语言学 考研笔记

1.1 Why study language?

1. Language is very essential to human beings.

2. In language there are many things we should know.

3. For further understanding, we need to study language scientifically.

1.2 What is language?

Language is a means of verbal communication. It is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.

1.3 Design features of language

The features that define our human languages can be called design features which can distinguish human language from any animal system of communication.

1.3.1 Arbitrariness

Arbitrariness refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural

relationship to their meanings.

1.3.2 Duality

Duality refers to the property of having two levels of structures, such that units of

the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization.

1.3.3 Creativity

Creativity means that language is resourceful because of its duality and its

recursiveness. Recursiveness refers to the rule which can be applied repeatedly without any definite limit. The recursive nature of language provides a theoretical basis for the possibility of creating endless sentences.

1.3.4 Displacement

Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects,

events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of conversation.

1.4 Origin of language

1. The bow-wow theory

In primitive times people imitated the sounds of the animal calls in the wild environment they lived and speech developed from that.

2. The pooh-pooh theory

In the hard life of our primitive ancestors, they utter instinctive sounds of pains, anger and joy which gradually developed into language.

3. The ―yo-he-ho‖ theory

As primitive people worked together, they produced some rhythmic grunts which gradually developed into chants and then into language.

1.5 Functions of language

As is proposed by Jacobson, language has six functions:

1. Referential: to convey message and information;

2. Poetic: to indulge in language for its own sake;

3. Emotive: to express attitudes, feelings and emotions;

4. Conative: to persuade and influence others through commands and entreaties;

5. Phatic: to establish communion with others;

6. Metalingual: to clear up intentions, words and meanings.

Halliday (1994) proposes a theory of metafunctions of language. It means that language has three metafunctions:

1. Ideational function: to convey new information, to communicate a content that is

unknown to the hearer;

2. Interpersonal function: embodying all use of language to express social and personal

Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics