LINGUISTIC THEORIES

The Summary of Ferdinand de Saussure

The study of language in any period of history has always reflected the predominant interest of the time. In some instances methods of other disciplines have been adapted to linguistic purposes. During his studies Ferdinand de Saussure had become dissatisfied with the idea that sole method of studying language scientifically is from a historical point of view.

Durkheim’s “Rules of the Sociological Method”

Durkheim’s little book Rules of the Sociological Method is still considered a classic in the field of sociology, even though its principles and findings have been challenged. In order to outline what such a science would encompass Durkheim attempted to define social facts as “things” comparable to the “things” studied by the physical sciences. It was this idea that led de Saussure to study without requiring historical inquiry.

One of the most general criticisms of Durkheim’s position was that he had needlessly made things out social facts. He claimed that the source of his critics ‘dissatisfaction with his calling social facts “things” was their native understanding of what a thing is. Some of his contributions to linguistics can be summarized by examining the terms he either coined or to which he gave a characteristic stamp: (1) the distinction among la langue, la parole, and le langage; (2) the distinction between diachronic and synchronic language study; (3) his definition of the “linguistic sign”; (4) the distinction between associative and syntagmatic relations in language; (5) the notion of content, as opposed to linguistic signification and value; and (6) his description of the concrete and abstract unit of language.

La Langue, La Parole, Le Langage

In chapter 1 of this book it was suggested that there are three are many sets of data to which the term “language” can be applied. In French there are three expressions referring to language that de Saussure used to call attention to distinct aspects of language that he considered important. His reason for making these distinctions was that he wanted to define language in such a way that it could be considered a thing, an object that could be studied scientifically.

The term de Saussure used to refer to the individual manifestations of language is la parole, “speaking.” The sum of la parole and the rules of language de Saussure called le langage. Le langage does not have a principle of unity within it that enables us to study it scientifically. One definition that de Saussure gave of la langue is “le langage minus la parole.”

In summary, then de Saussure saw as the sole object of linguistic science that aspect of language which corresponds to a social fact. While this idea may seem to be an abstraction from the physical point of view, language (la langue) is not and cannot be a physical fact.

Synchronic versus Diachronic Study of Language

The Junggrammatiker had proclaimed that the sole mean of studying language scientifically is to examine it historically, that is, diachronically, through time. De Saussure flatly contradicted this idea. In this connection he had a good word to say for traditional grammar: they were purely synchronic. The synchronic study of language has decided advantages, from a practical as well as a scientific point of view, over the historical.

The Linguistic Sign

In defining the linguistic sign, de Saussure refined the notion of La Langue as a “deposit of signs.” In de Saussure’s view the linguistic sign “unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and an acoustic image . . .  psychic entity with two sides.”

Associative and Syntagmatic Relations

a.       Associative, one of the difficulties with the notion associative relations as defined by de Saussure is that every other item in the language either resembles or fails to resemble in form or meaning any given item.

b.      Syntagmatic Relations, for de Saussure syntagmatic was any combination of discrete, successive units.

Linguistic Value, Content, and Signification

This passage is telling a critique of the methods employed by traditional grammars. The distinctions that derive from it concerning signification, value, and content can be illustrated in de Saussure’s discussion of the difference terms in two difference system. De Saussure used the notion of value to examine not only the conceptual but also the material, or phonetic aspects of language.

Abracadabra

This example illustrates how de Saussure conceived of the independence of la langue from la parole: all of the a’s in the word are different, but they do not contrast with each other but only with the other letters of the alphabet. La langue is, therefore, a deposit of signs: a sign is the unity results from the association of an acoustic image with a concept this association is the sole positive fact of language.

These pages have given only an indication of some of the more important contributions he made to linguistics and cannot serve as a substitute reading the Cours itself.

Leonard Bloomfield

            Since the work of the 19^th century historical linguists we have seen a growing desire to make the study of language both scientific and autonomous. The accomplishments of the historical linguists in establishing the laws of sound change founded the hope their language could be studied scientifically, although such study was considered to be possible only on the diachronic place

Behaviorism

            Leonard Bloomfield was the most concerned with making linguistics both autonomous and scientific. As the term was understood in the 1930’s, “scientific” implied restricting evidence to empirical data. One reason for this approach was the lack of a persuasively presented and empirically based psychology. During the period when Bloomfield was writing his second version of language, an empirical approach to psychology called “behaviorism” was being developed by J.B. Watson the most characteristic and unsatisfactory feature of Bloomfield’s book was his acceptance of behaviorist psychology as one of the ways of stating meanings. This aspect of his classic work. However is peripheral and brought in only to illustrate how meanings could be empirically stated by another discipline.

Watson was convinced that by investigating stimuli leading to responses behaviorism would provide a basis form predicting human behaviorism. He defined “stimulus” as “any object in the general environment or any change in the psychological condition of the animal such as the change we get when we keep it from sexual activity, feeding or building a next,” which leads to some form of behavior.

Language

          The 1933 version of language was a prevision of an earlier work, introduction to the study of language, published in 1914. This version relief on the psychology of Wundt for the statement of meaning, while the later work illustrated meanings in behavioristic terms.

“The Study of Language” (chapter 1)

            Bloomfield’s conclusion is a good summary of his own point a view:

The only useful generalization about language are inductive generalization. Features which we thing ought to be universal maybe absent from the very next language that become accessible. Some features such as for instance the distinction of noun-like and verb-like words as separate parts of speech are common to many languages, but lacking in others.

“The use of Language” (chapter 2)  

            Main points that might be misunderstood:

1.      In two short paragraphs of about 120 words each Bloomfield summarized and dismissed approximately 25 centuries of thought on language study.

2.      Much of what is ascribed to a mentalist view of language study is derived from speculative philosophy or psychology.

3.      While Bloomfield also seems to have been convinced of mechanism as a valid philosophy.

4.      Bloomfield identified the paralinguistic processes with those the mentalists called “thought” and held that the traditional qualitative.

5.      Bloomfield pointed out clearly the insoluble difficulty for a behaviorist approach in his notion of displaced of speech.

“Speech Communities and The Languages of the world” (chapter 3 & 4)

            Bloomfield classified the main types of speech roughly as follows: (1) the literary standard for formal speech writing, (2) the colloquial standard, which is the informal style of the privileged class, (3) the provincial standard, which will reasonable, (4) sub-standard clearly differs from the first three, (5) the local dialect will be that variety of language. He also listed the languages of the world by their geographic distribution.

“The Phoneme and Type of Phoneme” (chapter 5 & 6)

            The phonemes of a language are not sounds but features of sounds, which the speakers have been trained to produce and recognize. Bloomfield then cited some sounds types that are frequently found as phonemes in familiar languages. “Noise-sounds” include stops, trills, and spirants: “musical sounds” include nasals, lateral, and vowels. Consonantal articulations are described by listing the organs involved, the place and manner of articulations, and specifying the degree of closure and friction. Vowels are defined as “modifications of the voice-sound that involves no closure, friction, or contact of the tongue or lips.”

“Modifications, Phonetic Structure, and Meaning” (chapter 7, 8, and 9)

            Vowels and sonant’s also combine into compound phonemes, which are called diphthongs or tripthongs, depending on the number of sounds involved. The phonemes as the smallest units which make a difference in meaning, and usually define each phoneme according to the part it plays in the structural pattern of the speech forms.

            There are two main features on dictionary meanings that we cannot ignore: (1) many linguistic forms are used for more than one typical situation and (2) the addition of supplementary values in linguistic forms, which we call connotations.

“Grammatical Forms, Sentence Types, and syntax” (chapter 10, 11, & 12)

            Four basic ways in which linguistic forms are arranged: (1) order, (2) modulation or use of secondary phonemes, (3) phonetic modification or change of the primary phonemes, and (4) selection or differing arrangements of the same constituents resulting in different meanings.

            Two position can be distinguish in the discussion of sentences types: absolute position, when forms are used alone, and included position, when forms occur as parts of other forms. A syntactic construction is defined as a recurrent set of taxemes of modulation, phonetic modification, selection, and order. Phrases can be made up of more than one syntactic construction. A sequence for syntax would be that in languages with fewer distinct word classes, the phrase, rather than the word, is the logical basic element of grammatical arrangements.

“Morphology and Morphology Types” (chapter 13 & 14 )

            Morphology as the study that deals with “the constructions in which bound forms appear among the constituent … includes the constructions of words and parts of words, while syntax includes the constructions of phrases.” Another problem is met when a single morpheme expresses more than one meaning. Since such morphological constructions in various languages often fall into different ranks a complex form can be described as though the various compositions, modifications, and affixations take place in a determined order.

            Bloomfield found two main lines of classification: (1) the relation among members and (2) the relation of the whole to its members. Secondary derivatives have one free form, a phrase or a word as an immediate constituent.

“Substitution” (chapter 15)

Bloomfield concluded that (1) the entire meaning of substitutes = class meaning + substitution types, (2) this meaning is more abstract and inclusive, but more constant than that of ordinary linguistic forms, since they designate classes of grammatical forms, and not things so that, (3) they can be considered linguistic forms of the second degree still. (4) they more primitive than most forms and (5) occur more frequently than any of the forms of their domain that they replace.

“Form-classes and Lexicon” (chapter 16)

Bloomfield suggested and explained some terms we can use to split up the simplistic term “meaning”:

(1)   Smallest and meaningless unit of linguistic signaling: phoneme:

(a)    Lexical: phoneme

(b)   Grammatical: taxeme

(2)   Smallest meaningful unit of linguistic signaling glosseme; the meaning glosseme is a noeme;

(a)    Lexical: morpheme; the meaning of a morpheme is a semene

(b)   Grammatical: togmeme; the meaning of togmeme is an epismeme

(3)   Meaningful unit of linguistic signaling smallest or complex’s linguistic form; the meaning of a linguistic form is a linguistic meaning

(a)    Lexical: lexical form; the meaning of a lexical form is a lexical meaning

(b)   Grammatical: grammatical form; the meaning of grammatical form is a grammatical meaning.

 “Written records, The Comparative Method, and Dialect Geography” (chapter 17, 18, and 19)

An explanation different from the family tree image concerning how changes occur in related languages was proposed by Johannes Schmidt (1843 – 1901) which came to be called the “wave theory.” The theory assumes that tribes spread from a geographical center in all directions and that we can picture the relations in a single direction by representing contiguous dialects by a string letters. Dialect could be defined more precisely in geographic terms.

“Phonetic Change, Types of Phonetic Change, Fluctuation in the Frequency of Forms, and Analogic Change” (chapter 20, 21, 22, 23)

One of the clearest examples of linguistic change is phonetic change. The neogrammarians held that sound change is independent of semantic features and is merely a matter of articulatory habits. A common type of change is assimilation in which the position of the vocal organs for the production of one phoneme is altered to a position more like that employed in producing another; more common is regressive assimilation, where the preceding phoneme is affected.

 “Semantic Change, Cultural Borrowing, Intimate Borrowing” (chapter 24, 25, 26)

            Semantic changes can be established on the basis of (1) written records, (2) comparison with related languages, or (3) structural analysis of the forms. Semantic change is merely the result of change in the use of it and other semantically related speech-forms. Herman Paul held that semantic change consists principally in expansion and obsolescence. Cultural borrowing projects on a grand scale what is characteristic of the learning experience for individuals.

 “Dialect Borrowing” (chapter 27)

Every speaker acts as both an imitator and a model for others. our present standard languages developed from provincial dialects prevailing among the upper middle class of the urban centers that became capitals London and Paris for English and French.

“Applications and Outlook” (chapter 28)

He concluded language with these words:

The methods and results of linguistic in spite of their modest scope resemble those of natural science, the domain in which science has been most successful. It is only a prospect, but not hopelessly remote that the study of language may helps us toward the understanding and control of human events.

Bloomfield’s Influence

Bloomfield’s influence on American and European linguistics has been considerable. For quite a few years after the publication of language Bloomfield’s was the predominant approach to language study in American and European.

He was successful in inculcating a scientific attitude toward linguistic work. The results of these attitudes which often embodied a naïve mechanism. Mentalism was an opprobrious label, one that linguists avoided for a considerable period. This attitude led to an emphasis on classification and description as the sole or at least as the principal work of scientific linguists.

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

            The doctrine we have been to as “ traditional grammar” or “ school grammar” in Europe and America has a mixed background. The basic terminology for discussing language is that first developed by the Greeks, adopted by the Romans, and passed on to us through translation in various language.

            Beside deriving its vocabulary for the discussion of the more or less formal aspects of language from older work, traditional grammars have also drawn on the semantic theories of the ancients as well as the medievals. There is no single semantic theory that has been agreed upon in ancient, medieval, or modern times, but implicit in the method of distinguishing among the parts of language is a basically Aristotelian sketch of human cognitive and expressive processes.

MEDIEVAL LINGUISTIC STUDY

            There was a brief revival of learning in Europe during the Carolingian renaissance of the ninth century, but it lost its impetus with thye death of Charlemagne. Another intellectual revival gathered momentum in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when works of Aristotle, which had been lost to the West, were translated from Arabic versions circulated by the Moors in Spain and southern Italy. These works extended European knowlwdge of Aristoelian logic, and enthusiasm for the “ new logic “ permeated all fields of study in the later medieval period, leading to a new way discussing language, called the “logicization of grammar. “

·      Boethius

·      Peter Helias

·      Petrus Hispanus

THE MODISTAE

            The modistae were in agreement about two things (1) the basic kinds of modes there are and (2) how these modes are principally expressed. The different sorts of modes were expressed in terms of Aristotle’s catagories, and there were only ten of them: the typical expressions of these modes were to be sought in Latin language, as analyzed by Priscian. Since the gramar of the Modistae was based on meanings, it did rigorously show the relations among (1) a language like Latin as used in the medieval universities, (2) the world as the medievals described it to themselves , and (3) the language used by people of common educational background.

ETYMOLOGY

The most authorative source for medieval etymology was the twenty-volume Etymologies of Saint Isidore of Seville (d.636). The work deals with varied subjects, including grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, mathematics, medecine, law, ecclesiastical matters, geographical and political topics, mineralogy, farming, warfare, shipbuilding, housekeeping, and many others. Some of the summary accounts of the liberal arts are still useful, but the majority of the capters, though amusing as a Sunday supplement, are rarely as reliable.

Isidore described etymology as follows: Etymology is the origin of words, whence the meaning of a noun or verb is gathered by interpretation.

PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR

When discussing traditional grammar in America or England we are referring to two main sets, of data; the general and speculative views about the nature of language, which we have seen develop from the Greek period, and the work of a number of English grammarians in the eighteenth century who subscribed to these views. It will be useful to inquire about kind of information they had about language and the work that had been done before the definitive character was given to English grammar in the eighteenth century.

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR VERSUS LINGUISTICS

            Differences between Structural and Traditional Grammar

1.                  By defining classes and assigning rules for language based on meaning, traditional grammar proceeds subjectively, explaining how important features of language can be related to me.

a.       By defining classes and assigning rules in language based on structural analysis of the phonology, morphology, ayntax. Structural proceeds  objectively, showing how important features of a language are related to each other.

2.                  Traditional grammars appear to assign the reason why certain grammatical features of a language occur, and how they must behave.

b.      Structural grammar merely state the observable facts of language without attempting an explanation for nonlinguistic correspondences. Insofar as “explanation” is given, it consists in the correspondence between facts of language and an empirical, general linguistic theory.

3.                  Traditional grammar confuses level of analysis that can be easily distinguished by using expressions such as “understood as”, or “used in place of” to describe the overlap in the class membership of morphologically defined classes.

c.       Structural grammars distinguish various levels of analysis, for example morphological ( at which level “nouns”, “verbs” and so on can be defined for English) and syntactic ( at which level morphological “nouns” may have the same distribution as morphologically defined “adjectives”). Since interjections are used universally without the need of other accompaniments in languages, speaking of other forms “understood” is as unnecessary as it is undemonstrable.

4.                  The fact that traditional grammar is generally understood is due to its cultural history, which links it to a fundamentally Aristotelian psychological theory of a dualistic type, with the semantic doctrines of the medievals and the individual preference of eighteenth century authors, although many teachers of school grammar may be unaware of this justification.

d.      As much possible structural linguistics has prescinded from disputed psychological, logical, or metaphysical system. The facts recorded in such an empirical may be interpreted according to any of the other systems.

5.                  Traditional grammar has unthinkingly taken the declarative sentence as “basic” The “parts of the speech” are defined, therefore according to their function in that sentence type alone. Other sentence types are “explained” as deviant forms of declarative sentence, from which they are often said to be derived by a conscious psychological process.

e.       Structural linguistics has studied all utterances on the same terms and states the disthinguishable behavior of formally different types. The declarative sentence is taken as basic on the norm of frequency and descriptive convenience.

6.                  Traditional grammarians accuse the structualist of giving no explanation of language, of naively assumsing that mere description will provide its own interpretation, of criticizing, but not producing grammars, of dehumanizing language study by equating it with any formal signal system, of failing to distinguish the strictly human from the general animal use of language, of so stressing the differences between languages as to obscure the preponderance of similarities that are more impressive on comparison.

f.       Structuralist accuse traditional grammarians of giving pseudo explanations of carefully selected, inadequately described utterances manufactured to fit their rules, of too readily declaring sentences that do not fit the rules “idioms”, “exceptions” or “ ungrammatical” of assuming that a priori views of language can subtitute for accurate description.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE TWO APPROACHES

Traditional Grammar

Strengths

1.                  It is the most widespread, influential, and best-understood method discussing Indo-European languages in the Western world.

2.                  It is fairly well understood and consistenly applied by most of those who teach it and have studied it.many grammars of many languages are available.

3.                  It is humanistic in origin and therefore an answer however inadequate, to the kind of problems it raises.

4.                  It distinguishes rational, emotional, automatic, and purely conventional types of discourse in theory.

5.                  It contains a theory of reference by which the meaning of declarative sentences can be explained and to which other uses may be reduced.

6.                  It is vehicle by means of which ordinary students and scholars have mastered many languages successfully for centuries.

Weaknesses

1.                  It is normative

2.                  It suggests that usages which are not amenable to its rules are “ungrammatical” in some imputable sense.

3.                  It is based mainly on European languages

4.                  While giving a reasonable account of Latin and Greek

5.                  It doesn’t adequately distinguish (a) lexical, morphological,and syntactic meanings; (b) the difference between grammatically minimal and stylistically permissible construction; (c) particular and universal features of languages.

Structural Grammar

Strengths

1.                  It is empirical

2.                  It examines all languages

3.                  Because its description stuctural

4.                  It described the minimun

Weaknesses

1.                  For many linguists only the description of language and not its explanation has been the goal of their discipline.

2.                  It prescinds from psychological factors that are important to all speaker.

3.                  It has produced almost no complete grammars comparable to exhaustive treatments by traditional methods, concentrating on critical studies of how grammars should be written, partial sketches of exotic.

4.                  Some linguists have examined all forms of discourse on yhe same level, whether it be fully rational and considered or wholly in delibrate speech.

5.                  Since many linguists do not discuss meaning in the description of languages, it is difficult to attach importance to theur statements that meaning has been avoided in a particular description.

6.                  In the situational description of meaning the assumption that the “relevant” linguistic facts can be correleted with the “relevant” non linguistic items in a completely objective manner, has concealed many nonlinguistic assumption.