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Enling Module 2021 Lesson 1 - For Upload
Enling Module 2021 Lesson 1 - For Upload
Lesson 1:
Linguistics and Language: An
Overview
INTRODUCTION
As human beings, we possess one of the most important skills that we
sometimes take for granted. This skill is what we call language. Can you imagine any
activity which does not involve language at any point in time? This makes the study of
language more interesting and intriguing. When one studies a language, he or she
deals with linguistics. With that, one becomes a linguist at any rate.
As future language teachers in the new millennium, you have to seek answers
to these questions through giving keen attention in studying linguistics and its
intricacies. Along the way, you may find surprising answers and some of those will
prompt you to explore more profound interesting questions related to linguistics.
In this lesson, you will understand and learn the basics of linguistics, linguistics
and English language teaching, definition and origin of language, and views about
language. Your perspective of linguistics and language will be deemed beneficial for
English language teaching.
Engage L1
Explore L1
Explain L1
What is linguistics?
According to the Linguistic Society of America, linguistics is the scientific study
of language. Linguists apply the scientific method to conduct formal studies of speech
sounds, grammatical structures, and meaning across the world’s 6,000+
languages. Likewise, linguists study meaning, discourse, and many other language
aspects that you have always wondered about.
Moreover, when you study linguistics at any level, you gain insight into one of the
most fundamental parts of being human- the ability to communicate through
language. You can study every aspect of language from functional theory to language
acquisition, and computational linguistics to psycholinguistics. Studying linguistics
enables you to understand how language works, and how it is used, developed and
preserved over time.
It is also important to note that linguists are not only polyglots, grammarians, and
word lovers. They are researchers dedicated to the systematic study of language
who apply the scientific method by making observations, testing hypotheses, and
developing theories. The science of language encompasses more than sounds,
grammar, and meaning. When you study linguistics, you are at the crossroads of every
discipline.
What is Language?
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and
using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system
of complex communication.
The approximately 3000-6000 languages that are spoken by humans today are
the most salient examples, but natural languages can also be based on visual rather
than audible stimuli, for example in sign languages and written languages. Codes and
other signs of artificially constructed communication system such as those used for
computer programming can also be called languages. A language in this sense is a
system of signs for encoding and decoding information. The English word derives from
Latin lingua, “language, tongue”. This metaphoric relation between language and the
tongue exists in many languages and testifies to the historical prominence of spoken
languages. When used a s general concept, “language” refers to the cognitive faculty
that enables humans to learn and to use systems of complex communication.
The word “language” can also be used to describe the set of rules that makes
this possible, or the set of utterances that can be produced from those rules.
Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution can
be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which traits their
ancestral languages must have had from the later to have occurred. A group of
languages that descend from a common ancestor is known as a language family.
The languages that are most spoken in the world today belong to the Indo-European
family, which includes languages such as English, Spanish, Russian and Hindi; the
Sino-Tibetan languages, which include Mandarin, Chinese, Cantonese and many
others; Semitic languages, which include Arabic and Hebrew; and the Bantu
languages, which include Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa and hundreds of other languages
spoken throughout Africa.
Simply put, language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human
communication.
Filipino English learners are likely to use /p/ and /v/ as substitute sounds, e.g.,
/pæn/ for /fæn/ ‘ fan’ and /bæn/ for /væn/ ‘van’. Language teachers are advised
to remember that each language has its own inventory of phonemes that may
differ from that of another language. Such differences may result in using
sounds that only approximate the target sounds, as shown in the aforecited
examples.
3. Helping students to discover the meaning of words by parsing them into small
parts depends heavily on the teacher’s knowledge of morphology or word
formation rules. To exemplify, students may parse or segment the following
words, taking note of the morpheme {-ment} that recurs in embarrassment,
government, disillusionment, enhancement. As students discover the meaning
of {-ment} as ‘state or condition’, they may be able to give the meaning of the
cited examples as: ‘state of being embarrassed’, ‘state of governing’, ‘state of
being disillusioned’, and ‘state of enhancing’. Hence, the process of word
formation such as derivation may help learners interpret and remember
meaning of words that follow certain patterns in forming short words into longer
words.
According to Richard Nordquist (2020), there are five of the oldest and most
common theories of how language began. These are the following:
The Bow-Wow Theory
According to this theory, language began when our ancestors started imitating
the natural sounds around them. The first speech was onomatopoeic—marked by
echoic words such as moo, meow, splash, cuckoo, and bang.
What's wrong with this theory? Relatively few words are onomatopoeic, and
these words vary from one language to another. For instance, a dog's bark is heard
as au au in Brazil, ham ham in Albania, and wang, wang in China. In addition, many
onomatopoeic words are of recent origin, and not all are derived from natural sounds.
The Ding-Dong Theory
This theory, favored by Plato and Pythagoras, maintains that speech arose in
response to the essential qualities of objects in the environment. The original sounds
people made were supposedly in harmony with the world around them.
What's wrong with this theory? Apart from some rare instances of sound
symbolism, there is no persuasive evidence, in any language, of an innate connection
between sound and meaning.
The La-La Theory
The Danish linguist Otto Jespersen suggested that language may have
developed from sounds associated with love, play, and (especially) song.
What's wrong with this theory? As David Crystal notes in "How Language
Works" (Penguin, 2005), this theory still fails to account for "... the gap between the
emotional and the rational aspects of speech expression... ."
The Pooh-Pooh Theory
According to this theory, language evolved from the grunts, groans, and snorts
evoked by heavy physical labor.
What's wrong with this theory? Though this notion may account for some of
the rhythmic features of the language, it doesn't go very far in explaining where words
come from.
As Peter Farb says in "Word Play: What Happens When People Talk" (Vintage,
1993): "All these speculations have serious flaws, and none can withstand the close
scrutiny of present knowledge about the structure of language and about the evolution
of our species."
But does this mean that all questions about the origin of language are
unanswerable? Not necessarily. Over the past 20 years, scholars from such diverse
fields as genetics, anthropology, and cognitive science have been engaged, as
Kenneally says, in "a cross-discipline, multidimensional treasure hunt" to find out how
language began. It is, she says, "the hardest problem in science today."
Elaborate L1
Evaluate L1
To be given in class
References
https://www.bing.com/search?form=MOZTSB&pc=MOZD&q=linguistics
https://www.linguisticsociety.org/what-linguistics
Mehta, S.K. (2020). Handbookof Applied Language Linguistics and Literature. New Delhi, India: Ishika Publishing House.