![Defining Linguistics ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Recommandé
Contenu connexe
Tendances
Tendances (20)
En vedette
En vedette (20)
Similaire à Linguistics: Descriptive and Anthropological
Similaire à Linguistics: Descriptive and Anthropological (20)
Plus de PaulVMcDowell
Plus de PaulVMcDowell (20)
Dernier
Dernier (20)
Linguistics: Descriptive and Anthropological
- 1. Linguistics Descriptive Linguistics and Culture
- 11. Oral Cavity
Notes de l'éditeur
- Linguistics is the study of language, usually as it is spoke. It is an advanced system of communication. Speaking is one way for using a language, relying on sound. Signing—using sign language—is another means. It involves sight in conjunction with an elaborate system of gestures. Writing may be studied, but it is not the primary focus. Most cultures around the world have no writing. All cultures have language, all of it spoken.
- Humans communicate, as do other animals. We may define communication as an ability of one organism to trigger, or elicit a response from, a second organism. When two persons speak, the first person says something and the second responds. Take the case of a bouncer expelling an unruly patron. If the bouncer asks the patron to leave and he does so, communication has taken place. If he does not and the bouncer has to “help him out the door” communication has not taken place; force was applied instead. Then, if you wake up as the sun rises, communication has not taken place either. You have responded to a nonliving object, the sun.
- In this series, we start by examining the biological roots of language, particularly the brain, the vocal tract, and the oral cavity. We then look at how speech sounds are articulated and how sounds are selected to carry the language. In other words, we look at phones (speech sounds) and phonemes (units of speech that carry the language). Then we look how words and sentences are formed. We compare human language with animal communication and conclude with the relationships between language and culture.
- As we said, language is spoken. This is where the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) comes in. Take written English. How many ways do you pronounce the latter a ? Do you pronounce bat, bate, and bah the same way? If you look at the IPA spelling of a as in bat, bat(ed), and bah (as in humbug), you can see that it is pronounced three different ways. In fact, we don’t have just five vowels (plus w and y}, but 12. We need 12 symbols to represent them if we are to let linguistics do its job. So that is why we need the IPA.
- Back in the turn of the 19 th to 20 th century, a group of school teachers met and worked out a phonetic alphabet that performed exactly that function. Our language is based on sounds of speech, which we call phones . So when we want to use a to reflect the three sounds, we use [a{ for ah (or bah, humbug), [e] for bet, and [ æ] for bat. To identify them as straight speech sounds, we use square brackets ([]) to enclose the sound or sounds. If we want to identify phonemes , or units of sound that carry a particular language, we enclose the symbols in slashes (//). We sill explain the difference between phones and phonemes in a moment.
- To explain how the whole thing works, we will focus on six English consonants we call stops. A stop is an utterance in which the airstream coming from the lungs is stopped momentarily, producing the sound. These are [p], [b], [t], [d]. [k], and [g]. But first things first. We have to learn how speech is created in the first place or, in other words, how speech is articulated. We need to look at the speech mechanism, which involves the brain, the lungs, the larynx (voice box) with its vocal cords or folds, and the oral cavity, also known as the mouth.
- So, if you look at the brain again, you may remember Broca’s area, where speech is generated and Wernicke’s area, where speech is received. The arcuate fasciculus connect Broca’s with Wernicke’s area. You may remember the angular gyrus, that Grand Central Station that interconnects the five senses, so we can represent what we see, or hear, or touch with sound, the source of language. We didn’t mention the hypoglossal nerve , which connects the brain to the tongue. The tongue, as we will soon see, is the most important part of the oral cavity, and so we have a network of nerves that allow the tongue to move freely and fast.
- This leads us to the vocal tract , which includes the lung, diaphragm, larynx and vocal cords, hyoid bone, oral cavity, and nasal cavity. To speak, we first need air, and so the lungs bring in and expel the air. The diaphragm aids in breathing in and breathing out—so do the ribs by the way. When the air is expelled, it passes through the larynx, which houses the vocal cords or vocal folds. When they vibrate, we have a voice. When we speak, we use our mouth and the parts of it; that is how we produced our speech. The nasal cavity also plays a role; when we utter [m] o r[n], we are using the nasal cavity But we’ll keep things simple, so you don’t have to worry about the nasal cavity overmuch. And the hyoid bone? That anchors the tongue.
- When we speak, we articulate; that is, we coordinate the parts of the speech mechanism—the tongue especially, but also our lips—with others in the top of our mouths—upper lip, upper teeth, and others to be spelled out in the next two panels. The mechanism include points of articulation—the parts in the upper part of the mouth—and articulators in the lower part—again mostly the tongue.
- This is the oral cavity, known affectionately as the mouth. Look at the terms carefully that point out the parts of the speech mechanism. We look at the points of articulation first, then the articulators.
- This diagram shows the points of articulation, all in the upper part. They include the upper lip, the only one that moves. From front to back, they include the upper teeth, the alveolar ridge (the gum ridge behind the teeth), the hard palate, the velum (also known as the soft palate), and the uvula (the lobe you see at the back of the mouth when you open wide. Except for the upper lip, they do not move. Some linguists also call them passive articulators.
- The articulators are the movable parts of the speech mechanism, all located in the lower part of the mouth. From front to back, they include the lower lip, the lower teeth (which move because the jaw moves) and parts of the tongue. In the typology used in the diagram, they are the tip, blade, front, and black. In the typology used here (and in your textbook, they comprise the apex (also known as the tip), the front or blade), the center, and the dorsum or back. Other linguists use other typologies.
- Also involved in the vocal tract is the larynx , which contain two vocal cords (or vocal folds ) They are the source of the voice. When they are almost closed (lower picture, right), they vibrate, producing the voice. When they are open, as at the lower picture, left, there is no voice. That too, is important in the production of speech sounds; some sounds are indeed voiceless. The upper picture shows the vocal cords within the throat, which includes the epiglottis , a muscle that shuts off the windpipe ( trachea ) to prevent food from going down the trachea.
- A position of articulation refers to the placement of speech mechanism parts relative to each other when uttering a phone. For consonants, that involves placing an articulator at or near a point of articulation to create the phone, such as a bilabial stop, created when the lower and upper lip close to utter a [b] or [p]. For vowels, the phone created depends on whether the tongue is placed high, mid, or low in the mouth, whether it is positioned in the front, mid, or back part of the mouth, and whether the lips are rounded or unrounded.
- A stop involves placing the articulator against a point of articulation, halting the air stream momentarily. The stop is named by specifying the articulator first followed by the point of articulation that is touched. Often, only the point of articulator is named because the articulator is usually part of the tongue. The shorthand versions, respectively, are bilabial , alveolar , and velar .
- In labio-labial or bilabial stops, the upper and lower lips are pressed together to momentarily stop the airstream. An example is [p] as in [p I n]
- Apico-alveola r stops are created when the tip (apex) of the tongue touches the gum ridge (alveolar ridge) behind the upper teeth. An example is [t] as in tin [tIn]. Often, the shorthand term alveolar stop is used to refer to this position.
- A dorso-velar stop is created when the dorsum (back) of the tongue touches the velum (soft palate), halting the airstream there. An example is [k] as in [kIn]. Often the term velar stop is used as shorthand.
- In English, it so happens that speakers can readily distinguish between all six of these sounds. In other words, they contrast. They are said to be significant for English, and that is where phonemes come in, which we will examine in a moment. However, before we do so, we need to clear up an issue. Both [p] and [b] are bilabial stops. Likewise, [t] and [d] are apico-alveolar stops, and [k] and [g] are dorso-velar stops. Since only one symbol can refer to a phone, we must ask why two IPA symbols represent the same utterance. The answer is as close as your larynx.
- The second set of stops are voiced. The bilabial stop [b] is voiced, whereas the bilabial stop [p] is unvoiced or voiceless . The same applies to the pair [d] and [t} The stop [d] is voiced, whereas the stop [t} is voiceless. Likewise, the stop [g] is voiced whereas [k] is voiceless. The voiced stops are voiced because the vocal cords vibrate when they are uttered. Do a little experiment. Put your thumb and forefinger at your throat and repeat several times “bin” {bIn] followed by “pin” [pin] in rapid succession. You will feel the throat when you pronounce b in bin. When you pronounce p, the throat will not vibrate until you pronounce the vowel i [I] All vowels are voiced. Do the same with [d] and [t] and with [g] versus [k]. By the way, [g] is pronounced like g as in get, not as in gin, whose IPA spelling is [dzIn]—very different.
- So what happens with the vocal cords with voiced versus voices speech sound. We’ve shown how already. If you notice the lower picture, the vocal cords in the larynx are almost completely shut. Just a small hole or aperture is open, and the folds of the vocal cord vibrate as the air passes through. That is what happens when you pronounce [b], {d], or [g] (as in get, remember). When you pronounce the voiceless [p], [t], or [k], the vocal cords are open, as you see in the top picture.
- So, let’s sum up what we’ve learn, and anticipate our discussion of phonemes. The voiced bilabial stop [b] contrasts with voiceless or unvoiced [p]. The voiced apico-alveolar or alveolar stop [d] contrasts with the voiceless or unvoiced [t]. And the voiced dorso-velar or velar stop [g] contrasts with the voiceless or unvoiced [k]. Why do we use the word “contrast” so much. We do so not only because they sound different to English speakers, but also because they change the meaning. The sound bin is different from pin and the sound din is different from tin. Sometimes, there is no meaning even though we can make out the difference. So [kIn], which means “family” or “relatives,” contrasts with *[gIn], which has no meaning. (It is not the gin [dzin] we know and not necessarily love.} By the way, the asterisk (*} marks nonsense words, that is words that lack a meaning. This leads us to the wonderful world of phonemes .
- Explaining and understanding the concept of phoneme is no easy task. It is unlike anything you have understood before. The standard definition of phoneme is that it is the smallest significant unit of speech. Let’s take the words significant , unit , and smallest in turn. Because the speaker of English can hear the difference between [bIn] and [pIn], [b] and [p] are two separate phonemes. The significance is in the ability of the speaker to distinguish between these two sounds. The same goes for [d] for [dIn and [t] for [tIn] and for [g] for *[gIn] versus [k] for [kIn]. All six contrasts affect the meaning, even if *[gin] is a nonsense word.
- What we have been looking all along are what we call minimal pairs. Tale the two utterances [pIn] and [bIn]. The [p] and [b] are the only two phones that differ; the rest of the utterances are both [-In]. They are identical speech environments . The words are identical except for [b] and [p]. These two utterances are significant because they affect the meaning. Sometimes they may involve changes from one meaningful word to another; sometimes you might be looking at one or two nonsense words. What matter at this stage is that significant differences in a pair of utterances are being identified.
- Only by isolating utterances by comparing one pair of utterances after another can we determine which speech sounds are significant. This is a list of stops that are phonemic. Here, [p] contrasts with [d] and so on. There are other types of phones besides stops, and close analysis of them is beyond the scope of this course. What matters are the principles of this type of analysis.
- However, if we could just isolate a phone that people can identify, our job would be done. But sounds that carry a language usually are not single phones; they are units that contain two or more phones. The best way to understand this is to look at an example where a phoneme is made up of at least two variants of sound we call allophones . That is why phonemes are called units of speech rather than speech sounds. The term allo- in allophone is derived from the Greek, which means “other.” So, allophone means “other speech sounds.” Rarely, if ever, are phonemes made up of a single speech sound.
- How do we know two speech phones are different phones of the same phoneme rather than two separate phonemes. The answer is precise; they never appear in otherwise identical speech environments that affect the meaning. You will never find [kh] and [k-] in the same environment. The former is always in initial position, and the latter always occurs after s: [k h ] in [k h i] but [k - ] in [sk - i]. It’s like a bad mystery novel: the guest and the butler are never seen in the same place at the same time. Therefore, the guest and the butler must be the same suspect, or “person of interest.”
- Allophones, then, are phonetic variants of a phoneme, as this example shows. Phonemes are enclosed in slashes (//) as shown above, whereas allophones, being phones, are enclosed in square brackets ([]), as shown above.
- But that’s not the end of the story. There are other languages in which this very same phones are phonemes. In Old Sanskrit, from which Hindi (of India) and Urdu (of Pakistan) are derived. Here, [k h il] and [k ־ il] do form minimal pairs. Compared in an identical speech environment, [k h il] means “parched grain” whereas [k - l] means “small nail.” That means that, in these two languages, /k h / and / k - / are phonemes, not just phones. This is just one example to show that every language has its own set of phonemes.
- At this level, the system of phonemes in any language has its own structure, based on significant units of speech we call phonemes. This is the first structure of a system of structural duality, which was mentioned earlier and will be discussed later. This panel summarizes the exercise we discussed.
- The second structure of this dual system involves meaning rather than significance of speech units we call phonemes. They involve morphology, the study of meanings of works, and syntax, the study of phrases and sentence construction. The entire formal structure of a language’s phonology, morphology, and syntax is call a grammar of that language. The smallest meaningful unit is the morpheme, and we look at this concept next.
- Morphology refers to the study of morphemes and their construction into words. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of speech. Thee are two types: The first type is free morphemes , or morphemes that can stand alone and make sense: cat or dog or horses can all stand as an example. The second type is bound morphemes, or morphemes that cannot stand alone; it has to be attached to a free morpheme in order to make sense. The –s in cats would be an example.
- Familiar examples of bound morphemes are the prefixes and suffixes we learned in grade school. They fall into a category known as affix, or a bound morpheme that modifies a free morpheme, or a root . A prefix is an affix that precedes the root; a suffix is one that follows the root. See examples above, An inflectional bound morpheme is one that may change number or tense of the word, but does not change the meaning. A derivational bound morpheme changes the meaning. So, if you add –y to part to form party, you change the meaning from, say, a component of something to a festive occasion or a participant in a contract or agreement.
- Allomorphs are bound morphemes who speech sound changes with the word. For example, the plural of cat is cats, with an /-s/, pronounced like an s. The plural of dog is dogs, with a /-z/ and pronounced like a z. The plural of horse is horses, with an /- əz/ , pronounced like an –ez. We have others, like teeth for tooth or even without a change: sheep and sheep. The study of his phenomenon is known as morphophonemics, the phonology of bound morphemes and how they vary.
- We are all familiar with parts of speech, from grade school, as these examples show.
- Here are some more of parts of speech, that we also learned in grade school.
- You notice that we do not separate words and syntax into separate structures. The reason is that meaning and word order are intertwined. “Cats” could mean a plural of cat or a possessive: “two cats” indicate plural, “cat’s meow” is a possessive. The apostrophe of the possessive is not present in speech. Another example is comb. In the first sentence above, a comb is a noun; in the second, it is a verb. It depends on where it fits in a sentence. Make up your own sentence to show how the same word could be a noun, a verb, or even an adjective. -
- We now move from descriptive linguistics to the culture of language. One involves nonverbal communication. Here is an example of kinesics, or an analysis of gestures, facial expressions, and other forms of “body language.” Sometimes they vary by culture. What is this gentleman expressing with his thumb up. Now imagine what kind of a reaction he might get in Brazil or Iran. As they say in anthropology, it’s all relative.
- Paralanguage are verbal (or extralinguistic) noises that accompany language. The slur of a drunk indicates the speaker is, well, drunk. Tone of voice, pitch—these all convey something of the emotional state (anger, sadness, depression) or attitude of the speaker. Sometimes, vocalizations give the speaker away: “uh” or “um” suggests the speaker is searching for words or an appropriate way to express an unpleasant truth. .
- Here are some more examples of paralanguage. Supply your own.
- There are also studies of linguistic change, sometimes known as historical linguistics. English, for example, is part of a language family that includes other Indo-European languages, such as German, Spanish, even Hindi. Glottochronology is the study of the antiquity of language and when they might have separated. One technique is the comparison of a core vocabulary of any two languages. They entail listing the words for common objects: body parts (hand, foot), climate (clouds, sun, rain), natural objects (trees, rocks), or anything that is common to all human populations. Then we see how many cognates there are. For example, English (house) and German (Haus) have the same pronunciation for dwelling. They indicate closeness of the two languages. The Spanish word for the same thing, case, indicates a more distant relationship between Spanish and English (and German).
- Another field of linguistics is ethnolinguistics , or the study of the relationship between language and culture One hypothesis, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, states that the structure of language—the “grooves” of expression, predisposes the speakers of a language to think of the world in terms of that language. For example, Benjamin Lee Whorf thought that the Hopi did not see time as batches as we do—in minutes, hours, days, weeks, or years. See your book for further details.
- Whorf (and Sapiir) thought the Hopi (above) viewed time as a process. This has sparked a debate. Do languages affect one’s perception of the environment, or does the environment affect language. For example, the Nuer of Ethiopia, a cattle-herding people, view their entire existence in terms of cattle. They compose songs about cattle and their features, they name their children after cattle, and they have 400 words for cattle. In sum, it is a chicken and egg question—what came first?
- There are other areas of research. One is kinship terms. What we call cousins, other cultures may call brothers and sisters. We will cover that issue later. As for gender, Deborah Tannen, a specialist in gender studies, finds that men interpret “sorry” as apology or taking responsibility for a problem, whereas women interpret the term as regret for the situation created by the problem. Different ethnic groups have their own ways of pronunciation and words, such as African American English or regional dialects.
- Code switching is another topic of wide linguistic interest. You may speak in an informal way at the cafeteria or pub, another way when making a class presentation. Martin Luther King was a master of code switching. His oratory in his “I have a dream” speech at the Washington Monument in 1963 entailed a perfect command of formal standard English (above), yet before a church congregation in Montgomery AL or at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, his speeches were pure African American.
- Yet another question of linguistics involves the question when and where language began. Experts disagree, partly because we do not have fossil throats or fossil brains. We can start by comparing our language with nonhuman communication, but we can only go so far with ASL used by Koko the gorilla or Washoe the chimp. Fossil evidence is stingy; endocasts can indicate cranial capacity or external structure. Occasionally, the discovery of a hyoid bone that indicates size may yield a clue; one found at Kebara Cave in Israel indicated that Neanderthals, who occupied that cave, may have had a language. So far, however, evidence remains inconclusive. .
- However, the different systems of communication may yield something of a clue. Communication systems include six attributes listed above that is shared between humans and other species of animals. A seventh one, structural duality, is exclusive to humans—so far as we know. The ones we share are arbitrariness, productivity, interchangeability, displacement, specialization, and cultural transmission. We consider each in turn.
- The first is arbitrariness , or the quality in which the message uttered is not intrinsically related to the referent, or the thing itself. If a message is intrinsically related to its reference, such as this gibbon’s warning call of danger, then the term iconic is used.
- For example, the utterances [k], [ æ], and [t] can be recombined in three ways to produce three different meanings, as shown here. You couldn’t combine a gibbon’s warning call with a “come here boys” to produce a third meaning.
- Similarly, different language have different expressions for a feline animal. For canines, the term is even more diverse: dog in English, chien in French, perro in Spanish, and Hund in German.
- Productivity is a communications capacity to combine and recombine elements to generate new meanings, as this definition proposes. For example, the wug test (shown above) demonstrated that children could make plurals of objects without ever having heard of the thing before (they correctly pluralized the word wug).
- The poem “Jabberwocky” from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass showed how function words like and , did, the , and in could enable the reader to identify the parts of speech from nonsense words like wabe, gyre , and brillig . Can you identify the parts of speech of these words.
- Language drills, which emphasize the changes in verbs by person, is another example of productivity. Elsewhere, we have seen that the bee dance also entails productivity by speed of dance, angle of body, and amount of pollen.
- Interchangeability is another feature. Most animals send and receive messages using the same system. Courtship of the three-spine stickleback fish shows an example in which the sender and receiver use different systems.
- Displacement is another feature of communication, including language, as these examples indicate. Humans, thanks to their large frontal lobe, can conceive of much that is intangible, including mathematical operations and, as we have seen in past history, creatures that don’t exist: “Here Be Dragons.”
- Cultural transmission is not a feature of numerous animals, but we do know that nonhuman primates have this feature. Others acquire behavior by genetics or conditioning. The introductory lectures and the presentation on primate behavior provide further details.
- Language is highly specialized, acts like chimp displays or stickleback courtship are more unspecialized. Generally, the less physical activity involved in communication, the more specialized. A chimp charging through the forest, screaming, and looking big shows less specialized communication than a mafia don in a darkened office declaring to his victim, “either your brains or your signature will be on this contract.” (Of course, a Glock helps).
- This list summarizes the list of topics that linguistics concerns itself. We have a languages, and we have provided something of a descriptive analysis of this mode of communication.