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English_214__RQ_Notes
Introduction to Human Language
Human languages are complex systems formed in the brain but are not directly observable.
Includes global language of native speakers, 2+ speakers, and situational speakers
Technologies like fMRI can only show electrochemical actions linked to language activities (speaking, reading, signing).
Non-verbal communication also exists (e.g., body language).
Differs from animal languages in that humans have infinite creativity and that humans can exhibit displacement or the ability to talk about the abstract
English as a Language System
Rule-governed: English operates on complex rules used unconsciously by speakers.
Communication: Language allows humans to express thoughts on a wide range of topics.
Example of Language Change: Aks vs. Ask:
"Aks" was used for "ask", illustrating sound change processes (e.g., metathesis: switching sounds).
Historical shift: /s/ moved before /k/ led to the modern form "ask".
Displays Metathesis which is switching places of two sounds
Social implications: "aks" became stigmatized as a Southernism.
Linguistic structures (ask/aks) are equal in communication, despite social perceptions.
Function of Language
Language serves various purposes:
Concrete Purpose: For explicit tasks and communication.
Sociability: Used to form and maintain social connections.
Playfulness: Involves creativity in novels, poetry, performances, and humor (e.g., puns).
Rosina Lippi-Green argues language can lead to discrimination, as assessments based on a person's speech can influence perceptions of character.
Natural (biological) and not natural (arbitrariness)
Power of Language
Reflects knowledge
Habit
Connects people
Tool
Participation
The System of Language
Arbitrariness: Decisions about language meaning depend on social conventions.
Gestures carry meaning through social convention
Human language depends on convention as a set of sounds carry a particular meaning between a community of speakers
Ferdinand de Saussure's Sign Theory:
Signifier: The form of a word (sounds).
Signified: The concept a signifier refers to.
Together they create meaning (linguistic sign).
Langue vs. Parole:
Langue: The abstract system of language.
Parole: The actual speech produced by speakers.
Competence and Performance in Linguistics
Noam Chomsky's Framework:
Competence: Knowledge of language rules.
Performance: How language rules are realized in speech.
Language is infinitely creative due to recursive grammar, a trait that distinguishes human language from animal communication.
Subdisciplines of Linguistics
Phonology: Study of sound systems.
Phonetics: Study of the production and perception of speech sounds.
Morphology: Study of word formation.
Syntax: Structure and rules governing sentence formation.
Semantics: Study of meaning in language.
Pragmatics: Exploration of how context influences language use and understanding.
Stylistics: Analyzes language in literary and written contexts.
Sociolinguistics: Studies language as it intersects with society and identity.
Applied Linguistics: Addresses practical issues using linguistic principles, e.g., language education.
Historical Linguistics: Investigates language change over time.
Language Change Mechanisms
William Labov's research describes:
Internal Factors: Changes from within the language structure.
Social Factors: Community behaviors affecting language.
Cognitive Factors: How language comprehension affects change.
Language and Authority
Language rules are set by academics and are often subjective, leading to perceptions of decay or progress in English.
There has been no successful academy at setting the rules of English in England or America
Standard English: Defined as the socially prestigious dialect which has elements of formalized speech and writing, but variation exists:
Examples of Variants: Standard American English, Received Pronunciation.
Language authorities include educators and editors, but there is no singular governing body for English.
The Nature of Standard English
Standard English encompasses variations in accent, grammar, and vocabulary.
Standard forms can carry positive or negative social connotations.
Geographically restricted (due to history); unrestricted (due to use)
Written rather than spoke
Used by a certain social class (the prestigue)
Reflects power and authority
Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Rules:
Prescriptive: Rules established by authorities on "correct" usage; focus on ideal language use.
Descriptive: Describe how language is used in real contexts.
Grammatical Constructions and Usage
Three examples of accepted grammatical variations in English:
Multiple Negatives: Use of two or more negatives simultaneously.
Ain't: A colloquial contraction often scrutinized in formal settings.
Who vs. Whom: Usage distinctions based on subject and object roles in sentences.
Speaker judgments on language reveal societal attitudes toward different forms of speech.
Spoken vs. Written Language
Written language is more standardized, while spoken language exhibits higher variability.
Spoken language allows real-time adjustments in communication, whereas written lacks immediate feedback opportunities, conveying context differently.
The Evolution of English Lexicography
John Kersey and Samuel Johnson contributed significantly to early English dictionaries, shaping standards of English usage.
Noah Webster promoted American English in his dictionary, reflecting national identity.
History of Standardization
Through Wars, the separation of America from Great Britain, as well as other historical events across the states, English has become more standardized and more universal for people to use
4 steps
Selection: of one dialect over the other
Codification: of that dialect (dictionaries)
Elaboration: in the functions and ranges of use of that dialect
Acceptance: by the community at large of that dialect as the “standard form”
Hypercorrection: an attempt to speak correctly that results in a supposed “error”
English Phonology
International Phonetic Alphabet: IPA’s solution to spelling problem
Choose an alphabet (writing system that is comprehensive enough to cope with wide variety of sounds found across all languages and is convenient to use
Major categories: vowels and consonants
Phonetics: the study of speech sounds more generally, how they are produced and how they are perceived
Phonemes: The sound units or segments our brains distinguish
Allophones: any variants of a phoneme that show up in different phonetic environments
A sound may be produced differently in different “environments,” that is, depending on the position of the sound in the word (e.g. initial or final) or the other sounds that appear next to the sound
Unaspirated: when a voiceless stop appears after /s/ or as the second element of any consonant cluster, it will be unaspirated
Aspirated: appear at the beginning of a word or at the beginning of a stressed syllable
Places and manners of articulations of English sounds
Articulatory Phonetics: focuses on how speech sounds are produced
Active articulators include: the lower lip, tongue tip, tongue root
Passive articulators include: soft palate, alveolar ridge, teeth, and upper lip
Acoustic Phonetics: how speech sounds are transmitted
Auditory Phonetics: how the ear translates sound waves into electrical impulses to the brain and how the brain perceives these speech sounds
Phonology is the study of the sound system of any five languages: the organization of a language’s sounds and their relationships.
Aperature & Oral Sounds of English
Stops: Completely closed
Fricatives: Very narrow
Approximants: Narrow
Glides and Liquids
Vowels: Open
English Consonants
Place of articulation
Bilabial
Labiodental
Interdental
Alveolar
(Alveo)-Palatal
Velar
Glottis
Manner of Articulation: describes how close the articulators get and how that affects
Voicing: indicates whether the vocal cords are pulled back or vibrate when a consonant sound is produced
Syllabic Consonants: often occur words in stressed syllables but they can also occur in stressed syllables
English Vowels
Height: indicates whether the tongue is high in the mouth, low, or in between, closer to its resting point (mid)
Frontness (or backness) indicates whether the front of the tongue is nearer the front of the mouth, toward the hard palate, or the back of the tongue is nearer back of the mouth
Front: Offglide, onglide
Back: From high to low
Diphthongs: begin at the point of articulation of one vowel and end at the point of articulation of another
Tenseness (or laxness) indicates whether the tongue muscle is tense (and nearer the periphery of the mouth) or lax (more centralized)
Natural Class: set of sounds that can be described by their shared features to include all those sounds and exclude all others.
Minimal pairs: a pair of words differentiated by one feature of sound, which proves that the features in question is phonemic in that language
top ~ chop
dunk ~ junk
show ~ so
Rule Types
Assimilation: the ways in which a sound becomes more similar to surrounding sounds
Vowels are nasalized (indicated by a [~] over the vowel) before a nasal consonant: camper [khæ̃m.per], rank [ræ̃ŋ] and onion [ˈʌ̃n.ɲə̃n].
Insertion: process in which sounds are added to words, most obviously when an affix is added
Words with a sequence of nasal plus fricative are sometimes pronounced with a stop between nasal and the fricative: tense [thents], something [sumpθing], sense [sents].
Deletion: the process through which sounds come to be omitted from words which means that stressed syllables tend to occur at fairly regular intervals in natural speech.
In many dialects of English, [r] is not pronounced when it follows a vowel in the same syllable: car [kha], park [phak], and sure [ʃuə].
Metathesis: the process of sounds reversing their order
aks → ask
Vowel raising, lowering, fronting, backing, reduction, nasalization
English Morphology
The study of word order
Morpheme: are the smallest meaningful units in language
Open: forms with variants, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs
Closed: appear in the same variant regardless of how they are used in a sentence
pronouns, auxiliary verbs, determiners, prepositions, inflectional suffixes
Free: the word from consists of exactly one morpheme and that morpheme functions independently as an English word
Bound: morphemes that cannot stand independent as words
Inflectional: bound morphemes that make a change in the form of a word such as tense, person, number, possessive, comparative, and progressive — always suffixes (e.g. plural -s, possessive -s, -ing, -ed, -er, est)
Derivational: change the lexical category or part of a word (can be suffixes or prefixes)
Affixes: an element of wording in some fashion to a base or root word
Prefix: precedes the root words
Suffix: follows the root word
Infix: placed, given certain phonological and morphological constraints within a root word
Ways of English formation:
compounding: word in which two or more free morphemes combine into a single lexical item
back-formation: word derived by loss of a supposed prefix or suffix from another word
combining-form: bound morpheme abstracted from a word or shifted from free morpheme to bound status
respelling:
affixation
borrowing: word adopted, adapted, or translated from another language
Zero Morpheme (change in part of speech): lead to stress shift
Record ~ Record
Epistemic: relating to knowledge or belief in a proposition
Deontic: a linguistic modality that indicates how the world should be according to certain norms, expectations, or desires
English Syntax
Syntax: (1) the systematic ways in which words are combined to create well-formed phrases, clauses, and sentences; and (2) the systematic ways in which clauses and sentences combine to create more complex sentences.
Parts of speech or lexical categories: classes of words that behave similarly in the grammar of a language.
Open-Class Lexical Categories
Nouns: refer to persons, places, and things, but also refer to ideas, concepts, states, activities, time, and more
countable: are quantifiable
uncountable: describe ideas or other referents that cannot be counted
Verb: all English verbs conjugate (or change form) to indicate six grammatical categories: person (first, second, third), number (singular or plural), tense, aspect, voice, and mood.
Present participle: formed through the addition of the inflectional ending -ing
Progressive aspect: describes a continuing action, whether in the past or present, and is formed with the appropriate form of be + present participle
Perfect aspect: formed by combining the appropriate form of have + past participle, indicating a completed action, either before the present moment or before a specific moment in the past participle.
Syntactic position of verbs: verbs appear in a few distinctive spots: (1) after auxiliary verbs (2) alone in an imperative constructions, (3) alone after a subject (4) between a subject and an object
Complement of a verb: the phrase or clause that follows the verb to complete the verb phrase
Intransitive verbs appearing with no object
Transitive verbs appearing with a direct object
Ditransitive verbs appearing with both a direct and indirect object
Linking verbs connecting a subject-predicative to a subject
Object-predicative verbs connecting an object-predicative to an object
Adjective: words that modify the meaning of nouns
Comparative adjectives: -er/-est
Superlative adjectives: more/most
1 syllable = inflectional endings
taller tallest
3 or more syllables = more/most
more beautiful most beautiful
2 syllables = either
gentler/more gentle gentlest/most gentle
Non Gradable adjectives
pregnant, alive, unique, asleep, etc.
Adverbs: modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs
Temporal adverbs: describe when an action or state occurs (e.g., yesterday, soon)
Manner adverbs: describe how an action or state occurs (e.g. quickly, safely)
Discourse adverbs (or sentence adverbs): describe the speaker’s or writer’s stance on the clause or sentence (e.g. frankly, bluntly)
Closed-Class Lexical Categories
Prepositions: a word or phrase placed typically before a substantive [noun] and indicating the relation of that substantive to a verb, an adjective, or another substantive, as English at, by, with, from, and in regard to.
In other words, prepositions assist in indicating location, direction, time, duration, manner, and other relationships.
Occur before nouns or noun phrases and create a modifying connection between the noun and a verb, an adjective, or another noun.
Conjunctions: connect things, be they words, phrases, or clauses.
Coordinating: for, and, nor, but, or, yet
Correlative: paired conjunctions such as either/or, neither/nor, not only/but also.
Subordinating: because, although, when, after, before, unless, if, while, in order that, as long as.
Complementizers: create subordinate clauses that function nominally. (that, what, whether, who/whom, where, why, how)
Pronouns: stand in for nouns or noun phrases
Personal pronouns: have three persons (first, second, third), two numbers (singular, plural), and three cases (subject, object, possessive), as well as reflexive forms
Indefinite pronouns: stand in for an unknown or unspecified element in a clause (one, anyone, someone, everyone, no one, something, neither, either, another, both, all, most, some, whoever/whomever, whatever)
Interrogative pronouns: stand in for an unknown element in a clause in order to create a question (who/whom/whose, what, which)
Demonstrative pronouns: point to things either previously mentioned in the text or in the physical environment (this, that, these, those)
Relative pronouns: act as the subject or object of a dependent/subordinate clause ot link the clause to a preceding noun phrase (who/whom/whose, that, which whoever/whomever, whichever)
Determiners: encompass the class of function words that introduce noun phrases, often indicating (precede the adjectives that modify nouns: __ (ADJ)N
Determinacy
Quantity
Number
Pragmatic
Auxiliary verbs: occur before main or “lexical” verbs in order to indicate time (will give), aspect (have given), modality (might give), or emphasis (do you give?), and passive constructions (was given).
Modal auxiliary verbs
Epistemic: what is necessary/possible given known facts or conditions
Deontic: expressing obligation, permission
Complementizers: often produced by that or a set of wh— words, which fill the slot of an NP to fulfill a VP
English Syntax (II)
Syntax, according to Noam Chomsky, also governs the grammatical structures possible in language.
Universal Grammar: “The system of principals, conditions, and rules that are elements orproperties of all human languages”
Constituents and Hierarchies
Constituents: syntactic units (words that work together) that fit into larger units that in turn fit into or constitute sentences.
Some constituents are embedded within other constituents, in a hierarchical structure.
Words are then combined into phrases, and phrases are combined to form clauses. A sentence can be one or more clauses.
sentences → clauses → phrases → words
There are five types of phrases in English: noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), adjective phrase (ADJP), adverb phrase (ADVP), and prepositional phrase (PP). Each full clause consists of an NP as the subject and a VP as the predicate.
Types of Clauses:
Independent Clause: Can stand alone as a sentence; multiple can form a compound sentence using conjunctions or punctuation.
Dependent/Subordinate Clause: Cannot stand alone and is embedded within an independent clause to modify it.
Subordinate Clause Types:
Adverbial Clauses: Modify the verb of the main clause (e.g., "After they reread the chapter, the students felt much less perplexed.").
Relative Clauses: Introduced by relative pronouns; modify nouns (e.g., "The instructor, who loved syntax, tried to make that love contagious.").
Complementizer Clauses: Complete a verb phrase using words like "that" or "wh-" (e.g., "The students thought that the instructor was a little off her rocker.").
Phrase Structure Rules outline allowable constituents and their order within sentences, allowing for embedding phrases to create complex structures. Examples include the formation of noun phrases with determiners and adjectives, such as "the thick, smelly smoke in the kitchen."
Phrase Structure Rules: Govern allowable constituents within syntax, determining the composition and order of phrases, which can be combined to create clauses and sentences.
Examples include phrases such as ‘
NP → N
NP → DET N
NP → DET ADJ N
NP → DET ADJ ADJ N PP
Types of Constituents:
Adjectivals: Modify nouns.
ADJP, NP, PP, relative clause, infinitive clause, participate phrase
Nominals: Function like nouns.
NP, PP, complementizer clause, infinitive phrase, gerund phrase
Adverbials: Function like adverbs, modifying verbs and full clauses.
ADVP, PP, NP, adverbial clause, infinitive clause, participle clause
Relative Clauses:
Restrictive Relative Clauses: Specify the referent of the modified noun/noun phrase (e.g., "Hannah needs to buy the grammar book that she saw at the university bookstore").
Nonrestrictive Relative Clauses: Provide additional information without restricting the referent (e.g., "Hannah needs to buy that required grammar book, which she saw at the university bookstore").
Complementizer clauses are dependent clauses that serve as nominal clauses within a noun phrase (NP). Gerund phrases can act as NPs, while participle phrases function as adjectivals when reduced from full clauses.
Constituency Tests
include substitution, movement, and coordination, which help determine the structure and function of phrases within sentences.
Substitution: This involves replacing one element of a sentence with another to avoid repetition and enhance clarity.
Movement: This refers to the rearrangement of elements within a sentence to emphasize certain information or to conform to syntactic rules.
Coordination: This entails linking two or more elements of equal grammatical status, often using conjunctions like 'and' or 'but' to create compound structures.
Question/Answer: This technique is used to engage the reader and clarify the author's intent, allowing for a more dynamic interaction with the text.
English Semantics
The study of meaning in language
Lexical semantics: the study of how words mean
Compositional semantics: the study of how words and syntax work together to make sentences mean.
Sometimes words refer to things in the world, and sometimes they refer to “concepts” or “categories in the mind.
The limits of reference
The meaning of words has a complex relationship with each of our experiences in the world and how we categorize the world cognitively.
Lexical meaning is embedded in human thought and understanding
Words don’t mean in isolation from sentences and discourse
Lexical meaning is somehow related to syntax and discourse, and any adequate theory of lexical meaning must account for those relationships
Words mean in physical and cultural context
When we isolate words from the contexts in which they occur, we lose part of their meaning.
Cognition
Understanding what a word means, depends on cognitively sorting through alternative meanings and selecting the most appropriate meaning for the context in which the world is used or understood
Meaning may well depend at least as much on the way our minds understand and categorize the world around us as on the relations between objects/concepts and the symbols we assign to represent them.
We have cognitive skill with which we make sense of the world
Words develop in response to our experience of the world, but our experience is always subject to cognitive processes and mental content.
The Role of Linguistic Context
Semantics is a matter of knowing not only how words mean, but how sentences mean as well
Syntax matters in determining what sentences mean – the syntactic roles that a words can play and the syntactic structures that a word requires are part of the word’s meaning
→ The Role of Physical and Cultural Context
Polysemy: the linguistic term for one word carrying multiple historically related meanings
Successful users of language know how to assign various meanings to the same symbol or signifier depending on context. We observe physical context; we watch for discourse cues like tone and gesture; we guess a speakers’ intentions, and much more.
Sometimes understanding an utterance depends on a very complex system of shared cultural context.
→ A Brief History of Theories of Reference
Deixis
A clear reference within speech
personal deixis: all personal pronouns “point” to specific people a
spatial deixis: demonstrative pronouns
temporal deixis: certain adverbs of time
Is very limited in speech and isn’t the type of reference we assume endows most of our vocabulary with meaning. We can’t point to everything we mean
Lexical Fields
Hyponymy: a semantic relationship where one word (the hyponym) is a more specific term within a broader category (the hypernym), allowing for clearer communication and categorization of concepts.
Hypernyms: the broader category to which the hyponym belongs, providing a framework for understanding the hierarchical relationships between words.
Meronymy: a semantic relationship where a term (the meronym) refers to a part of a whole (the holonym), illustrating how components contribute to the identity of the larger entity.
Homonymy: a linguistic phenomenon where two or more words share the same spelling or pronunciation but have different meanings, highlighting the complexity and richness of language.
Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and often different spellings, such as "to," "two," and "too."
Homographs are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and may or may not be pronounced differently, further exemplifying the intricacies of English vocabulary.
Synonymy: a relationship where two or more words have the same or similar meanings, enhancing our understanding of language nuances.
Antonymy: a relationship between words that have opposite meanings, which helps in defining concepts through contrast.
Some are gradable: while conceptually opposites, they represent values of two ends of a spectrum, with many values in between them. (e.g. hot & cold)
nongradable (or complementary) antonyms: those that admit no more or less, just absolutes at opposite conceptual poles : single, married
converseness: semantic relations of opposites, a feature of some (but by no means all or even most) antonymy – semantically reciprocal. ( parent & child)
Processes of Semantic Change
→ Generalization & Specialization
Former; A words meaning becomes more general
Latter: meaning narrows or becomes more specialized.
→ Metaphorical Extension
When a word reached beyond its primary meaning and applies to something perceived imaginatively as similar to what the word usually represents
Many meanings that originated in metaphorical extension are now so entrenched that we forget they are even metaphors. (e.g. construction cranes)
Sometimes a metaphor is a euphemism (a word or phrase meant to sound better than the literal alternative)
e.g. people pass away (instead of die)
It is not always metaphorical – we buy life insurance when what we really is death insurance
We enlist an antonym as a euphemism
dysphemisms – words or phrases meant to sound worse in some context than when used literally. (e.g. politically inaccurate terms)
Some dysphemisms are offensive the first times they are used but some undergo a process called pejoration (they start as neutral terms and end up pejorative or dysphemistic)
Amelioration: the development of positive or socially accepted senses from negative or socially unacceptable senses or from simply neutral senses
The process of reclaiming a historically derogatory term by a community that has been oppressed or stigmatized by the term is usually called reappropriation.
Most theories of sentence meaning rely on compositionality (the idea that both the meaning of the parts and how they are put together determine the meaning of the sentence.
Compositional semantics and truth conditional semantics are often combined to provide a framework for understanding the meaning of a sentence.
Spoken Discourse
Defining Discourse Analysis
Discourse: connected text (spoken, written, or signed) above the level of a sentence.
The basic unit of discourse is the utterance: the realization of a unit of speech on a specific occasion in a specific context.
Discourse Analysis (DA) is the systematic study of connected text, or units of language above the level of the sentence, and the utterances of which they are composed.
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) connects systematic analysis of features within a discourse to the larger sociopolitical context in which the discourse occurs
Rests on the idea of that way of talking create, maintain, and reinforce ways of thinking.
CDA often focuses on “institutional discourse” – the media, the language of courtrooms, and political language for instance.
The analysis typically relates features of discourse to questions of power and ideology and examines show language is manipulated in order to produce, reproduce, maintain, and/or resist particular power structures and relationships.
Speech act theory: works from the premise that language performs actions: when we speak, we are “doing things,” not just talking about them.
In some cases, speaking actually changes the status of the world around us
Components of Speech Acts
J.L Austin distinguished three different acts involved in any given speech act; these three differentiate referential meaning, intended meaning, and understood meaning:
Locutionary act: the production of the sound sand words that make up an utterance and its referential meaning
Illocutionary act: the intended meaning of the utterance or the conventional force that an utterance is understood to have
Perlocutionary act: the effect achieved by an utterance on the hearer.
Direct & Indirect Speech Acts
When the form of the locutionary act corresponds directly with the illocutionary act, the utterance is called a direct speech act.
The intended meaning of the utterance corresponds directly to the propositional meaning
e.g. you are not asking your roommate to do anything (money for movie ticket) but rather simply remember what you have forgotten to do and announce the fact
Indirect speech acts involve intended meanings different from the locutionary act or the literal meaning of the words.
We use indirect speech acts all the time – they are especially useful when we try to be polite – when we make requests.
Or when we are impolite – when we are sarcastic
Performative Speech Acts
Utterances that accomplish the acts they describe just by being uttered.
Some acts directly change the status of the world surrounding the discourse, either by judging something to be the case or making something the case.
The most obvious performative speech acts:
employ first-person subject (I, we)
employ present-tense verbs that describe the speech act.
Generally speakers use the first person in order to perform the act themselves (or to act as the representative of a group).
Performative verbs are often in the present tense because otherwise the speech act describes a past or future action rather than constituting the action in the moment of utterance.
Performative speech acts are unlike other utterances: they are not referential.
Instead, they accomplish what they say they are accomplishing, just because they are uttered.
Utterances that can be evaluated as true or false are called constative speech acts.
Performative speech acts can't be asked if they are true but rather if they are accomplishing.
felicity conditions: determine whether or not a performative speech act, or any illocutionary act is successful.
What conditions are required for an utterance to achieve its intended illocutionary force?
They are fundamentally about authority (does the speaker have the authority to perform this speech act?), context (is this an appropriate context for the speech act?), and recognizability.
The Cooperative Principle: Successfully Exchanging Information
In order to exchange information successfully, speakers must cooperate both in creating meaningful utterances in specific contexts and in working to interpret other speakers’ utterances as meaningful.
All participants or interlocutors must cooperate. Hearers must assume that speakers are making contributions that serve a purpose within the context of the discourse, and hearers must seek out that purpose.
Conversational Maxims
Maxims of Quantity
Make your contribution as informative as required
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required
Maxims of Quality
Do not say what you believe to be false.
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Maxim of Relation
Be relevant
Maxims of Manner
Avoid obscurity of expression
Avoid ambiguity
Be brief
Be orderly
Conversational Implicature
The cooperative principle extends to all participants in a conversation – speakers and hearers. Such reciprocal cooperation helps explain how many utterances in conversation are connected and how indirect speech acts work.
The term is used to describe the way an utterance can carry implied meaning in a particular conversation, which may be very different from its propositional content
Works if the implied meanings somehow belong in the conversation that is, if:
A speaker, knowing that his or her utterance implies X, makes the utterance with the assumption that given it’s implicatures it conforms with the cooperative principle and with the belief that the hearer will interpret the utterance and implicature in such a way that is confirmed with the cooperative principle; and
The hearer interprets the utterance’s implicatures in such a way that it conforms with the cooperative principle.
Being a cooperative participant in conversation also means responding to the culturally understood illocutionary force of utterances rather than only the locutionary force.
Positive and Negative Politeness and Face
In discourse studies, politeness encompasses all the way in which speakers adapt to the needs and wants of the other speakers involved in a conversational exchange (often referred to as interlocutors) Penelope Brown (1980) describes politeness as a special way of treating people, saying and doing things in such a way as to take into account the other person’s feelings
Formality/distance: don’t impose; be sufficiently aloof
Hesitance/derence: give addresses options about how to respond
Equality/camaraderie: act like equals; make others feel good
Face
Positive face, or the desire to be approved of and/or liked.
Positive politeness is enhancing the positive face of others: giving them a compliment; using terms of address or other markers that indicate friendliness, equality or camaraderie; thanking them and offering reciprocal kindness
Negative face, or the desire to be unimpeded in one’s actions
Negative politeness is respecting the negative face of others: using markers of deference; apologizing, using indirect speech acts to make requests or orders
→ Discourse Markers
Typically defined as the seemingly meaningless elements that tend to occur in spoken language, that are non obligatory, and that carry out pragmatic functions rather than convey semantic or truth-conditioning meaning.
They signal to a listener how to understand an utterance in relation to the utterances that precede and follow it, as well as how to understand the utterance in the context of the relationship being negotiated between the speaker and the listener. (now, so, and, well, I mean, however, then, you know)
Types
Adverbs (so, however, then)
Interjections (oh, geez)
Verbs (say, look)
Conjunctions (and, but)
Lexicalized clauses (you know, I mean)
→ Conversation Analysis: Taking Turns and the Conversational Floor
The basic unit of conversation, given that there is typically more than one speaker, is the turn.
Conversations involved the negotiation of turns as speakers take and give up the conversational floor
Turn-taking
Silence
Questions
Gestures
Eye contact
Intonation
Turn-taking violations:
Overlap
Interruption
Stylistics
Study of language and craft in literature, but it now includes other written texts such as advertisements, letters, song lyrics, and the like
Stylistics is systematic application of linguistics knowledge, both the formal and the social aspects of language, to the analysis of texts – thus we can examine the choices that any writer has made: why the text is written the way that it is and not in some other way, and what the effects of an author’s stylistic choices are.
Stylistic analysis involves two steps:
A systematic description of linguistic features of a specific text (creates the shared, verifiable results about how language works in a text)
A critical analysis of the effects of these features, working together, in this specific text (examines the implications of the empirical results from a reader’s perspective.
Both steps are essential
Genres:
orients a writer to the purpose of communication and its conventional form
is a constellation of systemically related, concurrent formal features and structures that serve as conventionalized orienting framework for the production and reception of discourse
gives rise to expectations about format and content of communication for the recipient
Registers are varieties of a language defined by use, as opposed to dialects, which are varieties defined by user.
Identified not only by genre but also by social level or mode as well: most of us speak in an informal register among family and friends but in a formal register at school or work.
Often move from the text to its specific components, examining what features characterize a given text.
Which comes first? The context in which the language is used typically dictates the register, making it essential to analyze the setting before delving into the text's components.
Cohesion: the way in which different parts of a text connect and flow together, enhancing the overall coherence and clarity of the message.
Reference
Reference items are those that depend on antecedents for their interpretation.
When the referring form (e.g. a pronoun) and the antecedent to which it refers (e.g. the name of a specific person) occur in different sentences, the relationship creates a cohesive tie between the two sentences.
Two general forms:
Exophoric (exo- ‘outside’)
Endophoric (endo- ‘inside’)
Ellipsis and Substitution
Ellipsis involved leaving out something mentioned earlier. Ellipsis creates cohesion because it is clearly dependent on the earlier utterance to fill in this missing information
Substitution is a variation of ellipsis. Rather than completely leaving out the information, a “holding item” like so or one or do is inserted in its place.
Conjunction - across sentences is very similar to conjunction within sentences: through the use of a conjunctive adverbial, a prepositional phrase, or a conjunction, a logical-semantic relationship is expressed between the two sentences.
In other words, the conjunctive expression shows the way in which the second sentence you just read, the phrase in other words functions as a conjunction – it says this sentence will help explain the sentence that came before.
There are three main categories:
Elaboration: material is either re-presented or clarified (e.g. in other words, that is, for example, to be more precise, by the way, or rather, in short, in fact).
Extension: material is added or qualified (and, also, but, yet, on the other hand, alternatively, instead).
Enhancement: material is related in terms of time, space, manner, or cause (then, next, finally, soon, meanwhile, likewise, so, as a result, because, in this way).
Lexical cohesion
Ties parts of a text to one another principally through the following means
Repetition of words across sentences.
Use of synonyms to create semantic connections
Use of collocations
Meter, Rhythm, and Scansion
Meter is an ideal, invariant rhythmic pattern that actual poetic rhythms approximate.
It is roughly analogous to phonemic or morphemic representation: the rules can be understood in the abstract, but just as every phoneme or morpheme must be realized in speech, meter must be realized in rhythm
Rhythm is the arrangement of stress in speech
Prosody is the structure of sound in speech, but in poetics it is the systematic arrangement of intonation and stress.
Rhyme
Eye rhymes - thos where words look as though they world rhyme exactly, but actually don’t – move and glove
Alliteration - draws words into semantic relationships
Consonance - alliteration based on consonant sounds
Assonance - alliteration of vowel sounds
Onomatopoeia - in which a words sounds like what it means - slurp
Mimetic
Anaphora - repetition of an initial words or phrase in a poetic line
Language Acquisition
Children acquire language stages:
Babbling Stage: Vocal experimentation.
One-Word Stage: First words around 12 months, often nouns.
Two-Word Stage: Basic combinations (subject-verb, verb-object).
Telegraphic Speech: speech, characterized by the omission of less critical words while retaining the essential meaning, typically emerges around 2 to 3 years of age.
Near adult:
Children demonstrate innate grammar understanding, allowing for creative language use.
Imitation vs Instinct
Imitation cannot account or many of the facts of children’s language acquisition
Children get imperfect input from adults but do not necessarily repeat these errors
Children make mistakes they have not heard from adults
Children around the world follow similar stages in the acquisition of language
Children learn to produce an infinite number of creative utternaces
There must be something innate in the human brain that allows children to take the language input they receive and construct grammar.
John Locke’s idea of children as “blank tablets,” suggests that ideas and words are copies of sensory impressions.
We learn words by associating sounds with visual stimuli
However blind children learn language without visual stimuli, and all children learn words for things for which there is no visual stimuli (themes, elements).
Linguists must rely on introspection – looking into their own minds and examining their own intuitions about grammaticality – rather than simply observing language behavior = learning language as an active process (current)
Reinvention of language - every minute of every day, children around the world reinvent language as they acquire it.
Language change often looks dramatic in retrospect but typically happens gradually over several generations of speakers.
Universal Grammar refers to the inherent set of principles and structures that all humans are born with, which allows for the acquisition of any language.
Brain
The brain is divided into two halves:
right hemisphere
Music & human faces are interpreted primarily in parts of the right hemisphere
Spatial relationships and the understanding of jokes and irony
left hemisphere
Language processing, mathematical calculation
Frontal lobe - responsible for, among other things, some language and some motor functions
Sylvian fissure - separates the frontal lobe from the ret of each hemisphere
Parietal lobe - responsible for, among other things, bodily sensations such as touch, pain, and temperature
Occipital lobe - responsible for, among other things, vision.
Temporal lobe - responsible for, among other things, hearing and aspects of memory storage.
Patterns of Children’s Errors
Some sentences are ungrammatical because children seem to follow their own timeline, with predictable patterns, in terms of acquiring more complex constructions.
The negative element occurs outside the main part of the utterance: “No you go”
The negative element becomes internal to the clause but typically without do support : “Car no go”
All the relevant auxiliaries ar acquired and the negative element is consistently put after the auxiliary, as is done by adult speakers: “The car doesn’t go”
Role of Parents in Language Acquisition
Features of Parentese
Refers to the special version of a language that adults (parents and nonparents alike), and even older siblings (sometimes as young as four), use when talking to small children. (motherese/child-directed speech)
More limited vocabulary.
Repetition.
Slower rate of speech.
Exaggerated intonation.
Lengthened vowels.
Higher pitch.
Fewer verbs.
Focus on the “here and now.”
Names rather than pronouns.
Phonetic simplification of some words.
Parents provide simplified structures from which children can learn (e.g. shorter sentences, fewer verbs, few pronouns).
Language Acquisition in Special Circumstances
Pidgins & Creoles
Pidgins - highly simplified communicative systems that arise when adult speakers who share no common language need to communicate with each other.
Been created historically in trading communities and on plantations when workers were brought from a range of language communities.
Employ many nouns, and their content tends to be highly functional in terms of ways to refer to place, time, direction, or relevant actions.
Typically employ few if any grammatical forms such as tense markers or pronouns.
If speakers in a stable pidgin-speaking community have children and the children are exposed to the pidgin as their home language, the language that the children create as their native language is called creole.
As the outcome of contact between two or more languages, the lexicon of creoles will typically be based on one language—usually called the “lexifier language” because that is where much of the vocabulary originates.
→ Critical Age Hypothesis
Critical periods for learning are attested in other species – white-crowned male sparrow
The critical age for learning languages with fluency, many linguists argue, seems to be before puberty.
From ages three to seven, children learning a second language perform on tests like native speakers.
From age eight to puberty, children’s performance on these kinds of second-language tests gradually decline.
After puberty, there is no correlation between age and linguistic skill; overall, older speakers’ performance with a second (or third, etc) language is worse than children’s performance.
→ When Things Go Wrong
Broca’s aphasia - affects language production more than language comprehension.
If someone sustains damage to this in the frontal lobe, they lose some degree of syntactic ability.
People typically understand and use open-class words, but they find it difficult, sometimes impossible to construct comprehensible sentences.
Maintains a reasonable level of language comprehension , particularly with sentences with subject-verb-object order.
Exhibit the same difficulties with written language and with sighing as they do with speech.
Wernicke’s aphasia - speakers usually speak fluidly, but their sentences contain misapplied words or nonsense words that substitute for the intended ones.
The fluency of their speech production is not impaired, but their ability to create substantively meaningful utterances is.
Loss of comprehension of the language of others.
Dyslexia - deficits that impair a person’s ability to understand written language, o it can be defined more broadly.
Acquired dyslexia can take at least three forms:
Deep dyslexia: when reading aloud, speakers substituted either a synonym or a phonologically similar word (e.g. sympathy for symphony) for the word on the page.
Phonological dyslexia: speakers struggle when reading aloud unfamiliar and nonsense words, as they seem to have impaired access to the letter-to-sound correspondences.
Surface dyslexia: speakers have significant trouble reading aloud words with irregular spellings, as they rely heavily on the letter-to-sound correspondence and seem to have impaired access to a sight vocabulary (the direct association between the shape of a word and its meaning and sound)
Language Variation
Dialect
A variety of language spoken by a group of people that is systematically different from other varieties of the language in terms of structural or lexical features.
American North and South.
Accent - differences in pronunciation, or, to put it more technically, to systematic phonological variation.
Many dialects involve accent differences, but they also involved differences at the levels of morphology, syntax, and lexicon
A(n) dialect is a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of a language’s speakers.
A(n) sociolect is a dialect that is associated with a particular social class.
A(n) ethnolect is a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group.
A(n) regional dialect is a dialect that is associated with a particular geographic region.
A(n) idiolect is the unique form of speech used by an individual, reflecting their personal language choices and experiences.
Differences among dialects reflect geographical, social, and historical influences.
Differences also arise at the levels of morphology, syntax and lexicon
Vernacular English: is based on spoken language. However, it is often defined in a negative way as having particular unwanted features: double negatives like don't have none, saying axe for ask or warsh for wash, are some of the widespread common features.
Formal: is characterized by adherence to standardized grammar and vocabulary, often used in writing and official communications, and is typically viewed as more prestigious in academic and professional contexts.
Informal: is a more relaxed and spontaneous way of communicating, often incorporating slang and colloquial expressions, making it suitable for casual conversations among friends and family.
Prestige
Overt: refers to the more widely recognized value given to standard that supposedly transcends conditions like place or social status.
Covert: refers to the value that nonstandard varieties carry within specific communities. The covert prestige of nonstandard varieties have the power to define membership within communities and mark group identification, as do standard varieties in some contexts.
Factors in Variation:
Age, gender, socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity all affect language use and perceptions.
Slang: Typically used within specific groups and contexts but can evolve and become widely accepted over time.
Jargon: Specialized terminology used by a particular profession or group, often making communication more efficient among members but potentially alienating those outside the group.
Pidgins and Creoles: Linguistic forms arising from language contact, often simplified and evolving into stable languages over generations.
Basilect - the variety from which the bulk of the vocabulary comes
Arolect: the variety closest to the lexifier language
Mesolects - are between
Dialectology is the study of regional dialects and their variations, focusing on how social and geographical factors influence language use.
Perceptual Dialectology: examines where speakers perceive dialects to be, as well as their attitude towards these dialects
Regional variation (isoglosses): are geographical boundaries that separate different linguistic features, helping to map the distribution of dialects across a region.
Variationist sociolinguistics: study of distributional patterns of linguistic variables within speech communities.
Speech community: group of speakers who share linguistic norms and ideologies
low back merger (vowels): a phonological phenomenon where the vowels in words like "caught" and "cot" are pronounced the same, often resulting in a lack of distinction between these sounds in certain dialects.
Northern Cities Vowel Shift (aka Northern Cities Chain Shift): a series of vowel changes affecting the pronunciation of short vowels in the Northern United States, characterized by a systematic reordering of vowel sounds that alters their typical pronunciation, particularly impacting words like "cat," "cot," and "cut."
Language Contact
occurs when speakers of different languages or dialects interact, leading to borrowing of words, phrases, and even phonetic features, which can significantly influence the linguistic landscape of a region.
American Dialects
Everyone speaks a dialect and many speakers of American English control more than one dialect.
Code-switching: a linguistic phenomenon where speakers alternate between different languages or dialects within a conversation, often reflecting their social identity and the context of the interaction.
Regional Variation
Isoglosses on a map — today, travel, media, and education allow dialect features to migrate more easily from community to community and can blur sharp boundaries.
The emergence: Given that “to speak a language is to speak some dialect of that language,” all change within a language is fundamentally at the level of the dialect —- each group’s language keeps changing over time, as language always does
given enough time and isolation, dialects can become distinct languages
Dialect Change processes:
Retention: Speakers bring features of their original dialects/languages with them at emigration/migration.
Naturally occurring internal language change—Some regional features result from the ongoing variation and change that occur within any speech community, at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic level. A form first occurs in a locality or region and is maintained there; it may then spread to other regions or remain a more localized form.
Language contact—Speakers of a variety encounter speakers of another language (or another dialect of their language), and contact with this other lange affects the dialect
Borrowing—Speakers become lexical items wholesale from contact languages or adapt borrowed words phonologically and morphologically to fit their language. Speakers may borrow terms for things previously unknown to them or borrow terms that are synonymous with words they already have in their language.
Structural influence—The phonology, morphology, or syntax of a variety is affected by the phonology, morphology, or syntax of a contact language.
Coining—Speakers create new words or phrases, sometimes as a way to name something previously unknown to them and often as part of the creativity that is human language.
Social factors—Language marks identity and community, and communities may adopt or retain (usually below the level of consciousness) specific features in relation to their social significance.
Variations emerges because:
Group 1: settlement, migration, geography, contact, economic ecology
Group 2: retention, naturally occurring internal language change, contact, coining, social factors
History of Dialects
Appalachian English has historically been more isolated than many other regional dialects.
Historically there was a tendency to replace the inflectional plural /s/ or /z/ of most dialects with an additional syllable /IZ/ with words ending in /st/ (ghosts becomes ghostes)
→ a-prefixing (strictly rule-governed) a- only attaches to participles (They are a-fishin’)Exhibits deletion of several sounds, like voiced /Ŏ/ in they and them, producing ‘ey and ‘em instead, was can become ‘uz through deleted /w/, deletion occurs with unstressed initial syllables (‘member)
→ use [n] rather than [Ƞ], yielding commin’, runnin’
Chicano English:
Spanish as no /ƒ/ phoneme. Many Chicano English speakers sometimes replace /ƒ/ with [tƒ], so that shop sounds like “chop”
→ the invoicing of /z/ into [s] so that raise can sound like “race”
→ the affricate /dろ/ can unvoice to [tƒ] so that language becomes langwhich
African American English:
The verb system of AAe has received a lot of scholarly attention, as it makes distinctions of tense and aspect that Standard English does not.
“habitual be”
→ also characterized by the absence of third-person singular -s in the present tense, and the possible deletion of forms of to be in the third person, as well as in the second person.
→ employs multiple negation, combining negative markers on the auxiliary verb and other forms : so not, can’t, don’t, won’t, ain’t with no, nothing, nobody, never, neither
AAE shares some phonological features with Southern dialects but exhibits other things as well
→ The voiceless /Ө/ is often realized as [t] or [f] as in wit ‘with’, baf ‘bath’
→ voiced /➰/ can be realized as [d] or [v] as in dem ‘them’ or bav ‘bathe
→ final consonant clusters are sometimes reduce to one consonant (the first consonant in the cluster) when the two consonants share the same voicing value—that is they are either both voiced or unvoiced
Attitudes towards dialectsAttitudes towards dialects can vary significantly, influencing social perceptions and interactions, often reflecting underlying biases or stereotypes.
Ebonics Controversy: The debate surrounding Ebonics, also known as African American Vernacular English (AAVE), centers on its legitimacy as a distinct dialect and its implications for education, cultural identity, and social equity.
History of English: Old to Early Modern English
The evolution of the English language from Old English, characterized by its Germanic roots, to Early Modern English, which incorporated elements from Latin and French due to historical events such as the Norman Conquest, showcases the dynamic nature of language and the impact of social and cultural changes over time.
~25% of English vocabulary derives from Latin and a significant portion of that borrowing dates from the Old English period.
First Stage: “Zero period”
Second Stage: Latin influence is minimal — very few words came to English
Third Stage: occurred when the Roman Catholic Church exercised direct influence
on EnglishFourth Stage: Benedictine Reform
Major Linguistic Changes
Due to Old English and Old Norse contact: word order to SVO [Subject-Verb-Object]
Borrowing; loss of grammatical gender and case
Due to Norman: loss of inflectional endings; synthetic to analytic language (from a case system to grammar that relied on word order) -→ shift of Old English to Middle English
Due to the rise of English and printing press: ‘do,’ great vowel shift, standardization, regularization of -s for plural and possessive
Influence of Latin and French: increased vocabulary, especially in law, government, and literature; formation of new words and phrases.
Strong verbs in Old English conjugated for tense by a phonomorphological process (changing the internal vowel to express tense). This process is called ablaut, which involves the systematic alteration of vowels within a word to convey grammatical distinctions.
Printing Press
Impact on literacy rates: The printing press facilitated the spread of literature and education, leading to increased literacy among the populace.
This democratization of knowledge contributed to the rise of a more informed society, allowing for greater public engagement in political and social issues.
Orthography
The standardization of spelling and grammar became more prevalent as printed materials became widely available, allowing for a more uniform understanding of the language.
Because English spelling had little to do with English phonology, the reformation of English orthography was firstly attempted during the Early Modern English period.
The Great Vowel Shift
marked a significant change in pronunciation that further complicated the relationship between spelling and sound, as many vowels transformed in ways that were not reflected in their written forms.
‘do',’ great vowel shift which occurred from the late 15th century to the early 18th century, resulted in the alteration of long vowel sounds, making them pronounced differently than they were spelled. This shift created inconsistencies in English spelling that persist to this day.
History of English: Modern and Future English
Precriptivism: the belief that there are correct forms of language that should be adhered to, often advocating for traditional rules of grammar and usage, which can be seen as a response to the changes brought about by the Great Vowel Shift and other linguistic evolutions.
Role of media, imperialism, war, and globalization
Media: The influence of media on the evolution of English has been profound, as it shapes language use and introduces new vocabulary, idioms, and styles, reflecting the cultural shifts and technological advancements of society.
Imperialism and war: these forces have historically played a critical role in the spread of the English language, as conquests and colonization led to the imposition of English on diverse cultures and the adoption of English vocabulary into local languages.
globalization: Globalization has further accelerated the dissemination of English, as it fosters international communication and commerce, resulting in a hybridization of languages and the emergence of English as a lingua franca in various domains such as business, technology, and education.
Changes in Modern English
Lexical changes (word formation): The evolution of Modern English has seen significant lexical changes, including the creation of new words through processes such as compounding, blending, and borrowing from other languages, which reflect contemporary cultural and technological advancements.
(-iz-, -age, e-)
Grammatical Changes
Grammaticalization: the process through which an open-class word becomes a grammatical form as the Old English noun lic ('body') became the suffix -ly.
Loss of plural, possessive
Loss of grammatical gender in pronouns (they)
New Modals - the emergence of new modal verbs such as 'will' and 'shall' reflects a shift in expressing future actions and obligations.
Global English Circles
expanding circle (borrowing, trade) - countries where English takes on a central role as a foreign language taught in foreign schools
inner circle (settlement, colonization) - countries where the dominant language is English
outer circle (exploitation) - countries where English is an official language or an important second language
Lingua Franca: a bridge language that facilitates communication between speakers of different native languages, often used in trade and diplomacy.
Retronymy: is a creation of a new term from an existing word because the original word requires modification to be distinguished from a new development.
Examples:
Regular mail or snail mail to distinguish from e-mail.
Landline or home phone to distinguish from cell phones.
Tap water to distinguish from bottled water /sparkling water.
Factors of Global English:
Colonialism: The historical spread of English as a global language was significantly influenced by colonialism, which established English-speaking governance and education in various regions around the world.
Trade: The expansion of trade networks facilitated the exchange of goods and ideas, leading to the increased use of English as a lingua franca among diverse cultures and communities.
Education; the establishment of English-medium schools and universities in former colonies has played a crucial role in promoting the language, creating a generation of speakers who are proficient in English and can participate in the global economy.
English as the official language in the US: English only, English plus no official language de jure/de facto
de jure/de facto: the distinction between formal legal recognition of English as the official language (de jure) versus its practical use and acceptance in society (de facto) highlights ongoing debates about language policy and identity in the United States.
Computer-Meditated Communication: texting isn’t ruining English; works like a style change
that reflects the evolving nature of language in response to technological advancements and social interactions.
Conclusion
Language is a dynamic, socially constructed system embodying complex rules and adaptations across communities and contexts.
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