Chapter one1.What is language?Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. System means it is rule-governed; arbitrary means there is no logical relationship between language elements and their meaning; vocal means speech is primary; symbols related to arbitrariness, it means language elements are only the symbols for the meaning they express. Human, it means language is uniquely human; communication is the primary function of language.2.What are the design features of language, give their definitions and examples. Arbitrary: arbitrary is the core feature of language, which means that there is no logical relation between meanings and sounds. Arbitrary is a matter of degree, language is not entirely arbitrary, first, the onomatopoeia are words that sound like the sound they describe, to some extent, they have natural basis. Second, some compounds are not entirely arbitrary either, “snow” and“storm” are arbitrary words, but the compound word “snowstorm”is less so. Thirdly, some surnames, such as Longfellow, Johnson.Examples: a rose by other name would smell as sweetDuality: is meant the property of having two levels of structures, such that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization .we call sounds secondary units as opposed to primary units as words, since the secondary are meaningless and the primary unit have distinct and identifiable meaning.Creativity: language users can understand and produce new sentences to express new meanings. By creativity, we mean language is resourceful because of its duality and recursiveness. By duality the speaker is able to combine the basic linguistic units to form an infinite set of sentences, most of which are never produced or heard before. Language is creativity in another sense, that is, itspotential to create endless sentences. The recursive nature of language provides a theoretical basis of this possibility.Example: He bought a book which was written by a teacher who taught in a school which was known for its graduates who……Displacement: means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts, which are not present at the moment of communication.Examples : we can refer to Confucius and Bush at the moment of communication , but the former lived thousands of years ago and the latter live far away from us .3.Functions of the language and their examples⑴informative function: when language is used to express human experience and knowledge about the world. It is predominantly the major role of language.⑵interpersonal function is the most important sociological use of language by which people establish and maintain their status in a society. Language marks our identity, physically in terms of age, sex, and voiceprints; psychologically in terms of language, personality, and intelligence; geographically in terms of accents and dialects; ethnically and socially in terms of social stratification, class, status, role, solidarity, and distance.(3) Performative function: is primarily to change the social status of persons, as in marriage ceremonies, the sentencing of criminals, the blessing of children, the naming of a ship at a launching ceremony and the cursing of enemies. The kind of language employed in performative verbal acts is usually quite formal and even ritualized.(4) Emotive function: changes the emotional status of an audience for or against someone or something.(5) Phatic communion: occurs when language is used for pure interpersonal purposes, e.g. greetings, farewell, etc.(6) Recreational function: when language is used for the pure joy of using it, such as baby’s babbling and chanter’s chanting.(7) Metalingual function: when language is used to discuss itself. For example, to be honest, to make a long story short, come to think of it, on second thought.4. What is linguistics?Linguistics is the scientific study of language.4.Main branches of the linguistics1)Phonetics: studies speech sounds, it is the description, classification, andtranscription of speech sounds. It includes articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics and auditory phonetics.2)Phonology: the study of speech sounds as a system: the relations betweenspeech sounds, the way in which speech sounds are related to meaning, the rules governing the structure, distribution and sequencing of speech sounds. 3)Morphology: the internal structures of words. It studies the minimal units ofmeaning-morphemes and word-formation processes.4)Syntax: studies the internal structure of sentences5)Semantics: the study of meaning as encoded in language6)Pragmatics: the study of language use, meaning in context5. Macrolinguistics1) Psycholinguistics investigates the interrelation of language and mind, in processing and producing utterances and in language acquisition. The psycholinguistics constraints on the form of grammar are studied. It also studies language development in the child, biological foundations of languages, and the relationship between language and cognition.2) Social linguistics: is an umbrella term, which covers a variety of different interest in language and society, including the social functions of language and the social characteristics of its users.3) Anthropological linguistics: anthropology and linguistics combined: the relationship between language and culture.4) Computational linguistics: the use of computers to process or produce human language: machine-translation, information retrieval, expert systems.6. Important distinction in linguistics1) Descriptive VS PrescriptiveThe distinction lies in prescribing how things ought to be and describing how things are. Describing language as it is used by its native speakers is descriptive; trying to lay down language rules for correct uses of language is prescriptive. To say linguistics is a descriptive science is to say that linguist tries to discover and record the rules to which the members of a language community actually conform and does not seek to impose upon them rules, or norms, of correctness.2) Synchronic VS diachronicStudying language as it is used at a particular point in time is synchronic study; studying language as it changes over time is a diachronic study.3) Langue Vs paroleSaussure distinguished the linguistic competence of the speaker and the actual phenomena or data of linguistics as langue and parole. Langue is the language system, which is social, essential, and stable while parole is the actual use of the language system, which is individual, accidental, and unstable.4) Competence VS performanceA language user’s underlying knowledge about the system of rules is called his linguistic competence, and performance refers to the actual use of language in concrete situation. (Chomsky)5) Syntagmatic VS paradigmatic relationsSyntagmatic relations are relations between units present in the same sequence or construction, syntagmatically related elements form structures.Paradigmatic relations are relations between a unit and other units that can replace it in a given sequence. Paradigmatically related units form systems.how he can get to his destination. Then you tell him all that you know about the course, including which bus or subway he should take. This is the very process in which you use your experience and knowledge to help him. If you have no idea about his destination, you would say “Sorry, I can’t help you”. At this moment, he may buy a map of the city. This is the reason why map came into being. Map provides the detailed information including not only the complicated and crossing roads, but also the course of bus and subway. Map is an instrument by that peopleuse language to show their experience and knowledge. By analogy, there are also many other instruments for people to express content, such as books, papers, magazines and dictionaries and so on. These forms are utilized by human to record the facts of social development; conversely, the recorded facts is a prerequisite of social development. Having talked so much, I believe there are two important points to be captured. 一是，人这个主体通过使用语言将内容传递出去；另一个是语言通过报纸、杂志、书、字典等的外在形式把知识和经验传递出去。