英语语言学常见名词解释

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英语语言学常见名词解释

1. What is language?

“Language is system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. It

is a system, since linguistic elements are arranged systematically, rather than

randomly. Arbitrary, in the sense that there is usually no intrinsic connection

between a work (like “book”) and the object it refers to. This explains and is

explained by the fact that different languages have different “books”: “book”

in English, “livre” in French, “shu” in Chinese. It is symbolic, because words are

associated with objects, actions, ideas etc. by nothing but convention. Namely,

people use the sounds or vocal forms to symbolize what they wish to refer to. It is

vocal, because sound or speech is the primary medium for all human languages.

Writing systems came much later than the spoken forms. The fact that small children

learn and can only learn to speak (and listen) before they write (and read) also

indicates that language is primarily vocal, rather than written. The term “human”

in the definition is meant to specify that language is human specific.

2. What are design features of language?

“Design features” here refer to the defining properties of human language that

tell the difference between human language and any system of animal

communication. They are arbitrariness, duality, productivity, displacement, cultural

transmission and interchangeability

3. What is arbitrariness?

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By “arbitrariness”, we mean there is no logical connection between meanings and

sounds. A dog might be a pig if only the first person or group of persons had used

it for a pig. Language is therefore largely arbitrary. But language is not absolutely

seem to be some sound-meaning association, if we think of echo words, like

“bang”, “crash”, “roar”, which are motivated in a certain sense. Secondly,

some compounds (words compounded to be one word) are not entirely arbitrary

either. “Type” and “write” are opaque or unmotivated words, while “type-writer” is less so, or more transparent or motivated than the words that make it.

So we can say “arbitrariness” is a matter of degree.

4. What is duality?

Linguists refer “duality” (of structure) to the fact that in all languages so far

investigated, one finds two levels of structure or patterning. At the first, higher level,

language is analyzed in terms of combinations of meaningful units (such as

morphemes, words etc.); at the second, lower level, it is seen as a sequence of

segments which lack any meaning in themselves, but which combine to form units

of meaning. According to Hu Zhanglin et al., language is a system of two sets of

structures, one of sounds and the other of meaning. This is important for the

workings of language. A small number of semantic units (words), and these units of

meaning can be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences (note

that we have dictionaries of words, but no dictionary of sentences!). Duality makes

it possible for a person to talk about anything within his knowledge. No animal

communication system enjoys this duality.

5. What is productivity?

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Productivity refers to the ability to the ability to construct and understand an

indefinitely large number of sentences in one’s native language, including those

that has never heard before, but that are appropriate to the speaking situation. No

one has ever said or heard “A red-eyed elephant is dancing on the small hotel bed

with an African gibbon”, but he can say it when necessary, and he can understand

it in right register. Different from artistic creativity, though, productivity never goes

outside the language, thus also called “rule-bound creativity” (by y).

is displacement?

“Displacement”, as one of the design features of the human language, refers to

the fact that one can talk about things that are not present, as easily as he does

things present. In other words, one can refer to real and unreal things, things of the

past, of the present, of the future. Language itself can be talked about too. When a

man, for example, is crying to a woman, about something, it might be something

that had occurred, or something that is occurring, or something that is to occur.

When a dog is barking, however, you can decide it is barking for something or at

someone that exists now and there. It couldn’t be bow-wowing sorrowfully for a

bone to be lost. The bee’s system, nonetheless, has a small share of

“displacement”, but it is an unspeakable tiny share.

is cultural transmission?

This means that language is not biologically transmitted from generation to

generation, but that the details of the linguistic system must be learned anew by

each speaker. It is true that the capacity for language in human beings (N. Chomsky

called it “language acquisition device”, or LAD) has a genetic basis, but the

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