Introduction to the Study of Language

188 Pages·2.59 MB·

by  Linguistics 102

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Spring 2018

Linguistics 102

Introduction to the Study of
Language

Class Reader
- Introduction to the Study of Language -
Table of Contents
1. What is language? ........................................................................................................................1
Carl Polley
2. The sounds of language .............................................................................................................10
Kanjana Thepboriruk
3. A brief look at grammar .............................................................................................................24
Jacob Terrell
4. Dictionaries ................................................................................................................................35
Albert J. Schütz
5. Languages of the Pacific ............................................................................................................54
Emerson Odango
6. An introduction to Pidgins and Creoles .....................................................................................70
James Hafford
7. Language variation .....................................................................................................................81
Mie Hiramoto
8. Bilingualism, codeswitching, and humor...................................................................................94
Toshiaki Furukawa
9. Language endangerment ..........................................................................................................103
Gary Holton
10. Language acquisition .............................................................................................................123
Elaine Lau
11. Language and the brain ..........................................................................................................130
Nala Huiying Lee
12. Talking to robots, talking to ourselves: exploring computers and language .........................141
Hunter Hatfield
13. Writing systems ......................................................................................................................151
Kate Hardeman
14. Hawaiian: how an alphabet evolved ......................................................................................162
Albert J. Schütz
15. Animal communication ..........................................................................................................174
Joelle Kirtley

Edited by Kamil Deen
© 2018, held by the author of each chapter
WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
Carl Polley
1.0 INTRODUCTION. Birds and bees do it. Apes and dolphins do it. Even insects, plants and single-
celled bacteria do it, to a certain extent. Communication, the transfer of information from one organism to
another, is a central aspect of the lives of nearly all species. Plants and animals communicate in order to
coordinate collective behavior, for example to spread warnings of predators and environmental dangers or
in courtship to facilitate the selection of mates. Deceptive signals can be used as camouflage. So what
makes language, the human communicative system, unique?
2.0 DESIGN FEATURES FOR LANGUAGE. One way to compare human language versus general
communication is in terms of design features (Hockett & Altmann 1968). By considering language as a
system, shaped by design features, we can understand what characteristics human language shares with
other natural communication systems, while learning how language is different. Some other creatures may
communicate using systems that rely on only a few of these features (we will return to this topic in a later
chapter, Animal Communication); the combination of all of them at once is what makes language special.
Communicative systems can include the following features:
2.1 CHANNEL. Organisms must have a means for transmitting signals to each other. Common channels for
communication are sight, sound, touch and even smell. For human language, signals consist of sound, such
as with speech or a baby’s cries, and by visual communication, as in sign language, writing and gestures.
Primates and birds also use sound to communicate. Other species may use different channels. Honeybees,
upon finding a food source, perform a dance to share information on the direction, distance and quality of
the food (Von Frisch 1973). Ants tell each other where the food is by dropping scents, or pheromones, on
their way back to the ant colony (Parry & Morgan 1979).
Plants and bacteria also use chemical compounds to send communicative signals. Up to a third of the
carbon in CO absorbed from the atmosphere by plants is released back into the air in the form of aromatic
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compounds, some of which serve to share information regarding threats in their environment (Baldwin et
al. 2006). Bacteria release and detect signaling proteins with highly specific structures in a process that
loosely resembles collective decision-making (Taga & Bassler 2003).
2.2 FUNCTION. Communication may be directed toward influencing the behavior of members of the same
species, as in courtship and mating behavior, or it may function across species, as with deceptive
camouflage behavior. For example, the piping plover, an endangered species of bird that nests along
beaches in North America, will feign a broken wing to lure predators away from its eggs and hatchlings
(Ristau 1983). Whether such displays of fake injuries are intentional rather than purely instinctual is,
nonetheless, an open question.
In some communicative systems, one of the functions of the signal is to carry meaning. This is done by
linking a symbolic signal to a reference point, or referent, such as a source of food or an incoming predator.
2.3 EXCHANGE. Systems of communication can involve either a one-way or a two-way exchange of signals.
The broken wing display of the piping plover is an example of one-way communication. Human language
is two-way, of course, since typically people can both send and receive information through speech, writing
and sign language.
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What is Language?
2.4 LEARNING. Some forms of communication, including language, involve cultural transmission, or
learning individual signals and their functions during the course of one’s lifetime. Human children must
learn the sounds, words, and grammatical structures of the languages spoken by their families and
communities, and we can infer certain information, such as where someone grew up or where their family
is from, by the patterns of speech that an individual has learned. Likewise, songbirds also learn how to sing
by listening and imitating others of their own species, and communities of birds in separate locations learn
different patterns of songs (Kroodsma 2005).
2.5 ARBITRARINESS. Links between the form and meaning of signals are often deemed arbitrary, in that
there is no reason why they have to be way they are rather than some other way (Saussure 1916/1986:67).
For example, the chemical compound H O is called wai in Hawaiian, shui in Chinese, vai in Samoan,
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wasser in German, water in English and wara in Tok Pisin (spoken in Papua New Guinea). In other words,
there is no reason for a single entity to be assigned a particular word form.
However, the arbitrariness of symbols is not always absolute. Consider the shapes in figure 1 below.
Which shape do you think should be named “bouba” and which should be “kiki”?

FIGURE 1: BOUBA AND KIKI

About 95% of those who answer this question, including English-speaking adults, speakers of other
languages, and children as young as 2.5 years old, think that kiki goes well with the sharply angular shape
on the left, and that bouba is a good match for the rounded shape on the right (Köhler 1929, Maurer et al.
2006). Non-arbitrary symbols, such as “no smoking” signs have a direct link between the symbol and the
meaning. We will discuss this further in the chapter Writing Systems.
2.6 COMPOSITIONALITY. Human languages are built up of many types of units, including sentences,
words, and individual vowels and consonants. We recombine vowels and consonants to make words, and
words can be combined to form phrases and sentences. For example, we can add the suffix “-est” to most
adjectives, forming a new word, as with “clear” and “clearest”. Likewise, we can also combine an adjective
with a noun, thus conveying a more complex meaning than would be possible when using either word
individually, as with the phrases “clear window” and “clear winner”.
The different levels of language, or the classes of units that combine to form messages, will be
discussed in more detail below. Being highly compositional, language allows for seemingly limitless
variation in the expression of complex thoughts and in the variety of possible sentences. Consider, for
example, how many sentences you can imagine that use the phrases “clear window” or “clear winner” given
above. Each of these phrases can fit into a vast number of contexts, depending on which words you choose
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to combine them with to produce the sentence. Therefore, human language allows us to articulate new and
complicated ideas due to its compositionality.
Communicative systems in other species are generally less compositional. For example, in bee dances,
the angle of movement along the hive wall varies according to the angle of the sun and the direction of the
food source. The speed of the dance, meanwhile, changes according to the distance of the food. How much
energy the bee spends dancing is correlated to how desirable the food source is (Von Frisch 1973). Although
different types of information can be encoded within separate channels in the bee dance, this is still a far
cry from the high degree of compositionality used in human language.
2.7 IMAGINATION. For better or for worse, we humans are experts at talking and thinking about things that
are not immediately present. This is because human language allows for displaced reference, where a unit
of language can refer to something that is not present, an event located at some other point in time, or even
some figment of the imagination that never existed at all! The role of imagination makes language unique
compared to non-human forms of communication. Almost all animals seem to be limited to communicating
about food, predators and potential mates that are immediately present or in sight.
Some animals can be trained to use language-like symbols to give or respond to requests relating to
items that are not immediately present, albeit during communication with humans. For example, a
chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky was taught a modified form of sign language for more than five years
in a human-like environment, with trainers who communicated with him as a child, dressed him in clothes,
and even changed his diapers. After years of training, Nim was able to produce multi-word expressions.
His longest, consisting of 16 gestures, was “give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat
orange give me you” (Terrace 1979). In this case, Nim’s request for an orange made reference to an event
that had not happened, and therefore could be interpreted as having involved some degree of displaced
reference.
In research conducted at the University of Hawai‘i, a bottlenose dolphin named Elele was trained by
humans to perform somewhat complex sequences of actions involving objects placed in a pool. Elele could
also understand and respond correctly to the command “repeat”, used in reference to a complex action that
had been performed at a previous point in time (Mercado et al. 1999). Nonetheless, there is little evidence
for the use of imagination by animals in the wild to produce or understand communicative signals about
things or events that are not physically present.
2.8 CREATIVITY. Human beings are also unique in being able to combine units of language creatively to
establish new patterns of speech and new meanings. Take, for example, the word-form X-ish, meaning
something like ‘resembling X’ or ‘coming from X’, as in foolish or English. In informal English the use of
this suffix has also come to mean ‘a little bit X’ as in saddish and happy-ish, or to mean ‘around the time
of X’ as in five-ish or soon-ish. If there were some new English word, say, skreeker, meaning some type of
animal that is known for making loud piercing cries as it flies by, you would have no difficulty
understanding what skreeker-ish would mean. Some linguists also consider productivity, or the use of
novel combinations of existing linguistic forms, as a design feature, though it may in fact be a phenomenon
that simply emerges from interaction between the design features of compositionality and creativity.
2.9 CONSIDERING THE DESIGN FEATURES TOGETHER. Above, we have reviewed several design features
that make language what it is. But these are not meant to be an exhaustive list. Perhaps you can think of a
few more design features of language. Moreover, certain features, such as arbitrariness and
compositionality, seem to be relative concepts rather than absolutes. The bee dance is less compositional
than human language, because there are fewer units being combined to produce a signal. In this sense, it is
best to think of design features as existing on a continuum, or a range of values, instead of working as
simple on/off switches. Do you think any of the above features are critical components of human language,
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separating our communication system from those of other creatures? Or are we unique in the combination
of features that language requires?
3.0 CROSS-SECTIONS OF LANGUAGE. Compositionality allows for language to be made up of units
at different levels of form, such as syllables, words and sentences. Let us now take a look at each of these
formal levels, as well as the patterns of social organization found in language.
3.1 LEVELS OF LINGUISTIC FORM. At the phonetic level, language can be analyzed as being composed of
individual sound segments, including vowels and consonants. The types of sounds and their distinctive
features are discussed in detail in the next chapter, The Sounds of Language. A single change in a sound,
such as from the [b] in big to the [p] pig, can result in a change from one word to another. One of the ways
that languages can be distinguished from each other is in how their inventories of distinctive sounds differ.
When individual sounds are combined, they can form a word. A word can also be adjusted by adding a
suffix or prefix. For example, the word big has one meaning, but bigger and biggest each have a suffix,
namely –er and –est, which add additional information to the base, big. Suffixes can also denote more
complex meanings or change a word’s part of speech, that is, whether it is a noun, verb, adjective or adverb.
For instance, the difference in meaning between concentrate (a verb) and concentration (a noun) is marked
by the addition of the suffix -tion. Likewise, prefixes can also change the meanings of words: consider the
function of re- in the words redo, rethink and remix.
Words can also be combined to form larger units—phrases and sentences—at the level of syntax. At
this level, we classify words by their parts of speech, such as nouns, adjectives and verbs, and distinguish
among the functions performed by words within a phrase or sentence. In English, for example, a noun can
function as a subject, direct object or indirect object. This level is discussed in more detail in the third
chapter of this book, Grammar.
Sound segments, words and grammar are classic levels of analysis when studying any language, but
there are yet other levels of form. Intonation, or prosody, is composed of contour patterns of high and low
pitches and fast or slow rhythms, which express the speaker’s emotion or attitude toward her listener or the
subject of conversation. For example, consider the differences in meaning if a speaker stresses certain words
in a sentence of English, as in “We have not found any smoking guns”. versus “We have not found any
smoking guns”. The first, with stress on found, implies that some clue or piece of evidence probably should
have been found but has not yet, while the second, with stress on any, implies that the search was exhaustive
and expresses a lack of interest in continuing to look for evidence.
Gesture, or movements of the body that accompany speech, can also be analyzed as a level of linguistic
form. Gestures across languages are often similar, as when we point close to or away from the body when
talking about something ‘here’ or ‘there’ in virtually any language, but gestures can also vary systematically.
In English, we talk about past and future events as being behind or in front of us, as in the expressions
looking back over the years and looking forward to the weekend. But in Aymara, a language spoken in the
Andean mountain range in parts of Bolivia, Peru and Chile, the word nayra means ‘eye, sight, front’ and is
used in expressions referring to past events, while the word qhipa ‘back, behind’ is used in reference to
future events. Thus, Aymara speakers conceptualize the past as being in front of them and the future as
being in back. Their gestures also reflect this; when speaking about the past, monolingual Aymara speakers
tend to point to or move their hands toward the front (Núñez & Sweetser 2006).
Other levels of language are also worth considering, such as semantics, the study of the meanings of
words and sentences, and discourse, the combination of utterances or sentences in conversation and in
writing. At even more abstract levels of language, such as genre, where texts and speech are classified by
their function within society, we continue to find systematic structures in how language is put together. For
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example, in the genre of narrative storytelling, in many cultures, we consistently find a protagonist,
antagonist, sources of conflict, one or more climactic events, and resolution of the story after the climax.
4.0 SPEECH COMMUNITIES. “Every speaker,” the eminent American linguist Leonard Bloomfield
wrote, “is a mediator between various groups” (Bloomfield 1933/1992:§27.1). Patterns of speech vary
along dimensions of social organization. People from different geographic regions may speak different
dialects, or local varieties, of the same language.
Though not everyone may agree on how precisely to distinguish whether two varieties of speech are
different languages or different dialects, the criterion of mutual intelligibility serves well. Mutual
intelligibility is a relative concept that refers to the level of ease or difficulty that two speakers have when
communicating with each other, regardless of whether or not they share a common language. One measure
of mutual intelligibility could be the proportion of words used in one community that are understandable to
speakers in another community. If there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility, the speech varieties could
be considered dialects of the same language, as is the case with Scottish, British, American and Singaporean
English. In contrast, where there is little mutual intelligibility, as with English, Chinese and Swahili, we
know we are dealing with separate languages.
Social identity is also an important factor in distinguishing between dialects and languages. For
example, Fijian is generally considered to be one language, including by Fijians themselves, although the
variety of Fijian spoken by people in eastern Fiji is not mutually intelligible with that spoken in western
Fiji (Lynch 1998:26).
Each of the formal levels discussed above has patterns of regularity and variation that can be analyzed.
Consider, for instance, how the style of writing for this textbook chapter differs from colloquial speech.
How is the language we use in the classroom different from the language we use at home? Likewise, men
and women have different manners of speaking. The same goes for speakers within a given community
who belong to different generations; you probably speak differently from your parents and grandparents in
certain ways. Why? Does it have something to do with establishing an identity, or aligning oneself with
other people who are seen as sharing an identity? Remember too that language is a product of social
interactions, which likewise follow patterns of social organization. With so many levels of formal and social
regularity and variation, language as a whole forms a complex system, or a network of tightly integrated
basic elements, which work in concert to produce highly intricate variation. We will devote more time to
this in a later chapter, Language Variation.
5.0 LIFE CYCLES OF LANGUAGE. Languages also have life cycles. We can speak of dead languages
like Latin and Sanskrit, living languages like English, Hawaiian and Japanese, and dying or endangered
languages. In certain situations, as for example trade colonies or plantation economies, where speakers of
many different languages are intermingled, a new language can be born. This was the case for Tok Pisin in
Papua New Guinea and for Hawaiian Creole English, aka Pidgin, in Hawaii. Other chapters in this book,
An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles and Language Endangerment, deal with language birth and death,
respectively.
6.0 THE SCIENCTIFIC METHOD ANDLANGUAGE. Linguists, like other scientists, use the scientific
method to study and theorize about language. The scientific method is a collaborative process of hypothesis
formulation, collection of data, analysis of data and communication of results. No linguist would be so
foolish to claim a full understanding of all of language. Such a vast, complex system can only be studied in
cross-sections. By considering the full range of available data, however, we can test whether or not our
current theories and assumptions about language are valid.
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6.1 DATA COLLECTION. There are more than 6,800 languages in the world (Gordon 2005), many of which
have barely been studied at all. Even among languages that are well documented, it is often the case that
we only have a partial understanding of how the language is actually used in certain contexts or by certain
groups of speakers. Thus, one of the most important types of data collection in linguistics is fieldwork, in
which a linguist goes into a community to gather first-hand records of how a language is used. Other forms
of data collection in linguistics include taking surveys on the preferences or attitudes toward linguistic
patterns held by certain speakers, compiling texts or audio recordings into a corpus or database of examples
for natural language, and conducting experiments on language production and comprehension, which may
be done in a laboratory, classroom or other environment. Inductive introspection, where linguists create
their own data based on their experiences and intuitions as native speakers, can also help to test and
formulate hypotheses. Noam Chomsky (1957:15), for instance, famously proposed the example sentence
“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”. to argue that syntax can be analyzed separately from meaning,
since native English speakers are likely to find this sentence somehow grammatically well formed, even
though it makes no sense.
As you go through the rest of the course, pay attention to what kind of data has been collected so far.
As with any science, ask yourself what other data sources might support or challenge the current
conclusions. What additional data would you like to see? Is there data that you can supply, from your own
experience with language, or that you could collect fairly easily?
6.2 DATA ANALYSIS. Once data has been gathered, linguists characterize patterns of regularity and variation
in how language is used. Theories of language are built on models, or systematic explanations, of how units
can combine at each level of formal analysis and in various types of social contexts or situations. Many
models represent attempts to reduce the complexity of language to a smaller set of principles or constraints
that govern how patterns of regularity arise.
6.3 HYPOTHESIS TESTING. Based on the principles or constraints that establish a model, linguists then
generate hypotheses regarding what types of patterns or behavior will or will not be found, either in a
particular language or in all human languages. Where new data fits the hypothesis, the model is supported
as a reasonable characterization of language. Where the data contradicts the model, it calls for a new
analysis, and perhaps a new understanding of how language works. You will see examples of models and
hypotheses about language as you move through this course.
7.0 THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE. Several design features discussed above may be unique to
human language, including imagination and creativity. There are also highly specific biological traits that
contribute to our ability to speak. One of these is that adult humans have a larynx, or voice box, which is
lower down in the throat than other primates. The lowered larynx separates it from other tissues in the
mouth and throat, creating a larger vocal tract and facilitating the production of a wider range of vowels
and consonants.
Human children are born with mouths and throats that anatomically resemble those of other primates,
but as they grow, the larynx and epiglottis become separated from the soft palate (Fletcher & MacWhinney
1996:307). The lowered larynx involves a higher risk of choking while eating, and thus could have been a
disadvantage. That it was not has led to speculation that the evolutionary advantage of the lowered larynx
must have been its role in enabling oral communication (Fitch 2000).
It is likely that the lowered larynx was present in early hominids around 300,000 years ago (Kay et al.
1998), but clear material evidence for fully developed language dates back to only about 100,000 to 50,000
years ago, when archaeology shows records of symbolic rituals, such as burial of the dead, symbolic artwork
such as rock carving and cave paintings, and the use of red clay, or ochre, as tools for drawing or writing
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(McBrearty & Brooks 2000:526). Compare the distance between the epiglottis, which is at the top of the
larynx, and the soft palate for human infants shown in figure 2 below.
FIGURE 2: HUMAN INFANT VOCAL TRACT

Infant vocal tract: H = hard palate, S = soft palate, T = tongue, J = jaw, E = epiglottis, G = glottis1

Many speculative proposals have been raised about the origins of human language. Some researchers
point to the ubiquity of gesture across cultures—and the use of facial and hand gestures by chimpanzees—
to argue that gesture must have preceded oral communication and played a seminal role in the emergence
of language (Meguerditchian et al. 2010). Other scholars, meanwhile, point to the use of stone tools, and
especially weapons that could be thrown, to argue that fine motor control of sequential movements gave
rise to the capacity to articulate sounds and meaningful units in regular patterns (Calvin 1982). Yet others
point to mirror neurons, brain cells that fire both when performing an action and when perceiving another
performing the same action, as a “missing link” that enabled the use of symbols that have both meaning
and form, and that can be learned through interaction between individual speakers (Rizzolatti & Arbib
1998). Each of these sides argues forcefully for the centrality of certain aspects of language over others as
they build a story for how language evolved (for a review of these proposals, see Holden 2004).
A theory of monogenesis assumes that all human languages spoken today have a common origin, a
single language that was spoken at some point in the past by a group of early hominids who were the
ancestors of all Homo sapiens. Proposals that search for a “missing link” in the evolution of language
assume monogenesis. Legendary stories for the origin of language in many cultures also imply
monogenesis. It is possible, however, that language emerged through polygenesis, whereby separate groups
of early hominids individually developed their own communicative systems, and modern language arose
through interactions between these groups (Freedman & Wang 1996). Evidence for polygenesis can be
found in the fact that even Neanderthals, who were our evolutionary cousins but not our direct ancestors,
practiced ritual burial and the offering of flowers on graves (Solecki 1975). This implies that they had at
least enough capacity for imagination—and thus possibly displaced reference—to develop cultural
practices involving the remembrance of past friends and family members. Nonetheless, there is no direct
evidence for the use of language by Neanderthals.
8.0 FURTHER READINGS. Aside from the readings listed in the references section below, there are
many other books that give lively and accessible accounts of language. Edward Sapir’s Language: An

1 Image from Wikimedia (creative commons license, autor: Cengst) after Vihman (1996)
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Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921) covers levels of linguistic form, processes of linguistic change,
and the interplay between culture and language. Recent attempts to bridge new findings from neuroscience
and cognitive science with models of language include Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner’s The Way We
Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities (2002) and Jerome Feldman’s From
Molecule to Metaphor: A Neural Theory of Language (2006).
References
Baldwin, I.T. et al. 2006. Volatile signaling in plant-plant interactions: “Talking trees” in the genomics
era. Science 311(5762), 812-815.
Bloomfield, L. 1933/1992. Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Calvin, W.H. 1982. Did throwing stones shape hominid brain evolution? Ethology and Sociobiology 3(3):
115-124.
Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton.
Fitch, W.T. 2000. The evolution of speech: A comparative review. Trends in Cognitive Sciences
4(7):258-267.
Fletcher, P. & B. MacWhinney. 1996. Handbook of child language. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Freedman, D.A. & Wang, W.S.Y. 1996. Language polygenesis: A probabilistic model. Anthropological
Sciences 104(2): 131-138.
Gordon, R.G., Jr. (ed.) 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas: SIL
International.
Hockett, C.F. & Altmann, S.A. 1968. A note on design features. In Animal communications: techniques
of study and results of research, T. A. Sebeok (ed.), 61-72. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Holden, C. 2004. The Origin of Speech. Science 303(5662), 1316-1319.
Kay, R.F. et al. 1998. The hypoglossal canal and the origin of human vocal behavior. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the USA 95: 5417-5419.
Köhler, W. 1929. Gestalt Psychology. New York: Liveright.
Kroodsma, D. 2005. The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong. New York:
Houghton Mifflin.
Lynch, J. 1998. Pacific Languages: An Introduction. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Maurer, D. et al. 2006. The shape of boubas: Sound-shape correspondences in toddlers and adults.
Developmental Science 9(3): 316-322.
McBrearty, S. & A.S. Brooks. 2000. The revolution that wasn’t: A new interpretation of the origin of
modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution 39: 453-563.
Meguerditchian, A. et al. 2010. Captive chimpanzees use their right hand to communicate with each
other: Implications for the origin of the cerebral substrate for language. Cortex 46(1): 40-48.
Mercado, E. et al. 1999. Memory for action events in the bottlenosed dolphin. Animal Cognition 2(1), 17-
25.
Núñez, R.E. & Sweetser, E. 2006. With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara
language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive
Science 30(2006), 401-450.
Parry, K. & Morgan, E.D. 1979. Pheromones of ants: A review. Physiological Entomology 4: 161-189.
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