应用语言学第二讲.pptVIP

Unit 2 Language, Learning and Teaching Contents What is language? What are design features of language? What is learning? What is teaching? What is the relationship between learning and teaching? What is language? Herman paul(1880) compared language to an organism, and compared the relationship between individual languages with language as an abstract concept to the relationship between individual animals or plants with the concept of animal or plant. Individual languages language ∞ Individual animals or plants concept of animal or plant F. de Saussure (structuralist) regarded language as an edifice or a well-defined object. They were interested in the structure of language. The sociolinguistics( e.g. M.A.K. Halliday) regard it as an activity which consists of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The behaviorists (e.g. B.F. Skinner) see language in terms of operant behavior and equate human beings with pigeons. The transformationalists (e.g. N. Chomsky) see language as an internalized system of rules and equate human being with automations.( deep structure and surface structure) Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.(Sapir,1921) Language is the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.( Hall, 1968) Each of these definitions has its own special emphasis, however, there are some important characteristics of human language linguists have agreed on; these are embraced in the following generally accepted definition: Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. First of all, language is a system, i.e., elements of language are combined according to rules. This explains why “iblk” is not a possible sound combination in English, and also why “Been he wounded has” is not a grammatically acceptable se