Sociolinguistics

Introduction:

Generally “Sociolinguists” is defined as the study of the relationship between language and society. It attempts to explain why do people speak differently in different social context as it is concerned with the identification of the social functions of language and the way it is used to convey social meaning.

I. Sociolinguistics:

Sociolinguistics is a developing branch of linguistics and sociology which examines the individual and social variation of language (Spolsky, 2010). It is a term including the aspects of linguistics applied toward the connections between language and society, and the way language is used in different social situations. Sociolinguistics is also considered as a branch of sociology in that it shows the relationship between language use and the social basis for such use (Hudson, 1996).  Sociolinguistics is a practical, scientific discipline which researches into the language that is actually used in order to formulate theories about language change (Bell, 1976).

Benzoukha (2013) presents some of the definitions of sociolinguistics that were provided by scholars. Among them:

1. The study of the link between language and society, of language variation, and of attitudes about language (Spolsky, 2010).

2. A branch of anthropological linguistics that examines how language and culture are related, and how language is used in different social contexts (Bell, 1976).

3. A study of the relationship between language and social factors such as class, age, gender and ethnicity (Hudson, 1996).

4. The study of language in relation to its socio-cultural context (Van Dijk, 2009).

II. Language variation in sociolinguistics:

The regional variation of languages is subject to linguistic investigations (Hudson, 1996). The concept of language variation is central in sociolinguistics. Languages vary on individual, regional, national and global levels. Numerous interconnected factors influence how a given language is used. Those factors can be social ( such as class, age, gender,…), regional, and ethnic. The differences can be reflected in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and syntax.

III.          Factors influencing language variation:

a. Social Class:

According to Trudgill (2000), social class is the position of the speaker in the society which  is often measured by the educational level, parental background, the profession and their effect on syntax and lexis that the speaker uses (Trudgill, 2000). He asserts that the speaker’s social class affect his way of formulating sentences. Trudgill (2000) distinguished two main groups of language users which are ‘middle class’ and ‘working class’(ibid.).

b. Social Context

Social context is the register of the language used by speakers depending on the different situations. That is, speakers use a formal language in formal settings, and use informal language in informal settings (Spolsky, 2010). Individuals are aware of the differences in speech patterns which mark their social class and they are able to adjust their style according to the interlocutor (ibid.).

c. Geographical Origins

The differences in pronunciation between speakers can identify their geographical region (Trudgill, 2000). Sociolinguistics attemts to investigates the way in which language changes, depending on the region in which the language is used (ibid.). The term ‘dialect’ is used to describe the variety of language that is different from other languages in grammar, lexis and pronunciation (Hudson, 1996).

d. Ethnicity

According to Oxford Dictionaries, an ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other, usually on the basis of some factors like a common language, ancestry, history, society, culture, nation or social treatment within their residing area. Bell (1976) claims that there are differences between native speakers and other ethnic groups in the way a given language is used (Bell, 1976).

e. Gender & age

The way men use language differs from that of women in terms of quantity of speech and the intonation patterns (Trudgill, 2000). Moreover, the age of the speaker affects the way he uses vocabulary and grammar (Bell, 1976).

References:

Bell, R.T., (1976). Sociolinguistics: Goals, Approaches, and Problems, London: Batsford.

Benzoukha, H. (2013). Basic concepts in sociolinguistics. University of Ouargla

Hudson, R. A, (1996). Sociolinguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 28 December 2013.

Spolsky, B., (2010). Sociolinguistics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Trudgill, P., 2000, Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society, England: Penguin Books.

Van Dijk, T. A., (2009). Society and Discourse: How Context Controls Text and Talk, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Applied Linguistics; definition, scope, and history.

Intrduction:

Both theoritical and applied Linguistics are branches of linguistics. The former is the branch of linguistics that inquires into the nature of language or languages without regard for practical applications while the latter is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems.

I. Applied Linguistics:

The term ‘applied linguistics’ seems to be hard to be defined, as Vivian Cook remarks: ‘Applied Linguistics means many things to many people’ (Cook 2006). Although defining linguistics is a hard task, many linguistics attempted to provide some definitions, among them Corder’s definition: “AL is the utilisation of the knowledge about the nature of language achieved by linguistic research for the improvement of the efficiency of some practical task in which language is a central component.” (Corder, 1974, p. 24).

Schmitt & Celce-Murcia (2002) suggest that: “Applied Linguistics is using what we know about (a) language, (b) how it is learned, and (c) how it is used, in order to achieve some purpose or solve some problem in the real world” (Schmitt & Celce-Murcia, 2002, p. 1).

Another definiton of Applied linguistics was provided by Guy Cook in which he defines id as ‘the academic discipline concerned with the relation of knowledge about language to decision making in the real world’. Many tried to define applied linguistics  such  as (Strevens,  1989: p. 9),  who defines AL as a “multi-disciplinary approach to the solution of language-related problems”.  He supported his definition with the following six propositions:

1. AL is based in intellectual enquiry, it gives rise to and makes use of research, and it is discipline-related.
2. Linguistics is an essential, but not the only discipline which contributes to AL.
3. The choice of which disciplines are involved in particular AL circumstances, and which parts of  those disciplines, is contingent: it depends on what the circumstances are.
4. The effect of the multi-disciplinary nature of AL is that its practical operations are to be found in a number of different domains of human activity.
5. AL is typically concerned with achieving an end, with improving existing language-related  operations, with solving language-related problems.
6. Linguists are not exempt from being socially accountable-from displaying a social conscience-and therefore when possible they should use their knowledge and understanding in the service of humanity (Strevens,  1988:  pp.  8-9).

II. History of Applied Linguistics:

The tradition of applied linguistics established itself in part as a response to the narrowing of focus in linguistics with the advent in the late 1950s of generative linguistics. Applied linguistics has always maintained a socially-accountable role, revealed by its central interest in the problems of language (Alan & Catherine Elder, 2004).

The term Applied Linguistics (AL) is an AngloAmerican coinage, and was founded first at the University of Edinburgh School of Applied Linguistics in 1956 then at the Center of Applied Linguistics in Washington D.C. in 1957. Applied linguistics was first concerned with the principles and practices on the basis of linguistics.

In the 1960s, applied linguistics was expanded to include language assessment, language policy, and second language acquisition (SLA). Then, in the early of the 1970s, applied linguistics become a problem-driven field rather than theoretical linguistics, including the solution of language-related problems in the real world. By the 1990s, applied linguistics had broadened including critical studies and multilingualism. Research in applied linguistics was shifted to "the theoretical and empirical investigation of real world problems in which language is a central issue." (Brumfit).

III. Linguistics and Applied Linguistics:

Linguistics is primarily concerned with language in itself and in findings ways of analysing language and building theories that describe language while Applied linguistics is concerned with the role of language in peoples’ lives and problems associated with language use in peoples’ lives.

IV. The Scope of Applied Linguistics: 

According to Cook (2003), the areas of applied linguistics are classified into three categories:

a. Language and education

1. First language education.
2. Second language education.
3. Foreign language education.
4. Clinical linguistics.
5. Language testing.

b. Language, work and the law

1. Workplace communication.
2. Language planning.
3. Forensic linguistics.

c. Language, information and effect

1. Literary stylistics.
2. Critical discourse analysis.
3. Translation and Interpretation.
4. Information design.
5. Lexicography (Cook,2003).

References:

Alan Davies & Catherine Elder.(Eds.). 2004. Handbook of Applied Linguistics.

Christopher Brumfit. How applied linguistics is the same as any other science. International Journal of Applied Linguistics", 7(1), 86-94.

Cook, G. (2003). Applied Linguistics. Oxford : Oxford University Press

Cook, V (2006), ‘What is applied linguistics?’, in Vivian Cook: Obscure Writing. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings//index.htm  (accessed May 2006).

Corder, S. P. (1974). Error Analysis. In Allen J. P. B. and Pit Corder (1974, editors). Techniques in Applied Linguistics (The Edinburgh Course in Applied Linguistics). London: Oxford University Press.

Strevens, P. D. (1989). Applied linguistics: An overview. Mimeo.

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Evdokia Karavas. Evdokia Karavas. “Applied Linguistics to Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. An introduction to Applied Linguistics”. Edition: 1.0. Athens 2014. Available at: http://opencourses.uoa.gr/courses/ENL5/.

Theoretical linguistics; Linguistic theory

Introduction:

Linguistics is defined as the scientific study of language. The word “ linguistics” was first used in the middle of the 19th C to underline the difference between a modern approach to language study that was then developing and a more traditional approach of philology. Philologists were concerned with the historical development of languages whereas linguists tends to give priority to spoken languages as well as to the problems of analyzing them as they operate at a given point in time. Linguistics can be devided into two main branches; applied linguistics and theoritical linguistics which is the main concern of this paper.

I. Theoretical linguistics:

Theoretical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that inquires into the nature of language or languages without regard for practical applications. It focuses on the examination of the structure of natural languages. The aim of theoretical linguistics is the construction of a general theory of the structure of language, or of a general theoretical framework for language description.

"Briefly, theoretical linguistics studies language and languages with a view to constructing a theory of their structure and functions and without regard to any practical applications that the investigation of language and languages might have, whereas applied linguistics has as its concerns the application of the concepts and findings of linguistics to a variety of practical tasks, including language-teaching." (Lyons 1981:35).

Theoretical Linguistics is concerned with the core structural elements of language, namely phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. In addition, the field of theoretical Linguistics studies  language change (historical linguistics), language in the inner world of the individual (first language acquisition with typical language development, developmental and acquired language disorders), and comparative linguistics.

Theoretical linguistics is concerned with constructing theories of language or languages, or with developing linguistic theory.

II. Linguistic theory:

"Linguistic theory" is whatever linguistic theorists choose to do (Silverstein, 1972). A good theory should exhibit at least four basic properties: 1) economy, 2) simplicity, 3) generality, 4) falsifiability. Furthermore a theory must be adequate on three levels: that of observation, of description and of explanation (Raymond Hickey).

Different levels of language have been subject to theories in the second half of the 20th century. In particular, phonology and syntax, because of their abstract and formal properties, have attracted linguists of a theoretical persuasion (Raymond Hickey).

References:

Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Lyons, John. 1981. Language and linguistics: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Michael, Silverstein. 1972. Linguistic theory: syntax, semantics, pragmatics. Society of Fellows, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Current address: Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago).

Raymond, Hickey. The Neat Summary of Linguistics.

Introduction to Morphology; etymology,processes of word formation,and morphemes.

Introduction:

Morphology comes from a Greek word meaning ‘shape’ or ‘form’ and is used in linguistics to denote the study of words, both with regard to their internal structure and their combination or formation to form new or larger units. In order to study morphology it is necessary to introduce etymology and some of the word formation processes.

I. Etymology:

Etymology is the study of the origin and history of a word. It is a term which, like many of our technical words, comes to us through Latin, but has its origins in Greek (e´tymon “original form” + logia “study of”). By having a close look at the etymologies of less technical words, we discover that there are different ways in which new words can enter the language. We should keep in mind that these processes have been at work in the language for some time and a lot of words in daily use today were, at one time, considered barbaric misuses of the language (Yulu, 2010).

II. Processes of word formation:

a. Coinage

One of the least common processes of word formation in English is coinage, that is, the invention of totally new terms. The most typical sources are invented trade names for commercial products that become general terms (usually without capital letters) for any version of that product. Older examples are aspirin, nylon, and vaseline (Yulu, 2010).

The most salient contemporary example of coinage is the word google. Originally a misspelling for the word googol (= the number 1 followed by 100 zeros), in the creation of the word Googleplex, which later became the name of a company (Google), the term google (without a capital letter) has become a widely used expression meaning “to use the internet to find information.” (Yulu, 2010).

b. Borrowing

It is a further way of expanding the lexicon. One of the most common sources of new words in English is the process simply labeled borrowing. Borrowing is the act of taking words from other languages and making them as a part of the lexicon (vocabulary) of the borrowing language.

In one hand, the English language has adopted a vast number of words from other languages, including “croissant” from the French, “dope” from Dutch, “piano” from Italian, “sofa” from Arabic, and “yogurt” from Turkish. In the other hand, the other languages borrow words from English as well. For instance, the word “stress” and “weekend” are english words that were taken to be used in French language (Yulu,2010).

i. Loan-translation or calque

 Loan-translation or calque is a special type of borrowing. In this process, there is a direct translation of the elements of a word into the borrowing language. Interesting examples is the French term gratte-ciel, which literally translates as “scrape-sky,”.  Gratte-ciel is a calque of the English word skyscraper. Another example of a calque is the English expression moment of truth is believed to be a calque from the Spanish phrase el momento de la verdad (Yulu,2010).

c. Compounding:

Compounding is a word-forming process which means bringing together two roots or two lexemes to produce a new lexeme, called a compound, as in fingerprint, textbook, and wallpaper. All the aformentioned examples are nouns, but we can also create compound adjectives as in good-looking, low-paid, and compounds of adjective “fast” plus noun “food” as in a fast-food restaurant or a full-time job.

d. Blending:

Blending is the combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term. It is putting together lexemes but at least one of these lexemes is present only in a fragmentary form, as in e.g. fog + smoke = smog, television+broadcast = telecast , and in breakfast + lunch = brunch, etc. The lexemes so produced are blends (Varga, 2010).

e. Clipping:

Clipping means shortening a lexeme and thus producing a more informal variant, e.g. photograph → photo, influenza → flu, examination → exam, etc (Varga, 2010).

There are a number of sub-types of clipping: fore-clipping, back-clipping (which is most common) and lexemes which have been both fore- and back-clipped. Clipping can be better understood through the follwing examples:

• phone = fore-clipping of telephone.
• bro = back-clipping to form a more informal version of brother.
• fridge = fore- and back-clipping of refrigerator.

f. Backformation:

A very specialized type of reduction process is known as backformation. Typically, a word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type (usually a verb). A good example of backformation is the process whereby the noun “television” first came into use and then the verb “televise” was created from it, also in supervision (noun) and supervise (verb) (Varga, 2010).

g. Conversion:

Conversion (also known as zero affixation) is a change in the function of a word. This process can happen that a lexeme is assigned to another word class (part of speech) without changing its form, as in e.g. bottle (noun) → bottle (verb), and in daily (adjective) → daily (noun) (Varga, 2010).

h. Acronyms:

Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words (Varga, 2010). That is, means forming a lexeme from the initial letters or larger parts of words. Many of these are pronounced as words, e.g. as in “NATO” for ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organization’.

i. Derivation:

One of the major word-forming processes is derivation (=affixation), i.e. creating a new lexeme by means of adding a derivational prefix or suffix to an old lexeme. This process is accomplished by means of a large number of small “bits” of the English language which are not usually given separate listings in dictionaries. These small “bits” are generally described as affixes. For instance, the lexeme kingdom is derived from the stem {king}, to which the derivational suffix {-dom} has been added, or the lexeme impolite is derived from the stem {polite}, with the derivational prefix {in-}, or the lexeme unhappiness is derived from the stem unhappy (itself derived from happy), by adding the derivational suffix {-ness}. The lexemes produced by affixation can be called derivative words, or simply just derivatives (Yulu,2010).

III. Words

‘Word’ is a term in common everyday use but one which linguists cannot easily define. Is isn’t for example one word or two? And how about mother-in-law? It denotes one concept but is formed out of three recognisable ‘words’: mother, in and law. Linguists therefore prefer other terms, referring to morphs, morphemes and lexemes when talking about ‘words’.

IV. Types of Morphemes

We can recognize that English word forms such as talks, talker, talked and talking must consist of one element talk, and a number of other elements such as -s, -er, -ed and -ing. All these elements are described as morphemes. Therefore, a morpheme can be defined as “a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.”

a Free and bound morphemes

According to Yule (2010), a broad distinction can be made between two types of morphemes. There are free morphemes, which are the type of morphemes that can stand by themselves as single words, for instance, ‘open’ and ‘tour’. The other type is what is knowen as bound morphemes. We mean, by bound morphemes are those forms that cannot normally stand alone and are typically attached to another form, exemplified as re-, -ist, -ed, -s. These forms were described in as affixes

• Example: The word “trees”

Tree is an example of a free morpheme as it can stand on its own and has a lexical meaning. “-s” on the other hand is simply a letter (graph) / sound (phone) which turns the lexeme tree into a plural. It is a separate morpheme as it contributes (grammatical) meaning to the whole: trees. The “-s” cannot stand on its own and is therefore a bound morpheme, a suffix.

Note: There are a number of English words in which the element treated as the stem is not, in fact, a free morpheme. For example the word receive, we can identify the bound morpheme “re-”  at the beginning, but the elements “–ceive” is not separate word form and hence cannot be a free morpheme. This type of forms is sometimes described as “bound stems” to keep them distinct from “free stems” such as “dress” (Yulu, 2010).

b. Lexical and functional morphemes

Free morphemes fall into two categories. The first category is that set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs that carry the “content” of the messages we convey. These free morphemes are called lexical morphemes such as: girl, man, house, tiger, sad, long, yellow, sincere, open, look, follow, break. In language we are able to add new lexical morphemes easily, so they are treated as an “open” class of words.The other Other types of free morphemes are called functional morphemes like the words: but, when, because, on, near, above, in, the, that, it, them. This set consists largely of the functional words in the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns. Because we almost never add new functional morphemes to the language, they are described as a “closed” class of words (Yulu,2010).

c. Derivational and inflectional morphemes:

The set of affixes that make up the category of bound morphemes can also be divided into two types. The first type was described in terms of the derivation of words. These are the derivational morphemes. These bound morphemes are used to make new words or to make words of a different grammatical category from the stem. For instance, the addition of the derivational morpheme “-ness” changes the adjective “good” to the noun “goodness”. A list of derivational morphemes include both suffixes such as the -ish, -ly, -ment, also it includes prefixes such as re-, pre-, ex-, mis-, co-, un and many more (Yulu,2010).

The second type of bound morphemes contains what are called inflectional morphemes. These are not used to produce new words in the language, but rather to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word. Inflectional morphemes are used to show:

• if a word is plural or singular
• if it is past tense or not
• if it is a comparative or possessive form.

English has only eight inflectional morphemes (or “inflections”). In English, all the inflectional morphemes are suffixes.

• Noun + -’s, -s
• Verb + -s, -ing, -ed, -en
• Adjective + -er, -est

V. Morphological description

The difference between derivational and inflectional morphemes is worth emphasizing. An inflectional morpheme never changes the grammatical category of a word. For instance, both “old” and “older” are adjectives. The “-er” inflection here simply creates a different version of the adjective. However, a derivational morpheme can change the grammatical category of a word. The verb “teach” becomes the noun teacher if we add the derivational morpheme “–er” (Yulu,2010).

For example, in the sentence “The child’s wildness shocked the teachers”, we can identify eleven morphemes.

The                      child                      -’s                          wild       -ness                   

functional           lexical                inflectional              lexical    derivational      

shock          -ed                        the                 - teach                 -er                   -s

lexical   inflectional           functional           lexical          derivational       inflectional

VI. Morphs and allomorphs

Morphs are the actual forms used to realize morphemes (Yulu,2010). For instance, "students" consists of two morphemes, student + suffix “s”. Students is comprised of "one or more morphs". In the other hand, allomorphs are different realizations of one morpheme. For example, the words cats, dogs and buses all contain a plural morpheme, and we can deduce that the pluralizing morphemes (-s and -es) have three different potential pronunciations - /s/, /z/ and /iz/. We call these allomorphs because they represent different pronunciation potentials of the same morphemes.

References:

Yule, George. (2010) The study of language. Cambridge, UK ; Cambridge University Press.

László, Varga. (2010) Introduction to English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University.

Introduction to Syntax; definition, grammatical functions, syntactic categories, representation, deep structure, and surface structure

Introduction:

Syntax means “sentence construction”. That is, how words group together to make phrases and sentences. Some people tend to use the term “Grammar” to mean the same as syntax, although most linguists follow the more recent practice whereby the grammar of a language includes all of its organizing principles: information about the sound system, about the form of words, how we adjust language according to context, and so on; syntax is only one part of this grammar.

1. What is Syntax?

According to Hana (2011), Syntax comes from the Greek word  “syntaxis” from syn (together) + taxis (arrangement). Syntax – the part of linguistics that studies sentence structure including:

a. Word order:

• e.g, I want these books.

b. Agreement: subject and verb, determiner and noun, . . . often must agree:

• e.g, He wants this book.
• e.g, I want these books.

c. How many complements, which prepositions and forms (cases):

• e.g, I give Mary a book.
• e.g, I see her.

d. Hierarchical structure – what modifies what

• e.g, We need more (intelligent leaders). (more of intelligent leaders)
• e.g, We need (more intelligent) leaders. (leaders that are more intelligent)

Syntax is not about meaning! Sentences can have no sense and still be grammatically correct:

• e.g. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. – nonsense, but grammatically correct

This sentence was composed by Noam Chomsky in 1957 as an example of a sentence whose grammar is correct but whose meaning is nonsensical.

2. Sentences and phrases

Since Syntax is the study of sentence structure , it is necessary to distinguish between “sentence” and “phrase”. Sentences are composed not directly out of words but of constituents which may consist of more than one word, called phrases. A phrase is an expression which is a constituent in a sentence and is the expansion of a head (i.e. key word)., For example in (a), the constituent the king, or the constituents my brother and an expensive car in (b) are Noun Phrases, abbreviated as NPs, because their key elements are the nouns (Ns) king, brother and car, respectively (Varga, 2010).

a. The king laughed.

b. My brother bought an expensive car.

Note that a phrase can be realised by a single word or a pronoun. For instance the NPs John, Mary and apples in (c) consist of the Ns “John”, “Mary” and “apples”, and “nothing else”. In (d) “he” is a special NP because its head is a pronoun rather than a noun.

c. John gave Mary apples.

d. He went home.

3. Sentences and clauses:

The terms sentence and clause can be used synonymously. A sentence or clause is an expression which minimally contains a subject and a predicate, and which may also contain other types of elements. For instance,

• Example (a):

It consists of just a subject and a predicate. The NP “the king” is the subject, and the Verb Phrase (VP) which is composed of a single verb (V) “laughed,” is the predicate.

4. Complements

According to Verga, “A complement is a constituent whose presence is structurally “dictated” (required or licensed) by a particular word. The presence of the complement “follows” from the presence of the word which it is a complement of” (Varga, 2010). Consider the previously mentioned examples:

• Example (b):

The NP my brother is the subject, the V bought is the predicate, and the NP an expensive car is a complement (direct object, of the verb “bought”).

• Example (c):

The subject is the NP “John”, the predicate is the V “gave”, and there are two complements, the NP “Mary”, functioning as an indirect object, and the NP “apples” functioning as a direct object.

• Example (d):

The complement of the V “went” is the Adverb Phrase (AdvP) “home”, consisting of the single adverb (Adv) “home”.

5. Adjuncts

The sentence or clause may also contain constituents which are not structurally required by the verb but add optional information about place, time, manner, purpose, etc. Those constituents are known as adjuncts.

6. Grammatical functions Vs syntactic categories

The terms subject, predicate, object (direct and indirect), adverbial, attribute; complement and adjunct refer to grammatical functions which constituents may perform in the sentence. The terms such as NP, VP, AP, AdvP, PP, N, V, A, Adv, P, etc. refer to syntactic categories, they name the grammatical category to which the constituent belongs (Varga, 2010).

7. Representation

Sentences consist of structural units larger than lexical categories, these sentence constituents are called phrases. The constituent structure of sentences can be represented in two ways: tree diagrams, and bracketings.

a. Tree diagram:

One of the most common ways to create a visual representation of syntactic structure is through tree diagrams Yule (2010). Yele added that a set of the symbols can be used to label parts of the tree as a try to capture the hierarchical organization of those parts in the underlying structure of phrases and sentences. The following figures are examples of a tree diagram:

b. Bracketings

Labeled bracketing is a way of representing the structure of an expression by writing square brackets ('[' and ']') to the left and right hand side of its component parts, i.e. words or constituents. The brackets carry subscripts, so-called labels, which state the category of the unit in question. 1) and 2) are exaples of Labeled bracketing:

1)   [S[NP[Det My][N friend]] [VP[V ran] [Adv home]]].

2)   [S[NP[D My][N brother]] [VP [VP[V bought][NP[D an][AP[A expensive]] [N car]]] [PP[P on][NP[N Tuesday]]]]].

Although the two ways of representation are logically equivalent, we prefer tree diagrams because they help visualise structure better than bracketings do. Tree diagrams are like uprooted trees, with branches and nodes. The nodes in a tree diagram are the topmost point, the bottom points, and all those intermediate points at which the tree branches. The labels are the abbreviated names of the categories to which the constituents belong (Varga, 2010).

8. Deep structure and surface structure

Deep structure and surface structure concepts are used in linguistics, specifically in the study of syntax in the Chomskyan tradition of transformational generative grammar.

Surface structure can be defined as the syntactic form they take as actual sentences. In the other words, it is forms of sentences resulted from  modification/ transformation. Consider these sentences:

(1)   You close the door.

(2)   The door is closed by you.

(3)   Close the door!

Deep structure is defined as an abstract level of structural organization in which all the elements determining structural interpretation are represented. Deep structure is what you wish to express and surface structure how you express it in with the help of words and sentence.

9. Structural ambiguity

Structural or syntactic ambiguity is the potential of multiple interpretations for a piece of written or spoken language because of the way words or phrases are organized. It means that two distinct underlying interpretations that have to be represented differently in deep structure. One of the classic examples is:

• e.g : The chicken is ready to eat”

1st interpretation: a live chicken is hungry.

2nd interpretation: a prepared chicken is ready to serve for dinner.

References:

Yule, George. (2010). The study of language . Cambridge, UK ; Cambridge University Press.

László, Varga. (2010). Introduction to English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University.

Jirka Hana (2011). Introduction to Linguistics – Syntax 1

• You may download the lecture with pdf format using the following link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u8qhqolkh0s643u/Syntax.pdf?dl=0

Introduction to Pragmatics; definition, context, deixis, reference, presupposition, and speech acts,

Introduction:

Pragmatics and Semantics are inter-related subjects; therefore, Pragmatics may not be easily separated from semantics. While semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences, pragmatics can be defined as a major study of linguistics that defines the hidden meanings of a writer and speaker.

I. Pragmatics:       

The term pragmatics was first coined by Morris in 1938. Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics that studies the ways language is tied to the contexts in which it is used. Pragmatics is defined as the study of “invisible” meaning, or how we recognize what is meant even when it is not actually said or written (Yule,2010). It refers to the encoding of particular communicative functions in specific grammatical and lexical elements of a given language (Ibrahim & Abbas, 2010).

It could be said that the field of pragmatics investigates what is unsaid. That is, a person might say a sentence that have many meanings, and the hearer needs to read between lines to get the meaning. Therefore, It is the pragmatics that defines what a listener or a reader can analyse the intended meanings (Siddiqui, 2018). In addition,  Crystal (1987) claims that Pragmatics deals with the factors that manages the language for what a speaker wants to choose within the pool of language that could satisfy whenever it is used within a social context and its effects on others.

II. Context:

There are three types of contextual information:

a. Physical context

The physical context encompasses what is physically present around the interlocutors at the time of communication. What objects are visible, where the communication is taking place, what is going on around, etc. (Jarmila. P & Jirka. H, 2011).

b. Linguistic context

The linguistic context is the set of other words used in the same phrase or sentence (Yule,2010). It is about what has been said before in the conversation (Jarmila. P & Jirka. H, 2011).

• e.g. Linda came home late yesterday. She thought nobody would notice.

c. Social context

The linguistic context is the social relationship of the people involved in communication (Jarmila. P & Jirka. H, 2011).

• e.g.: Mr. President, stop bugging me and go home. (Unaccepted because you can’t talk like this to the President.).

III. Deixis:

There are common words in language that cannot be interpreted at all if we do not know the context, especially the physical context of the speaker (Yule,2010). In other word, there are some expression in English like here, there, this, that, now, then, you, me, she that are virtually impossible to be understood if we do not know who is speaking, about whom, where and when (Yule,2010).

There are three types of deixis (Yule,1996):

1. Person deixis: they are used to point to things  like: it, this, these and people such as him, them.
2. Spatial deixis: the use of words and phrases to point to a location  like: here, there, and near that.
3. Temporal deixis: used to point to a time such as now, then, and last week (Yule,2010).

IV. Reference:

Reference can be defined as an act by which a speaker or a writer uses language to enable a listener or reader to identify something. A reference can be performed by the use of proper nouns such as Chomsky, other nouns in phrases like a writer, my friend, or pronouns such as he, she, and it (Yule,2010).

a. Inference:

In English language we can use names associated with things to refer to people, and use names of people to refer to things. This process is called inference (Yule,2010).

e.g. Can I look at your Chomsky?. The word Chomsky here refer to a book that is written by Chomsky.

b. Anaphora:

Anaphora is the use of an expression whose interpretation depends upon another expression in context (its antecedent or postcedent). Anaphoric reference means that a word in a text refers back to other ideas in the text for its meaning.

• e.g. Ann arrived, but nobody saw her. The pronoun “she” refers to Ann.

c. Cataphora:

Cataphoric reference, which means a word refers to ideas later in the text. It is the use of an expression that depends upon a postcedent expression.

• e.g. When she arrived home, Ann went to sleep. The pronoun “she” appears earlier than the noun “Ann”.

V. Presupposition

In pragmatics, presupposition is what the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance. That is what a speaker (or writer) assumes is true or known by a listener (or reader) can be described as a presupposition (Yule,2010).

e.g. Jane no longer writes fiction.    Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.

VI. Speech acts:

When language is used by human beings in real-life situations, there are generally communicative goals associated with every utterance. Speakers express their emotions, ask questions, make requests, commit themselves to actions. They do things with words. The acts speakers perform when they make an utterance are called speech acts.

John Searle claims that “speaking a language is performing speech acts, acts such as making statements, giving commands, asking questions, making promises, and so on." John L. Austin (1962) was the first to formulate these insights into a theory, which came to be known as the Speech Act Theory.

a. Locution, Illocution and Perlocution

According to Speech Act Theory, each utterance consists of three related acts:

• Locutionary act: This is the basic act of utterance, of producing a meaningful linguistic expression. Well-formed utterances usually have a purpose.
• Illocutionary act: An utterance is produced with some function in mind, thus it has a so-called communicative force.
• Perlocutionary act: The utterance should have an effect on the listener.

VII. Politeness:

Politeness can be defined as showing awareness and consideration of another person’s face (Yule,1996). Saying something that represents a threat to another person’s self-image is called a face-threatening act. For instance, using a direct speech act to ask someone to do something like saying: Give me that paper!, you are behaving as if you have more social power than the other person (Yule,2010).

VIII. The Distinction Between Semantics and Pragmatics:

Drawing the distinction between semantics and pragmatics can be regarded as one of the most challenging aspects for language learners to make. Ibrahim & Abbas  (2010) summarized the differences between those semantics and pragmatics as the following: 

• Semantics concentrates on the meaning that comes from linguistic knowledge whereas pragmatics concentrates on those aspects of meaning that cannot be predicted by Linguistic knowledge alone and takes into account the knowledge about the physical and the social world.
• The focus of pragmatic analysis is on the meaning of speakers' utterances rather than on the meaning of words or sentences which is the concern of semantics.
• Semantics covers what expressions mean, while pragmatics covers what speakers mean through using those expressions.
• Pragmatics involves how speakers use language in contextualized social interactions, In other words, how they do things with words, as Leech(1974, p.64) would say.
• Semantics invites a focus on meaning and truth conditions without regard to communication and context.

  

References:

Ibrahim, R. I. &. Abbas, J. A. (2010). The Distinction Between Semantic and Pragmatic Meaning With reference to the third year students - Dept. of English, College of Basic Education: A Practical study . مجلة كلية التربية الأساسية

Jarmila. Panevov´a & Jirka. Hana (2011). Intro to Linguistics – Semantics

Siddiqui, A. (2018). The principle features of English Pragmatics in applied linguistics. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 9(2), 77. doi: 10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.2p.77

Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Yule, G. (2010). The study of language. Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press.

•  You may download the lecture with pdf format using the following link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ogjktjhtyfdufv/Pragmatics.pdf?dl=0

Introduction to Semantics; definition, semantic features, lexical relations and collocation.

Introduction:

The focus of phonology, morphology, and syntax has been on internal structure i.e. the structures of words and sentences. In contrast, semantics covers the domain of meaning i.e. what a piece of language means. Semantics is a branch of linguistics that is concerned with the study of the relation between form and meaning.

What is Semantics?

The term semantics comes from the Greek word semantikos, which means ‘meaningful, significant’. Lyons (1995) defines semantics as the study of meaning and linguistic semantics as the study of meaning in so far as it is systematically encoded in the vocabulary and grammar of natural languages. Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences. In the semantic analysis, there is always an attempt to focus on what the words conventionally mean, rather than on what an individual speaker might want them to mean on a particular occasion (Yule, 2010). For Yule, semantics is concerned with the objective or general meaning rather than the subjective or local meaning.

Meaning:

While semantics is the study of meaning in language, there is more interest in certain aspects of meaning than in others. When linguists investigate the meaning of words in a language, they are normally interested in characterizing the conceptual meaning and less concerned with the associative or stylistic meaning of words.

Conceptual vs. associative meaning

Conventional (also called conceptual) meaning covers the essential components of meaning which are conveyed by the literal use of a word (Yule,2010). it's a meaning which will be described in almost mathematical terms. It will be applied to sentences that we will often evaluate in terms of their truth value. It is the meaning that is described by dictionaries.

As illustrated by Yule (2010), a number of the essential components of a word like needle in English might include “thin, sharp, steel instrument.” These components would be a part of the conceptual meaning of needle. Yet, different individuals might have different associations or connotations attached to the word needle. They may associate it with “pain, illness, blood, drugs, thread, knitting, or hard to find”.

Sometimes a given expression is also related to purely social or affective meaning. As an example, people may associate the expression low-calorie with “healthy,” but this may be not an element of the essential conceptual meaning of the expression. Poets, song-writers, novelists, literary critics, and advertisers may all have an interest in how words can evoke certain aspects of associative meaning; however, linguistic semantics is more concerned with trying to analyse conceptual meaning (Yule, 2010).

Note:

Denotation & Connotation

The terms denotation and connotation are useful to separate the literal, value-neutral and restricted sense of an expression from its figural, cultural or associative meanings. The connotation of a term depends on the user community's values and beliefs, whereas denotation does not.

Semantic features

One way in which the study of basic conceptual meaning might be helpful would be as a means of accounting for the “oddness”. After analysing the examples (a), (b), and (c), we can first notice that the oddness of these sentences does not derive from their syntactic structure. Thus, according to the basic syntactic rules for forming English sentences, we find that (a), (b), and (c), are well-formed structures (Yule, 2010).

a.            The hamburger ate the boy.

b.            The table listens to the radio.

c.            The horse is reading the newspaper.

The sentence “The boy ate the hamburger” is a correct sentence according to the syntactic rules for forming English sentences, but semantically odd. What makes the sentence odd are the components of the conceptual meaning. That is, the components of the conceptual meaning of the noun hamburger must be different from those of the noun boy. The kind of noun that can be the subject of the verb “ate” must denote an entity that is capable of “eating.” The noun “hamburger” does not have this property and the noun boy (human) does (Yule, 2010).

Lexical relations

The lexical relations are the relationships of meaning between words such as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, homophones and homonyms, prototypes, and polysemy.

Synonymy:

Synonyms are two or more words with very closely related meanings (Yule, 2010). A synonym is a word that has the same or nearly the same meaning as another word like complex – complicated (Jarmila. P & Jirka. H, 2011).

Antonym

Antonyms are opposition pairs such as happy-sad. Antonyms are, according to Yule (2010), two forms with opposite meanings. Antonyms can be divided into two main types; “gradable” and “non-gradable” depending on whether or not we can attach inflectional morphemes to them to indicate comparison.

Gradable antonyms

Gradable opposites such as the pair big/small can be used in comparative constructions as in I’m bigger than you. Besides, the negative of one member of a gradable pair does not necessarily imply the other. For instance, the sentence "My car isn't old" doesn't necessarily mean My car is new (Yule, 2010).

Non-gradable antonyms

Non-gradable antonyms or complementary opposites are lexemes in such a relationship that the negation of the meaning of one lexeme gives us the meaning of the other (Varga, 2010). Examples of non-gradable antonyms are: dead- alive, male-female. The comparative constructions are not normally used with non-gradable antonyms (Yule, 2010). The non-gradable antonyms are direct antonyms.

Hyponymy:

Hyponymy is a kind of relationship between lexemes when the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another (Yule, 2010). Hyponymy describes hierarchical relations between terms. The following example explains the hyponymy relationship:

• e.g.:  Colour → blue, red, green, yellow, purple,….

The word "colour" is superordinate, whereas the words “blue, red, green, yellow, purple” are hyponyms.

Homophones and homonyms:

Homophones are two or more different (written) forms that have the same pronunciation (Yule, 2010). Examples of homophones are: flour-flower, see – sea, and right-write.

We use the term homonyms when both pronunciation and writing are identical. That is, when one form has two or more unrelated meanings (Yule, 2010), as in the following:

• bank (of a river) – bank (financial institution).
• race (contest of speed) – race (ethnic group).

Note:

When two terms are spelled similarly but the sound patterns differ, we speak of homographs. An example of a pair of homographs: content that means happy or satisfied, and content which means all that is contained inside something.

Prototypes

A prototype is a cognitive reference point, i.e. the proto-image of all representatives of the meaning of a word or, of a category. Thus, a robin, according to Yule (2010), can be regarded as a prototype or a "good example" of the category bird, while a penguin or an ostrich is a rather "bad example" of this category.

Polysemy:

Polysemy describes individual words with multiple and distinct senses (polysemes). Polysemy can be defined as one form having multiple meanings that are all related by an extension (Yule, 2010). Examples of polysemy are the word head, (a) used to refer to the object on top of your body and (b) of a person at the top of a company.

Collocation:

When one-word collocates with another, they often occur together. The term collocation denotes a meaningful word combination that often (regularly or frequently or typically) occurs in natural language. Collocation is a familiar grouping of words that appears together because of their habitual use and thus creating the same meaning. 

References:

Yule, George. (2010). The study of language. Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press.

László, Varga. (2010). Introduction to English Linguistics, Eötvös Loránd University.

Jarmila. Panevov´a & Jirka. Hana (2011). Intro to Linguistics – Semantics

• As you may download the lecture with pdf format using the following link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l1anv1q9ipegibz/Semantics.pdf?dl=0