BDB 201-202 Dilbilim Temel Kavramları I
(Introduction to Linguistics)
Dr. Mustafa Güleç
Ankara Üniversitesi, Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi (DTCF)
Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları Bölümü,
Hollanda Dili ve Edebiyatı Anabilim Dalı
What is language?
• In this course, an introduction will be given to students with regard to the study of human language. Firstly, there will be a discussion about possible ways in which human language came to exist as a main tool of communication for human beings.
• Secondly, a brief account should be primarily given to the existence of differences and similarities between human languages and possible reasons for this outcome. Why are languages so similar to one another, but at the same time they are so different across the whole planet? What makes languages similar and different with respect to each other? How should we account for being structurally and lexically close or distant? In other words, how and why do languages resemble each other?
• What can be possible reasons for humans to have a language faculty? What kind
of processes may have led to arising a language ability in human beings?
Different aspects of human language based on its definition: what is language?
• Language is a tool for thinking and acting. Language is the most important tool for communication and understanding between human beings. This approach emphasizes the functional aspect of human language.
• Language is a set of symbols, which are used mainly for communication.
• Language is a system of conventional spoken or written symbols. By means of this system, human beings, as members of a speech community and participants in its culture, express themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release. Many definitions of language have been proposed. Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language scholar, stated: “Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.
• In terms of the approach of Chomsky in 1957 and 1965, the nature of language can be considered as a function of knowledge attained. Thus the language faculty may be regarded as a fixed function, a feature of the species, one important component of the human mind, a function which integrates experience into grammar. In other words, language is all at once a tool and the mechanism that determines how we relate to the world, to each other, and, even to ourselves. Language is what makes us human.
(https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-language-1691218)
What is language? (different definitions)
• From the point of view of part-whole relationships, language is the whole of utterances, which can be produced within a speech community.
• Language is a conglomeration of human habits from the behaviourist perspective.
• Language is a non-finite mechanism, which can generate non-finite sentences and utterances on the basis of a finite set of sounds, rules and principles from the perspective of the generative approach.
• See the lecture of Noam Chomsky on «what is language and why does it matter?» on this page:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-72JNZZBoVw also https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4twuluoQGOY and https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIOQgY1tqrU.
What is language?
• Language is a system of signs, which are based on certain conventions within a speech community from the viewpoint of European
structuralism.
• Language is a system but also a behavioural pattern, which is based on certain rules.
• Language is a type of social behaviour of a speech community.
• Language is a system, which can be used to manipulate or change a behaviour.
• Language is a system in which a message can be conveyed in a
different manner on the basis of various conditions of a context.
What is language?
• Language is a construct of the human mind and also within the human mind.
• Language is a construct, which is set up by means of audio-visual signs according to the conditions of a social life.
• Language is a product of mental mechanisms.
• Language is so tightly woven into human experience that it is hardly
possible to think of a human life without it. Chances are so little that you
come across two or more people who are not making use of vocal signs
and exchanging words (unless people with disabilities). This conveys the
idea that people know how to talk in more or less the sense that spiders
know how to spin webs. Language is in this sense an instinct of mankind.
What is language?
• Language refers to the words we use and how we use them to share ideas and get what we want. Language includes:
• What words mean. Some words have more than one meaning. For example, “star” can be a bright object in the sky or someone famous.
• How to make new words. For example, we can say “friend,”
“friendly,” or “unfriendly” and mean something different.
• How to put words together. For example, in English we say, “Peg walked to the new store” instead of “Peg walk store new.”
• What we should say at different times. For example, we might be
polite and say, “Would you mind moving your foot?” But, if the
person does not move, we may say, “Get off my foot!”
What is language and communication?
• Each mentally and physically healthy person has learned at least one language during his or her lifetime. But have we ever asked ourselves what a language actually is? We know we need it to communicate and we need to get our point across to our speech partner. However, communication and language are not always the same thing. For instance, you might be speaking the Japanese language but not manage to communicate with an English speaker. Communication is also not necessarily equal to a language, that we know — you might smile, use mimics, gestures and point to something to communicate a thought or intention, but language requires a complexity these simple gestures cannot obtain.
• Thus, the term “language" is used somewhat generously. Body language and
programming language are two examples. Can they be compared to the ones we
speak daily at work and at home, such as English or Chinese? Are humans the only
living beings capable of using language?
What is language and communication?
• Language makes use of the vocal-auditory capacity of human being. One of the assumptions suggests that somewhere along the evolutionary path, our larynx lowered, chin got wider, our brain got bigger and we were suddenly able to create amazing sounds with it. So we started to use our vocal abilities to sound words and our auditory abilities to perceive them as a result of the enlargement of our brain. Communicating in this way leaves us free to do other things with our hands. Sign language is also an option to grow, but it does not seem practical or feasible, as our hands and eyes will be busy and multitasking will be harder).
• We are able to produce sounds and identify where sounds come from, abilities known as vocal message transfer and positional perception. We can reproduce any sound we hear and/or understand — reconstructability — and hear our own voices — auto-perception.
Also, our spoken words are subject to rapidly fade away in the air: they disappear in a
moment and they do not leave any trace, which cannot be compared with footprints in
the snow or writing.
What is language and communication?
• Speaking and listening are a very conscious main mental activity.
• We cannot consider the as a secondary or auxiliary ability, side effect of something else. They are a robust mental faculty, that we can qualify as competence. Almost each and every sound that human beings produce, has a sign quality, which can interpreted as a meaning conveying element. Thus, language provides in this case a sound platform in order to communicate i.e. meaning exchange, if both parties are at least willing to make effort to understand one another.
• Animals produce sounds to make their basic needs and instincts understood. They
do not produce them to sit and chat with their friends about an abstract problem in
detail. These sounds have apparently no detailed semanticity, in so far as we can
observe and understand. Humans, on the other hand, make detailed and intricate
sounds that are elaborately intentional and meaningful.
What is language and communication
Human language also possesses arbitrariness, since the sounds in the words have no logical correlation to the objects they denote — i.e. “table" is “Masa" in Turkish and “mesa" in Spanish (which is a cultural borrowing in Turkish case), etc.
This comes down to the fact that there are no limits to what can be communicated with the use of sounds, which is as stated above non-finite. The combination is non-finite. However, the sounds are individually finite.
Some sounds may be similar to each other—»pil (battery)» and «bil (know)» in Turkish—but we have the inclination to keep them separate and double check when we are not sure about the word used—by means of context in order to find out about the word, for example. We know that these words or sounds are different, because language ability contains discreteness. When mentioning the “pil" we saw yesterday, it is not necessary to have it with us. The object concerned can be remote in space and/or time. Language gives us the opportunity of displacement. One can engage in fantasy, uttering things that have never been said before using previously internalized patterns, a proof for the productivity of language. And how do humans acquire language? Through traditional transfer: teaching and learning. Finally, language also has duality of patterning or double articulation -as Martinet has ever put it- which allows us to take micro parts i.e. sound and reline up them differently to be able to reach another meaning. For example, “atkı", “atık" and “kıta" are different words in Turkish with different meanings. They are all made of the same four basic (meaningless) sounds (i.e. /a/, /ı/, /k/, /t/) rearranged differently. Incredibly creative!
