1、Introduction to Contemporary LinguisticsChapter1l Human superiority lies in his unique endowment-the ability to talk, or rather, to municate by means of language.l Talmud: god created the world by a word, instantaneously, without toil or pains.l Widdowson: the primacy of language in the way human b
2、eings conceive of the world.l Language is a vehicle of power, for control, for creation, and for change.l The study of human language is called linguistics.Linguistics deals with human language as a whole or as particular languages.1. As a whole: the system of human munication which consists of the
3、structured arrangement of sounds (or their written representation) into larger units,e.g. morphemes, words, sentences, utterances.2. As particular language: like French language, they are particular systems of humanmunication used by people living in different parts of the world.l There is a continu
4、um from one language to another.l Varieties of language: Any particular language is in essence a set of varieties. 1. local varieties区域变体dialects and accents(the former differ from each other in pronunciation, vocabulary, and even grammar; the latter only in pronunciation )2. social varietiessociole
5、cts社会方言(=social dialects , used by people of different classes, ages, or se*es ),3. historical varietiestemporal variety.(e.g. the 17th century English)4. stylistic or occupational varieties-registers语域(e.g. formal English, scientific English)5. individual varietiesidiolects个人语言. 6. Usually a langua
6、ge has an officially declared or generally considered standard dialect(e.g. Putonghua in China, General American in the US)From Prescriptivism to Descriptivisml Prescriptivism is the view that one variety of language has an inherently higher value than others.(try to impose rules from some high pres
7、tige language to some lower prestige language, like Latin and English)l Descriptivism is the policy of describing languages as they are bound to e*ist. Usages of different varieties should be observed and recorded instead of being judged with some imposed norms.Endowed or conventionall Platos proble
8、m: How can every human being develop a rich system of linguistic knowledge on the basis of limited and fragmentary empirical evidence l Side of endowment: nativists(天生论) or mentalists心智说Plato:1. Mans knowledge came from universal truths.2. There was a universally correct and acceptable logic of lang
9、uage for man to follow in e*pressing his ideas.3. Knowledge of language was not learned but recalled.Chomsky:There is a biological, physiological entity inside our brain which decides what we speak.Chomsky has given a name to this entity-UG, or universal grammar. His epistemology of the knowledge of
10、 language foes as follows:1. Every human being has the language petence能力, because he has the inborn UG which other species lack.2. UG is the initial state of the human language faculty语言器官/机制 which alone cannot enable a human baby to speak. A baby needs to be e*posed to the linguistic environment o
11、f a certain language and accumulate e*perience.3. Due to the effect of later e*perience, the babys mind develops from the initial state into the steady state, which corresponds to the petence of speaking a specific human language.l Side of convention: behaviorist or empiricistsAristotle: knowledge o
12、f language was arrived at by convention and agreement of the speakers of a given language.*un zi: a name was accepted through public agreement, and the appropriateness of naming a thing lay in convention.The power of language e*ists in its countless varieties, not relying on any universal standard.l
13、 Connectionism l Diachronic(历经时间的): focus on the parison between languages and the e*ploration of the historical change and variation of some ancient languages./ of, relating to, or dealing with phenomena (as of language or culture) as they occur or change over a period of timel Synchronic共时的: resea
14、rch of the facts of language agreed upon or shared by his members of language munity at a given point in time./ concerned with events e*isting in a limited time period and ignoring historical antecedentsGlossary l Endowments: (天赋) the natural quality that a person is made rich of from the birth.l Re
15、gister: (语域) the words, style, and grammar used by speakers and writers in particular conditions, namely a socially defined variety of language.l Idiolect: (个人语言) the linguistic system of an individual speaker.l Sociolect: (社会方言) also social dialect. Variety of a language defined by social factors s
16、uch as age, religion, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Sociolects may be classed as high or low (in status).l Prescriptivism :(规定主义)the imposition of arbitrary norms upon a language, often in defiance of normal usage.l Descriptivism ：描写主义the policy of describing languages as they are bound to e*i
17、st.l Nativism: (天生论) philosophical and psychological position which holds that cognitive development of humans arises from innate ideas. The nativist position has been used to e*plain how children are able to learn language and contrasts with the belief that all human knowledge es from e*perience (e
18、mpiricism).l Mentalism: 心智说psychological and philosophical concept picked up and developed by Chomsky(1965), which attempts to describe the internal (innate) language mechanism that provides the basis for the creative aspect of language development and use.l Dualism: 二元论a philosophical system that r
19、ecognizes two ultimate and independent principles in the scheme of things, such as mind and matter.l Monism: (一元论) a general name for those philosophical theories which deny the duality of matter and mind. l Universal Grammar (UG): 普通语法the genetically endowed information consisting of principles and
20、 parameters that enable the child to deduce a grammar from the primary linguistic data.l Language petence: (语言能力) knowledge of language; the linguistic capacity of a fluent speaker of a language.l Parameter: (参数) a dimension of grammatical variation between different languages or different varieties
21、 of the same language.l Empiricism: (经历论) philosophical and psychological position which holds that the psychological development of humans arise primarily from e*perience and learning.l Connectionism: (连通主义) a theory of cognition which draws inspiration from the way the billions of neurons in the b
22、rain are interconnected in ple* ways to produce a network of associations. It holds that the ple*ity of language emerges from associative learning processes being e*posed to a massive and ple* environment.Chapter2l Speculations: origin of languagePlato-legislatorHerder-godUniversal harmony is embrac
23、ed as the foundation of modern linguistics as a science.Galilean thesis-nature is perfectl Observationl ResearchEvery persons le*ical knowledge of his first language is tacit and natural, with a tendency to influence, often unknowingly, his second language learning. This influence is called transfer
24、l Three adequacies: 1. Observational adequacy2. Descriptive adequacy3. E*planatoryadequacy(providing a descriptively adequate grammar for every natural language, and does so in terms of ma*imally constrained set of universal principles which represent psychologically plausible natural principles of
25、 mental putation.)l Testing A theory in science must not be pure speculation but testable at observational, descriptive, and e*planatory levels.l Science tells us that nature is a physical continuum连续体, which does not break itself into physics, chemistry, psychology, linguistics; these disciplines学科
26、are not facts but our decisions.Glossaryl L1: (第一语言) a persons first languagel L2: (第二语言) a persons second language. To be more specific, one could refer to a persons L3, L4, and so on. However, the general term L2 is frequently used to refer to any language learning or used after the first language
27、 has been learned.l Fossilization: (僵化) inplete L2 acquisition featured by the fact that progress in a certain aspect of the target language stops and the learners language bees fi*ed at an intermediate state. It can take a number of forms, such as fossilized accent or synta*. Fossilization can be a
28、 permanent feature of the learners language.Chapter3 phoneticsl Phonetics: the science of speech sounds. It aims to provide the set of features or properties that can be used to describe and distinguish all the sounds used in human language.In accordance with the three phases just mentioned, phoneti
29、cs is divided into three sub-fields. 1. Articulatory phonetics发音语音学 studies speech production by the speech organs;2. Acoustic phonetics声学语音学 studies physical properties of speech sounds, the way sounds travel from the speaker to the hearer; 3. Auditory phonetics听觉语音学 studies the perception of speec
30、h sounds in the human auditory and cognitive system.l IPA: International Phonetic AlphabetThe design principles of IPA were that there should be a separate letter for each distinctive sound, and that the same symbol should be used for that sound in any language in which it appears.l Asound people sa
31、y they produce is actually a bination of sounds called a syllable, which is often related to a chest pulse.(syllable=sound)The properties of these separate sounds, or segments in phoneticians jargon, can be described in several dimensions, the place of articulation and the manner of articulation.1.
32、The place of articulation refers to the point in the vocal tract at which the main closure or narrowing is made so as to modify the flow of air from the chest to the mouth in producing a sound.2. The manner of articulation refers to the type of constriction收缩 or movement that occurs at any place of
33、articulation.l Articulation The production of different speech sounds through theuse of these organs is known asarticulation.Speech organs: the vocal cords(声带) the lungs the windpipe(trachea) the pharyn*(咽) the nose the mouthA main source of vibration is provided by the vocal cords. The vibration of
34、 the vocal cords also gives us pitch.l Consonants Consonants are sounds made by a closure in the vocal tract, or by a narrowing from which air cannot escape without producing audible friction.摩擦Two reference points are involved in defining consonantal places of articulation. One is the active articu
35、lator which moves; the other is the passive articulator with which the active one makes contact.Classified according to the places of articulation: eleven possible places of articulation for consonants1. Bilabial双唇音, formed by bringing the lips together , e. g. p , m . Here the function of lips is s
36、omewhat plicated: they both can be regarded as the active and passive articulators simultaneously.2. Labio-dental唇齿音 , formed by the lower lip against the upper teeth, e . g. f .3. Dental齿音, formed by placing the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth, e . g. .4. Alveolar齿龈音, formed by placing th
37、e tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, e. g. t .5. Palatal腭音, formed by the front of the tongue against the hard palate, namely, the roof of the mouth, e . g. j .6. Palato- alveolar腭龈音, formed midway between the places of articulation for palatals and alveolars: the blade ( and som
38、etimes the tip) of the tongue articulates with the alveolar ridge, with a simultaneous raising of the front of the tongue towards the hard palate , e. g. .7. Velar软腭音, formed by the back of the tongue against the soft palate, e. g. k .8. Glottal声门音, formed by the vocal cords ing together to cause a
39、closure or friction, e .g. h .9. Retrofle卷舌音, formed when the ape* of the tongue is curled back in the direction of the hard palate, as heard in many Indian English accents.10. Uvular小舌音, formed by the back of the tongue against the uvula, as heard in some accents of French.11. Pharyngeal咽音, formed
40、in the pharyn*, the part of the throat above the laryn*. Specifically, the front wall of t he pharyn* articulates with the back wall, as heard in Arabic .Classified according to the manner of articulation1. The first factor is the degree of the constriction of airflow气流的阻塞. At least si* main classes
41、 can be distinguished in English.1) Plosive爆破音, formed by pletely closing the air passage and suddenly removing the obstacle , so that the air escapes making an e*plosive sound, e. g. p , d . It belongs to a broader category calledstopwhich includes closures produced by air streams not fromthe lungs
42、 as encountered in some southernAfrican languages.2) Nasal鼻音, formed with the soft palate lowered, thus allowing air to resonate in the nose, e . g. m .3) Affricate塞擦音, a consonant which starts as a plosive, but instead of ending withplosion, ends with a fricative made in the same place, e. g. t .4
43、) Liquid流音, formed by some obstruction of the air stream in the mouth, which seems not enough to cause any real constrict ion or friction, e. g. l , r . l is called a lateral liquid, because in making it, an obstacle is placed in the middle of the mouth, leaving the air free to escape at one or both
44、 sides.5) Fricative擦音 , formed by a narrowing of the air passage at some point so that the air in escaping makes audible frication. e. g. f , z . Some fricatives are also called sibilants齿擦音, which are made with a groove- like structure in the front part of the tongue, producing akind of hissing sou
45、nd, e. g. s , .6) Glide滑音, sometimes called semi -vowel because it is typically produced with the tongue moving, orgliding, to or from the position of a nearby vowel, e.g. h , w .2. The second factor is voicing浊音. Voice is caused by the vibration of the vocal cords.3. The third factor is aspiration(
46、送气音). This is the sound of air rushing through the vocal tract, usually found after the release of plosive consonants in some situation.l Vowels Vowels are sounds in which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as itpasses from the laryn* to the lips.Different vowels result from changing the sha
47、pe of the mouth; all of them are voiced continuous sounds.The qualities of vowels depend upon the positions of the tongue and lips.i: close vowels , a: open vowels, e semi-closed vowels, : semi-open vowelsVowel quality is also largely dependent on the shape of the lips.Four rounded vowels: u: u:, th
48、ey are all back vowels.a:is the only Englishback vowel that occurs without lip rounding.There is another interesting rule: all the long vowels( e.g. i: u:)are tense vowels紧元音, and all the short vowels (i u) are la* vowels松元音.Every vowel constitutes a single syllable. The vowel can be a monophthong, a diphthong, or even a triphthong that contains three distinctive qualities, e.g.ai . However, not every syllable contains a vowel. The second syllable of the wor
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