Linguistics basics (Lecture 1)

Ideational fuction: we use language to come to terms with the world around us (classifying, organizing, referring)

Interpersonal function: we use language to interact with others and establish social relations.

the study of how language is used to communicate meaning through signs and symbols

a unit of meaning that is composed of a signifier (the form of the sign) and a signified (the meaning/concept conveyed by the sign).

Icons: have a resemblance or similarity to the thing they represent. For example, a picture of a dog or a road sign depicting a bicycle.

Index:  have a direct or causal relationship with the thing they represent. For example, smoke is an indexical sign of fire, or a footprint is an indexical sign of someone having been present in a particular location.

Symbols: are arbitrary and conventional, meaning that their meaning is not inherently connected to the thing they represent, but is instead determined by social convention or agreement. For example, the word "dog" is a symbolic sign for the animal we commonly call a dog, and the number "7" is a symbolic sign for the concept of seven.

1. Signified vs. signifier

2. Syntagmatic vs. Paradigmatic

3. Diachronic vs. Synchronic

4. Langue vs. Parole

The linguistic sign according to Saussure consists of the signifier, which in language is a set of speech sounds or marks on a page, and the signified, which is the concept or idea behind the sign. 

Syntagmatic relationships refer to how words or elements are arranged or combined together in a sequence to create meaning, while paradigmatic relationships refer to how words or elements relate to each other by sharing features or being associated with the same concept or category.

- Syntagmatic concerns the positioning of a word in a structure; what other signs can be connected to a sign in order to form a sentence? (Axis of combination, horizontal)

- Paradigmatic concerns substitution; what other signs, which serve the same function, can replace a sign within a sentence? (Axis of selection/substitution, vertical)

in the sentence "The cat chased the mouse", the words "cat" and "chased" are arranged together in a syntagmatic relationship to convey the action being performed. However, the word "cat" can also be related to other words in a paradigmatic relationship, such as "feline", "pet", or "animal".

The diachronic study of language studies language over time, i.e. the changes that can be observed in the course of the history of a language. 

The synchronic study of language studies language at a certain point in time. However, this is an abstract concept as language is always in transition. 

The langue is the system of a language as it exists in the mind, i.e. grammar. Parole is the usage of this system to speak or write the language by individuals. 

“All those who speak English […] share a particular langue and […] the set of utterances which they produce when they are ‘speaking English’ constitute instances of parole”

- Displacement

- Arbitrariness

- Productivity

- Cultural transmission

- Duality (double articulation)

- Reflexivity

Whereas animals are constrained to ‘talking’ about the here and now, humans have the ability to talk about objects and events not present in the immediate time or environment.

Human signs do not have any natural connection between their linguistic form and meaning; the only exceptions to this are the onomatopoeic sounds, which are relatively rare. In animal communication, the signs used are synonymous with their meaning.

Humans have the ability to combine our limited linguistic signs into an infinite amount of new sentences and expressions. The lack of this productivity in animal language systems is called fixed reference and means that they are incapable of inventing new sounds or signals to refer to unknown objects or situations.

The process whereby a language is passed on from one generation to the next. Whereas animals are born with an instinctive set of signals, human infants will not be able to speak any language unless they are taught.

At one level of language there are discrete sounds, and at another, there are discrete meanings. You can combine the letters n, b and I in two different ways: bin and nib, and those two words mean different things and sound different even though they are comprised of the same three sounds.

This duality of language means that we are capable of producing an infinite amount of sound combinations (words) with a limited amount of distinct sounds.

The property that enables humans to use language to think and talk about language itself. It does not appear to be present in any animal communication system, e.g. a dog does not bark about barking. 

descriptive; it aims to describe, not prescribe how people use language.