Tag Archives: speech

Chapter 1: What is Language?

Trigger Attempts to Help Me Read

 

Chapter 1:

What is Language?

So this is the real mystery: Even under these loosened criteria there are no simple languages used among other species, though there are many other equally or more complicated modes of communication. Why not? …. This is an apples and oranges problem, not a complicated-vs-simple one.

~Terrance Deacon

 

The Five Key Aspects of Language

The English word language derives from the Latin word, lingua, “tongue,” via Old French. It is easily understood as the communication system that enables humans to communicate with one another. However, language is no easy system. Not only is there more than one type of communication system, but there is so much that goes into the makeup of each cognitive faculty. There are animal languages, computer languages, and human languages. Each system has its own series of signs for encoding and decoding information.

However, the purpose of this paper is not to explore these different methods of communication at large, but rather to strictly explore and analyze how language communication is more complex amongst humans. Language is often thought about in terms of the written word, because when something is written down it becomes a permanent idea. However, in linguistics, speech is valued as being more central to human language. The human ability to speak is often taken for granted. The ability to communicate effectively with one another is actually quite an intricate mental ability, and researchers today still do not have all the answers to how such a skill is possible.

Then He Goes and Rolls

While there are multiple forms of non-verbal communication amongst the human species, such as: sign language, whistle and drum languages, the focus of this paper will be on the acoustic channel, the form of communication used whenever people speak to one another. The words we wish to express at a given moment seem to emerge inexplicably from a sender’s mouth, as sound waves. Then, these sound waves travel to and hit the listener’s ear. Once the sound waves have hit the listener’s ear, an auditory signal is sent to the brain, where it is interpreted. This model seems simple enough, but it takes more valuable information to understand how the process effectively works.

Linguists typically recognize five key aspects of language: “phonology, the sounds of language; morphology, the way words are built; syntax, the ordering of words and other grammatical bits into meaningful language; semantics, the meaning system of language; and pragmatics, the way speakers use words on the basis of social contexts.”[1] Once these main features of language are explained, the significance of language becomes more apparent.

Then Trigger Steals My Food!

Phonology

There is a complex relationship between words and sounds. Understanding phonetics requires and understanding of a particular language’s sound system, an understanding of what goes on in the mouth and throat to produce speech. Phonetics deals with measureable, physical properties of speech sounds themselves, for example, precisely how the mouth produces certain sounds, and the characteristics of the resulting sound waves. When discussing phonetics, it is important to remember the letters are not what matter, but rather individual speech sounds.

IPA Alphabet

A good place to start discussion of the language system is with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. The IPA was first developed in 1886, but since then has undergone a number of revisions.[2] The aim of the IPA is to show pronunciation in a dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork, to form the basis of a writing system for a language, or to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of speech (IPA, 3). Behind the IPA system are a few theoretical assumptions about speech: some aspects of speech are linguistically relevant, and others are not; speech can be represented partly as a sequence of discrete sounds (segments); segments can be divided into two major categories, consonants and vowels; the phonetic description of consonants and vowels can be made with reference to their auditory characteristics; and finally, some aspects of speech, such as stress and tone, need to be represented independently from segments (IPA, 4). These theoretical assumptions are further explored in this chapter, and a full chart of the IPA symbols can be viewed at the end of this chapter, but for now, it is easiest to focus simply on the symbols necessary to make the basic sounds of North America English, rather than to try and understand all the sounds of the world’s languages.

Vowels

It is difficult to try and understand the complex relationship between letters and sounds in the English language because in many instances, the same vowel sound is spelled differently. For example: heard, herd, turn.

Vowel sounds are produced with relatively free flow of air, and the tongue influences the ‘shape’ through which the airflow must pass. When talking about the place of articulation, linguists refer to the inside of the mouth as having a front versus a back and then a high versus a low area. Linguists would point out that vowel sounds are simply voiced air, meaning that when you produce these sounds, your vocal cords vibrate while you breathe across them. For example, the sound “EEE” is made with the tongue high in the front of one’s mouth, while the sound of “AHH” is made with the tongue low in the back of the mouth (Temple, 84). But this is only the beginning of the understanding of vowels.

There is then the difference between long and short vowels. This, for example, is the distinction between the sound represented by the letter a in mate (a long vowel sound) and the sound represented by the letter a in mat (a short vowel sound). With the pronunciation of each word, one’s mouth is doing something different. When one says a so called“long vowel,” one’s tongue muscles tense up. This is in contrast with what happens when one says a “short vowel.” When one pronounces mat, one’s tongue muscles relax. This is why linguists do not use the terms, long and short, but rather refer to the sound variations as tense and lax.

Now, there is something else Native English speakers do with their pronunciation of vowels that other languages do not do: They make double pronunciations of them (Temple, 85). Look for example at the word eye [aɪ̯]or same [seɪ̯m]. One might thing she is only pronouncing one vowel, such as the vowel “I,” but in fact, you actually run together “ah” and “ee.” These are called diphthongs.

One last common phenomenon in English but rare in other languages is vowel reduction (Temple, 85). In English, in words of more than one syllable, vowels in the unstressed syllable are called schwa; the vowel in the unstressed syllable is said to be reduced. For example, schwa corresponds to the ‘a’ in about [əˈbaʊt] and the ‘e’ in taken [ˈteɪkən].

Consonants

Another important part of phonetics to understand is what happens when breath flow is interrupted in some way. By using the tongue and other parts of the mouth to constrict and shape the oral cavity through which the air is passing, many different sounds can be created, and these various sounds are consonants. To describe the place of articulation of most consonant sounds, it makes sense to start at the front of the mouth and work back. When discussing place of articulation there are: bilabials, which are sounds formed using both upper and lower lips (e.g. pat, bat, mat); labiodentals, formed with the upper teeth and lower lip (e.g. Safe, save); dentals, formed with the tip of one’s tongue behind the upper front teeth (e.g. the, there, then); alveolars, formed with the front part of the tongue on the alveolar ridge (the bony ridge immediately behind and above the upper teeth) (e.g. the sound at the beginning of right and write); palatals, which are produced with the tongue and the palate (e..g. shout, child); velars, sounds produced with the back of the tongue against the velum (the soft palate) (e.g. car, cold); and finally, glottal, the one sound produced without the active use of the tongue and other parts of the mouth, which occurs when the glottis (the space between the vocal cords in the larynx) is open (e.g. the fist sound in who and whose) (Núñez).

The next big component in the discussion of consonants is the manner of articulation, which refers to the pronunciation of the sounds. When you momentarily stop the airstream and then let it go abruptly, you produce stop consonants or plosives, which are the sounds represented by [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g]; when you almost block the airstream and have the air push through the very narrow opening, a type of friction is produced and the resulting sounds are called fricatives, represented by, [f], [v], [θ], [d], [s], [z], [ʃ], [_]; if you combine a brief stopping of the airstream with an obstructed release, causing some friction, the sounds [tʃ] and [d_] are created, which are called affricates; nasals are described as the sounds [m], [n], and [ŋ], which occur when the velum is lowered and the airstream is allowed to flow out through the nose; glides, the sounds [w] and [j], are produced when the tongue is in motion to or from the position of a vowel; the glottal stop, represented by the symbol [ʔ], occurs when the space between the vocal cords is closed completely, then released; and lastly is the flap, represented by [D] or sometimes [ɾ] is produced by the tongue tip tapping the alveolar ridge briefly (Núñez).

Conclusion

Phonetic transcription, unlike orthography, displays a one-to-one relationship between symbols and sounds. The main purpose of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound, which allows for foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, translators, etc. to better step outside of orthography and examine differences in pronunciation between dialects within a given language, as well as to identity changes in pronunciation that take place over time.

Morphology

Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of a given language’s morphemes and other linguistic units. Words have parts, and each additional part provides a change to the original word, which creates a new meaning. Below three different kinds of morphemes are described:

Free Morphemes

A free morpheme is a morpheme that can stand alone as a word; it does not require another morpheme to be attached to it. For example, Cat would be a free morpheme.

Inflectional Morphemes

Inflectional morpheme is a morpheme that can only be a suffix. It creates the change in the function of a word. In English, there are seven inflectional morphemes: –s (plural) and –s (possessive) are noun inflections; –s (3rd-person singular), –ed (past tense), –en (past participle), and –ing (present participle) are verb inflections; –er (comparative) and –est (superlative) are adjective and adverb inflections.

  • Examples:
    • Plural: Many people own cats.
    • Possessive: Jane’s cat has stripes.
    • 3rd Person Singular: She likes cats.
    • Past Tense: He liked cats.
    • Past Participle: The stolen cat was found unharmed by the police.
    • Present Participle: John told a very interesting story at dinner last night.
    • Comparative: A kitten is much smaller than an adult cat.
    • Superlative: The orange tabby cat was the smallest of the liter.

Derivational Morphemes

Derivational morphemes create a new word out of the word to which it is joined. The change can affect either the semantic meaning or part or part of speech. For example, when you attach -er to swim, you create the word swimmer. When you attach –ness to happy, you create the word happiness.

Conclusion

Understanding the role morphemes play in language acquisition is important in order to make connections between phonological and orthographic characteristics of speech. Without an understanding of the smallest unit in the grammar of a language, one can expect to be lost when trying to interpret larger concepts.

Syntax

Syntax, also referred to as grammar, refers to the set of rules that order words and their inflections meaningfully into sentences. Syntax can be understood as a type of code that allows speakers to encode meaning and for listeners to decode it (Temple, 96). Word order, parts of speech, and special uses of words all affect the meaning of a sentence or passage.

Conscious Knowledge

Syntax occurs at two levels: the conscious level and then the tacit knowledge level. At the conscious level, syntax can be thought of as the rules for how to build a sentence, such as the rule: a verb must agree with its subject in person and number. These rules throw us into a realm of technical notations. Suddenly, we are being asked to access and reiterate what a subject is, what a predicate is, and what other things are involved in constructing sentences.

Tacit Knowledge

However, this does not represent all the knowledge that allows one to produce and understand sentences. We all possess a highly intricate system that allows us to determine whether certain utterances correspond to sentences of our native language. This kind of knowledge, unattainable knowledge of language that allows one to judge whether or not a sentence is natively correct, is tacit knowledge. For example, look at these two sentences:

  • A. This book is difficult to read.
  • B. This book is difficult to be read.

One knows if one is a native English speaker that she can utter sentence A, and this corresponds to an English sentence. In contrast, a non-native English speaker can utter sentence, and while a message can be decoded from it, it does not correspond to any grammatically correct sentence of English. This kind of knowledge seems obvious, but not because of English lessons that are taught in a classroom; rather, because it is a sense of judgment acquired at a young age, that then becomes inaccessible to you.

Plato’s Problem

One might ask, so why do we call this knowledge at all? How can something be considered knowledge if nothing is being taught to anyone? Tacit knowledge appears to be more like instinct than knowledge. This discussion given the title, Plato’s Problem by Noam Chomsky, can be traced back to the fourth century BCE.[4] The argument is specifically seen in Plato’s Meno, in which Socrates demonstrates how an uneducated boy has innate knowledge, a priori knowledge, of geometric principles. Trying to close the gap between knowledge and experience involves working to explain the gap between what one knows and the apparent lack of input from experience, or the environment. Further discussion of this problem will be addressed in the next chapter, which deals explicitly with language acquisition in children.

Semantics

The third key component of language is semantics, best understood as the system of meanings in a language and the way those meanings are encoded in words (Temple, 100). Within this study of meanings, sounds, facial expressions, body language, and proxemics have semantic content. This is in contrast with syntax, which looks explicitly at the units of language without reference to their meaning. Semantic relations between words can be complex, but by going through some of the technical vocabulary that relates to semiotics, it should become a little easier to understand how words, phrases, signs, and symbols gain meaning.

Synonymy

Synonomy, in regards to meaning, refers to the degree of sameness between two terms. For example, eat and consume are two near-complete synonyms. In purely semantic terms, these two words mean the same thing (the ingestion of food), but their use depends on the context they are used in. Consume is more likely to be used by a person who is more intellectual, whereas eat is the more common word. One will find that English has a high number of synonyms because of French influence on the language.

Antonomy

Antonyms are binary oppositions, such as short and tall, big and little, right and wrong. The meaning of one term automatically rejects the other – someone who is short is not tall, someone who is big is not little, and someone who is right is not wrong. Another characteristic of antonyms is they can be gradable or not, depending on whether or not we attach inflectional morphemes to them to create a comparison: deep, deeper, deepest or, sunny, sunnier, sunniest.

Homophones, Homonyms, and Polysemes

Homophones are words that have a similar sound pattern, but are otherwise unrelated. The words may be spelled the same, such as wind (air movement) and wind (to move in a spiral course). Or, the words can be spelled differently. In this case they are also called heterographs. Examples of these include horse and hoarse; nun and none; buy and bye. Homophones are often used to create puns and to deceive the reader, seen in crossword puzzle clues, or to suggest multiple meanings, which are quite often seen in poetry and other forms of creative writing. Then there are also homonyms, which are terms that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings. Examples include: row (to propel with oars) and row (a line of arrangements); bark (the sound a dog makes) and bark (the outer layer of a tree trunk); bank (the edge of a river) and bank (a financial institution). Lastly there is a distinction to be made between homonyms, which are unrelated in origin, and polysemes, which have a shared origin, such as mouth (of a river) and mouth (of a person). For Dick Hebdife, polysemy means that, “each text is seen to generate a potentially infinite range of meanings.”[5] This, in the end changes the whole basis of creating social meaning.

Conceptual Metaphors

Now, discussion has moved away from basic language to an understanding of how descriptions are used to construct meaning. Based largely on ideas put forth by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their book Metaphors We Live By, a conceptual metaphor is an expression from ordinary language in which the meaning associated with a target domain is drawn from a source domain that is perceived as sharing certain traits of the target.[6] A few examples are:

  • “Anger is Heat”
    • He has a fiery temper.
    • She is about to explode!
    • “Love is a Journey”
      • This relationship isn’t going anywhere.
      • His marriage is on the rocks.

Conclusion

This is just the beginning of a complex discussion on how metaphors shape human lives. What at first appears as simple ordinary language soon is understood as transformative. “Language is what determines the meanings of words and signs and what combines them into meaningful wholes, wholes that add up to conversations, speeches, essays, epic poems. Language goes beyond that even; it’s what makes your thoughts truly meaningful, what builds your ideas into structured wholes.”[7]

Pragmatics

It can be understood at this point that language ability means more than making appropriate sounds, peaking in words, and stringing words together with understandable syntax. Hymes defined language as meaning having the ability to do things with words.[8] There is a distinction to be made between knowing language and knowing how to use language; linguists talk of language not only in terms of syntax and meaning, but also in terms of speech acts, which are attempts to accomplish things with language. This is one of the most challenging aspects of language learning, and often comes only through experience. Further discussion of pragmatics will take place later on in this paper, but for now, what is important to understand is pragmatics helps in overcoming language ambiguity, because meaning relies on the manner, place, time, etc. of an utterance.

Summary and Conclusion

With an in-depth analysis of the key aspects of language, one now has the necessary framework to begin exploration of more complex thinking. Next, one can look at children’s language-learning process. One will see how many children go through the stages of language learning in the same order, and thoughts behind this central human capacity will be discussed. Then, later on, one will see how when humans interact with one another, experiences are weaved into narratives, and special attention will be paid to words and their meaning.

[1] Temple, Charles A. All Children Read: Teaching for Literacy in Today’s Diverse Classroom. Boston: Pearson and B, 2005. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Temple, p#).

[2] Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (IPA, pg#).

[3] Núñez, Alejandro. “Phonetics and Phonology.” Phonetics and Phonology. Blogspot.com, n.d. Web. 26 June 2012. <http://alejandronunez-a-3.blogspot.com/p/c-ipa.html&gt;. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Núñez).

[4] Chomsky, Noam. Modular Approaches to the Study of the Mind. San Diego: San Diego State UP, 1984. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Chomsky, p#).

[5] Hebdige, Dick. Subculture, the Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Hebdige, p#).

[6] Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Lakoff and Johnson, p#).

[7] Bickerton, Derek. Adam’s Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010. Print. . Further reference to this source in parentheses (Bickerton, p.#).

[8] Hymes, Dell H. Foundations in Sociolinguistics; an Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1974. Print. Further reference to this source in parentheses (Hymes, p#).