1.2.3.2 Traditional Traditionalists are often inconsistent on the base of giving explanation or definition, and most of them base on meaning. This school considers that there is a universal meaning for all languages. Structuralists do not agree to use meaning in explaining or defining, since the goal is the meaning. If the goal is the meaning, then the base must be the form. And they think there is no universal meaning in language, each language is unique. According to Francis (1958:30) structural linguistics is a kind of linguistics which is primarily interested in discovering and describing as concisely and accurately as possible the relationship and patterns which make up the intricate (complex) structure of languages. Structural Linguistics can be classified into: 1. Phonetics (Phonology) 2. Phonemics) 3. Morphemics 4. Grammar: morphology and syntax According to Matthews (1984:2) in describing a language there are four varying facets: a: phonology: concerned with the function of sound?units within the systems of individual languages, whereas phonetics is concerned with the nature and typology of speech sounds in themselves b. syntax: covers both the constructions of phrases and sentences and also the features of meaning which are associated with them. c. semantics: study of meaning d. morphology: a term for that branch of linguistics which is concerned with the forms of words in different uses and constructions. 1.2.3.3 Transformational grammar It is the view that the sentences people produce are the surface structure of the deep structure after undergoing one or more transformations. The transformational rules apply to the deep structure and produce as their output the surface structure of the sentence. In other words the deep structure accounts for the meaning of the sentences, the surface structure accounts for the form of the sentence. In more formal terms, the tree diagram produced by phrase structure rules represents the 'deep structure' of the sentence. A transformational grammar has two goals: 1) to generate all the sentences of a language, and 2) to provide for every sentence an analysis which confirm to our reaction to that sentence, that is, to distinguish grammatical sentence from ungrammatical ones and to analyze the internal structure of the sentences in a way that account for our intuitive understanding of the sentences and their relation to other sentences. One of basic ideas of transformational grammar is that the sentences we normally produce and understand (what we will call surface sentences) can be derived from a number of underlying sentences of elemental implicity. The other information about this is as follows: Transformationalists blame the opinion that meaning can be explained with meaning, because some constructions are the same in form but different in meaning (ambiguous), such as the shooting of the hunter which can mean the action of someone shot the hunter or the action of the hunter shot something. John is easy to please also has ambiguous meaning because it can mean John is easy to please other people or John is easy to be pleased by other people. Besides two different forms may have the same meaning, such as active and passive forms. 1.2.4 Prescriptive, Descriptive The chief objective of teaching grammar today ?? especially that of a foreign language?? would appear to be to give rules which must be obeyed if one wants to speak and write the language correctly?? rules which often seem not quite arbitrary, that is prescriptive grammar. Descriptive grammar, instead of serving as a guide to what should be said or written, aims at finding out what is actually said and written by the speakers of the language investigated, and thus may lead to a scientific understanding of the rules followed instinctively by speakers and writers. Another explanation about prescriptive and descriptive grammar is given by Jeperson. He draws a disctinction between two different kinds of grammar as follows: ? prescriptive grammar gives a nonnative speaker a set of rules that he must follow in order to use the new language correctly. In other words, a prescriptive grammar tries to modify the learner's linguistic behavior. - descriptive tries to discover what in fact the speaker's linguistic behavior actually is. 1.3. Other Fields Related to Linguistics Some other disciplines related to linguistics which are called macro-linguistics are as follows: Socio-linguistics: a study that sees the varieties of a given language which is caused by different social environment such as geography, age, sex, status, etc. Pragmatics is the study of meaning related with the situation or context. Or the study of usage of language in communication based on the situation and the speaker's intention. Applied linguistics: a study that tries to apply what is known about language to other areas of study such as teaching a language or translation. Theoretical linguistics: a study of general principles of all human languages, it is different from the applied one. Lexicostatistics: a branch of linguistics that tries to predict how long two language of the same group have been separated by using statistics to count the cognation of the two languages. Percentages of cognation after being separated 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000 thousand years are 81, 66, 44, 29, 19. Another term for this study is glottochronology ??? a branch of linguistics that compares languages belonging to one group to see how long they have been separated by comparing their vocabularies using lexicostatistics. Psycholinguistics: the study of the relationship between what happens in the mind of the speakers when they speak and what they say. Or it is an inter-discipline of psychology and linguistics. Philology is the branch of linguistics that studies texts of dead languages. Graphology is the systematic study of writing and writing systems. When each phoneme is symbolized by a graphic shape, it is phonemic writing system, and when each morpheme is symbolized by a graphic shape, it is morphemic writing system. The divisions of linguistics can be base on the period of object of study whether one certain period or some periods (a long period), that it, synchronic and diachronic. Based the specific or general language, they are general linguistics and specific); based on internal aspect or external aspect can be micro-linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and lexicology) and macro linguistics (socio-linguistics, psycholinguistics, philology, etc); based on the schools/theories, can be transformational, traditional, structural, etc. References: Gleason (1961), Hockett (1955), Hockett (1958), Elson & Pickett (1976), Samsuri (1991), Brewster (1991), Chaer (1994), Francis (1958), Lado (1980), Silzer (1991), Longacre (1964), Matthews (1984), Hyman (1975), Lester (1971) |