ChapterOne—2-2011.pptVIP

Chapter One—2Linguistics and its Branches By Liu Donglou September 14, 2011 Overview Today Review What is Linguistics? What are the main branches of linguistics? Review Design features Arbitrariness Duality Displacement Productivity Cultural transmission What is Linguistics? The scientific study of human language Aims of linguistic theory: 1. What is knowledge of language? (Competence) 2. How is knowledge of language acquired? (Acquisition) 3. How is knowledge of language put to use? (Performance/language processing) A grammar includes everything one knows about the structure of one’s language: Lexicon (the words or vocabulary in the mental dictionary) Morphology (the structure of words) Syntax (the structure of phrases and sentences and the constraints on well-formedness of sentences) Semantics (the meaning of words and sentences) Phonetics and Phonology (the sounds and the sound system or patterns) Main branches of linguistics Phonetics Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics Phonetics Phonetics studies speech sounds, including the production of speech, that is how speech sounds are actually made, transmitted and received, the description and classification of speech sounds, words and connected speech, etc. We can approach it on various levels. At one level, speech is a matter of anatomy and physiology. We can study organs such as tongue and larynx and their functions in the production of speech. At another level, we can focus on the speech sounds produced by these organs by identifying and classifying the individual sounds. This is the domain of articulatory phonetics. We can also investigate the properties of the sound waves—acoustic phonetics. As speech is intended to be heard or perceived, it is therefore possible to focus on the way in which a listener analyses or processes a sound wave—auditory phonetics. Phonology Phonology studies the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the sh