Linguistics Overview

Language is unique to humans

• Language is influenced by human physiology; specific body parts have evolved for speech production.
• Language is creative; it is used to express thoughts and ideas, including poetic and artistic forms.
• Language is systematic at every level: from sounds to sentences to larger discourse.

Language is generative, systematic, and diverse

• Language can be used to express an infinite number of concepts and ideas.
• All languages are structured and follow rules, despite showing diversity across speakers, cultures, and regions.
• The relationship between linguistic signs (words) and their meanings is often arbitrary.
• Despite diversity, languages share common features, such as the existence of nouns and verbs.
• Native speakers are often unaware of the specific rules they apply.
• Humans are born with an innate ability to acquire language.
• Language changes over time through changes in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and usage.

Linguistic Competence vs Performance

• Competence is the innate ability to use language, while performance is how we assess someone's actual language usage.
• Our performance can differ from our competence, showing discrepancies between what we know and how we use language.

Key areas of language study

• Phonetics: the study of speech sounds and their production.
• Phonology: the study of how speech sounds are organized and interact within a language.
• Morphology: the study of how morphemes (meaningful units) combine to create words.
• Syntax: the study of how words are combined into phrases and sentences.
• Semantics: the study of how words and phrases are interpreted and how meaning is conveyed.

Lexicon and Grammar

• Lexicon is our mental store of words.
• Grammar consists of the rules and structure of language.
• Mental grammar is the internal set of rules and vocabulary we hold.
• Descriptive grammar describes how language is used based on observed linguistic performance.
• Prescriptive grammar prescribes "correct" language usage based on social standards.

Writing vs Language

• Writing is a representation of language, not language itself.
• It is considered more sophisticated than speech due to its explicit teaching and its ability to be edited.
• Not all languages have writing systems.
• Writing involves both speech areas and other brain areas.
• Writing is more permanent and stable than speech.

Phonetics: The Study of Speech Sounds

• Articulatory phonetics: How speech sounds are produced by the vocal tract.
• Acoustic phonetics: The transmission and physical properties of sound.
• Auditory phonetics: How speech sounds are perceived by the listener.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

• Each distinct sound segment has a dedicated symbol in the IPA.
• The IPA provides a consistent system for representing sounds across languages.

Challenges of Representing Speech Sounds in Writing

• Silent letters: Letters without corresponding sounds.
• Multiple letters, single sound: Combinations of letters representing a single sound.
• Single letter, multiple sounds: Letters with varying pronunciations.
• Ambiguous pronunciation: Words with uncertain pronunciations.
• Ambiguous spelling: Different spellings for the same sound.

Phonology: Sound Patterns in Language

• Phonology explores how sound segments are organized and interact within a language.
• Sounds can influence each other's pronunciation in various ways.

Investigating Phonological Questions:

• Can any sounds appear in any order in a word?
• Are sounds always produced exactly the same way?
• How are sounds mentally perceived and categorized?
• Do sounds influence each other when they occur together?

Syllables

• Syllables are units of organization within phonological units.
• Every language uses syllables.
• Syllable structure involves an onset (beginning), a nucleus (center), and a coda (ending).

Syllable Structure

• Nucleus: The core of a syllable, usually a vowel.
• Onset: Consonants that appear before the nucleus.
• Coda: Consonants that appear after the nucleus.
• Languages differ in the organization and structure of syllables, including allowed consonant clusters and sound sequences.
• Phonotactic constraints govern which sound sequences are possible or not possible in a language.

Phonemes, Allophones, and Sound Variation

• Phonemes are the abstract sound units that distinguish meaning in a language.
• Allophones are variations in pronunciation of the same phoneme, which do not change the meaning of a word.
• Complementary distribution: When two sounds never occur in the same phonetic environment, they are typically allophones of the same phoneme.
• Contrastive distribution: When two sounds can appear in the same environment and replacing one with the other changes the meaning, they are considered separate phonemes.
• Free variation: When two sounds are interchangeable in the same position without changing meaning, they are allophones of the same phoneme, but their use might be influenced by factors like dialect or personal speech habits.