1. PHONOLOGY
Phonology is a branch of linguistics
concerned with the systematic organization of sounds
in languages. Phonology is often distinguished from phonetics. Phonetics deals with the production of
speech sounds by humans, often without prior knowledge of the language being
spoken.
a. Classification of phonetics symbols
1. Bilabial Stops: In
the production of the sounds /p/ and /b/, the air is stopped at the lips. For
example: cap/cab, pat/bat, pup/bub, cup/cub.
2. Alveolar Stops: In the pronunciation
of the sounds /k/ and /g/, it feels as if the air is stopped at the back of the
throat, e.g. back/bag, core/gore, thick/twig.
3. Fricatives: fricative phonemes are
the /f/ and the /v/ and the (theta) and the (eth). The /f/ and the /v/ phonemes
are called labio-dental fricatives. This means that the air comes through the
teeth and the lips, e.g. far/van, feel/veal, fife/five.
4. Alveolar Fricatives: Two alveolar
fricatives are the /s/ phoneme, which is voiceless, and the voiced /z/. For
example: bus/buzz, so/zoo, sip/zip.
b. Phonemes
Phonemes
represent a range of sound. Sounds or phonemes vary among the differences
between speakers whether they be native English speakers or non-native
speakers. We are aware of the differences between the vowel (i) in sheep and
the vowel (I) in ship. Spanish does not have a difference between the vowel
sounds; therefore, the pronunciation is different.
c. Allophones
A
"phonetic segment" is called a phone. The different phones that come
from a phoneme are called allophones of that particular phoneme. In the English
language, an allophone can be both oral and nasalized for each vowel phoneme.
2.
MORPHOLOGY
Morphology
is the study of word structure. All languages have words and morphemes.
A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or function within a language. It is
the study about parts of speech
(adjectives,
nouns, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, preposition, conjunctions, interjections), and
also suprasegmental morpheme (pitch, intonation, etc.)
English
often allows multiple bound morphemes within a single word by a process called affixation.
Affixation is the addition of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes to a root
morpheme Bound morphemes that follow the root are suffixes (things
like –ful, -ly, -ness in words like hopeful,
quickly, or weirdness), while morphemes that precede the root
are prefixes (e.g. mis-
as in misunderstand).
How are new
words formed? An acronym is formed out of the first letter of
each word of a phrase. It’s not uncommon to hear someone lol at a good
joke (from LOL — laugh out loud). Scuba (Self-Contained Underwater
Breathing Apparatus) and radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging).
A blend
combines two words to create a new word. Smog is a blend of smoke
plus fog. Mockumentary combines mock and documentary.
Jeggings are snug-fitting leggings that look like jeans.
Clipping
is the reduction of a word into one of its component parts. The recently-coined
word app meaning ‘application for a mobile device’ is clipped from application.
Compounding
is the combining of two or more roots to make a new word, such as birdhouse
or redneck (‘hillbilly’).
3.
SYNTAX
Syntax
is the branch of grammar working with
"syntactic elements". Syntax defines relational/functional rules
governing the logic structures of syntactic elements.the study of
combination of the words. Or in other word, it is the study of phrases,
clauses, and sentences.Sentence syntax include the analyses relational functionality developed between syntactic elements
within the logic sentence-frame.The structure employed to present
sentence syntax are: Syntactic Elements, Subject, Predicate, Subject-Predicate
Agreement, Attributes, Objects, Adverbials. Syntax also studies about deep
structure and surface structure.
4.
PRAGMATICS
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics
which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics
studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and
linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar,
lexicon,
etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance,
any preexisting knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent
of the speaker, and other factors. The ability to understand another speaker's
intended meaning is called pragmatic
competence. Pragmatics cover three aspects:
a. Speech
Acts
are commonly taken to include such acts as promising, ordering, greeting,
warning, inviting and congratulating.
According to Austin 1962, it can be analysed on three levels:
b. Politeness. According to Geoffrey
Leech (1983), politeness principle covers six maxims, they are:
§ Tact:
try to minimize cost to other or maximize benefit to other;
§ Generosity:
try to minimize benefit to self or maximize cost to self;
§ Approbation:
try to minimize dispraise of other
§ Modesty:
try to minimize praise of self.
§ Agreement:
try to minimize disagreement between self and other.
§ Sympathy:
try to minimize antipathy between self and other or maximize sympathy between
self and other.
These maxims vary from culture to
culture: what may be considered polite in one culture may be strange or
downright rude in another. While
according to Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1978), being polite therefore
consists of attempting to save face for another. There are two kinds of face: Positive Face and Negative
face.
c.
Presupposition
is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an
utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse.
For example:
v
Jane no
longer writes fiction. Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.
v
Have
you talked to Hans? Presupposition: Hans exists.
Semantics
is the study of meaning. It is a wide subject within the general study of
language. An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language
acquisition (how language users acquire a sense of meaning, as speakers and
writers, listeners and readers) and of language change (how meanings alter over
time). Some important areas of semantic theory or related subjects include
these: Symbol and referent, Conceptions of
meaning, Words and lexemes, Denotation, connotation, implication, Ambiguity,
Metaphor & simile, Semantic fields, Synonym, antonym and hyponym, Semantic
change and etymology, Polysemy, Homonymy, homophones and homographs, Lexicology
and lexicography, Collocation, fixed expression and idiom, Thesauruses,
libraries and Web portals, Epistemology, Colour
6.
SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive
study of the effect of any and all aspects of society,
including cultural norms, expectations,
and context, on the way language
is used, and the effects of language use on society. Or in onother word,
sociolinguistics is the study of language in human society.
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. As the usage of a language varies from place to place, language usage also
varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics
studies. In sociolinguistics
a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language
or language cluster.
This may include:
1.
Idiolect
is a variety
of language
that is unique to a person, as manifested by the patterns of vocabulary,
grammar,
and pronunciation that he or she uses.
2.
Dialect
is a regional or social variety of a language characterized by its own
phonological, syntactic, and lexical properties.
3.
Registers
and Styles: A register (sometimes called a style) is a variety
of language used in a particular social setting.
6.
Pidgin is a simplified language that
develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not
have a language in common.
7.
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of
the psychological
and neurobiological factors that
enable humans
to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language.
The three primary processes investigated in psycholinguistics are:
·
Language
Comprehension: how people understand sentences as they read.
·
Language
Production: the production of spoken or written language. It describes all
of the stages between having a concept, and translating that concept into linguistic
form.
·
Language
Acquisition: the study of how humans acquire knowledge of their native
language (as infants and as children). There are essentially two schools of
thought as to how children acquire or learn language, and there is still much
debate as to which theory is the correct one. The first theory states that all
language must be learned by the child. It is popularized by the mentalistic
theories (Jean Piaget) and empiricist (Rudolf Carnap). The second view states
that the abstract system of language cannot be learned, but that humans possess
an innate language faculty, or an access to what has been called universal
grammar (Noam Chomsky).
8.
APPLIED
LINGUISTICS
Applied linguistics is an
interdisciplinary field of study that identifies, investigates, and offers
solutions to language-related real-life problems, especially those of language
education (first-language, second-language and foreign-language teaching and
learning).
As English is the
contemporary lingua franca applied linguists attempt to include language policy
and planning in their interest, but is also concerned with analyzing language
and identity, and special educational needs. Corpus analysis takes both
quantitative and qualitative approach to the study of language and applied
linguists focus of the identification of patterns of language use depending on
social context, audiences, genres and settings. Critical applied linguistics is
interested in the social problems connected with language such as unemployment,
illiteracy and pedagogy.
9.
NEUROLINGUISTICS
Neurolinguistics is the study of the neural
mechanisms in the human brain that control the
comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.
In this picture, The
part marked as (1) is known as Broca’s area or ‘anterior
speech cortex’ and as it has been discovered it is responsible for speech
production. Posterior speech cortex, or as it is usually described Wernicke’s
area, in the picture marked (2) is responsible for speech
comprehension. The largest part of the brain marked in the picture is the motor
cortex (3) and it is responsible for the muscular movements. Part (4)
in the picture shows arcuate fasciculus which is the bundle of
nerve fibers connecting Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas.
Moreover,
neurolinguistics deals with various language disorders known as ‘aphasia’
which is impairment of language functions because of some brain damage leading
to difficulties in either producing or understanding linguistic forms.
10. ANTHROLINGUISTICS
Anthropological linguistics
is the study of the relations between language
and culture
and the relations between human
biology, cognition
and language.
It is the interdisciplinary
study of how language influences social life. Scholars are interested not only
in the differences between languages, but also in the influence of language on
culture and culture on language in different communities throughout the world. Culture
in linguistics
is described as socially acquired knowledge of the world, as well as attitudes
towards it.
11. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Discourse Analysis is a general term
for a number of approaches to analyzing written, vocal, or sign language use or
any significant semiotic
event. The objects of discourse analysis—discourse,
writing, conversation, communicative event—are variously defined in terms of
coherent sequences of sentences, propositions,
speech
acts, or turns-at-talk.
Seven criteria which
have to be fulfilled to qualify either a written or a spoken text as a discourse
have been suggested by Beaugrande (1981):
§
Cohesion - grammatical relationship
between parts of a sentence essential for its interpretation
§
Coherence - the order of statements
relates one another by sense.
§
Intentionality
- the message has to be conveyed deliberately and consciously
§
Acceptability - indicates that the
communicative product needs to be satisfactory in that the audience approves it
§
Informativeness - some new information has to be included in the discourse
§
Situationality - circumstances in which the remark is made are important;
§
Intertextuality - reference to the world outside the text or the interpreters'
schemata.
12. 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.
13. SIGN LANGUAGE
A sign language is a language
which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound
patterns, uses manual communication
and body language
to convey meaning. Body language
is included in sign language. It is a form of mental and physical ability of
human non-verbal communication,
which consists of body posture,
gestures,
facial expressions,
and eye movements.
How to read
body language?
·
Pay attention
to how close someone is to you. The closer they are, the warmer
they are thinking of you.
·
Watch their
head position. Overly tilted heads are either a potential sign of
sympathy, or if a person smiles while tilting their head, they are being playful
and maybe even flirting.
·
Check their
arms.
If their hands are closed or
clenched, they may be irritated, angry, or nervous.
·
Be aware of nervous gestures. If they are staring
into space then they are most likely thinking deeply about the past or they
could be thinking of you
14. PRESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS
A
prescriptive grammar is a set of rules about language based on how people think
language should be used. Prescriptive grammar categorizes certain language uses
as acceptable or unacceptable according to a standard form of the language. It
can be compared with a descriptive grammar, which is a set of rules based on
how language is actually used. For example,
§ Don’t
split infinitives!
Do not say: I wanted to carefully
explain to her why the decision was made
Say: I wanted to explain to her
carefully why the decision was made
§ Don’t
use double negation!
Do not say: I didn’t do nothing.
Say: I didn’t do anything.
REFERENCES:
Brown
K. (Editor) 2005. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics – 2nd Edition.
Oxford: Elsevier (http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/applied-linguistics.htm)
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