Linguistics week 2

• Universal Properties of Language

  • Grammar
  • Sound system
  • Method for forming words
  • Way of organizing words into sentences
  • Systematic way of assigning meanings
  • Shared mental grammar
• All languages have consonants and vowels
• Some universal properties of language are at the level of morphology and syntax
• All languages make a distinction between nouns and verbs
• In nearly all languages the subject of a sentence comes before the verb and before the object of the sentence
• Linguists study


  Phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of languages
• All languages are equally valid
• Linguists don't assign value to any language or variety or dialect, but some people do attribute value to particular dialects and varieties since there can be negative or positive social consequences for people who speak certain varieties
• When people say that British English is better than American English, they're making a social judgment based on politics, history, economics, or snobbery, but there's no linguistic basis for making that value judgment
• The grammars of most of the languages that were spoken in Europe had a lot in common because they all evolved from a common ancestor, which we now call Proto-Indo European
• Every language changes over time
• Some language change is as simple as in the vocabulary of a language. We need to introduce new words to talk about new concepts and new inventions
• Language also changes in the way we pronounce things and in the way we use words and form sentences
• Almost everything we know about our language—our mental grammar—is unconscious knowledge that's acquired implicitly as children
• Much of your knowledge of your mental grammar is not accessible to your conscious awareness
• Prescriptivism


  Describes how a language should be spoken
• Descriptivism


  Describes how a language is actually spoken
• Grammar is best thought of as a set of linguistic habits that are constantly being negotiated and reinvented by the entire group of language users
• Linguistic Community


  A group of people who share a single language variety and the rules for using it in everyday communication, and who focus their identity around that language
• Speech Community


  A group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language
• A typical speech community can be a small town, but sociolinguists such as William Labov claim that a large metropolitan area, for example New York City, can also be considered one single speech community
• Speech communities may share both particular sets of vocabulary and grammatical conventions, as well as speech styles and genres, and also norms for how and when to speak in particular ways
• Language Ideology


  A marker of struggles between social groups with different interests, revealed in what people say and how they say it
• Culture Iceberg


  • Surface culture (behaviors, customs and courtesies, and traditions)
  • Transition zone (service creed, core values, oath of office)
  • Hidden culture (beliefs, habits, values, assumptions, understandings, and judgments that affect the culture's worldview)
• Culture Shock


  When we encounter people who don't act, or think, or believe, the same way that we do