Stephen van Vlack
Sookmyung Women`s University
Graduate School of TESOL
Introduction to Linguistics
Fall 2006
Week 2 - Answers for homework and discussion (Intro to Ling, pp. 1-18, Handbook 24 (Neurolinguistics), and CogLing, pp. 1-17).
Intro to Ling.
Discussion of Chapter 1.
Introduction
In this course, we are concerned with questions dealing with the composition and use of language as embodied in the tremendously varied discipline of linguistics. As I`m sure all of you know, there are no easy answers to any questions related to language and linguistics, but we will do our best to wade through the massive amount of information out there and form some sort of integrated picture in our head of how all this works.
The best place to start our adventure is by contemplating what language is. We could say that language is ̋a highly complex organization of integrated cognitive systems used by human beings for the purpose of communication.̋ This is my definition of language and it changes every time I sit down to write it (This is also a highly controversial definition and actually runs at odds with the definitions that you will get in both books we are using for reasons which will hopefully be clear to you by the end of the course.), a fact which goes far in justifying claims that language is, indeed, complex and we are still far from understanding it completely. This does not mean that language is incomprehensible or that the many disciplines which set out to study language (linguistics, developmental linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and sociolinguistics) are just a crock, although non-linguists may claim exactly that. What it does mean, and this is very important, is that we all have a chance to make a contribution to the field by the mere fact that each and every one of us in this class (but maybe not everyone in the world) has a fully functioning system of language in their brains (there are, however, many people out there without a language so beware and think about who they could be. That is, what biologically intact people out there could not and in fact do not have a fully formed L1?).
The area of linguistics, as opposed to applied linguistics or TESOL is more theoretical and empirically-based. Linguistics as a discipline, as lead in the recent past by Noam Chomsky, was developed and formalized based on models from physics. Linguists would, therefore, like to believe that their filed is the physics of the brain and they are similar in certain ways. Both seek to describe what is not visible to the eye and therefore both fields are based on a large amount of conjecture and both are seen as being too complex to be valid through mere observation of what can be perceived instrumentally. This puts the field of theoretical linguistics and all the sub areas that go with it in stark contrast to other areas of the behavioral sciences which use observations of behavior to drive their own theories. Linguistics is a theory of mind and how certain aspects of the brain can be presumed to work. This is very complicated and simple theories based on intuition cannot work. Theories must be carefully formulated and constructed building on past and present models of description.
The bottom line is this: Your observations are valid, as valid as mine or anyone else`s, no mater how much they choose to profess about how much they know, but you need to have basic theory to back them up. The only way to develop critical thought is know what to be critical of. Fortunately, there is a lot to be critical of in the diversity of linguistic thought. And you must be critical of what is given here because none of this is written in stone. Linguistics is a field that is expanding and developing exceedingly fast. In class we will go over certain ideas because they are the widely accepted ones in increasingly constrained circles, but they are not necessarily correct and to be quite honest they were already outdated as the ink was drying on the respective books. They are merely accepted. Question both them and me. Question what you hear and read and you will be able to form your own ideas. Learning is being able to personalize information, to be able to integrate it into a preexisting configuration of knowledge. Make this information I will throw out at you your own and it might just change the way you look at many things. It should do.
In our main course book (Radford et al., 1999), the authors rightfully chose to introduce the topic of language by introducing five main areas of language research; linguistics, developmental linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and sociolinguistics. (To this list I would add diachronic/comparative linguistics and cognitive linguistics, the former of which is oldest language discipline and the latter the newest.) All five of these research areas have contributed greatly to our understanding of how language works. Of the five areas, linguistics, which we will discuss more in depth soon, is the most studied and therefore has developed the most stable and well accepted line of theoretical reasoning and, therefore, is a necessary precursor to any other type of work done in the area. To simply lay the different components out as a physical model, we can claim that linguistics is seen as being at the center of all these other disciplines. It is the sun in the center of the language studies solar system. This means that doing developmental linguistics (which ultimately is our chief concern as TESOL majors) makes no little real sense if you do not know about general linguistics. It is a serious oversight to talk about how people learn or acquire language without knowing in a fundamental way what the nature of the system they are acquiring/learning is, what it is shaped like, and how it works. Some of the other areas of linguistic study are quite new (psycholinguistics, for example). In fact, despite what the authors say, it is only recently that these five areas have been integrated in any way at all, if in fact they have been. In the not too distant past, most language researchers were not aware of each other`s research at all. Even linguists working on different levels of structural description, such as phonology and syntax, would purposely not look at each others research. It was one of Chomsky`s early assertions (1957, 1965) that in order to find language universals linguists had to look as deeply as they could in only one small area of one specific language. This was based on the belief that each level of language, not to mention language itself, was self-contained and that the system of each level was different. That is, the belief was that different component of language was said to function on different sets of not only components, but with different sets of rules and constraints. Happily, this is no longer the only possible view, and the trend of the last ten years has been for various degrees of integration, as advocated to a limited extent by Chomsky himself (1992, 1994). What we have today is a study of language which is more dynamic and more complex than ever. This is more exciting it is true but it makes it very hard for a novice entering the field to be able to come up with a sufficiently clear idea of all the variables so as to devise their own theories or even understand with confidence the plethora of theories out there and yet being developed. Take heart, you will manage and here is the first step. To reach for the future you must come to terms with the past.
A brief contextualizing history
Back in the 1950s and 60s Noam Chomsky, a young upstart from MIT, shook up the conservative world of language study by making several claims which most people still believe are true. The first of these claims is that language is infinite. This means that there is a limited (constrained) number of rules (to use Chomsky`s word) which make up language. From these finite rules which operate systematically on linguistic components, however, we are able to create an unlimited (infinite) number of utterances. This is the magical power of language. This seems like a simple claim, but it has many far ranging implications which changed the way many people thought about language.
The first of these implications is based on language learning (developmental linguistics). How do children, or second language learners make the rules from the input that is given them? They are not really told how the rules work. According to Chomsky and I agree strongly no one is really able to teach language because no language speaker, including the most well-studies linguists, really knows how language works exactly. Learners, so the idea goes, simply figure the rules of language out from what they hear. Chomsky`s explanation of how this can occur is the LAD, the so-called little black box. All humans are biologically programmed to acquire language. Language is innate. Language learning is carried out and shaped in the mysterious LAD (Language Acquisition Device). Another model claims that linguistic input is filtered through the LAD and comes out as nice linguistic product suitable for processing. Chomsky likens this LAD to any other organ or part of the body, such as the heart. The only difference, he claims, is that the LAD is not physically observable unto itself, while other organs are. This means that linguistics, the study of language, is then really just a sub-field of psychology, we could even say cognitive psychology, as the authors of Intro. To Ling. do . So, as we try to unravel the secrets of language, what we are doing in effect is unraveling the way the brain works. Chomsky stated this way back in 1957 and never really followed up on it until very recently. He was always as vague on this topic as he was vehement in defending it. The latest string of publications that Chomsky has produced have tried to relate language to other systems and cognitive mechanisms.
My version of the so-called LAD
Let me try to explain how I think all this works and it might make it easier to understand. Keep in mind that my thoughts and those of Chomsky and his staunch supporters differ in several aspects. The LAD is not a little black box (This is an oversimplified representation designed to make the factory analogy work, but it often causes problems.) And it is not an organ unto itself. Scans of the brain have turned up many readily identifiable neural structures which have very particular functions, but the same extensive scans have never identified any one particular structure in the brain that relates to language alone. Based on this hard fact and other experimental evidence, it seems more viable to presume that the LAD (if we can use this term) is to a large extent essentially the product of and subject to the overall structure and design of the entire human brain. The way the human brain works in general drives the use and acquisition of language. The way I see it, language is not fundamentally different than any other conceptual system in the brain. It has to be the same. The same models of operation are repeated over and over again in more or less the same form. It is a question of economy. The working of the brain is not only based on but also strictly constrained by the way it is structured. There are synapses and neurons and hemispheres, grey matter on the surface which behaves differently than the white stuff deeper down. This structure is the LAD and not only the LAD, but the brain itself forms the basis for human cognition. Language then is a byproduct of this structure as filtered and shaped through what is termed the mental lexicon. This seems to be true because language use and acquisition are tied to the outside world and other types of knowledge. It is not clear if language is an evolutionary goal or if it is a mere mistake and for us it really doesn`t matter. The fact remains that all humans have the same brain structure and somewhat similar configuration and, not coincidentally, are able to acquire any human language in a similar way and at a similar pace. The way I see this working is as follows.
A baby is born in an empty slate as a so-called tabula rasa (blank slate). As they see/hear more, experience more, and are exposed to more language, the empty roads in their brain are filled. Think of the brain as nothing more but an intricate system of connected information chunks and highways which connect them. As these areas of information are slowly filled up language develops. In this way, language is inseparable from any other type of human experience. In fact it is the result of those experiences and as development occurs a cyclical cause and effect relationship develops. Research has shown that children merely exposed to language (that is language without a natural and meaningful context) will have difficulty acquiring it simply because it is not worth their attention and is, therefore, never processed. If you take a baby and don`t play with them or talk to them, but sit them in front of a TV or radio for years, they will not acquire language properly. For children, linguistic interaction and simple accompanying life experience are both necessary. In my opinion, all forms of development are necessarily interrelated. This belief has huge implications in second language learning and acquisition. Think about it.
End of the history and stuff
The fact that language is supposed to be innate and that all human languages are learnable in similar ways means that all human languages must share some properties. In linguistic thought this has been interpreted to means then that languages are all made of the same basic set of properties. Linguists call these properties universals. Language is universal.
Now, if languages share certain properties then it should be possible to find out what those properties are. This was the main battle cry of the discipline of linguistics starting in the 1960s and that is how everything we now call standard theory got started. Modern linguistics developed straight out of the Structuralist tradition, but with a twist. This twist was the search for universals and this changed the way linguists conducted their business. Instead of looking at the surface features of different languages and trying to write a description of them, modern linguists look at the underlying processes. Modernists (Generativists) make a strong distinction between the surface structures of a language and the underlying representations of those structures. The basic belief is that if we, as linguists, can take this underlying structure of a certain language and abstract it enough, language universals will be revealed to us. Linguists believe this can be done by studying just one language. Any native speaker of a language has the equipment in their head to find language universals. It remains a point of debate exactly what a native speaker is and how reliable the judgements of non-native speakers might be.
The three above-mentioned beliefs (language is infinite, language is innate and language is universal) are what modern linguistics is based on. They define how linguists go about their work and they must be understood by us as well, even if we disagree with them in particular ways.
Linguistics
The goal of theoretical linguistics has been to describe the grammar that all people (with language) have in heads. Traditionally, theoretical linguistics has been broken down into areas of study based on the size/scope of the units the areas it is concerned with. These areas are (in size order) phones (phonetics), phonemes (phonology), morphemes (morphology), clauses (syntax), and sentences (discourse). Language works when the rules from each of these areas integrate with (are tempered by) semantic (meaning) and, in a way, pragmatic (meaning in context) rules. Traditionally, the three core elements of linguistics are phonology, morphology, and syntax. Phonetics and discourse were thought of as being somewhat different and either boring (phonetics) or too unconstrained (discourse) to deal with effectively, so they were simply ignored. Phonetics does not really interact with semantics. It is more physical and not really related to meaning. Discourse, on the other hand, works in relation to strong influences from pragmatics. Again, this is the more traditional view. It was generally believed that structure drove meaning and thus structural properties should, for that reason, attract the main attention of most linguists. One of the main reasons for this is that theoretical linguists look only at output and generally in decontextualized situations, what Chomsky calls I-language (internal language). Theoretical linguists are not interested in how language is used really. They just want to identify what is possible and what isn`t. They want to come up with a series of rules, as small as possible which will constrain the production of language and allow the speaker to produce utterances which follow the norm. See Newmeyer, 1998 and Cook and Newson, 1998 for a discussion of the differences between I and E-language (external language).
As you can see, the Intro. to Ling. book we will use in this course takes a slightly different approach and one which is thoroughly modern according to the minimalist theory proposed by Chomsky in the early 1990s. Language is broken down into four main components; phonological, lexical, syntactic, and logical form. The whole point of this is for linguists to be able to describe production. Production is what linguists are most concerned with. How do native speakers of a language produce (generate) utterances? What do they have to know (competence) to use these sets of utterance generating rules (performance). This are difficult questions and the type of research which seeks to answer them is often referred to as theoretical linguistics.
Developmental Linguistics
This is basically about how people acquire language. Most of the best research has been carried out on first language acquisition with second language acquisition running a not even close second. Part of the problem is that serious linguists themselves have generally found little of interest in second language acquisition theory. They have left the work to be done by teachers and pedagogy people (often mono-linguals) who have little to no formal linguistic training or experience. As a result the research conducted in SLA has been disappointing and shoddy because it has been done from an educational as opposed to a linguistic point of view. It is only recently that modern linguistic theory and SLA have started working together. Several linguists have recently been conducting SLA research from a modern linguistic point of view (Archibald, 2000, Braidi, 1999, Flynn et. al, 1998, and Leather, 1999 are some examples). Even more interesting is the fact that some SLA people, Vivien Cook, for example and others working in the applied tradition are beginning to make inroads into developing new theories of language and linguistics which have had and continue to have an effect on linguistic thought. An example of this would be the advent of lexical approaches in applied linguistics and their subsequent effect on standard theory.
The basic belief in developmental linguistics is that we can figure out how a language (or language in general) works (is structured) based on how it develops. The fact that there are striking similarities in the way all human languages are acquired has continued to lend credence to the before-mentioned hypotheses of the innate and universal characteristics of language. Like theoretical linguists, developmental linguists search for universals, but by carefully analyzing how languages are acquired by children and to a lesser extent second and multi language learners. In this course, we will be trying to find parallels between developmental linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA), which is a sub-division of this field. A basic understanding of the former is necessary for an understanding of the latter as most theoretical linguists feel that the latter follows the same basic principles as the former, especially in relation to the acquisition of competence, but this is still a much debated issue.
Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguists are the opposite of theoretical linguists. While the theoreticals tend to focus on production, the psychos focus, for the most part, on what mechanisms speakers use to interpret messages that are directed toward them (reception). The field of psycholinguistics has focused predominantly on reception. They seek to describe systems of how linguistic messages are broken down and understood by speakers. To a lesser extent, they also focus on how a speaker actually goes about producing an utterance. Thus, psycholinguists focus on the structure of the competence but on the processes that are used in language use from both the productive and receptive side.
How psycholinguists go about their study is also quite different from the native speaker intuitions that theoretical linguists rely on. They conduct empirically, often computer-based, studies using large numbers of subjects in controlled situations. Often their main focus and their hypotheses are based on timing. How long it takes for a subject to interpret an utterance or to reconize a given vocabulary item (lexeme) is an indicator of the processing route and other important variables.
Neurolinguistics
The main focus in neurolinguistics is on how language is stored in the brain. This is one of the most interesting and fastest growing areas of language research, but also the saddest as until recently most of the research was carried out on people who had experienced some sort of brain damage. After all, it was not technologically possible until recently for linguists and doctors to just pop open the heads of perfectly healthy people and take a look inside at how everything works.
People who had experienced some sort of head injury or stroke, aphasics, were their only subjects because researchers are able to physically examine and identify of what part of the subject`s brain has been damaged. By carefully analyzing how their language has been effected by this damage researchers are able to determine which parts of the brain house which parts of the language capability. This is a long, painstaking process, but has seen great strides over the past few years. Who knows, with daily increases in technology, researchers might have more luck in effectively mapping the brain functions of unaffected individuals. Neurolinguistics, a sad and gory task at times, can, however, also be very rewarding. Clinical neurolinguists have used the research generated from this discipline to help aphasics regain their lost language.
With the invention of new technology, such as the PET scan, which does actually allow researchers to look inside the heads of healthy individuals, neurolinguistics has entered a whole new stage in its development. The first time ever researchers can actually see where blood is flowing throughout the brain while the subject is engaged in various linguistic tasks. The stands are providing invaluable information into not only where certain linguistic-related components might be housed in the brain, but (and this is much more important) how these different components actually interrelate.
Sociolinguistics
We all know what this is about. The more traditional view is that sociolinguistics deals with how language is used in it`s societal contexts and this is probably how you were introduced to this. Such areas as dialectology, social variation, gender differences, and language planning, were all thought in the past to be the backbones of this often belittled and misunderstood area of language research.
Recently, this area has expanded to incorporate many of the things that used to be considered as belonging to pragmatics, such as speech acts, focus theory, and discourse analysis. If the other four disciplines mentioned above are all based on determining, in different ways, how language works, sociolinguistics is dedicated to establishing theories on the use of language. In what context do we use certain utterances and why? This is an area which is extremely hard to pin down and sociolinguists in the past have been blamed for being too descriptive and not empirical enough. In recent years such observations have subsided as sociolinguists strive to find the theoretical underpinnings of their highly diverse and varied research area.
There are many other areas within the huge area of language study and a tremendous number of differing approaches , but I think we will leave it at this for the moment. I think you have enough to chew on until next week.
I hope that this has been helpful in introducing the basic concerns and research areas of language to you. I tried to include some of my own ideas and opinions here in an effort to cast just a bit more light on the huge subject are we are going to be exploring diligently over the next few months. As always, if you have any questions or comments, positive or negative, please don`t hesitate to contact me. If you disagree with something I wrote here, that`s good. It means you are thinking and we should meet to talk about it.
Handbook 24 (Neurolinguistics)
3. Which areas in the cortex are directly related to language? What do they do?
The systems of language are generally seen as being distributed along the length of the Sylvian Fissure, which is a deep groove separating the frontal and the parietal lobes. On either side of this we have what are often identified as the two main processing centers of language; Wernicke`s Area and Broca`s Area. Aside from this area it has been argued, and fairly clearly shown, that certain elements related to language, if not directly to the actual processing of language, are located throughout the cortex and even in the right hemisphere of the cortex for right-handed individuals. This is the main point that I want you to take from this, that language is more than just its processing centers. Following an idea developed by Damasio we can posit that linguistic information (and remember that linguistic information is really just a special type of memory and should be expected to behave in the same way) is dispersed throughout the brain just like other memories and are brought together or assembled in convergence zones which just might correspond very well to the Wernicke`s and Broca`s Areas. Again, just try to keep in mind that linguistic information is truly dispersed throughout the cortex. In addition to linguistic information there are also other systems in the brain like cognition, emotion, motion, perception which are certainly intimately linked with linguistic system. So there is really a lot of different elements which play a role in our use and regulation of language.
4. Are there other areas of the brain outside the cortex that are related to language. What are they and what do they do?
Following what was intimated in the answer to the above question, literally any part of the brain could be implicated in language in one way or another but there do seem to be certain subcortical areas which have a rather important role in language. Among them are the two areas listed below.
The cerebellum
The cerebellum or the ``little brain` plays an important role in both movement and cognition due to its role as a kind of clock - timer or sequencer. The cerebellum is the area of the brain that helps in planning and regulation of actions - even linguistic ones! Remember speaking is an action that requires certain vocal apparatus to move in a very specific sequence and time.
The limbic system
The limbic system of the midbrain and brainstem is part of the emotional system. It should be clear to all that language is tied closely to emotion both in its use (you use language when you are emotionally driven to do so) and effect (nothing can make you feel worse than the wrong string of words sometimes). The limbic system plays a role in coding certain words or structures as emotionally arousing. This is important and interesting.
The movmement system
Although this is not mentioned in the reading (Caplan, 2001) there has recently been a slew of publications from people outside the theoretical linguistics world which claim an important role for language in the systems of movement. These systems are housed in the midbrain (voluntary movement) and even brain stem (involuntary movement). Particularly the basal ganglia have been strongly linked to language through their involvement with working memory.
CogLing 1: Basic Concepts
.........̋there is an interrelationship between thought, meaning and linguistic structure̋........ (Lee, 2001:1)
5. How does the idea of a construal relate to a words meaning?
In the theory of cognitive linguistics, there is no one-to-one relationship between the physical world and language. Language in its infinite complexity allows us to create a much richer view of the world and even allows us to create views of worlds which do not actually exist. Every event or object in the world is infinitely ambiguous. The world is Thus, language is an encapsulation of the world, but one which captures aspects of the world which may not actually exist. Bear in mind as well that the way a specific language chooses to encode the world is a cultural process. This means that a proficient speaker of a particular language has to choose from the tremendous amount of different options her language allows for dealing with certain situations in the real world. This is where the idea of a construal comes in.
Each situation in the real world has the possibility of being construed (interpreted/understood) in a different way. At some point we have to decide which interpretation is going to be used. The particular interpretation that is chosen becomes the construal. Now it should be clear from the examples in the text that some interpretations are going to be much more natural than others as determined by restrictions from the physical world, such as degree of animacy. In any case, the construal sets the basic interpretation of an event from the physical world which is turned into a linguistic event. The linguistic form must be created in a way that will allow the listener/reader to forma the same interpretation of the event as the speaker/writer.
6. How do the concepts of perspective and foregrounding work in constructing meaning?
The concepts of perspective and foregrounding are most easily in an analogy to painting. The perspective the is viewpoint that the painter decides to depict the intended image from. So, if you take a simple bowl of fruit as an example, a painter can choose to paint this from a limitless variety of angles. She will decide which angle to employ based on her interpretation of the object/event. Foregrounding relates to what is shown and to what degree that is shown. For example, in our bowl of fruit the painter might choose to paint one piece of fruit brighter or bigger than others or how it is in reality. Foreshadowing also relates to how much is shown as well.
It should be clear that from the above descriptions that both perspective and foreshadowing are used to create the specific construal that the speaker/writer has adopted. They relate specifically to the linguistic forms used in the creation of the utterance and their configuration in relation to each other so as to create a specific meaning as dictated by the construal. By looking at these we can also get a glance at another important aspect of cognitive theories: the body - mind link. Cognitive theories are built in the idea of embodiment, or the idea that our human cognition first originates as an abstraction of our physical states and how we perceive them. Perspective and foreshadowing can readily identified as being connected to and abstracted from our sense of sight. Keep this in mind as we get deeper into the theory of language and mind.
7. Why is the idea of metaphor so important in cognitive linguistic theory?
Starting with the seminal publication Metaphors We Live By (Johnson & Lakoff, 1982) the area of metaphor has been of increasing concern to cognitive linguists. The basic reason being that cognitive linguists are interested in studying how new and novel language forms are created. This is the cognitive side of creativity and it is claimed by them that creativity in language is aided in a large part by metaphorical extension. Metaphors are everywhere in both our world and our language. Extension from a base seems to be a very useful way of change. Based on this belief, cognitive linguists hold that metaphor is prevalent in language. It is the basis of how we use language and create new language forms.
8. What are frames and how are they generally proposed to work?
Frames are also known as schemas, scenarios, or even prototypes. They provide a set of information related to a specific word or structure (construction). The idea is that no linguistic item is alone. They all come in a frame which includes a wide variety of different other linguistic forms related in different ways. All these related forms are at the speaker`s disposal for deciding exactly which aspect of a word or any other kind of linguistic form she intends to use. Really what it is all about is limiting ambiguity.
9. What is the relationship between frames and words or word units?
Words create frames
But it is important to remember that words are ambiguous and it is their place in the frame that allows words or word units the opportunity to be ambiguous. A large part of a word`s meaning comes from its relation to the things in the frame with which it is associated. Deciding which of those elements are to be associated into the language you are going to use allows the word to be disambiguated. The meaning is made clear through the associations in a specific frame. Also remember that a single lexical unit will be linked to several different frames, so it is not only choosing things in a frame to be associated with but choosing the frame itself thta allows the most specific meaning of the word to be clear.