Chapter 1: Human Language and Language Science – Study Notes

Chapter 1 Notes: Human Language and Language Science

  • Overall aim of the chapter
    • Introduce what language is and how language scientists (linguists) study it
    • Move away from simple right/wrong rule-based thinking to empirical, descriptive observation of language use
    • Acknowledge how language studies have intersected with colonial power and harm, and consider ethical implications
    • Learning goals:
    • Differentiate prescriptive vs descriptive approaches
    • Identify components of mental grammar
    • Explain properties common to all human languages
    • Describe techniques for doing language science
    • Discuss ethics of doing language science

1.1 What Even Is Language?

  • Language is used by all of us; linguistics is the scientific study of human language
  • Language has multiple meanings and uses beyond linguistics (e.g., computer languages, body language, love languages)
  • For study, focus on a language in use (here, a variety of English)
  • Modality of language
    • Vocal languages: speech sounds produced by larynx, tongue, teeth, lips; heard by ears
    • Signed languages: manual signs, visual/touch reception
    • In this book: reserve terms speaking/speech for vocal languages; refer to language users for all modalities; occasionally use "languaging" as a verb
  • The shared mental system: the mental grammar
    • Goal of linguistics: figure out what this shared system is like
    • The mind has a grammar that enables understanding and being understood
  • How do we understand language scientifically?
    • Consider what counts as talking (modality) and how to segment continuous streams of sound/gesture into meaningful units
  • Example of segmentation and form-meaning connections
    • Mental lexicon: links sound/gesture forms to meanings; like a dictionary in the mind
    • For most words, form-meaning pairings are arbitrary (e.g., English ‘pumpkin’ vs Nishnaabemwin ‘kosmaan’)
    • Some words exhibit iconic relationships between form and meaning (discussed later)
  • Expressing/demanding language:
    • To say “cookie,” you must know how to articulate the word or sign it; this involves articulatory phonetics
  • Implicit vs explicit knowledge in language
    • When you know a language well, much of grammar is implicit (unconscious)
    • Lexicon and morphology (word structure) are often more conscious
    • Articulatory phonetics and other phonology knowledge are typically implicit
  • Parts of the grammar (conceptual overview)
    • Phonology: how physical units of language combine and change in context
    • Morphology: the internal structure of words (e.g., plural formation)
    • Syntax: how words combine to form phrases and sentences; supports semantic interpretation
    • Semantics: meaning of words and sentences
    • Pragmatics: meaning in context
  • Reading/writing as part of grammar
    • Literacy is not required for grammatical competence; literacy is a skill that can be woven into mental grammar when learned
    • Writing systems are not universal across languages (e.g., Mongolian Cyrillic vs traditional Mongolian script; some languages (e.g., ASL, LSQ) do not have a standard written form)
    • Some languages have no written forms; sign languages can be fully competent without a writing system
  • Literacy’s integration with grammar when present; literacy is secondary to core grammar

1.2 What Grammars Are and Aren’t

  • Distinction between grammar in everyday use vs the mental grammar studied in linguistics
    • Mental grammar: the system in the mind that allows understanding/production of language
    • No grammar is better or worse than another; all languages/dialects are equally valid from a scientific perspective
  • Descriptive vs prescriptive approaches
    • Descriptive: describe how language is actually used
    • Prescriptive: prescribe how people should use language
    • Linguistics aims to describe, not judge or rank languages
  • Creativity/productivity of grammar
    • All languages can generate an infinite number of sentences from a finite vocabulary and finite set of rules
    • Language change is constant over time (lexicon, phonetics/phonology, syntax, morphology, semantics)
    • This productivity explains why languages evolve and why older generations often feel language is changing
  • Language standards and power dynamics
    • Standard languages are often associated with prestige and power due to colonial histories and social hierarchies
    • There is no objective standard; standards reflect social/political power more than linguistic superiority
    • Examples and implications discussed: French Académie Française; Queen’s English; Canadian/UK/American varieties; Black English (AAL/AAVE) as markers of identity and social positioning
  • Consequences of standardization
    • Education and policy can privilege certain varieties, disadvantaging speakers of other dialects or minority languages
    • Examples include Haiti’s public education in French despite wide use of Haitian Creole; Nigerian English accents; judgements about ASL varieties in legal contexts
  • Standard vs dialect vs variety terminology (to be elaborated in Chapter 2)
  • Whole-language creativity and change (reiterated)
    • Grammar is productive; all languages change with time; lexical growth (e.g., “googling”) and broader changes in phonology, syntax, etc.

1.3 Studying Language Scientifically

  • What it means that linguistics is a science
    • Not about lab coats; about systematic, empirical observations to describe phenomena
    • Aim: objective, descriptive observations, avoiding value judgments
  • Viewing language scientifically requires descriptive descriptions of actual language use
  • Accessing the mind and metalinguistic awareness
    • Much linguistic knowledge is unconscious; metalinguistic awareness is conscious knowledge about grammar
    • School-taught language knowledge is often metalinguistic; first language acquisition involves implicit knowledge
  • Examples of metalinguistic awareness:
    • Creating new words (e.g., blifter vs lbitfer): both use English phonetics, but one form is not a possible English word; this supports a descriptive judgment about grammaticality
    • Grammaticality vs acceptability judgments: some forms are grammatical in principle but there are acceptable and non-acceptable question forms
    • Distinguishing grammatical vs ungrammatical forms is about what the mental grammar can generate, not about prescriptive norms
  • Observing what’s possible in a language
    • Two similar sentences can both be acceptable in declarative form and some question forms, but wh-questions reveal constraints (e.g., what vs what with a dangling piece)
    • (e) is grammatical; (f) is not; the difference is explained by the mental grammar
  • Tools and methods for language science (introductory overview)
    • Perceptual/experimental methods to access metalinguistic judgments: acceptability judgments, surveys, interviews
    • Corpora: large databases of real language use (written, spoken, sign language video, transcripts)
    • Accessibility and practicality: these tools are relatively easy to use and accessible to learners
    • Specialized tools used by phoneticians and sign-language researchers:
    • Praat for phonetic/phonological analysis of audio
    • ELAN for video annotation
    • SLP-Annotator for sign language phonetics
    • Additional measurement techniques from behavioral psychology and neuroscience:
    • Reaction times, reading times, listening tasks
    • Eye-tracking during reading/listening/watching sign language
    • EEG and fMRI to observe brain activity during language processing
  • The meta-skill of doing language science
    • Even if you’re not wearing a lab coat, you can make systematic observations and interpret them to infer about the mind
  • Practical examples of data collection
    • Acceptability judgments across speakers, surveys to map regional variation, corpus analyses for word usage and phrasing
  • Note on limitations and biases
    • Observations reflect the observer’s methods and communities; ethical and social biases can influence research outcomes

1.4 Thinking About Standards and “Proper” Grammar

  • Reiterates the radical goal: treat all languages and dialects as equally valid from a linguistic perspective
  • Language and power dynamics are intertwined
    • Language attitudes and expectations are connected to social hierarchies (teacher-student, doctor-patient, customer-service, etc.)
    • People may internalize biases about which varieties are “standard” or “proper”
  • Language standards are not neutral; they are tied to economic, social, or political power
  • Examples and discussion of standard language concepts
    • Standard forms often align with the language used by educated, typically white, members of society
    • In practice, standard varieties are enforced via norms, dictionaries, style guides, textbooks, and spell-checkers rather than official police
    • The term “standard” often reflects the language used in capitals or by dominant political groups; in many cases it aligns with White, educated speech
  • Case study: Black English varieties (AAL/AAVE) as markers of Black identity; not “standard” in the sense of UK/Queen’s English; prejudice and misperceptions around standardization
  • Consequences of assuming a single standard
    • Non-standard language varieties can be unfairly judged as inferior in education and professional contexts
    • Several real-world examples illustrate how biases affect education, legal judgments, and perceptions of competence
  • Encouragement to develop metalinguistic awareness of biases and standards while recognizing the grammar itself is equally valid across varieties
  • Note on terminology and future chapters
    • Chapter 2 will discuss terms like language, variety, and dialect in more detail

1.5 Doing Harm with Language Science

  • Language science has a history of harm, often tied to colonialism and missionary work
    • Early linguistics documented Indigenous languages to aid conversion and colonization, using European writing systems that distorted phonetics
    • Writing froze certain language forms and could erase variation; missionary writings sometimes claimed Indigenous languages were inferior
    • The Canadian residential school system forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families and languages; many languages were suppressed or lost as a result
  • Dual nature of documentation
    • While some documentation has helped revival efforts (e.g., Huron-Wendat), it also caused harm and misrepresentation
    • The field has also historically been linked to assimilation policies and linguistic discrimination
  • Modern ethical concerns in language science
    • Data collection can exploit language communities; researchers must ensure benefits to communities and avoid extractive practices
    • Data sharing and publication must respect privacy and sacred knowledge
    • Risk of linguistic and cultural appropriation when researchers speak for a community without its members
    • Descriptive work can inadvertently lead to prescriptive norms if researchers’ observations become de facto standards
  • The need for humility and reflexivity
    • Science is one way of knowing with its own biases and limits
    • Move from viewing grammar as prescriptive rules to seeing it as a living, shared mental system
    • Recognize that language exists within communities and is co-constructed through social interaction
  • Preview: later chapters will address more examples of harm and bias

1.6 Doing Good with Language Science

  • Emphasizes constructive applications of language science
    • In tech: language-trained professionals improve software that summarizes, translates, and synthesizes speech; voice assistants and GPS systems
    • L1/L2 learning apps use metalinguistic awareness to aid language learning
    • Revitalization and reclamation: linguistic analysis supports Indigenous language teaching materials and adult language learning,
      with emphasis on community leadership rather than researcher-driven “savior” narratives
  • Diverse career applications for linguists
    • ESL teaching certification and language teaching more broadly
    • Speech-language pathology: clinical applications for brain injury and language impairment
    • Accent/dialect coaching for media and entertainment
    • Consulting roles: contract interpretation, brand-name development, forensics (authorship), etc.
  • Language is pervasive and central to human interaction
    • Understanding language supports people and can contribute to social good

1.7 Do Chatbots Have Language?

  • Distinguishing human language from AI-generated text
    • Human language is generative and governed by systematic principles; shared across people via mental grammar
    • Generative AI (LLMs) produce text by statistical patterns learned from large data; they do not have true semantics or understanding
  • What LLMs do
    • Trained on vast datasets, often without explicit consent from creators; training data largely consists of copied or repurposed material
    • LLMs do not have meaning; they predict likely word sequences based on frequency patterns
    • Output only has meaning when humans interpret it; it lacks intrinsic understanding
  • The limitation of LLMs in truth-telling
    • Researchers argue LLMs struggle with truthfulness; they optimize for plausible output, not factual accuracy
    • The debate is about what counts as “generative” and what counts as “intelligent” in AI
  • Key takeaway
    • Human language is generative and grounded in a mental grammar; AI text generation is combinatorial and statistic-based without semantics
  • Reference point provided: critique of AI’s truthfulness and the nature of AI-generated language

1.8 Exercise Your Linguistics Skills

  • Exercise 1: First language (L1) observations
    • Identify your L1(s); make two scientific observations about your L1 (descriptive, not prescriptive)
  • Exercise 2: Naming a new product
    • Propose a unique product name; evaluate other students’ proposed names for marketability and linguistic fit
  • Exercise 3: Create new English verbs from nouns
    • Demonstrate productivity of mental grammar by coining three new verbs from existing nouns; illustrate with sentences
  • Exercise 4: Document a new word’s usage
    • Observe a recently entered English word in context; draft a dictionary-style definition based on usage

Key Terms and Concepts (glossed)

  • Descriptive vs Prescriptive: Descriptive describes actual language use; prescriptive prescribes rules
  • Mental grammar: the internal knowledge of language in the mind, including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
  • Modality: vocal (speech) vs signed (sign language) language
  • Lexicon: mental dictionary linking form (sound/sign/written form) to meaning
  • Phonetics/Phonology: articulatory phonetics; how sounds are organized and function in a language
  • Morphology: structure of words and internal meaningful pieces
  • Syntax: rules for combining words into phrases and sentences
  • Semantics: meaning of words and sentences
  • Pragmatics: how meaning depends on context
  • Acceptability judgments: judgments about what is possible or acceptable in a language, used to access the mental grammar
  • Corpora: large databases of natural language usage
  • Praat: software for phonetic analysis of audio
  • ELAN: software for annotating video data
  • SLP-Annotator: tool for sign language annotation
  • Metalinguistic awareness: conscious knowledge about language
  • Standard language: prestige-variety often tied to power; not linguistically superior
  • Language harm and ethics: colonialism, residential schools, data misuse, cultural appropriation
  • Generative AI vs human language: LLMs vs mental grammar; semantics and truthfulness differences

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  • Engaging with the material ethically and practically:
    • Use descriptive observations when studying language use
    • Be mindful of power dynamics and cultural context when researching or describing languages
    • Consider how technology (AI) interacts with language and its study, including issues of meaning, accuracy, and bias