ENG501 Short Notes Set 2

ENG501 SHORT NOTES (LECTURE 23 TO 45)

Definitions

Arbitrariness In human language, there is no natural connection between the word and the object they make reference to. This characteristic of language is called arbitrariness. For example, the Arabic word ‘kalab’ meaning dog and the English word ‘dog’ have no relation to the word they refer to.

Bow Wow theory : In English= splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss, screech, bow-wow Also called the “bow-wow theory” of language origin

Conservative It means that tends to preserve the existing status.

Creole : A creole language is a stable language that originated from a pidgin language, but has since been “nativized” (i.e. taught to, and acquired by, children). Its vocabulary is based on that of a parent language, although usually with significant pronunciation, meaning and grammar differences.

Derivation : Derivation creates new words with different meanings, e.g. maltreat from treat. With different syntactic properties, e.g. the adverb quickly from the adjective quick.

Diachronic linguistics : Diachronic linguistics (or historical linguistics), the study of a language over a period of time.

Dialect : A dialect is a variety or version of a language spoken in a particular geographical area. Different dialects are distinguished from each other by their vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation (whereas a distinction made only in terms of pronunciation is usually called an accent). A dialect of a language is distinguishable, but still understandable, to speakers of another dialect of that language.

Displacement In linguistics, displacement is the capability of language to communicate about things that are not immediately present (spatially or temporally); i.e., things that are either not here or are not here now.

Duality : Human language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously. We have a physical level at which we can produce individual sounds, like n, b and i. As individual sounds, none of these discrete forms has any intrinsic meaning. In a particular combination such as bin, we have another level producing a meaning that is different from the meaning of the combination in nib. Among other creatures, each communicative signal appears to be a single fixed form that cannot be broken down into separate parts. Your dog may be able to produce woof (“I’m happy to see you”).It does not seem to do so on the basis of a distinct level of production combining the separate elements of w+oo+f. If the dog was operating with the double level (i.e. duality), then we might expect to hear different combinations with different meanings, such as oowf (“I’m hungry”) and foow (“I’m really bored”).

Englishes :

Family tree model : First attempt at depicting the relationships between languages. Has assumptions: The Regularity Hypothesis The Relatedness Hypothesis

Inflection : Inflection deals with patterns of word structure that are determined by the role of words in sentences. For example, a pronoun like he has the forms he, him and his depending on whether it is subject, object or possessive in a given sentence.

Juncture : The pauses or connections between words, phrases, and sentences.

Linguistics : Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

Long vowels The "long" vowels are: • "a" as in "paper", • "e" as in "be", • "u" as in "human".

Morphology In linguistics, Morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes.

Neolithic age : “Neolithic” is likewise a convenient rather than scientific term. They possessed a superior kind of stone implement, and generally a higher culture. It was a dark race of slightly larger stature than the Paleolithic population.

Orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language. It includes norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.

Phonology of a language : Phonology is the study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages. It is the study of different sounds and the way they come together to form speech and words - such as the comparison of the sounds of the two "p" sounds in "pop-up."

Pitch : Pitch – how high or low a voice is when producing a sound Renaissance Renaissance was a time of “revival of learning,” records of Greek civilization became once more available. Latin and Greek were the key to the world’s knowledge and were highly esteemed for poetry, oratory, and philosophy.

Reverse Loanwords : Reverse Loanwords are words from other languages into English. It is a reverse adoption process in which words from languages are brought into English. Examples: Stop, sport, tennis, golf, weekend, jeans, bar, airport, hotel, etc., are among the most universally used in the world.

Short vowel Short vowel are: • "a" as in "cat", • "e" as in "red",

Standard English : Standard English is whatever form of the English language is accepted (at any point in time, and in any particular country) as the national norm, encompassing grammar, vocabulary and spelling. It is a variety or dialect of English with no local or geographical base, which, by virtue of historical accident, has become the leading form of the language. Although there is nothing inherently superior about Standard English, it is the most widely understood and the most widely disseminated variety of the language, and is generally accepted as having the highest prestige, and is the variety predominantly used by the powerful and influential. There is no such thing as a World Standard English, although British English and American English are the two most obvious contenders. The standard pronunciation or accent of British English became known during the 20th century as Received Pronunciation (also Queen’s English, BBC English or Public School English), and standard American pronunciation is known as General or Mid-West American, but pronunciation is not an essential features of Standard English, and it may be spoken in variety of accents.

Stress : Stress – how low or soft a word is spoken;

Synchronic approach : The study of a language at a given point in time. A synchronic approach (from Greek s??- "together" and ?????? "time") considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. The time studied may be either the present or a particular point in the past; synchronic analyses can also be made of dead languages, such as Latin.

Wave model The idea is that instead of having definite delineations between languages, there are “waves” of linguistic change which affect some languages but not others, and tend to spread out to other languages nearby. This is a necessary prerequisite for doing serious work on the diachronic development of a language.

World English :

Yo-he-ho” Another proposal “yo-he-ho” theory, the sounds of a person involved in physical