Chapter 7 Linguistics As a Science of Structure Ryan M
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Repor T Resumes
REPOR TRESUMES ED 020 167 TE DOD 444 LINGUISTICS AND WRITTEN COMPOSITION. BY- ALLEN, HAROLD B. NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENG.,CHAMPAIGN,ILL PUB DATE 63 EDRS PRICE MF-$0.25 HC-$0.60 13P. it DESCRIPTORS- *APPLIED LINGUISTICS, *COMPOSITION (LITERARY), *LINGUISTICS, *RHETORIC, SENTENCE STRUCTURE, COMPOSITION SKILLS (LITERARY), PARAGRAPH COMPOSITION, PUNCTUATION, STRUCTURAL GRAMMARI.TRANSFORMATION GENERATIVE GRAMMAR, TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR, WRITING SKILLS, SENTENCES, THE DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCE OF LINGUISTICS AND THE SKILL OF WRITTEN COMPOSITION MEET IN THE "SENTENCE," AND THE INFORMATION WHICH LINGUISTICS PROVIDES ON SENTENCE STRUCTURE' CAN AID THE TEACHER OF COMPOSITION. ALTHOUGH TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR DOES.NOT IMPROVE A STUDENT'S WRITING, CONSTITUENT GRAMMAR AND TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR, BY PRESENTING METHODS OF ANALYZING AND ORGANIZING SENTENCES, ENABLE THESTUDENT TO FAMILIARIZE HIMSELF WITH THE BASIC FORMS AND ELEMENTSOF THE SENTENCE. THROUGH PRACTICE, A STUDENT'S "REPLACEMENT POTENTIAL" (THE RANGE OF POSSIBILITIES HE HAS AVAILABLEFOR A GIVEN SLOT IN A SENTENCE) IS INCREASED, AND HE LEARNSTHE MANIPULATION AND GROUPING OF SENTENCE PARTS. AS HISOBJECTIVE APPRECIATION OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND ITSVARIATIONS GROWS, HE ACQUIRES A CONCEPT OF CONSTRUCTION WHICH CAN BEAPPLIED TO GROUPS OF SENTENCES AS WELL AS GROUPS OF WORDS, AND CONSEQUENTLY IS BETTER ABLE TO WRITE UNIFIED PARAGRAPHS AND PAPERS. THUS, ALTHOUGH LINGUISTICS PROPER IS NOT CAPABLE OF .DEALING WITH UNITS OF COMPOSITION LARGER THAN THE SENTENCE, THE APPROACHES DEVELOPED BY LINGUISTS FOR STUDYING SENTENCES CAN AID THE STUDENT OF COMPOSITION TO IMPROVE HIS WRITING SKILLS. (THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN "LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS, AND SCHOOL PROGRAMS, PROCEEDINGS OF THE SPRING INSTITUTES,1963." CHAMPAIGN, ILL., NCTE, 1963.) (LH) LANGUAGE, LINGUESTICS, AND SCHOOL PROGRAMS r-4 CD Proceedings of the Spring Institutes, 1963 C\J of the 1.0 National Council of Teachers of English Bernard J. -
On the Irrelevance of Transformational Grammar to Second Language Pedagogy
ON THE IRRELEVANCE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR TO SECOND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY John T. Lamendella The University of Michigan Many scholars view transformational grammar as an attempt to represent the structure of linguistic knowledge in the mind and seek to apply transformational descriptions of languages to the de- velopment of second language teaching materials. It will be claimed in this paper that it is a mistake to look to transformational gram- mar or any other theory of linguistic description to provide the theoretical basis for either second language pedagogy or a theory of language acquisition. One may well wish to describe the ab- stract or logical structure of a language by constructing a trans- formational grammar which generates the set of sentences identi- fied with that language. However, this attempt should not be con- fused with an attempt to understand the cognitive structures and processes involved in knowing or using a language. It is a cogni- tive theory of language within the field of psycholinguistics rather than a theory of linguistic description which should underlie lan- guage teaching materials. A great deal of effort has been expended in the attempt to demonstrate the potential contributions of the field of descriptive linguistics to the teaching of second languages and, since the theory of transformational grammar has become the dominant theory in the field of linguistics, it is not surprising that applied linguists have sought to apply transformational grammar to gain new in- sights into the teaching of second languages. It will be claimed in this paper that it is a mistake to look to transformational grammar or any other theory of linguistic description to provide the theoretical basis for either second language pedagogy or a theory of language acquisition. -
Scaffolding Learning of Language Structures with Visual‐Syntactic Text
UC Irvine UC Irvine Previously Published Works Title Scaffolding learning of language structures with visual-syntactic text formatting Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6235t25b Journal British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(4) ISSN 0007-1013 Authors Park, Y Xu, Y Collins, P et al. Publication Date 2018 DOI 10.1111/bjet.12689 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 0 No 0 2018 1–17 doi:10.1111/bjet.12689 Scaffolding learning of language structures with visual-syntactic text formatting Youngmin Park, Ying Xu , Penelope Collins, George Farkas and Mark Warschauer Youngmin Park is a Lecturer at Pusan National University, Korea. She received her Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Irvine, specializing in Language, Literacy and Technology. Ying Xu is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine, with a specialization in specializing in Language, Literacy and Technology. Penelope Collins is an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. Her research examines the development of language and literacy skills for children from linguistically diverse backgrounds. George Farkas is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has employed a range of statistical approaches and databases to examine the causes and consequences of reading achievement gap across varying age groups and educational settings. Mark Warschauer is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He works on a range of research projects related to digital media in education. Address for correspondence: Ying Xu, University of California Irvine, 3200 Education Bldg, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. -
Contesting Regimes of Variation: Critical Groundwork for Pedagogies of Mobile Experience and Restorative Justice
Robert W. Train Sonoma State University, California CONTESTING REGIMES OF VARIATION: CRITICAL GROUNDWORK FOR PEDAGOGIES OF MOBILE EXPERIENCE AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE Abstract: This paper examines from a critical transdisciplinary perspective the concept of variation and its fraught binary association with standard language as part of the conceptual toolbox and vocabulary for language educators and researchers. “Variation” is shown to be imbricated a historically-contingent metadiscursive regime in language study as scientific description and education supporting problematic speaker identities (e.g., “non/native”, “heritage”, “foreign”) around an ideology of reduction through which complex sociolinguistic and sociocultural spaces of diversity and variability have been reduced to the “problem” of governing people and spaces legitimated and embodied in idealized teachers and learners of languages invented as the “zero degree of observation” (Castro-Gómez 2005; Mignolo 2011) in ongoing contexts of Western modernity and coloniality. This paper explores how regimes of variation have been constructed in a “sociolinguistics of distribution” (Blommaert 2010) constituted around the delimitation of borders—linguistic, temporal, social and territorial—rather than a “sociolinguistics of mobility” focused on interrogating and problematizing the validity and relevance of those borders in a world characterized by diverse transcultural and translingual experiences of human flow and migration. This paper reframes “variation” as mobile modes-of-experiencing- the-world in order to expand the critical, historical, and ethical vocabularies and knowledge base of language educators and lay the groundwork for pedagogies of experience that impact human lives in the service of restorative social justice. Keywords: metadiscursive regimes w sociolinguistic variation w standard language w sociolinguistics of mobility w pedagogies of experience Train, Robert W. -
Three Linguistic Movements: Neogrammarianism, Structuralism, Transformationalism
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 041 282 AL 002 492 AUTHOR Katranides, Aristotle TITLE Three Linguistic Movements: Neogrammarianism, Structuralism, Transformationalism. PUB DATE Mar 70 NOTE 14p.; Paper given at the fourth annual TESOL Convention, San Francisco, California, March 18-21, 1970 EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF-$0.25 HC-$0.80 DESCRIPTORS *English (Second Language) , *Language Instruction, *Linguistics, Linguistic Theory, Structural Linguistics, *Teaching Methods, Transformation Generative Grammar IDENTIFIERS *Neogrammarianism ABSTRACT The relevance, the application, and the importance of linguistics to teaching English as a foreign language is discussed. The author's assumption is that linguistics is "irrelevant to the aims, and inapraicable to the tasks of such teaching," and agrees with linguists such as Rosenbaum that the goal of linguistic science is "to determine inductively the laws governing the behavior of observable data." Developments in linguistics during thepast 100 years can be grouped into three main movements: (1) Neogrammarianism, which introduced rigorous requirements ofan exact science into historLcal linguistics by concentratingon the observation of phonetic phenomena; (2) Structuralism, which forcefully promoted the anthropological view that all human languagesare equal in complexity of structure, and was responsible for the widely accepted view that linguistics is a panacea for all problems inevery type of language-teaching activity; and(3) Transformationalism, which has not yet contributed anything new to an understanding of natural languages but has put linguistics in some theoretical perspective and freed it from the excessive preoccupation of the structuralists with taxonomic procedure. Some time ago, language teachingwas freed from philology; quite recently language teachingwas freed from literary studies; it should now be freed from linguistics. -
Structuralism 1. the Nature of Meaning Or Understanding
Structuralism 1. The nature of meaning or understanding. A. The role of structure as the system of relationships Something can only be understood (i.e., a meaning can be constructed) within a certain system of relationships (or structure). For example, a word which is a linguistic sign (something that stands for something else) can only be understood within a certain conventional system of signs, which is language, and not by itself (cf. the word / sound and “shark” in English and Arabic). A particular relationship within a شرق combination society (e.g., between a male offspring and his maternal uncle) can only be understood in the context of the whole system of kinship (e.g., matrilineal or patrilineal). Structuralism holds that, according to the human way of understanding things, particular elements have no absolute meaning or value: their meaning or value is relative to other elements. Everything makes sense only in relation to something else. An element cannot be perceived by itself. In order to understand a particular element we need to study the whole system of relationships or structure (this approach is also exactly the same as Malinowski’s: one cannot understand particular elements of culture out of the context of that culture). A particular element can only be studied as part of a greater structure. In fact, the only thing that can be studied is not particular elements or objects but relationships within a system. Our human world, so to speak, is made up of relationships, which make up permanent structures of the human mind. B. The role of oppositions / pairs of binary oppositions Structuralism holds that understanding can only happen if clearly defined or “significant” (= essential) differences are present which are called oppositions (or binary oppositions since they come in pairs). -
Philosophy of Linguistics
Philosophy of Linguistics Brian Rabern Philosophy DSB 4.04c 0131 651 5178 [email protected] Geoff Pullum Linguistics DSB 2.23 0131 650 3603 [email protected] Meetings The class meetings are from 11:00 to 13:00 each Wednesday from 19th September to 28th November in Old Library 2.19, Geography building, Old Infirmary complex (weeks 1–3 and 6–11) and in 01M.469 Teaching Room 12 (Doorway 3), Medical School building. Class meetings are mandatory. Readings Required reading is to be done before the class meets; background reading to be studied as time and specific interests permit. Assessment (i) short paper (1000-1500 words) to be turned in by 5 p.m. on Monday 15th October (topics will be provided); (ii) final essay examination with choice of questions from the whole of the course. Week 1 (19th September; Old Library 2.19): Introduction What linguistics is. Linguistics as a special science. Syntax and semantics as conceived in logic. Charles Morris’s trichotomy of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Philosophy of science applied to linguistics. Required reading • Hunter, Geoffrey (1971) Metalogic: An Introduction to the Metatheory of Standard First Order Logic (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 4–13. Background reading • Stainton, Robert (2014) ‘Philosophy of linguistics’, Oxford Handbooks Online. Online at https://works.bepress.com/robertstainton/126/ Week 2 (26th September; Old Library 2.19): Language and languages The metaphysics of linguistics. The vexed question of whether language should be regarded as psychological, social, or purely abstract. The descriptive linguistics of the American structuralists and the mentalist/cognitive backlash; ‘God’s truth’ (realism) vs. -
From Linguistic Events and Restricted Languages to Registers. Firthian Legacy and Corpus Linguistics Jacqueline Léon
From Linguistic Events and Restricted Languages to Registers. Firthian legacy and Corpus Linguistics Jacqueline Léon To cite this version: Jacqueline Léon. From Linguistic Events and Restricted Languages to Registers. Firthian legacy and Corpus Linguistics. The Henry Sweet Society Bulletin, 2007, 49, pp.5-26. halshs-00220455 HAL Id: halshs-00220455 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00220455 Submitted on 26 Mar 2008 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Léon J., 2007, « From Linguistic Events and Restricted Languages to Registers. Firthian legacy and Corpus Linguistics » Bulletin of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas, n°49 :5-26 From Linguistic Events and Restricted Languages to Registers. Firthian legacy and Corpus Linguistics1 Jacqueline Léon Laboratoire d’Histoire des théories linguistiques, CNRS, Université Paris Denis Diderot It is generally acknowledged, among present-day corpus linguists working on registers and genres, that the notion of register has Firthian sources and more generally that it originates from British contextualism regarded as « the only tradition that suggests this kind of direct correlation between the functional organization of meaning in language and the organization of context. » (Eggins et Martin 1997 :239). -
Epistemological Tensions Between Linguistic Description and Ordinary Speakers’ Intuitive Knowledge: Examples from French Verb Morphology
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Serveur académique lausannois Epistemological tensions between linguistic description and ordinary speakers’ intuitive knowledge: examples from French verb morphology Christian SURCOUF École de français langue étrangère, Faculté des lettres, Université de Lausanne Abstract In this article, I address epistemological questions regarding the status of linguistic rules and the pervasive––though seldom discussed––tension that arises between theory-driven object perception by linguists on the one hand, and ordinary speakers’ possible intuitive knowledge on the other hand. Several issues will be discussed using examples from French verb morphology, based on the 6500 verbs from Le Petit Robert dictionary (2013). 1. Introduction A journalist commenting on French actress Juliette Binoche’s performance declared on the radio “elle est insupportable, elle ne joue pas elle binoche” (she is unbearable, she does not act, she “binoches”). Undoubtedly, any French native speaker can spontaneously produce the whole morphological paradigm of this brand new verb, and for instance add /ʁa/ to this Pr31 /binɔʃ/ in order to form Fut3 /binɔʃʁa/. But what is the status of this “rule”? In this article, I will mainly raise epistemological questions regarding the tension between scientific expectations while analyzing French verb inflectional morphological rules on the one hand and ordinary speakers’ possible inflectional production rules on the other. 1 Tenses are abbreviated as Pr(esent), Imp(erfect), Fut(ure), Inf(initive), P(assé) S(imple), P(ast) P(articiple). Persons follow the conventional I to they order from 1 to 6. Thus, Pr1-3 indicates Present singular. -
UK Linguistic Ethnography Discussion Paper
UK linguistic ethnography: A discussion paper UK LINGUISTIC ETHNOGRAPHY: A DISCUSSION PAPER Coordinating Committee UK Linguistic Ethnography Forum 1 December 2004 Contents: 0. Preface 1. Linguistics & ethnography 1.1 Ethnography 1.2 Linguistics 1.3 Ethnography in tension with linguistics 1.4 The limits of ethnographic description 1.5 Ethnographies of discourse 2. Linguistic ethnography in the UK 2.1 Academic connections, influences and antecedents in the UK 2.2 Research trajectories and academic & political demeanours 2.3 Comparison with North American linguistic anthropology 3. Issues for the future 3.1 Generalisation & theory development 3.2 Building community and extending dialogue 0. PREFACE In recent years in the UK, a number of researchers have started to identify their work as ‘linguistic ethnography’, and 4 ½ years ago, a UK Linguistic Ethnography Forum (LEF) was established.. This work has strong links to Hymes’ ‘ethnography of communication’ (1972), but ‘the ethnography of communication’ isn’t really adequate as an umbrella characterisation because of substantial developments both in linguistic anthropology and elsewhere that have impacted on British work since the 1980s. More than that, the phrase ‘ethnography of communication’ blurs an important tension between linguistics and ethnography that contributes much to the methodological identity of linguistic ethnographic work. So what does the construct ‘linguistic ethnography’ actually imply, and what kind of cultural construction is the UK LEF? What are the links to other kinds of work, and what principles, practices, alignments and differentiations are involved UK LE’s self-constitution? These are very much genuine questions, and not just the rhetorical prelude to a proclamation of sub-disciplinary autonomy, and this paper tries to start formulating some of the answers. -
Aristotle on Verbal Communication: the First Chapters of De Interpretatione
EJPC 7 (2) pp. 239–253 Intellect Limited 2016 Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication Volume 7 Number 2 © 2016 Intellect Ltd Critical Review. English language. doi: 10.1386/ejpc.7.2.239_3 CRITICAL REVIEW ANITA KASABOVA Sofia University VLADIMIR MARINOV New Bulgarian University Aristotle on verbal communication: The first chapters of De Interpretatione ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This article deals with the communicational aspects of Aristotle’s theory of significa- Aristotle tion as laid out in the initial chapters of the De Interpretatione (Int.).1 We begin De Interpretatione by outlining the reception and main interpretations of the chapters under discussion, verbal communication rather siding with the linguistic strand. We then argue that the first four chap- signification ters present an account of verbal communication, in which words signify things via linguistic expressions thoughts. We show how Aristotle determines voice as a conventional and hence acci- convention dental medium of signification: words as ‘spoken sounds’ are tokens of thoughts, language use which in turn are signs or natural likenesses of things. We argue that, in this way, 1. We follow the standard linguistic expressions may both signify thoughts and refer to things. This double edition of the Greek account of signification also explains the variety of ontological, logical and psycho- text of Int. by Minio- logical interpretations of the initial chapters of Int. Paluello (1949: 47–72), unless otherwise stated. All references to Aristotle’s works 239 11_EJPC 7.2_Critical review article_239-253.indd 239 11/22/16 1:55 PM Anita Kasabova and Vladimir Marinov follow the citation 1. -
Syntactic Structures and Their Symbiotic Guests. Notes on Analepsis from the Perspective of On- Line Syntax*
Pragmatics 24:3.533-560 (2014) International Pragmatics Association DOI: 10.1075/prag.24.3.05aue SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES AND THEIR SYMBIOTIC GUESTS. NOTES ON ANALEPSIS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ON- LINE SYNTAX* Peter Auer Abstract The empirical focus of this paper is on utterances that re-use syntactic structures from a preceding syntactic unit. Next utterances of this type are usually treated as (coordination) ellipsis. It is argued that from an on-line perspective on spoken syntax, they are better described as structural latency: A grammatical structure already established remains available and can therefore be made use of with one or more of its slots being filled by new material. A variety of cases of this particular kind of conversational symbiosis are discussed. It is argued that they should receive a common treatment. A number of features of the general host/guest relationship are discussed. Keywords: Analepsis; On-line syntax; Structural latency. "Ein Blick in die erste beste Erzählung und eine einfache Ueberlegung muss beweisen, dass jede frühere Aeusserung des Erzählenden die Exposition aller nachfolgenden Prädikate bildet." (Wegener 1885: 46)1 1. Introduction The notion of 'ellipsis' is often regarded with some skepticism by Interactional Linguists - the orientation to 'full' sentences is all too obvious (cf. Selting 1997), and the idea that speakers produce complete sentences just in order to delete some parts of them afterwards surely fails to account for the processual dynamics of sentence production and understanding (cf. Kindt 1985) in time. On the other hand, there can be little doubt that speakers often produce utterance units that could not be understood * I wish to thank Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen and Susanne Günthner for their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.