Introduction Linguistics
Introduction
Language can be seen as
sound organized into units of form and fuction with meaning, contextualized in
reality. Language can also be considered as an abstraction resualiant from
the linguistic behaviour of its users. to
study it or describe this abstraction we need a science of language-a
systematic study of language. Language can also be seen as a system of signals by
which we communicate. The term ”communicate” here is what we have to consider
carefully.
Communication
Communication is a wide-ranging term, but
the context which we are referring to is the context of human
communication. The first subdivision of communication is between non-vocal
and vocal communication, which can be further subdivided into non-speech and
speech. These are all modes of communication which send messages across to the
recipient with no voice involved. For example , when someone is grieving , say
at the passing-away of someone close ,we
would go up to her/him to just place our hands on her/his shoulders,
perhaps , or just take her/his hands in ours and not say anthing, at all-and yet this gesture could speak a
thousand words of comfort, meaning, ”I’m with you and will always be here for
you.”
Linguistics
In the definition of language as “sound”
organized into units of “form” and “function ”with “meaning” ,contextualized in
“reality” ,the key words pointed out are “sound”, ”form”, ”function”, ”meaning”
and “reality”. Taking these key words as “cue” words, let us look at them
individually and see how they are actually the building-blocks to a solid
building ,called linguistics-the science of language.
In linguistics, language signs are constituted of four different levels :
·
Phonology
·
Morphology
·
Syntax
·
And
semantics
Applied Linguistics
On a progression from these pure
linguistic levels ,the individual and his or her language can now be seen from an applied linguistic
perspective .this area of language use comes under the term ”pragmatics” that
study of the elements governing the communicative use of language in context.
Special Phonological
Features
In representing sounds in any
language , we know that the phoneme is the minimal unit of sound-the symbol
representing a sound.
A. Broad Transcription (Phonemic Transcription) . In such circumstances , we say that the
transcription (i.e. the symbol repsentation) )is a broad transcription which only shows the basic sounds of a word.
B. Narrow Transcription (Phonetic Transcription).On
the other hand, for more detailed transcription writing ,where the phoneme
representation is indicative of finer points such as velarization ,aspiration or such qualitative
effects, we have what is known as phonetic
transcription ,indicated by square
brackets[ ].
C. Allophonic Variation. But in discriminating in more
detail,the phoneme/l/(i.e.the sound/l/) will be seen to have differences
between both occurrences.
Phonetics
Phonetics is
the study of sounds. To understand the mechanics of human languages one has to understand
the physiology of the human body.letters represent sounds in a rather intricate
way. This has advantages and disadvantages. To represent sounds by letters in
an accurate and uniform way the International Phonetic Alphabet ( IPA) was
created.
We begin with phonology and
phonetics.it is important to understand the difference between phonetics and
phonology. Phonetics is the study of actual sounds of human languages, their
production and their perception.
Morphemes are the smallest parts that have meaning. Words
may consist of one or several morphemes i much the sane way ass they consist of
one or more syllables however, the two concepts, that of a morpheme and tht of
a syllable, are radicall different.
We return to
morphology. We shall investigate the possible shapes of morphs and then turn to
the question in what ways morphology is different from syntax. At the end we
shall return to the issue of head movement and the structure of complex heads.
