The Birth of Modern Linguistics

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The Birth of Modern Linguistics

• Ferdinand De Saussure
• Why Linguistics is a Science?
• Science and Ideology
• Basil Bernstein
• Noam Chomsky
• Structuralist Underpinnings
• Formalism and Functionalism

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Ferdinand De Saussure

• In Switzerland. . .

Philology vs. Linguistics Diachronic vs.
Synchronic Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Langue
and Parole-- Semiotics Objective, scientific
approach Thoroughly modern
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You are watching a documentary. Imagine usual
gorgeous footage of animals in their natural
habitats.
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You are listening to the voiceover and suddenly
realize some very troubling facts are being
reported.
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Dolphins do not execute their swimming strokes
properly (performance is in decline)
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White-crowned sparrows carelessly debase their
calls.
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Chickadees are slacking off and constructing
substandard nests.
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Pandas are holding their bamboo in the wrong paw.
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The song of the humpback whale contains several
well-known errors
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Monkeys cries have been in a state of chaos and
degeneration for hundreds of years.
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The song of the humpback whale contains several
well-known errors. . .
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What on earth could it mean for the song of the
humpback whale to contain an error?
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Those whales have low class whalish my mom
wont let me play with you.
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Basic Instinct

• Animal behaviors are instinctual and stimulus
  bound
• They can only communicate about food, territory,
  mating and danger
• They cannot recombine components of their
  communication system to create novel utterances
• Limited to the immediate mode

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Too Dumb to Make a Mistake

• We dont consider instinctual, stimulus dependent
  behavior to be subject to mistakes. . . We look
  for external variables to explain variation in
  performancebirds dont have the cognitive
  capacity to deliberate about altering the melody
  of their songs and calls.

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Epiphany

• You actually have to be very intelligent to make
  a grammar mistake.
• You have to have the capacity to deliberate over
  your choice of form.

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Philology vs. Linguistics

• Diachronic historical linguistics how words and
  grammar changed across time
• Classical variety, the standard or prestige
  dialect
• The written variety of a language.

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Diachronic vs. Synchronic

• Diachronic language variation across time (ie.,
  basically historical linguistics)
• Synchronic language variation
  contemporaneously from place to place and person
  to person.

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Descriptive vs. Prescriptive

• Prescriptive Identifies a subjective ideal and
  purports that all educated people will meet that
  ideal (i.e., it tells you how you should talk,
  and howdy is not on the approved vocabulary
  list!)
• Descriptive Describes the way a person or group
  of people actually do talk describing naturally
  occurring phenomena is a primary task of
  scientific inquiry.

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Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic

• Syntagmatic (horizontal), different word classes
  and relations in a sentence.
• Paradigmatic (vertical), same class of words,
  interchangeable in the same place in a sentence.

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Langue and Parole

• Langue, Saussure identified as the ideal of a
  languageall the German there is to know, for
  example, which does not exist in its entirety in
  any individuals head.
• Parole, he contrasted, is all the German in one
  individuals head. (Even though he was writing
  in French?)

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Why is Linguistics Scientific?

• In science, you describe the phenomena you
  observe and try to work out the system underlying
  the phenomena. Can you predict when the
  phenomena will occur?

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Why is Linguistics Scientific?

• Metalanguage
• Standardized units of analysis
• 3) Externally observable evidence as data
• 4) Rigorous systematic methodology
• 5) Identification of replicable patterns
• 6) Both quantitative and qualitative research

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Metalanguage

• Vocabulary for talking about language (labels,
  categories)

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Standardized Units of Analysis

• This includes standardized units of measure and
  description such as the IPA (International
  Phonetic Alphabet)

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Externally Observable Evidence as Data

• No mind reading
• Phoneticians tend to use recordings of speech,
• Syntacticians tend to rely more on native
  speaker intuitions about what sounds well
  formed.
• Sociolinguists require naturally occurring,
  recorded data.

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Rigorous Systematic Methodology

• In phonetics, you record and carefully transcribe
  the data. If youre doing quantitative work you
  get statistically significant numbers of the
  phenomenon under scrutiny. . .

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Identification of Replicable Patterns

• What are the patterns and why do they occur? If
  youve identified a real pattern you can predict
  what will happen when certain variables are
  present.

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Both Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

• Case studies Particularity
• Goes into context and all the factors that
• come to bear
• Quantitative Studies Generalizeability

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Formal vs. Functional

• Formal Linguistics (sometimes called Theoretical
  Linguistics) is focused on the technical aspects
  of language phonetics, phonology, morphology,
  syntax, semantics/pragmatics.
• Functional Linguistics (also called
  Sociolinguistics) is focused on language in
  usehow people use language to create
  relationships and social realities.

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Bernstein the Pariah

• Bernstein, who was guilty of sympathizing with
  the socialists during the wrong phase of U.S.
  history, got himself (and sociolinguistics)
  pretty much blacklisted for the next 30 years or
  so. His linguistics wasnt safe.
• (He will remain faceless on this slide1) to
  remind you that he was blacklisted for so many
  years and 2) because I cant find a photo of him.
  )

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What is Safe Linguistics?

• Like any academic discipline, as long as you
  stick to describing the laws of nature
  uninterfered with by human volition, you will
  generally be on the safe side. If you are just
  trying to describe the biological, cognitive
  device that produces language, thats pretty
  safe.
• (Although if you say nuclear physics, stem
  cell research, or evolution its hard to
  separate them from of all the ethical and
  philosophical baggage that attends them, isnt it)

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What is Dangerous Linguistics?

• As soon as you start acknowledging and describing
  the ways human beings use language to create
  social realities, you are going to identify
  patterns where some humans use language in ways
  that benefit one group and harm another.

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The Monster of Free Willy
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More of Free Willy ?
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The Monster of Free Will

• There are many forms for a single function
• The reason for choosing a particular form is not
  merely aesthetic
• The choice of form relates to the social goals of
  the speaker

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How do I apologize to thee? Let me count the
ways. . .

• Im sorry
• I apologize
• Please forgive me, I am filled with remorse
• Excuse me
• Pardon me, I beg your pardon
• I really regret that a mistake was made.
• I suck.
• You knew I was a jerk when you married me.

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No Mind Reading But. . .

• Although it is not possible (yet) to get inside
  somebody elses head and find out what their true
  motives or goals are, it is possible to identify
  patterns between the use of certain forms and the
  social effects that follow.
• (This is just an appetizer for discourse
  analysis, which comes at the end of the course
  and is the meaning of life?).

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Patterns of Verbal Behavior

• When you start describing the social effects of
  language in use, you are getting into a sphere
  where accountability for ones linguistic actions
  must also be acknowledged. You will inevitably
  stumble upon sinister or otherwise non-benign
  patterns of language use that just happen to
  result in the social dominance of some people by
  others. National leaders tend to get their
  knickers in a knot over such observations and are
  fond of incarcerating scholars who sally into
  these shark-filled political waters. (E.g, Dr.
  Odisho)

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Noam Chomsky

• Generative Syntax
• Formal Linguistics
• Safe Linguistics
• Goal Model of LAD
• Competence vs. Performance
• His problems with ape research (cf. Noam Chimpsky)

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Cold War Era Linguistics

• Chomsky happened to be writing about syntax
  during the Cold War. His Aspects of Syntax came
  out in 1957.
• (Incidentally, he was about 21 when this landmark
  work was published)

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How was Chomskys work different from
Bernsteins?

• Unlike Bernstein, who threatened the
  establishment by looking under social rocks he
  wasnt supposed to, Chomskys work was able to
  blossom because his focus was on the formal,
  technical aspects of language, not the
  functional, social uses of language (so social
  criticism was not the inevitable upshot of his
  work as it would be with Bernstein and other
  sociolinguists.)

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Competence vs. Performance

• Competence is what you know its the ideal
• language thats in your head. Whats in the
• black box? Chomsky is interested in
• competence. He wants to know how the brain
• produces language.

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Competence vs. Performance

• Performance is what actually comes out of
• your mouth (or in some cases your pen),
• which sometimes is messed up. You
• get tongue tied or accidentally say
• something other than what you know is well
• formed languageif given a chance to
• rephrase, you fix it immediately, because
• your competence always exceeds your
• performance.

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Language in Use

• Performance also covers the social functions
• you perform with your language. Besides the
• exchange of information, you build all kinds of
• relationships and create larger social realities
• with your language. This is what Sociolinguists
• are concerned with. Chomsky doesnt care
• about language in use because it doesnt
• contribute to his quest to understand how the
• brain produces language.

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LAD The Little Black Box

• The LAD is the Language Acquisition Device
  Chomsky believes is the key to human language
  productionit is essentially the black box of the
  human mind.
• The goal of Chomskyan linguistics is to discover
  and describe the systematic organization of the
  LAD and its product (grammatical relations in
  language).

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Chomsky and the Planet of the Apes

• Chomsky believes that language is unique to
  humans.
• Those who want to prove an evolutionary link
  between apes and humans are invested in finding
  similarities between ape communication and human
  language.
• Chomsky dismisses this work because he believes
  the LAD is completely unique to humans.

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Universal Grammar UG

• The UG is the universal grammar that Chomsky and
  other structuralists (and pretty much all
  linguists now, including moi) that all human
  languages share a common core of grammatical
  options.
• Ideologically, the UG eradicates the possibility
  of one language or its users being inferior or
  primative by comparison to other languages and
  peoples (not using races here on purpose. . . )
  since they all share, in the Chomskyan theory,
  the same black box. (This is good ?)

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Metaphors for UG

• (Think of a Universal Grammar of car design,
  house building, painting a portraitonly a
  handful of options at each stage of decision
  making (standard or automatic, cloth or leather,
  etc.)

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Whats the Point?

• The scientific point of tracking down all the
  languages in the world and writing up a
  descriptive grammar of them is partly to prove
  that there are these universals that are
  basically a finite set of options used creatively
  to generate an infinite number of words,
  sentences, and languages. It is also, of course,
  to get a full description of what the UG
  contains.

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More on the Point of the Search for the UG

• Prove that there is a UG (which supports the
  theory that all humans are born with the LAD)
• Describe whats in the UG (partly to get at what
  it is that being human endows us with
  linguistically)

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Social Point

• Theres also an underlying social agenda or
  worldview driving this scientific quest, and that
  is to prove the equality of all races. If you
  can prove that humans all come with the same
  equipment, then youre going to have very strong
  evidence refuting the idea that some races are
  more evolved than others.

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Whats in the Black Box?

• Switches. (Not the kind your mom made you go out
  and pick before she whipped you with it).
• These switches are a limited number of choices
  about each feature of language.
• The LAD allows you to learn any language as a
  baby you dont get a language as a genetic
  inheritance encoded in your genes.
• You are born with all the switches everyone else
  is born with (think of dials or control panels),
  and your mind sets them to match the language
  being spoken around you.
• A finite number of switch/dial settings can
  produce an infinite number of language
  possibilities.

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Adjectival Possibilities

• For example, there are only so many things you
  can do with an adjective
• You can put it before the noun blue eyes
• or after the noun ojos azules
• You may be able to add a suffix or prefix to the
  noun that serves as the adjective.
• You could even make what English does with
  adjectives into a verb the eyes blue, the coat
  reds, that really blues me out man, etc.

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• Dont forget that you have a very nice glossary
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• USE IT!

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Some Distinctive Features of Human Language

• Innate
• Culturally transmitted (not genetically)
• Arbitrary
• Discrete
• Generative, Creative, Productive
• Displacement friendly
• Dynamic

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Innate

• All human beings are born with an LAD
• People with very low IQs can still acquire
  language with a predictable, rule governed grammar

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Culturally Transmitted

• Although its innate, humans have to learn their
  language (even though it cant be taught).
• Some animals are born with instinctive songs and
  calls
• Humans are born with an LAD, but it has to be
  activated by exposure to human language within
  the early years of life (a critical window) to
  actually acquire language.

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Arbitrary

• For evidence of this you need only survey the
  variety of ways languages around the world refer
  to the same entity/item. You can even look at
  onomatopoeia in how different languages represent
  the sounds that animals make (as when talking to
  their two year old children. ?)

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Discrete

• This means that smaller parts are combined in
  different ways to make larger units

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Generative, Productive, Creative

• Even a small child can take words s/he has heard
  and create sentences she has never heard before.
  She can generate new thoughts with the same
  blocks.

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• This, to repeat, (no waving yellow cards here,
  please) is the fact that a finite number of
  elements can be used to produce an infinite
  number of utterances and ideas.

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Displacement friendly

• While a bee can give you an elaborate performance
  as to the location of a certain desirable food
  source, it cannot remark on what it had for
  dinner the night before, or speculate on what it
  might like for breakfast tomorrow. The bee, like
  other animals, is limited to the HERE and NOW.

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Displaced vs. Immediate Modes

• Animals are limited to the immediate mode.
  This time and this place. Bees and dolphins
  dont tell stories (as far as researchers have
  been able to divine).
• Humans are capable of using language to refer to
  other places and times, including those that are
  imaginary. Chimps and ants also do not tell
  jokes. The displaced mode is one that allows
  you to talk about past and future and
  hypothetical or fantasy worlds (which is, of
  course, what jokes are).

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Dynamic

• Language is fluidit is in a constant state of
  flux, changing in some ways predictably and in
  other ways almost whimsically as it is used
• This is why the dictionary is always already out
  of date by the time it is printed
• People like Ed Newman who think English is going
  to hell in a hand basket dont understand this
  fundamental characteristic of language. We
  dont, thank God, still talk like Beowulf or King
  James. Are we in hell?

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Thought to Ponder

• So I guess Ill just leave you with that
  inspiring thought today,
• Are we in hell?

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Intercalary Caveat

• Remember that being a descriptivist doesnt mean
  that EVERYTHING that comes out of your mouth is
  grammatical. In terms of theory, it means that
  you have a perfectly well formed grammar in your
  head (ie. Competence). What comes out of your
  mouth may be another matter!

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You CAN be wrong!

• If other native speakers of your speech variety
  judge a sentence to be ill formed, then you
  uttered something ungrammatical.

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Seeing Stars in Linguistics

• Asterisks are used in linguistics to mark a word
  or sentence that is unsayable or unsaid by native
  speakers of the language variety in focus.
• John drives me up the wall.
• John drives up the wall me.

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Starred Sentence Example

• In American English
• Have you ever had sushi?
• I might have, but I was too young to remember.
• I might have done, but I was too young to
  remember.

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Scottish English

• In Scottish English
• Have you ever had sushi?
• I might have done, but I was too young to
  remember.

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Another Starred Sentence

• Elisa Im moving to Texas.
• Cecilia Oh? Were, too.
• Cecilia Oh? We are, too.

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In SAE (Standard American English)

• 1. You might could open an account there.
• 2. You might be able to open an account
  there.
• In many southern dialects both 1 and 2 are
  perfectly acceptable in everyday conversation.

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Relative Stardom

• Thus a sentence might be starred in one language
  variety, but might be judged as well-formed in
  another.
• However, there is still a galaxy full of starred
  utterances that would never be judged well formed
  in any variety of the language.

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Some Unredeemable Stars

• Who is firefly or eat out?
• Dog car on over running bark.
• Reds the coat.
• Louise over hill the ate.