aims to construct language families, to reconstruct proto-languages and specify the changes that have resulted in the documented languages. In order to maintain a clear distinction between attested and reconstructed forms, comparative linguists prefix an asterisk to any form that is not found in surviving texts.
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words—when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. A word may enter a language as a loanword (i.e., as a word from one language adopted by speakers of another language), through derivational morphology by combining pre-existing elements in the language, by a hybrid of these two processes called phono-semantic matching, or in several other minor ways.
In languages with a long and detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time. However, etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as writing) to be known. By analyzing related languages with a technique known as the comparative method, linguists can make inferences, about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In this way, word roots have been found which can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the Indo-European language family.
Even though etymological research originally grew from the philological tradition, nowadays much etymological research is done in language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian.
Dialectology
Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, the varieties of a language that are characteristic of particular groups, based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features (as opposed to variations based on social factors, which are studied in sociolinguistics, or variations based on time, which are studied in historical linguistics. Dialectology treats such topics as divergence of two local dialects from a common ancestor and synchronic variation.
Dialectologists are ultimately concerned with grammatical features which correspond to regional areas. Thus they are usually dealing with populations living in their areas for generations without moving, but also with immigrant groups bringing their languages to new settlements.
Phonology
Phonology is a sub-field of historical linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language or set of languages change over time. Whereas phonetics is about the physical production and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages.
An important part of phonology is studying which sounds are distinctive units within a language. For example, the "p" in "pin" is aspirated while the same phoneme in "spin" is not. In some other languages, for example Thai and Quechua, this same difference of aspiration or non-aspiration does differentiate phonemes.
In addition to the minimal meaningful sounds (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, such as the /p/ in English, and topics such as syllable structure, stress, accent, and intonation.
The principles of phonological theory have also been applied to the analysis of sign languages, even though the phonological units do not consist of sounds. The principles of phonological analysis can be applied independently of modality because they are designed to serve as general analytical tools, not language-specific ones.
Morphology
Morphology - the study of the formal means of expression in a language; in the context of historical linguistics, how the formal means of expression change over time; for instance, languages with complex inflectional systems tend to be subject to a simplification process
is the field of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words as a formal means of expression.[1] Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology. While words are generally accepted as being (with clitics) the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. The rules understood by the speaker reflect specific patterns (or regularities) in the way words are formed from smaller units and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word-formation within and across languages, and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages, in the context of historical linguistics, how the means of expression change over time. See grammaticalisation.
Syntax
Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. The term syntax is used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish". Modern researchers in syntax attempt to describe languages in terms of such rules. Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find general rules that apply to all natural languages in the context of historical linguistics, how characteristics of sentence structure in related languages changed over time. See grammaticalisation.
Comparison of traditional and modern historical linguistics
There are several differences that occur dealing with the objects of research of traditional and modern historical linguistics. The focus of traditional historical linguistics lies in keeping records of language change in past times of a language or language family. Modern historical linguistics, however, focuses on the progress of language change. They try to analyze the cause or motivation, the spread and the modality of language change. Traditional historical linguistics concentrates on language and its changes regarding internal factors. Modern historical linguistics puts its focal point on external factors e.g. the social surroundings. That synchrony variates is seen as a key to a variation in diachrony. The conclusion is that the beginning of a language change is variation. For traditional historical linguistics the language structure and the language system are very important, whereas in modern historical linguistics the language use and the user are centered. They claim that grammar is shaped by discourse and language is changed by the speakers. Traditional historical linguistics is mainly interested in phonology and morphology and not so much in syntax and semantics. In modern historical linguistics the main interest lies in syntax, semantics and pragmatics and no more in phonology. Furthermore traditional historical linguistics is based on quality while modern historical linguistics are both qualitative and quantitative. Traditional historical linguistics deals only with written language but modern historical linguistics are also concerned with spoken language.
Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:
• to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages;
• to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families (comparative linguistics);
• to develop general theories about how and why language changes;
• to describe the history of speech communities;
• to study the history of words, i.e. etymology.
History and development
Modern historical linguistics dates from the late 18th century and grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents, which goes back to antiquity.
At first historical linguistics was comparative linguistics and mainly concerned with establishing language families and the reconstruction of prehistoric proto-languages, using the comparative method and internal reconstruction. The focus was on the well-known Indo-European languages, many of which had long written histories. But since then, significant comparative linguistic work has been done on the Uralic languages, Austronesian languages and various families of Native American languages, among many others. Comparative linguistics is now, however, only a part of a more broadly conceived discipline of historical linguistics. For the Indo-European languages, comparative study is now a highly specialised field, and most research is being carried out on the subsequent development of these languages, particularly the development of the modern standard varieties.
Some scholars have undertaken studies attempting to establish super-families, linking for example Indo-European, Uralic and other families into Nostratic. These attempts have not been accepted widely because the information necessary to establish relatedness becomes less available as the time depth is increased. The time-depth of linguistic methods is limited because of chance word resemblances and variations between language groups, but a limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed. The dating of the various proto-languages is also difficult. Several methods are available for this but only approximate results can be obtained.
Evolution into other fields
Initially, all modern linguistics was historical in orientation - even the study of modern dialects involved looking at their origins. But Saussure drew a distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics, which is fundamental to the present day organization of the discipline. Primacy is accorded to synchronic linguistics, and diachronic linguistics is defined as the study of successive synchronic stages. Saussure's clear demarcation, however, is now seen to be idealised. In practice, a purely synchronic linguistics is not possible for any period before the invention of the gramophone: written records always lag behind speech in reflecting linguistic developments, and in any case are difficult to date accurately before the development of the modern title page. Also, the work of sociolinguists on linguistic variation has shown synchronic states are not uniform: the speech habits of older and younger speakers differ in ways which point to language change. Synchronic variation is linguistic change in progress.
The biological origin of language is in principle a concern of historical linguistics, but most linguists regard it as too remote to be reliably established by standard techniques of historical linguistics such as the comparative method. Less standard techniques, such as mass lexical comparison, are used by some linguists to overcome the limitations of the comparative method, but most linguists regard them as unreliable.
The findings of historical linguistics are often used as a basis for hypotheses about the groupings and movements of peoples, particularly in the prehistoric period. In practice, however, it is often unclear how to integrate the linguistic evidence with the archaeological or genetic evidence. For example, there are a large number of theories concerning the homeland and early movements of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, each with their own interpretation of the archaeological record.
Sub-fields of study
Comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. Languages may be related by convergence through borrowing or by genetic descent, thus languages can evolve and are also able to cross-relate.
Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language, and comparative linguistics aims to construct language families, to reconstruct proto-languages and specify the changes that have resulted in the documented languages. In order to maintain a clear distinction between attested and reconstructed forms, comparative linguists prefix an asterisk to any form that is not found in surviving texts.
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words—when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. A word may enter a language as a loanword (i.e., as a word from one language adopted by speakers of another language), through derivational morphology by combining pre-existing elements in the language, by a hybrid of these two processes called phono-semantic matching, or in several other minor ways.
In languages with a long and detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time. However, etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as writing) to be known. By analyzing related languages with a technique known as the comparative method, linguists can make inferences, about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In this way, word roots have been found which can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the Indo-European language family.
Even though etymological research originally grew from the philological tradition, nowadays much etymological research is done in language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian.
Dialectology
Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, the varieties of a language that are characteristic of particular groups, based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features (as opposed to variations based on social factors, which are studied in sociolinguistics, or variations based on time, which are studied in historical linguistics. Dialectology treats such topics as divergence of two local dialects from a common ancestor and synchronic variation.
Dialectologists are ultimately concerned with grammatical features which correspond to regional areas. Thus they are usually dealing with populations living in their areas for generations without moving, but also with immigrant groups bringing their languages to new settlements.
Phonology
Phonology is a sub-field of historical linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language or set of languages change over time. Whereas phonetics is about the physical production and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages.
An important part of phonology is studying which sounds are distinctive units within a language. For example, the "p" in "pin" is aspirated while the same phoneme in "spin" is not. In some other languages, for example Thai and Quechua, this same difference of aspiration or non-aspiration does differentiate phonemes.
In addition to the minimal meaningful sounds (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, such as the /p/ in English, and topics such as syllable structure, stress, accent, and intonation.
The principles of phonological theory have also been applied to the analysis of sign languages, even though the phonological units do not consist of sounds. The principles of phonological analysis can be applied independently of modality because they are designed to serve as general analytical tools, not language-specific ones.
Morphology
Morphology - the study of the formal means of expression in a language; in the context of historical linguistics, how the formal means of expression change over time; for instance, languages with complex inflectional systems tend to be subject to a simplification process
is the field of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words as a formal means of expression.[1] Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology. While words are generally accepted as being (with clitics) the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. The rules understood by the speaker reflect specific patterns (or regularities) in the way words are formed from smaller units and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word-formation within and across languages, and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages, in the context of historical linguistics, how the means of expression change over time. See grammaticalisation.
Syntax
Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. The term syntax is used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish". Modern researchers in syntax attempt to describe languages in terms of such rules. Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find general rules that apply to all natural languages in the context of historical linguistics, how characteristics of sentence structure in related languages changed over time. See grammaticalisation.
Comparison of traditional and modern historical linguistics
There are several differences that occur dealing with the objects of research of traditional and modern historical linguistics. The focus of traditional historical linguistics lies in keeping records of language change in past times of a language or language family. Modern historical linguistics, however, focuses on the progress of language change. They try to analyze the cause or motivation, the spread and the modality of language change. Traditional historical linguistics concentrates on language and its changes regarding internal factors. Modern historical linguistics puts its focal point on external factors e.g. the social surroundings. That synchrony variates is seen as a key to a variation in diachrony. The conclusion is that the beginning of a language change is variation. For traditional historical linguistics the language structure and the language system are very important, whereas in modern historical linguistics the language use and the user are centered. They claim that grammar is shaped by discourse and language is changed by the speakers. Traditional historical linguistics is mainly interested in phonology and morphology and not so much in syntax and semantics. In modern historical linguistics the main interest lies in syntax, semantics and pragmatics and no more in phonology. Furthermore traditional historical linguistics is based on quality while modern historical linguistics are both qualitative and quantitative. Traditional historical linguistics deals only with written language but modern historical linguistics are also concerned with spoken language.
Linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Its primary goal is to learn about the 'natural' language that humans use every day and how it works. Linguists ask such fundamental questions as: What aspects of language are universal for all humans? How can we account for the remarkable grammatical similarities between languages as apparently diverse as English, Japanese and Arabic? What are the rules of grammar that we language users employ, and how do we come to 'know' them? To what extent is the structure of language related to how we think about the world around us? A linguist, then, here refers to a linguistics expert who seeks to answer such questions, rather than someone who is multilingual.
Theoretical linguists are concerned with questions about the apparent human 'instinct' to communicate,[1] rather than authorising 'rules' of style or 'correctness' as found in grammar textbooks or popular guides.[2] For example, *dog the[3] is unacceptable in English, but children recognise as much long before they receive any formal grammatical instruction. It is such recognitions, and the implicit rules they imply, that are of primary concern in linguistics, as opposed to rules as prescribed by an authority.
Although interesting in its own right as one of the directions we follow to learn more about ourselves and the world around us, the study of linguistics is also highly relevant to solving real-life problems. Applied linguists may bring their insights to such fields as foreign language teaching, speech therapy and translation.[4] While in universities and research institutions worldwide, scholars are studying the facts of individual languages or the system of language itself to find evidence for theories or test hypotheses, applied linguists are at work in classrooms, clinics, courts and the highest levels of government. They use their knowledge to bridge linguistic divides, coax speech from the mouths of the disabled or abused, supply forensic evidence in courtroom trials, find out how language comes to children - in fact, they are everywhere people in need or in conflict over language are to be found.
The study of linguistics
Core areas
Some linguists, such as theoretical syntacticians, focus on one 'core' area. Research may involve developing a model to describe and predict the workings of the system of language itself, rather than explaining how people happen to use language. These 'core' fields together constitute the grammar of a language - not a list of rules in a book, but components the system requires for communication.
PD ImageLevels of linguistic knowledge involved in producing the utterance 'the cats'.
PD Image
Levels of linguistic knowledge involved in producing the utterance 'the cats'.
Syntax
For more information, see: Syntax.
Syntax is the study of how units including words and phrases combine into sentences. For example, why is Bill ate the fish acceptable but Ate the Bill fish not? Syntacticians investigate what orders of words make legitimate sentences, how to succinctly account for patterns found across sentences, such as correspondences between active sentences (John threw the ball) and passive sentences (The ball was thrown by John), and some types of ambiguity, as in Visiting relatives can be boring (which has two readings!).
(CC) Photo: Nick Thompson A lecture in American Sign Language. Phonology and linguistics generally involve the study not just of speech but also sign language; the same system used to represent language, whether by sound or sign, is widely viewed as underlying both. Research into sign language also benefits from the insights of linguists who are themselves native signers.
(CC) Photo: Nick Thompson
A lecture in American Sign Language. Phonology and linguistics generally involve the study not just of speech but also sign language; the same system used to represent language, whether by sound or sign, is widely viewed as underlying both. Research into sign language also benefits from the insights of linguists who are themselves native signers.
Phonology
For more information, see: Phonology.
Phonology is the study of the grammatical system speakers use to represent language in the real world, which organises syllable structure, intonation, tone, and - in sign languages - hand movements. A phonologist divides an example of language into its phonological components: for example, English cat appears as a single syllable arranging the segments [k], [æ][5] and [t].[6] Although there are potentially infinitely many ways of producing a sound, shaping a letter or moving a hand, phonologists are interested only in how these group into abstract categories: for example, how and why [k] is often perceived as different from [t], whereas in many languages, other sounds as different as those are not.
Phonetics
For more information, see: Phonetics.
Phonetics focuses on the physical sounds of speech. Phonetics covers speech perception (how the brain discerns sounds), acoustics (the physical qualities of sounds as movement through air), and articulation (voice production through the movements of the lungs, tongue, lips, and other articulators). This area investigates, for instance, the physical realization of speech and how individual sounds differ across languages and dialects. This research plays a large part in computer speech recognition and synthesis.
Morphology
For more information, see: Morphology.
Morphology examines how linguistic units such as words and their subparts (such as prefixes and suffixes) combine. One example of this is the observation that while walk+ed is acceptable, *ed+walk is not, in Engish, while in other languages such affixes can be found wholly inside the stems they attach to.
Semantics
For more information, see: Semantics (linguistics).
Semantics within linguistics refers to the study of how language conveys meaning.[7] For example, English speakers typically realise that Chomsky's famous sentence Colorless green ideas sleep furiously is well-formed in terms of word order, but incomprehensible in terms of meaning.[8] Other aspects of meaning studied here include how speakers understand certain types of ambiguous sentences such as A student met every professor (a different student, or the same student?), and the extent to which sentences which are superficially very different, such as The wine flowed freely and Much wine was consumed, mean similar things.[9]
Pragmatics
For more information, see: Pragmatics.
Pragmatics is the study of how utterances relate to the context they are spoken in. For instance, the sentence I have two pencils can mean two very different things, depending on whether the speaker has been asked how many pencils he has, in which case the speaker means he has exactly two, or is just confirming that he has at least two (such as in response to Can me and my friend borrow two pencils from you?), leaving open the possibility that he has more. This sort of understanding is not predictable just by knowledge of language; speakers must also know something about the intentions and assumptions of others to co-operate in communication.
Other fields of linguistics
To factor out circumstances that may obscure fundamental insights, many linguists may choose to focus on language as presumed to occur in an idealised, adult, monolingual native speaker - prerequisites often found in mainstream generative linguistics.[10] In contrast, linguists whose research moves away from any of these four criteria may concentrate on fields arranged around the study of language use and learning:
* Language acquisition, theoretical or applied study of how linguistic knowledge emerges in children and adults as first or subsequent languages, whether naturalistically (without instruction) or in the classroom;[11]
* Cognitive linguistics, the study of language as part of general cognition;
* Psycholinguistics, the study of language to find out about how the mind works;[12]
* Sociolinguistics, the study of how language varies according to cultural context, the speaker's background, and the situation in which it is used;
* Stylistics, the study of how language differs according to use and context, e.g. advertising versus speechmaking;
* Linguistic variation, the study of the differences among the languages of the world. This has implications for linguistics in general: if human linguistic ability is narrowly constrained, then languages must be very similar. If human linguistic ability is unconstrained, then languages might vary greatly.
* Historical linguistics (or diachronic linguistics), the study of how languages are historically related (e.g. English, French and German are thought to be descended from a single Indo-European tongue). This involves finding universal properties of language and accounting for a language's development and origins (see also below and comparative linguistics).
* Contextual linguistics may include the study of linguistics in interaction with other academic disciplines.
* Anthropological linguistics considers the interactions between linguistics and culture.
* Critical discourse analysis is where rhetoric and philosophy interact with linguistics.
* Computational linguistics has had a great influence on theories of syntax and semantics, as modelling syntactic and semantic theories on computers constrains the theories to computable operations and provides a more rigorous mathematical basis.
Other cross-disciplinary areas of linguistics include neurolinguistics, evolutionary linguistics and cognitive science.
Applied linguistics
Main article: Applied linguistics
Whereas theoretical linguistics is concerned with finding and describing generalities both within particular languages and among all languages, applied linguistics takes these results and applies them to other areas. Often applied linguistics refers to the use of linguistic research in language teaching, but this is just one sub-discipline:
* Research in language teaching: today, 'applied linguistics' is sometimes used to refer to 'second language acquisition', but these are distinct fields, in that SLA involves more theoretical study of the system of language, whereas applied linguistics concerns itself more with teaching and learning. In their approach to the study of learning, applied linguists have increasingly devised their own theories and methodologies, such as the shift towards studying the learner rather than the system of language itself, in contrast to the emphasis within SLA.[13][14]
* Applied computational linguistics: two computer applications are speech synthesis and speech recognition, which use phonetic and phonemic knowledge to provide voice interfaces to computers. Machine translation, computer-assisted translation, and natural language processing are fruitful areas which have also come to the forefront in recent years.
* Clinical linguistics entails the application of linguistics to speech-language pathology. This involves treating individuals whose linguistic development is atypical or impaired.[15] This branch of applied linguistics may also involve treatment of specific language impairment, where one aspect of language develops exceptionally.[16] The field has also adopted existing ideas which have have not become 'mainstream' in theoretical linguistics. For example, both behaviourism[17] and natural phonology[18] have appeared in the literature.
Approach to studying language
Modern linguists' methodologies, assumptions and practices differ significantly from those of past generations. One of the most fundamental principles of modern linguistics is that it is descriptive rather than prescriptive: it describes language without judging how people use it. Also, as no language is known to have been written before being spoken, linguists consider spoken rather than written language to be the primary focus. In language acquisition, most researchers agree that language cannot be acquired through imitation; some aspects must be innate. Finally, most modern linguistics focuses on language as used today; however, historical linguistics remains an important sub-field.
Prescription and description
Main article: Linguistic prescriptivism
Linguists seek to clarify the nature of language, to describe how people use it, and to find the underlying grammar that speakers unconsciously adhere to. Linguists do not judge what speech is better or worse syntactically, correct or incorrect grammatically, and do not try to prescribe future language directions. Nonetheless, some professionals and many amateurs do try to prescribe rules of language, holding a particular standard for all to follow.
Prescription comes in two flavors, those that are linguistically founded and those that are not. For instance, the rule of English that subjects and verbs must agree (i.e. that when the subject is third-person singular, the verb takes an "s" ending, like "I/you/they run" but "he runs") can be the basis of linguistically founded prescription, so long as the speaker is intending to speak standard American English. Speakers of standard American English do follow subject-verb agreement, and thus if the intention is to teach that language, this rule should be taught.
However, prescriptivists often stray from this type of linguistically founded recommendation. These prescriptivists tend to be found among the ranks of language educators and journalists, and not in the academic discipline of linguistics. Often considering themselves speakers of the standard form of a particular language, they may hold clear notions of what is right and wrong and what variety of language is most likely to lead the next generation of speakers to 'success'. For example, they may believe that all speakers of what they would call English should follow the same rule of subject-verb agreement, while in fact some varieties of English, which are in a sense distinct languages in their own right, do not do subject-verb agreement the same way. The reasons for their intolerance of non-standard dialects, treating them as "incorrect" , may include distrust of neologisms, connections to socially-disapproved dialects, or simple conflicts with pet theories.
Prescriptivists often also make linguistically unfounded recommendations that seem plausibly true, but which have little linguistic evidence to support them. For instance, the rule against leaving a preposition at the end of a clause or sentence (such as in I met the professor I wrote to) is commonly believed to be 'correct' English.[19] However, speakers of English not only use final prepositions frequently, indicating that it is perfectly natural English to do so, but bringing the preposition to the front may result in a sentence that could well sound ridiculous to any native speaker of English.[20]
Descriptive linguists, on the other hand, do not accept the prescriptivists' notion of 'incorrect usage' in a general sense. They aim to describe the usages the prescriptivist has in mind, either as common or deviant from some linguistic norm, as an idiosyncratic variation, or as regularity (a rule) followed by speakers of some other dialect (in contrast to the common prescriptive assumption that "bad" usage is unsystematic). Within the context of fieldwork, descriptive linguistics refers to the study of language using a descriptivist approach. Descriptivist methodology more closely resembles scientific methodology in other disciplines.
Speech versus writing
(CC) Photo: Nick Thompson Linguistics examines all forms of language, but the written word is considered at best an incomplete representation of a linguistic system. Linguists generally consider that more fundamental insights can be gleaned into the nature of language by analysing natural, spontaneous speech, rather than assuming the primacy of writing.
(CC) Photo: Nick Thompson
Linguistics examines all forms of language, but the written word is considered at best an incomplete representation of a linguistic system. Linguists generally consider that more fundamental insights can be gleaned into the nature of language by analysing natural, spontaneous speech, rather than assuming the primacy of writing.
Languages have only been written for a few thousand years, but have been spoken (or signed) for much longer. The written word may therefore provide less of a window onto how language works than the study of speech, even assuming that the culture which the language forms part of has a writing system - the majority of the world's languages remain unwritten. Furthermore, the study of written language can play no part in investigating first language acquisition, since infants are obviously yet to become literate. Overall, language is held to be an evolutionary adaptation, whereas writing is a comparatively recent invention. Spoken and signed language, then, may tell us much about human evolution and the structure of the mind.
Of course, linguists also agree that the study of written language can be worthwhile and valuable. For linguistic research that uses the methods of corpus linguistics and computational linguistics, written language is often much more convenient for processing large amounts of linguistic data. Large corpora of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find, and are typically transcribed and written. Additionally, linguists have turned to text-based discourse occurring in various formats of computer-mediated communication as a viable site for linguistic inquiry. Writing, however, brings with it a number of problems; for example, it often acts as a historical record, preserving words, phrases, styles and spellings of a previous era. This may be of limited use for studying how language is used at the present time.
Innatism
One of the most interesting aspects of language is that normally, young children acquire whatever language is spoken (or signed, in the case of sign language) around them when they are growing up, without apparently being 'taught' the language. By contrast, other animals, even highly intelligent primates that are closely related to humans, need very intensive training to produce even minimally language-like behaviour.[21] Additionally, since children understand and produce utterances which they have never previously experienced, and since they appear to reject ill-formed sentences even at an early age,[22] it has been widely concluded that the infant brain must in some way be ready to acquire any language. 'Nativist' linguists argue that such a system, presumably specified in our genes,[23] must also account for why all languages are fundamentally similar.[24][25]
Historical linguistics
Whereas the core of theoretical linguistics is concerned with studying languages at a particular point in time (usually the present), historical linguistics (or diachronic linguistics) examines how language changes through time, sometimes over centuries. Historical linguistics enjoys both a rich history (the study of linguistics grew out of historical linguistics) and a strong theoretical foundation for the study of language change.
In universities in the USA, the non-historic perspective seems to have the upper hand. Many introductory linguistics classes, for example, cover historical linguistics only cursorily. The shift in focus to a non-historic perspective started with Saussure and became predominant with Noam Chomsky.
In popular culture, one aspect of linguistics which is particularly popular is etymology, the study of word origins. This is related to historical linguistics, in that a word's history is traced over time, but does not form a central component of modern language study; linguistics is more concerned with patterns of change over time and what this has to contribute to an understanding of the nature of language itself.
History of linguistics
Main article: History of linguistics
Questions about language, its origins and nature have been a centre of interest in many civilizations. [26] From ancient times until the 18th century, insights into language mainly involved explaining the grammar of particular languages, such as Sanskrit, or describing changes over time. Such work laid the foundations for an extension of linguistic inquiry into language universals - the features common to all languages, which presumably tell us something about the system that underlies them.
Modern linguistics can be traced to the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure 's Course in General Linguistics. He was the first to actually define language and therefore define what linguistics is. He also introduced the idea of language being a system or structure, which heavily influenced the field during the following years. Since the publication of Saussure's work, the primary purpose of linguistics has been to explain how languages work at one given moment of time and establish how languages work through empirical evidence. To this end, many subfields of linguistics have now been established.
From the 1950s, Noam Chomsky and his contemporaries initiated new methods in linguistics, producing explicit theories of grammar [27][28] - namely, systems that required no reference to other kinds of knowledge. Parallel to this 'Chomskyian' focus on the nature of the linguistic system, concerns about how language was used in society began to mature. In this way, from the 1960s William Labov was a pioneer in studies of sociolinguistics, a field which attempts to describe the relationship between language and society.
Footnotes
1. ↑ The view that language is an 'instinct' comparable to walking or bird song is most famously articulated in Pinker (1994).
2. ↑ A popular recent example is Truss (2003).
3. ↑ An asterisk (*) indicates that what follows is unacceptable to speakers of that language.
4. ↑ Increasingly, however, applied linguists have been developing their own views of language, which often focus on the language learner rather than the system itself: see for example Cook (2002) and the same author's website.
5. ↑ Pronounced 'ash'.
6. ↑ Symbols in square brackets represent speech sounds using the International Phonetic Alphabet; slanting brackets, as in /kæt/ 'cat', are used to represent phonemes - distinct, abstract units that may represent several sounds or written letters.
7. ↑ The term elsewhere has a rather wider application, referring to the study of meaning itself, in fields such as philosophy.
8. ↑ Chomsky, 1957: 15.
9. ↑ Aitchison (2003: 87-99).
10. ↑ 'Generative' linguistics' is most strongly associated with Chomsky (1957) and subsequent works.
11. ↑ 'Acquisition' is a highly diverse field; as well as theoretical linguists studying the linguistic system itself through first language development and second language acquisition (SLA), applied linguists may examine mainly classroom learning and learners' experiences. Also, language teaching practice is the concern of education specialists outside linguistics. In any one study linguists' backgrounds and research orientations may overlap considerably, and there is little consensus even on fundamentals, such as the extent to which explicit instruction in presumed 'rules' of grammar can truly promote learning.
12. ↑ e.g. Pinker, 1997; Scovel, 1997.
13. ↑ The applied linguist Vivian Cook has, for example, introduced the term L2 user as distinct from L2 learner (see Cook's page: Background to the L2 User Perspective). The former are active users of the language; the latter those who learn for later use. Cook's view also severs a link to SLA, in that a user's language ability is seen not as an approximation towards native speakers' competence, but as a system in its own right.
14. ↑ See also Wei (2007) for an appeal to focus on the learner rather than the system.
15. ↑ The most famous case is Genie, an individual who was deprived of language throughout much of her childhood.
16. ↑ Bishop (2006).
17. ↑ Castagnaro (2006), for review.
18. ↑ Grunwell (1997).
19. ↑ Linguists sometimes refer to this rule as preposition stranding, since in I met the professor I wrote to the preposition's object (the professor in I wrote to the professor) has been left behind once the object has been moved. When a preposition is also moved to a non-final position, as in I met the professor to whom I wrote, this is called pied-piping or wh-movement, since words that can move can typically be replaced by words beginning with wh- (who, what, etc.).
20. ↑ This rule is famously criticised in a quotation attributed to former British prime minister Winston Churchill: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put."
21. ↑ Furthermore, the anthropological linguist Charles Hockett advanced the theory that a collection of design features, such as 'creativity' (speakers can produce novel utterances) collectively made language unique to humans. Some other species may make use of one or two of these (such as 'use of sound signals'), but never enough to use language (Hockett (1960); Aitchison (2003: 13-20). See also the phonetician John Coleman's webpage comparing different species according to design features.
22. ↑ Chomsky (1957) strongly emphasised that this 'creative' aspect of language entailed that language could not simply be a product of a child's responses to their environment - a view usually associated with behaviourism and applied to language in Skinner (1957). Chomsky (1959) is a highly critical review of that work that was instrumental in moving linguistics away from such 'behaviourist' analyses of language use.
23. ↑ e.g. Pinker (1994) makes an analogy between language and spiders' webs: spiders spin webs because their genes compel them to, though without the right environment no webs will appear. To that can be added that each web would be different, though following the same basic, innately guided webspinning template.
24. ↑ The linguist Joseph H. Greenberg famously identified a series of universals of language (Greenberg, 1966); namely, 'laws' that seem to apply to all linguistic communication. One example is that all languages appear to have nouns and verbs, even though a language without verbs would be communicatively adequate (e.g. nominalized English).
25. ↑ Ironically, neither Greenberg nor Hockett, whose work provided such important evidence for the 'nativist' position, themselves supported such a view. Greenberg was a typologist and empirical linguist interested in historical linguistics and what the similarities between languages suggested about the nature of language itself; his work has been seen as functionalist in its principles. Hockett was firmly in the pre-Chomskyan structuralist camp, and vigourously attacked the emerging school of generativism throughout his career. See William Croft's obituary for Joseph H. Greenberg and a copy of the New York Times obituary for Charles F. Hockett at linguistlist.org.
26. ↑ For example, the early Indian grammarian Pāṇini's (ca 520–460 BCE) examined Sanskrit and produced several insights into the nature of grammar, such as the morpheme, which remain highly relevant in modern research and Plato in Cratyluswonders whether language has a natural or conventional origin.
27. ↑ Chomsky N (1957).
28. ↑ Chomsky N, Halle M (1968).
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Its primary goal is to learn about the 'natural' language that humans use every day and how it works. Linguists ask such fundamental questions as: What aspects of language are universal for all humans? How can we account for the remarkable grammatical similarities between languages as apparently diverse as English, Japanese and Arabic? What are the rules of grammar that we language users employ, and how do we come to 'know' them? To what extent is the structure of language related to how we think about the world around us? A linguist, then, here refers to a linguistics expert who seeks to answer such questions, rather than someone who is multilingual.
Theoretical linguists are concerned with questions about the apparent human 'instinct' to communicate,[1] rather than authorising 'rules' of style or 'correctness' as found in grammar textbooks or popular guides.[2] For example, *dog the[3] is unacceptable in English, but children recognise as much long before they receive any formal grammatical instruction. It is such recognitions, and the implicit rules they imply, that are of primary concern in linguistics, as opposed to rules as prescribed by an authority.
Although interesting in its own right as one of the directions we follow to learn more about ourselves and the world around us, the study of linguistics is also highly relevant to solving real-life problems. Applied linguists may bring their insights to such fields as foreign language teaching, speech therapy and translation.[4] While in universities and research institutions worldwide, scholars are studying the facts of individual languages or the system of language itself to find evidence for theories or test hypotheses, applied linguists are at work in classrooms, clinics, courts and the highest levels of government. They use their knowledge to bridge linguistic divides, coax speech from the mouths of the disabled or abused, supply forensic evidence in courtroom trials, find out how language comes to children - in fact, they are everywhere people in need or in conflict over language are to be found.
The study of linguistics
Core areas
Some linguists, such as theoretical syntacticians, focus on one 'core' area. Research may involve developing a model to describe and predict the workings of the system of language itself, rather than explaining how people happen to use language. These 'core' fields together constitute the grammar of a language - not a list of rules in a book, but components the system requires for communication.
PD ImageLevels of linguistic knowledge involved in producing the utterance 'the cats'.
PD Image
Levels of linguistic knowledge involved in producing the utterance 'the cats'.
Syntax
For more information, see: Syntax.
Syntax is the study of how units including words and phrases combine into sentences. For example, why is Bill ate the fish acceptable but Ate the Bill fish not? Syntacticians investigate what orders of words make legitimate sentences, how to succinctly account for patterns found across sentences, such as correspondences between active sentences (John threw the ball) and passive sentences (The ball was thrown by John), and some types of ambiguity, as in Visiting relatives can be boring (which has two readings!).
(CC) Photo: Nick Thompson A lecture in American Sign Language. Phonology and linguistics generally involve the study not just of speech but also sign language; the same system used to represent language, whether by sound or sign, is widely viewed as underlying both. Research into sign language also benefits from the insights of linguists who are themselves native signers.
(CC) Photo: Nick Thompson
A lecture in American Sign Language. Phonology and linguistics generally involve the study not just of speech but also sign language; the same system used to represent language, whether by sound or sign, is widely viewed as underlying both. Research into sign language also benefits from the insights of linguists who are themselves native signers.
Phonology
For more information, see: Phonology.
Phonology is the study of the grammatical system speakers use to represent language in the real world, which organises syllable structure, intonation, tone, and - in sign languages - hand movements. A phonologist divides an example of language into its phonological components: for example, English cat appears as a single syllable arranging the segments [k], [æ][5] and [t].[6] Although there are potentially infinitely many ways of producing a sound, shaping a letter or moving a hand, phonologists are interested only in how these group into abstract categories: for example, how and why [k] is often perceived as different from [t], whereas in many languages, other sounds as different as those are not.
Phonetics
For more information, see: Phonetics.
Phonetics focuses on the physical sounds of speech. Phonetics covers speech perception (how the brain discerns sounds), acoustics (the physical qualities of sounds as movement through air), and articulation (voice production through the movements of the lungs, tongue, lips, and other articulators). This area investigates, for instance, the physical realization of speech and how individual sounds differ across languages and dialects. This research plays a large part in computer speech recognition and synthesis.
Morphology
For more information, see: Morphology.
Morphology examines how linguistic units such as words and their subparts (such as prefixes and suffixes) combine. One example of this is the observation that while walk+ed is acceptable, *ed+walk is not, in Engish, while in other languages such affixes can be found wholly inside the stems they attach to.
Semantics
For more information, see: Semantics (linguistics).
Semantics within linguistics refers to the study of how language conveys meaning.[7] For example, English speakers typically realise that Chomsky's famous sentence Colorless green ideas sleep furiously is well-formed in terms of word order, but incomprehensible in terms of meaning.[8] Other aspects of meaning studied here include how speakers understand certain types of ambiguous sentences such as A student met every professor (a different student, or the same student?), and the extent to which sentences which are superficially very different, such as The wine flowed freely and Much wine was consumed, mean similar things.[9]
Pragmatics
For more information, see: Pragmatics.
Pragmatics is the study of how utterances relate to the context they are spoken in. For instance, the sentence I have two pencils can mean two very different things, depending on whether the speaker has been asked how many pencils he has, in which case the speaker means he has exactly two, or is just confirming that he has at least two (such as in response to Can me and my friend borrow two pencils from you?), leaving open the possibility that he has more. This sort of understanding is not predictable just by knowledge of language; speakers must also know something about the intentions and assumptions of others to co-operate in communication.
Other fields of linguistics
To factor out circumstances that may obscure fundamental insights, many linguists may choose to focus on language as presumed to occur in an idealised, adult, monolingual native speaker - prerequisites often found in mainstream generative linguistics.[10] In contrast, linguists whose research moves away from any of these four criteria may concentrate on fields arranged around the study of language use and learning:
* Language acquisition, theoretical or applied study of how linguistic knowledge emerges in children and adults as first or subsequent languages, whether naturalistically (without instruction) or in the classroom;[11]
* Cognitive linguistics, the study of language as part of general cognition;
* Psycholinguistics, the study of language to find out about how the mind works;[12]
* Sociolinguistics, the study of how language varies according to cultural context, the speaker's background, and the situation in which it is used;
* Stylistics, the study of how language differs according to use and context, e.g. advertising versus speechmaking;
* Linguistic variation, the study of the differences among the languages of the world. This has implications for linguistics in general: if human linguistic ability is narrowly constrained, then languages must be very similar. If human linguistic ability is unconstrained, then languages might vary greatly.
* Historical linguistics (or diachronic linguistics), the study of how languages are historically related (e.g. English, French and German are thought to be descended from a single Indo-European tongue). This involves finding universal properties of language and accounting for a language's development and origins (see also below and comparative linguistics).
* Contextual linguistics may include the study of linguistics in interaction with other academic disciplines.
* Anthropological linguistics considers the interactions between linguistics and culture.
* Critical discourse analysis is where rhetoric and philosophy interact with linguistics.
* Computational linguistics has had a great influence on theories of syntax and semantics, as modelling syntactic and semantic theories on computers constrains the theories to computable operations and provides a more rigorous mathematical basis.
Other cross-disciplinary areas of linguistics include neurolinguistics, evolutionary linguistics and cognitive science.
Applied linguistics
Main article: Applied linguistics
Whereas theoretical linguistics is concerned with finding and describing generalities both within particular languages and among all languages, applied linguistics takes these results and applies them to other areas. Often applied linguistics refers to the use of linguistic research in language teaching, but this is just one sub-discipline:
* Research in language teaching: today, 'applied linguistics' is sometimes used to refer to 'second language acquisition', but these are distinct fields, in that SLA involves more theoretical study of the system of language, whereas applied linguistics concerns itself more with teaching and learning. In their approach to the study of learning, applied linguists have increasingly devised their own theories and methodologies, such as the shift towards studying the learner rather than the system of language itself, in contrast to the emphasis within SLA.[13][14]
* Applied computational linguistics: two computer applications are speech synthesis and speech recognition, which use phonetic and phonemic knowledge to provide voice interfaces to computers. Machine translation, computer-assisted translation, and natural language processing are fruitful areas which have also come to the forefront in recent years.
* Clinical linguistics entails the application of linguistics to speech-language pathology. This involves treating individuals whose linguistic development is atypical or impaired.[15] This branch of applied linguistics may also involve treatment of specific language impairment, where one aspect of language develops exceptionally.[16] The field has also adopted existing ideas which have have not become 'mainstream' in theoretical linguistics. For example, both behaviourism[17] and natural phonology[18] have appeared in the literature.
Approach to studying language
Modern linguists' methodologies, assumptions and practices differ significantly from those of past generations. One of the most fundamental principles of modern linguistics is that it is descriptive rather than prescriptive: it describes language without judging how people use it. Also, as no language is known to have been written before being spoken, linguists consider spoken rather than written language to be the primary focus. In language acquisition, most researchers agree that language cannot be acquired through imitation; some aspects must be innate. Finally, most modern linguistics focuses on language as used today; however, historical linguistics remains an important sub-field.
Prescription and description
Main article: Linguistic prescriptivism
Linguists seek to clarify the nature of language, to describe how people use it, and to find the underlying grammar that speakers unconsciously adhere to. Linguists do not judge what speech is better or worse syntactically, correct or incorrect grammatically, and do not try to prescribe future language directions. Nonetheless, some professionals and many amateurs do try to prescribe rules of language, holding a particular standard for all to follow.
Prescription comes in two flavors, those that are linguistically founded and those that are not. For instance, the rule of English that subjects and verbs must agree (i.e. that when the subject is third-person singular, the verb takes an "s" ending, like "I/you/they run" but "he runs") can be the basis of linguistically founded prescription, so long as the speaker is intending to speak standard American English. Speakers of standard American English do follow subject-verb agreement, and thus if the intention is to teach that language, this rule should be taught.
However, prescriptivists often stray from this type of linguistically founded recommendation. These prescriptivists tend to be found among the ranks of language educators and journalists, and not in the academic discipline of linguistics. Often considering themselves speakers of the standard form of a particular language, they may hold clear notions of what is right and wrong and what variety of language is most likely to lead the next generation of speakers to 'success'. For example, they may believe that all speakers of what they would call English should follow the same rule of subject-verb agreement, while in fact some varieties of English, which are in a sense distinct languages in their own right, do not do subject-verb agreement the same way. The reasons for their intolerance of non-standard dialects, treating them as "incorrect" , may include distrust of neologisms, connections to socially-disapproved dialects, or simple conflicts with pet theories.
Prescriptivists often also make linguistically unfounded recommendations that seem plausibly true, but which have little linguistic evidence to support them. For instance, the rule against leaving a preposition at the end of a clause or sentence (such as in I met the professor I wrote to) is commonly believed to be 'correct' English.[19] However, speakers of English not only use final prepositions frequently, indicating that it is perfectly natural English to do so, but bringing the preposition to the front may result in a sentence that could well sound ridiculous to any native speaker of English.[20]
Descriptive linguists, on the other hand, do not accept the prescriptivists' notion of 'incorrect usage' in a general sense. They aim to describe the usages the prescriptivist has in mind, either as common or deviant from some linguistic norm, as an idiosyncratic variation, or as regularity (a rule) followed by speakers of some other dialect (in contrast to the common prescriptive assumption that "bad" usage is unsystematic). Within the context of fieldwork, descriptive linguistics refers to the study of language using a descriptivist approach. Descriptivist methodology more closely resembles scientific methodology in other disciplines.
Speech versus writing
(CC) Photo: Nick Thompson Linguistics examines all forms of language, but the written word is considered at best an incomplete representation of a linguistic system. Linguists generally consider that more fundamental insights can be gleaned into the nature of language by analysing natural, spontaneous speech, rather than assuming the primacy of writing.
(CC) Photo: Nick Thompson
Linguistics examines all forms of language, but the written word is considered at best an incomplete representation of a linguistic system. Linguists generally consider that more fundamental insights can be gleaned into the nature of language by analysing natural, spontaneous speech, rather than assuming the primacy of writing.
Languages have only been written for a few thousand years, but have been spoken (or signed) for much longer. The written word may therefore provide less of a window onto how language works than the study of speech, even assuming that the culture which the language forms part of has a writing system - the majority of the world's languages remain unwritten. Furthermore, the study of written language can play no part in investigating first language acquisition, since infants are obviously yet to become literate. Overall, language is held to be an evolutionary adaptation, whereas writing is a comparatively recent invention. Spoken and signed language, then, may tell us much about human evolution and the structure of the mind.
Of course, linguists also agree that the study of written language can be worthwhile and valuable. For linguistic research that uses the methods of corpus linguistics and computational linguistics, written language is often much more convenient for processing large amounts of linguistic data. Large corpora of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find, and are typically transcribed and written. Additionally, linguists have turned to text-based discourse occurring in various formats of computer-mediated communication as a viable site for linguistic inquiry. Writing, however, brings with it a number of problems; for example, it often acts as a historical record, preserving words, phrases, styles and spellings of a previous era. This may be of limited use for studying how language is used at the present time.
Innatism
One of the most interesting aspects of language is that normally, young children acquire whatever language is spoken (or signed, in the case of sign language) around them when they are growing up, without apparently being 'taught' the language. By contrast, other animals, even highly intelligent primates that are closely related to humans, need very intensive training to produce even minimally language-like behaviour.[21] Additionally, since children understand and produce utterances which they have never previously experienced, and since they appear to reject ill-formed sentences even at an early age,[22] it has been widely concluded that the infant brain must in some way be ready to acquire any language. 'Nativist' linguists argue that such a system, presumably specified in our genes,[23] must also account for why all languages are fundamentally similar.[24][25]
Historical linguistics
Whereas the core of theoretical linguistics is concerned with studying languages at a particular point in time (usually the present), historical linguistics (or diachronic linguistics) examines how language changes through time, sometimes over centuries. Historical linguistics enjoys both a rich history (the study of linguistics grew out of historical linguistics) and a strong theoretical foundation for the study of language change.
In universities in the USA, the non-historic perspective seems to have the upper hand. Many introductory linguistics classes, for example, cover historical linguistics only cursorily. The shift in focus to a non-historic perspective started with Saussure and became predominant with Noam Chomsky.
In popular culture, one aspect of linguistics which is particularly popular is etymology, the study of word origins. This is related to historical linguistics, in that a word's history is traced over time, but does not form a central component of modern language study; linguistics is more concerned with patterns of change over time and what this has to contribute to an understanding of the nature of language itself.
History of linguistics
Main article: History of linguistics
Questions about language, its origins and nature have been a centre of interest in many civilizations. [26] From ancient times until the 18th century, insights into language mainly involved explaining the grammar of particular languages, such as Sanskrit, or describing changes over time. Such work laid the foundations for an extension of linguistic inquiry into language universals - the features common to all languages, which presumably tell us something about the system that underlies them.
Modern linguistics can be traced to the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure 's Course in General Linguistics. He was the first to actually define language and therefore define what linguistics is. He also introduced the idea of language being a system or structure, which heavily influenced the field during the following years. Since the publication of Saussure's work, the primary purpose of linguistics has been to explain how languages work at one given moment of time and establish how languages work through empirical evidence. To this end, many subfields of linguistics have now been established.
From the 1950s, Noam Chomsky and his contemporaries initiated new methods in linguistics, producing explicit theories of grammar [27][28] - namely, systems that required no reference to other kinds of knowledge. Parallel to this 'Chomskyian' focus on the nature of the linguistic system, concerns about how language was used in society began to mature. In this way, from the 1960s William Labov was a pioneer in studies of sociolinguistics, a field which attempts to describe the relationship between language and society.
Footnotes
1. ↑ The view that language is an 'instinct' comparable to walking or bird song is most famously articulated in Pinker (1994).
2. ↑ A popular recent example is Truss (2003).
3. ↑ An asterisk (*) indicates that what follows is unacceptable to speakers of that language.
4. ↑ Increasingly, however, applied linguists have been developing their own views of language, which often focus on the language learner rather than the system itself: see for example Cook (2002) and the same author's website.
5. ↑ Pronounced 'ash'.
6. ↑ Symbols in square brackets represent speech sounds using the International Phonetic Alphabet; slanting brackets, as in /kæt/ 'cat', are used to represent phonemes - distinct, abstract units that may represent several sounds or written letters.
7. ↑ The term elsewhere has a rather wider application, referring to the study of meaning itself, in fields such as philosophy.
8. ↑ Chomsky, 1957: 15.
9. ↑ Aitchison (2003: 87-99).
10. ↑ 'Generative' linguistics' is most strongly associated with Chomsky (1957) and subsequent works.
11. ↑ 'Acquisition' is a highly diverse field; as well as theoretical linguists studying the linguistic system itself through first language development and second language acquisition (SLA), applied linguists may examine mainly classroom learning and learners' experiences. Also, language teaching practice is the concern of education specialists outside linguistics. In any one study linguists' backgrounds and research orientations may overlap considerably, and there is little consensus even on fundamentals, such as the extent to which explicit instruction in presumed 'rules' of grammar can truly promote learning.
12. ↑ e.g. Pinker, 1997; Scovel, 1997.
13. ↑ The applied linguist Vivian Cook has, for example, introduced the term L2 user as distinct from L2 learner (see Cook's page: Background to the L2 User Perspective). The former are active users of the language; the latter those who learn for later use. Cook's view also severs a link to SLA, in that a user's language ability is seen not as an approximation towards native speakers' competence, but as a system in its own right.
14. ↑ See also Wei (2007) for an appeal to focus on the learner rather than the system.
15. ↑ The most famous case is Genie, an individual who was deprived of language throughout much of her childhood.
16. ↑ Bishop (2006).
17. ↑ Castagnaro (2006), for review.
18. ↑ Grunwell (1997).
19. ↑ Linguists sometimes refer to this rule as preposition stranding, since in I met the professor I wrote to the preposition's object (the professor in I wrote to the professor) has been left behind once the object has been moved. When a preposition is also moved to a non-final position, as in I met the professor to whom I wrote, this is called pied-piping or wh-movement, since words that can move can typically be replaced by words beginning with wh- (who, what, etc.).
20. ↑ This rule is famously criticised in a quotation attributed to former British prime minister Winston Churchill: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put."
21. ↑ Furthermore, the anthropological linguist Charles Hockett advanced the theory that a collection of design features, such as 'creativity' (speakers can produce novel utterances) collectively made language unique to humans. Some other species may make use of one or two of these (such as 'use of sound signals'), but never enough to use language (Hockett (1960); Aitchison (2003: 13-20). See also the phonetician John Coleman's webpage comparing different species according to design features.
22. ↑ Chomsky (1957) strongly emphasised that this 'creative' aspect of language entailed that language could not simply be a product of a child's responses to their environment - a view usually associated with behaviourism and applied to language in Skinner (1957). Chomsky (1959) is a highly critical review of that work that was instrumental in moving linguistics away from such 'behaviourist' analyses of language use.
23. ↑ e.g. Pinker (1994) makes an analogy between language and spiders' webs: spiders spin webs because their genes compel them to, though without the right environment no webs will appear. To that can be added that each web would be different, though following the same basic, innately guided webspinning template.
24. ↑ The linguist Joseph H. Greenberg famously identified a series of universals of language (Greenberg, 1966); namely, 'laws' that seem to apply to all linguistic communication. One example is that all languages appear to have nouns and verbs, even though a language without verbs would be communicatively adequate (e.g. nominalized English).
25. ↑ Ironically, neither Greenberg nor Hockett, whose work provided such important evidence for the 'nativist' position, themselves supported such a view. Greenberg was a typologist and empirical linguist interested in historical linguistics and what the similarities between languages suggested about the nature of language itself; his work has been seen as functionalist in its principles. Hockett was firmly in the pre-Chomskyan structuralist camp, and vigourously attacked the emerging school of generativism throughout his career. See William Croft's obituary for Joseph H. Greenberg and a copy of the New York Times obituary for Charles F. Hockett at linguistlist.org.
26. ↑ For example, the early Indian grammarian Pāṇini's (ca 520–460 BCE) examined Sanskrit and produced several insights into the nature of grammar, such as the morpheme, which remain highly relevant in modern research and Plato in Cratyluswonders whether language has a natural or conventional origin.
27. ↑ Chomsky N (1957).
28. ↑ Chomsky N, Halle M (1968).
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