语言学笔记新版.pdfVIP

《简明英语语言学》笔记 Chapter 1 Introduction What is linguistics? Definition: the scientific study of language. A discipline that data and theory stand in a dialectical complementation; that is, a theory without the support of data can hardly claim validity, and data without being explained by some theory remain a muddled mass of things. The scope of linguistics: General linguistics: study language as a whole Specific aspects: 1) Phonetics: the study of sounds 2) Phonology: how sounds are put together and used to convey meaning 3) Morphology: how symbols are formed and combined to form word 4) Syntax: study the rules of how to form grammatically correct sentence 5) Semantics: the study of meaning 6) Pragmatics: the study of meaning in the context of language use Interdisciplinary branches: 1) Sociolinguistics 2) Psycholinguistics 3) Applied linguistics Important distinctions Prescriptive and descriptive: 1) Descriptive: Describe and analyze the language that people actually use 2) Prescriptive: Lay down rules for correct and standard behavior in using language 3) Modern language is mostly descriptive. Modern language, which is scientific and objective, describes language people actually use, be it correct or not. Synchronic and diachronic 1) Synchronic: describe language at some point of time in history, al- ways in its current existence. 2) Diachronic: the description of language as it changes through time; it studies the historical development of language over a period of time. 3) In modern linguistics, synchronic approach enjoys priority. Speech and writing Speech is prior to wr