| I. Why study linguistics? 1. The Definition of Linguistics Linguistics, as any dictionary will tell us, is the scientific study of language. 2. The Purpose of Study Linguistics Some knowledge of linguistics can be of great help in developing your ability to communicate in English. And the bonus is, it does not need to be tedious either. II. What is language, anyway? 1. The Definition of Language We look at language primarily as a type of social interaction, a tool for communicating and creating meaning among people. In linguistics, this orientation is often aligned with an approach known as functionalism, one that studies language in terms of what it can do(i.e., the functions or uses to which people put it). 2. The Two Important Ways of Conceptualizing Language (1) Language as system Language as system refers to all of the knowledge and information about a language that resides in our brains. The system can be thought of as language potential; that is, we have the ability to use any of it, but of course we cannot use all of it at once. Rather, the system contains all of the things that we could say at a given time. (2) Language as activity Language as activity refers not to the ability in our minds, but to the actions that we do with language at a given moment. In our everyday lives we do not use the whole of language. Rather, we use whatever bits and pieces seem most appropriate to the situation. An essay we write might be two pages, ten pages, or much longer, but it could never use all the words we have in our vocabulary (let alone all those in the dictionary). III. The three levels of language 1. Meaning Language is a system of symbols which create meaning. As an example, let us return to the greeting you gave the professor in the hallway. You wanted to convey, as briefly as possible, some meaning of greeting someone. So it’s what ideas we can express 2. Wording As an example above, in order to do greeting，you chose the wording “Hi.” That is wording what we can say. 3. Sounding Note that even such a simple word can be broken down further. It is composed of two distinct sounds: one represented by the “h” and the other by the “i”. (This is the level which does not exist for the system of traffic lights). Finally, in sounding, you actually utter the word so the professor can hear it. IV. Studying language in terms of psychology We have mentioned that we see language primarily as a form of social interaction and that this type of linguistics has a close relationship with sociology. But there is another approach to linguistics which takes a distinctly different view. This approach ignores what happens between people but takes exclusive interest in what happens within a single person’s mind, in exploring the “grammar rules” that every person is said to know at birth. For this reason, people who take this approach see linguistics as a field which is closely linked not to sociology, but to psychology. 1. Memory Memory it refers to all of the experiences you have had in speaking a language that you keep with you in your mind. We learn the expression simply by memorizing it and memorizing the kind of situation in which we can use it. We do the same thing with such expressions as on time, from time to time, few and far between, and all the other idioms that we know. We would not gain anything if we tried to conduct a grammatical analysis of any one of them. Ask yourself: Do you know any other chunks of language that must be memorized rather than produced by rules? What about long time no see? Is this expression grammatically “correct”? Some people say this is a direct translation of a Chinese chunk好久不见, but why do English-speaking people use it? We memorize language use in the same way we memorize songs. When you use a phrase such as by and large, do you stop to notice that it does not follow the rules of grammar? When you are greeting your classmate Good morning, do you bother to think about the fact that this construction has an adjective modifying a noun? No, unless you are particularly crazy about grammar, you utter Good morning as a language chunk, without using rules to analyze its structure. 2. The rule It is being used in a way that may be different than you are used to. In linguistics, a rule is a description of how people actually speak, not of how they or others think they ought to speak. (Linguists often explain this by saying that they seek to describe language use as it exists, and not to prescribe how people ought to use language.) One basic rule of English, for example, is that every sentence must have a complete verb. In English, we must say He is very tall even though the equivalent sentence in Chinese would have no verb. In addition, language as activity is governed by rules of another type, which are sometimes called “conversational rules”. When we bump into an acquaintance, we know we must greet him or her by saying How are you? or something equivalent because this is a rule of polite behavior. As we learn a language, we naturally acquire rules of both types, the ones governing language systems and those governing discourse activities. V. Summary When we study language in terms of sociology, we view it as social behavior, which is both dynamic and systematic. When we study language in terms of psychology, we view it as knowledge, both memory-based and rule-based. Activity and system, memory and rule, they are all crucial. We cannot ignore the importance of language as discourse activity when studying language as system, nor can we ignore the importance of language as memory when studying language as rule-governed psychological phenomenon. | I. 为什么研究语言学？ 1. 语言学的定义 正如字典里告诉我们的一样，语言学就是语言的科学研究。 2. 研究语言学的目的 在发展你的英语交流能力过程中，语言学知识能够给予你极大的帮助。另外，语言学也并不乏味。 II. 什么是语言？ 1. 语言学的定义 我们把语言看作是基本的一种社会互动，一种交流工具而且在人们之间产生意思。我们经常把语言学的定位和功能主义相结合，也就是人们研究语言，而语言能做什么（举例说明：人们运用语言的功能或作用）。 2. 语言的两个重要概念 (1) 语言是一种系统 语言作为一种系统是指所有语言知识及信息都储藏于我们的大脑中。 这个系统具有语言的潜能。也就是说，我们有能力运用这个系统中的任何元素，但我们不能立即运用所有的元素。当然，这个系统包含在即定的时间里我们能够说的所有事物。 (2) 语言是一种活动 语言作为一种活动不是指我们大脑对它所具有的能力，而是指在即定的时间内，我们伴随语言所产生的行为。当然，我们用一点或几个片断就足够我们当时的情景。一篇文章我们可以写两页，十页，或者更长，但这篇文章不可能用尽我们头脑中所有的词汇（更不用说字典上所有的词汇）。 III. 语言的三个层面 1. 意义 语言是一个能够创造意义的符号系统。举个例子：你在走廊里问候你的教授，而且你会尽量简捷的表达问候。那么，这种问候就是语言要表达的意义。 2. 选词 还是上文用到的例子，为了问候，你选择单词“你好。”这个单词就是我们所说的选词。 3. 声音 注意即便如此简单的单词都能被进一步分解。“Hi” 由两个不同的声音所组成， 一个由“h”所表示，而别一个由“i”.所表示。（在交通灯系统中并不存在这一层面）。最后，你发这个单词的声音是为了教授能够听到。 IV. 心理语言学 我们已经提到过我们把语言看作是基本的社会互动方式，而且语言学的这种类型和社会学有着紧密的联系。然而，对于语言学，还有另外不同观点的一种方法。这种方法忽略人们之意发生了什么，而仅仅对单独的个人头脑里发生了什么感兴趣，并探索每个人天生会说什么。正是由于这种理由，人们用这种方法把语言学看作是一个心理学的领域，而不是社会学领域。 1. 记忆 记忆是指在你的头脑里所有你能说的经历。 我们简单的学习表达通过记住它，而且记住它用在什么情景。我们不断适时的运用这样的表达以及我们所知道的习语。如果我们尝试它们其中任何一个语法分析，我们不会获得任何事物。问问你自己，你知道的任何其它语言片段是通过记忆得来，而不是通过语法规则得来。英文好久不见的表达其语法是正确的吗？但为什么说英语的人们用这句直接从中文翻译过来的句子表达？ 我们运用记忆语言的方法记忆歌曲。当你用一个短语，例如：总的来说，你会停下来去注意它没有遵守语法规则？当你问候你的同学早上好，你会介意事实上这个短语的结构是一个形容词修饰一个名字？不，除非你对语法特别的疯狂，你表达早上好作为一种语言块，并没有用语法分析它的结构。 2. 规则 这种规则和你经常用到的可能不一样。在语言学中，一种规则是描述事实上人们怎么说，而不是人们认为他们应该怎么说。（语言学经常通过寻找能够描述已存在语言的用法来解释这种规则，而并不是去规定人们应该怎么去用这用语言。）举个例子，一种基本的英语规则是每个句子必须有一个完整的动词。在英语里，我们必须说他非常高，即便同样的句子在中文就没有动词。 另外，语言作为一种活动是被另外一类规则所规定，这种规定有时也叫做会话规则。当我们必须问候他或她，我们会说你好，或者相似的问候语来表达礼貌行为。当我们学习一种语言，我们自然而然的习得两种规则，一种规定语言系统，另一种规定谈话活动。 V. 总结 当我们把语言作为社会学来研究，我们认为它是一种社会行为，既是动态的而且也是系统的。当我们把语言作为一种心理学来研究，我们认为它既是建立在记忆基础上的知识，而且也是建立在规则基础上的知识。 活动和系统，记忆和规则，这些都是关键的。当我们把语言作为一种系统去研究时，我们不能忽视语言作为谈话活动的重要性。当我们把语言作为一种即定心理现象时，我们也不能忽视语言记忆的重要性。 |
