LINGUISTICA

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ANIMALS AND HUMAN COMUNICATION

If someone ask you what eparates humans from other animals, one of the first things that would probably come to your mind is language.

In fact, the otiginal term for language referred to it as part of the body, language is derived from the latin word lingua, meaning tongue. Barnett highlights the inseparability of lanuage from man when he says, "verbal communication is a condition of the existence of human society".

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DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE

A language is a sytem of conventional signals used for communication by a whole community. This pattern of conventions covers a system of significant sound units (the phonemes), the inflexion and arrangement of words", and the association of meaning with words.

phoneme: the smallest significant sound units capable of carrying meaning.

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SPEECH VERSUS WRITING

The purpose of all languages s to communicate, that is, to move thoughts or information from one persona to another person.

There aways at least two people in any communication. To communicate, one person must put something "out" and another person must take something in". We call this "output" and "input"

So language consists of four "skills": two for output (speaking and writing); and two for input (listening and reading).

STATUS

When we learn our native language, learning to speak comes before learning to write. In fact, we learn to speak almost automatically, bur somebody teach us to write. In one sense, speaking is the "real" language and writing is oly a representation of speaking. However, for centuries, people have regaded writing as superior to speaking. This is perhaps because in the past only a few people could write. But modern influences are changing the relative status of speaking and writing.

DIFFERENCES IN STRUCTURE AND STYLE

We usually write correct grammar and in a structured way. We organize what we write into sentences and paragraphs. We do not ussually use contractions in writing. We use more ormal vocabulary in writing. Also, we must use punctuation marks like commas and question marks.

We usually speak in a much less formal and less structured way. We do not always use full sentences and correct grammar. The vocabulary that we use m include slangs. We usually speak in a spontaneous way. When we speak ther aspects present that are not present in writing, such as facial expression or tone voice.

DURABILITY

Witing is usually more durable or permanent. When we speak, ou words live for a few moments. When we write, our words may live for years or even centuries. This is why writing is usually used to provide a record of events.

SPEAKER AND LISTENER / WRITER AND READER

When we speak, we usually need to be in the same place and time as the other person. Despite this restriction, speaking does have the advantage that the speaker receives instant eedbak from the listener.

When we write, our words are usually read by another person in a different place and at a different time. Indeed, they can be read by many other people, that ca do at their leisure, slowly or fast.

HOW SPEAKING AND WRITING INFLUENCE EACH OTHER

Today almost everybody can speak and write. Because writing is recorded and more permanent, this has influenced the way that people speak, so that many regional dialects and words have disappeared. It may seem that there are alrey too many differences that have to be learned, but without writing there would be more differences.

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FEATURES OF LANGUAGE

DUALITY

Human language is organized t two levels or layers simultaneously. At one level, we have distinct sounds, and, at another level, we have distinct meanings. This ality of levels is , in fact, one of the most economical features of human language because, with a limited set of discrete sounds, we are capable of producing a very large number of sounds combinationswhich are distinct in meaning.

CREATIVITY

Human beings use their linguistic resources to produce new expressions and sentences. They rrange and rearrange phonemes, morpemes, words, and phrases in a way that can express an infinite number of ideas.

DISPLACEMENT

Human language can talk about things that aren't happening here and now , and talk of real or imaginary situations, places, or objects far removed from their present surroundings and time Other nimals communicate in reaction to a stimulus in the imediate environment.

CULTURAL TRANSMISSION

Human language is culturally transmitted, or taught. Other animals communicate largely with signs they are born nowing.

ARBITRARINESS

Human language is a symbolic system. The signs, or words, in language have no inherent connection to what they signify or mean. Both verbaland written language can be passed down to future generations.

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THE LINGUISTIC SIGN

There are many models of the linguistic sign. A clasic model is the one by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Acording to him, language is made up of signs and every sign has two sides like a coin, both sides of which are inseparable.

The SIFNIFIER, the "shape" of a word, its phonic component.

The SIGNIFIED, the abstract component, the cncept or object that appears in our minds when we har or read the signifier.

Saussure separate d peech acts (la parole) from the system of a language (la langue)

Saussure also postulated that once the convention is established, it es very difficult to change

According to Saussure the relation between the signifier and the gnified is "arbitrary", there is no direct connection between the shape and the concept. It is a result of "convention": speakers of the same language group have agreedand learned that these letters or sounds evoke a cerain image.

Yet, he distinguished a group of words called onomatopeia whose signified and signifier do have a logical or non-arbitrary relationship.

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THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS

The conection between orm of the signals and its meaning is stablished by whatr is commonly reffered to in semiotics as the code. From this point of view, atural languages are codes.

A signal is transmitted from a sender to a receiver along a channel of communication. the signal will have a particular form and will convey a particular meaning, this connection is commonly referred to as the code. The message is encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver. Both written and spoken can be transmitted along a variety of channels.

Encoding: the speaker puts the message in codes (spanish english) according to the grammatical and phonological rules of the chosen code.

Decoding the listener extracts meaning (decode) from the coded data (message). The person processe the information and may respond or not.

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MORPHOLOGY

Morphology is the part of linguistics that deals with the study of words, their internal structure and partially their meanings.

DERVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY : is concerned with the relationships of different words, and with the ways in which vocabulary items can be built from some elements, as in un-speak-able.

INFLETIONAL MORPHOLOGY: it deals whith the forms of one word that it takes up depenging on its grammatical functions in a sentence.

MORPHEMES

Morphemes in morphology are the smallest units that carry meaning or fulfill some grammatical function.

FREE MORPHEMES: a single morpheme that constitutes a word and can stand alone.

BOUND MORPHEME: a morpheme that must be attached to another morpheme. It cannot stand by itself as it would hve no meaning.

FREE MORPHEMES

Lexical: words that have some meaning (verbs, adjetives, nouns)

Functional: a closed class of words which do not carry any meaning on their own, but only fulfil a grammatical function.

BOUND MORPHEMES

Derivational: Those wich produce new words, or change the function of a word. It is arcived by means of prefixes or suffixes in case of english

Inflectional: do not create new words, but only show grammatical functions of a word.