MEG04: ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
TEE-JUNE, 2008
Solved Paper

There are two major views about Language:

i. Cognitive view of Language.

ii. Communicative view of Language.

Cognitive view of Language is that the Language is constitutive of our thoughts and defines our thoughts.

Other people believe that Language is only tool for our expression, a means for our communication. This Communicative view of our Language.

The relationship between language and our perception of reality and its representation in the human mind was explored by famous anthropological linguist Edward Sapir (1884 -1939) and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897- 1941).

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis named after them has two aspects: linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism.

The principle of linguistic relativity says that different people see the world in different ways; some people see only one kind of water and some see five different kind of water and therefore feel the need for having the different words for different kinds of water.

As per the theory of linguistic determinism, language provides the framework for our thoughts and it is impossible to think outside this frame. Sapir felt that people were at mercy of their language.

Whereas, Sapir rather carefully talks in terms of only ‘predisposing’ speakers of a language to the outside reality and corresponding thought patterns. Whorf uses expressions such as ‘absolutely obligatory’ and the linguistic agreement ‘decreeing’ the structure of our talk.

Many people have found the Sapir-Whorfian hypothesis very attractive; they feel that language determines their thought patterns in important ways. In more recent times, philosophers like Wittgenstien and Davidson have enriched the cognitivist position in variety of ways. It is suggested that no other species matches human beings in the complexity, rationality and sophistication of thought and no other species have language like the one we have; the uniqueness is possible only if we believe that it is language that make thoughts possible.

In any case, there is no doubt that language is extremely important for our thoughts. As Russel says, it is unnecessary to prolong the catalogue of the uses of language in thought. As compared to images, we produce words easily to articulate our thoughts and listen to them effortlessly to understand others.

The English Language in its not-so-long history of 1500 years has constantly borrowed words from different sources. Contact with other cultures through conquest and collobarotions, the socio-political cirumstances, the need to explain new ideas have been the main reasons of borrowing words from various sources.

Latin Borrowings

(a) Borrowings in the Old English period

The introduction of Latin words into English vocabulary has taken place over considerable period of time. The Latic influence on English language was heralded by England’s contact with Latin civilization. Intitially the words realted to agriculture and war were heavily borrowed. Words like camp (battle), pil (pointed stick), pytt (pit), mil (mile) etc are examples of borrowing in this period. Gradually words associated with trade like ceap (cheap), pund (pound), mydd (bushel), mynet (coin) were introduced into English Language. Because of wine trade, we find words like win (wine), must ( new wine), eced ( vinegar), flase (flask, bottle) etc were introduced. Words related to domestic life were also borrowed: cytel (kettle), mise (table), cycene (kitchen), cuppe (cup) etc.

With the Christianizing of Britain in 597 A.D. begin another phase od Latin borrowings into English. May new conceptions followed in train of the new religion and there was need for expressing these ideas of which the old language was inadequate. The words borrowed from Latin during this phase are both popular and learned. The Popular words include Church, bishop etc. and the learned words include alms, alter, angel, anthem, canon, minister, hymn, pope, psalm, relic, etc.

Gradually because of the influence of the Church over the domestic life of the people, words relating to domestic use like Clothing (cap, silk) and food ( beet,lentil, millet, radish , oyster) were introduced.

Benedictine reform introduced new words for their scientific and learned character. For example, words like Antichrist, apostle, creed, prophrt, sabbath, synagogue, etc.

(b) Latin Borrowings in the Middle English Period

Although many words that were borrowed during the Middle English peiod came through the French influence, there were certain words that were directly borrowed from latin. Lot of the word entered through translation of literary texts. The translation of the Vulgates Bible gave English the words like generation, persecution, and transmigration. Other borrowed words are from law, medicine, allegory, theology, etc. such as consppiracy, custody, frustrate, genius, infinite, intellect, limbo, secular and many more.

(c) Latin Borrowing in the Modern Period

It was the revival of classical learning in the 16th century that first swelled the numbers of English words borrowed from Latin to overwhelming proportions. Numerous examples be cited: affidavit, agenda, animal, bonus, deficit, exit, extra, fact, maximum, omnibus, propaganda, veto/

During the renaissance quite a number of French words were remodelled into closer resemblance with their Latin originals. For instance, whereas the Chaucer uses the word descrive, the form describe makes its appearance only in 16th century. Similarly, perfet and parfet becomes perfect due to Latin influence.

In the present day technical and scientific English, Latin shares with Greek the honour of being the source of a host of new coinages. Words like coaxial, fission, interstellar, neutron, mutant, penicillin, radium, spectrum etc. have become integral part of the English technical vocabulary.

Code Mixing: When the languages continue to be in contact and when the speakers are bilingual, borrowing can continue. There will be the mixing of the languages as well. The mixing of language is called code mixing. The educated speakers in Indian, who are bilingual English with another Indian Language, mix English with the Indian Languages.

Code-mixing presupposes competence in two languages, not lack of it. It is not chaotic, but follows grammatical rules, not of one language but two languages. There are restriction on what can be mixed. Code-mixing is not arbitrary, but functional. It conveys the social meanings of identity and distancing with regard to speech participants and speech content.

Code-switching: Switching between languages is different from mixing languages. Switching is motivated by change in the speech event: like participants or its topic. Code switching may take place even when the speech event is constant and which continues to have the same participants and same topic. There is nevertheless subtle change in social relation between participants. Social relation may be negotiated and modified in the duration of speech event. Code switching is also linguistic behaviour of competent bilinguals as code-mixing is. However, it is contingent on change in speech participant, or speech content in course of conversation. The speaker may negotiate the social relationship with other participant in terms of solidarity and power by switching of his or her language.

In spite of differences between code-mixing and code-switching it is difficult to distinguish them in literary terms. Code-mixing and code-switching is strategic interspersed use of two or more languages to achieve communicative and social goals. They increase the functionality of languages.

A conversation requires a co-ordinated effort of two or more individuals. Mere talk to produce sentences does not constitute conversation.

According to H. P. Grice a British philospher of language, all the speakers are expected to make their conversational contribution such as is required by the accepted purpose or direction of talk exchange in which one is engaged.

He has termed this as Cooperative principle and proposed four ‘maxims’ or rules of conversation. Acting in accoradnace with these maxim will, according to Grice, yeilds results consistent with the Cooperative Principle. These maxims are:

(1) Maxim of Quantity

Give the right amount of information when you talk.

Give the exact information required, and but do not give information than required.

(2) Maxim of Quality

Make the contribution that is true. Do not give information that is false and give the adequate evidence to support the information.

(3) Maxim of Relevance

Be relevant.

Do not provide out of topic information.

(4) Maxim of Manner

Be perspicuous. Avoid obscurity, ambiguous, out of order in providing information.

NEGATION

Negation in English is a fascinating are of syntactic study, precisely because it plays an central role in affecting both structural and total meaning of a sentence at the same time. The term negation is used to cover the words such as the utterance no, not and the contaction -n’t, the negative indefinite pronouns nothing, nobody the adjective no (as in no one or no money), the adverbs no where, never and the conjunctions neither … nor. When a true sentence is negated, it becomes a false sentence; and conversely, when a false sentence is negated it becomes true sentence.

The level of meaning (and at LF), negation is taken to be a logical operator that can affect the truth-value of the meaning of the sentence.

For example:

Consider this truth sentence-

1. Snow is white

It is negated by the operator ‘not ‘ in the sentence-

2. Snow is not white.

If we accept the sentence

3. The moon is made of green cheese.

As being false, then we have to accept the sentence

4. The moon is not made of green cheese.

As being true.

However, negation is also of interest because it can sometimes create a paradox, as in the following sentence:

5. This sentence is not true.

If we take this sentence to be true, then in effect we have to accept it is not true; but if we take it to be false, then in effect we are agreeing the claim made by sentence is true. These sentences are said to be Russell’s paradox named after British Mathematician and philospher Bertrand Russell.

Two kinds of negation in English:

In English there can be Syntactic Negation with help of words such as not, no, nowhere, neither, nor.

For example:

6. John is not very happy with the situation.

However, morophological prefixes such as un-, in-/im- and des- can be used to express the opposite of certain individual words to form Morphological Negation. For example:

7. John is very unhappy with the situation.

Thus, we can see that morphological negation and syntactic negation do not have same symantics.

To say that John is not very happy is a milder statement than to say that John is very unhappy.

CASE

Case is a morphological and/or syntactic property of Nps (Noun Phrases) in English, which helps in determining the movement transformation and agreement. Three different morphological case forms that are found are: Nominative Case, Accusative Case and Genitive or Possessive Case.

Let’s consider the following sentences:

(i) He is intelligent.

(ii) Sita saw him yesterday.

(iii) This is his house.

In the sentence (i), the pronoun he is in Nominative Case (since it is the subject). In sentence (ii), the pronoun him is in the Accusative Case (since it is the direct object of the verb). And, in the sentence (iii), the pronoun his is in the Genitive or the Possessive Case ( since the pronoun is the ‘possessor’ of the house.

Let us understand these form of cases in detail:

Nominative Case: The case assumed typically by the subject of a finite clause. Forms such as we, she, he, they are in Nominative case.

Accusative Case: Sometimes also called the Objective Case, is the case-form of pronouns such as me, him, them. In English the Accusative case is usually assigned by a verb to its direct or indirect object, or by preposition to its object.

Genitive Case: The case taken by a possessor NP, as in his mother, John’s house, etc. These usually are with suffix -‘s in the singular and -s’ in the plural form.

COMPLEX SENTENCES:

A complex sentence is sentence consisting of a main clause (also called matrix clause), and one or more embedded (or subordinate) clauses.

For example:

Debby knows that the sky is blue.

Sentence above is an example of Complex sentence. It consists of the main clause Debby knows and the embedded finite complement clause that the sky is blue.

A sentence consisting of main clause and a non-finite subordinate clause is also example of the complex sentence. A complex sentence can have nested subordinated clauses as well.

For example:

This is dog [that chased the cat [that killed the rat]].

This sentence is an example of nesting of subordinate clause.

A Complex sentence may also have the coordinate clauses embedded within it, as in the following sentence:

Sita knows [that [the sky is blue] and [the moon is not made of cheese]].

ANAPHORA:

In syntactics, Anaphora is the use of an expression whose interpretation depend upon another expression in context, within the same sentence or in the broader discourse (story or a conversation) to which the sentence belongs. For example:

Simran arrived, but her husband did not come.

In the above sentence, the pronoun her is an anaphor, referring back to the antecedent Simran.

Anaphors, pronouns of anaphoric reference, and VP-substitutes such as so do and do so are all examples of anaphora.

Let’s see with examples:

1. Sita said that she was angry.

2. Ram hurt himself.

3. Harish says that there are politicians who are not corrupt, but I strongly doubt that there are any such politicians.

4. I asked them to leave the house at once, and they did so.

In the sentence 1, she is a anaphoric pronoun referring to antecedent Sita. In the sentence 2, himself is a reflexive anaphor referring to antecedent Ram. In the sentence 3, such is an anaphoric device for relative clause who are not corrupt. In the sentence 4, did so is an anaphoric device for VP leave the house at once.

Inflection refers to the ways in which bound grammatical morphemes combine with stem to be realized as grammatical words.

Derivation on the other hand, describes the ways in which bound lexical morphemes combine with stems to be realized as lexical words.

We know both lexical and grammatical words eventually surface as phonological and orthographic words, where the bound morphemes can be identified mostly (though not all) as affixes. Accordingly, the affixes which realize bound grammatical morphemes and perform grammatical functions are called inflectional affixes. For example: suffixes -s/-es on the plural nouns, the suffix -s/-es on the third person, singular number verbs, the suffix ‘s on possessive nouns, the suffix -d/-ed on the part participle form of verbs, and so on.

The major difference between the inflectional and derivational morphology of the English are:

1. Inflectional affixes never change the grammatical category (part of speech) of the stem. A noun remains noun, a verb remains a verb, and an adjective remain an adjective even after an affix has been added to it.

Derivational affixes may or may not change the grammatical category of the stem. Modern -modernize, read – readable, nude-nudity all show change in grammatical category. Obey – Disobey, Charge – Discharge, Fortune – Misfortune do not show change in grammatical category. We can see that Derivational prefixes in particular do not seem to affect the category of the stem.

2. Inflectional affixes in English are all suffixes. Derivational affixes can be both prefixes or suffixes.

3. Both inflectional and derivational morphemes may occur in the same word, but when that happens derivational morphemes are attached first and inflectional morphemes last, ie derivation creates input to inflection but not vice-versa.

Note how the formation of deindustrializing illustrates this point:

Root - industry

Deriv. - industr(i) + al

Deriv. - (industr(i) + al) + ize

Deriv. - de + ((industr(i) + al) + ize)

Infl. - (de + ((industr(i) + al) + ize)) + ing

4. If both the compounding and inflection take place, inflection follows compounding. If compounding, derivation and inflection all three occur, they follow the stated order. For example:

kickstarted = (kick+start)+ed

Footballers = ((Foot+ball)+er)+s

5. Inflectional affixes modify the meanings of the stem in regular way, e.g. the plural affix the past affix, etc. The meaning change affected by derivational afffixes is unpredictable.

Vowels and Consonants are essentially categories of speech sounds. When we label the alphabet as ‘Vowel’ or ‘Consonant’ we probably do it on the basis of assumption that there is perfect correspondence between letters and the sound they stand for. This, correspondence, unfortunately, is not perfect in any language, least of all in English.

‘Vowel’ and ‘Consonant’ are also defined in phonetic and in linguistic terms. When we define them in phonetic terms, we do so with reference to their production, when we define them in linguistic terms we refer to their function in a given language.

In phonetics terms, a Vowel is a sound for whose production the oral passage is unobstructed, so that the air from from lungs can flow to the lips and beyond without being stopped, or without being forced through narrow constriction which causes audible friction.

A Consonant on the other hand, is a sound for whose production the air current is completely stopped, or is forced through a narrow constriction which causes the audible friction.

If we describe ‘vowels’ and ‘consonant’ in liguistic term, then we need to study the function of a sound in given language. If we take the English words yell and wind. In the production of the sound there is no obstruction to the air flow and no narrow constriction to cause audible friction. But, they are regarded as Consonants instead of Vowels, because they function as consonants.

Further, the following three-term criteria are used to classify consonants:

1. Voicing: Voicing refers to the auditory result of the vibration of vocal cords. Sounds produced while the vocal cords are vibrating are called voiced sounds. Sounds produced while the vocal cords are vibrating are called voiced sounds. For example: /b/, /z/, /ae/, /i/, etc. Sounds that are produced with no vibration of vocal chords are called voiceless or unvoiced. For example: /p/, /s/, /f/, /t/, etc.

2. Place of Articulation: Place of Articulation refers to the place in vocal apparatus a sound is produced. A sound can be Bilabial, Labio-dental, Dental, Alveolar, Palatal, Velar, Glottol, etc.

For Example:

The words thin and these are Dentals because the active articulator is the tongue and the passive articulator is the upper teeth.

The words boast, meal and win are Bilabial consonants as both lips are involved in the production of the sounds.

3. Manner of Articulation: Manner of Articulation refers to the specification of kind of closure or narrowing in the production of the sound. As per the Manner of Articulation a consonant could be a Plosive, Affricate, Fricative, Nasal, Flap, etc.

For example:

The words pit, tip, dip, fit etc. are the Plosive as there is air build up behind a closure and the sudden release in the production of sounds.

Bilingualism refers to the proficiency in the use of more than one language.

To understand the consequences of Bilingualism, it will useful to try and answer this question in terms if bilingual individual, the social group off which he/she is member of and the languages (L1 and L2) are involved.

Consequences for the Individual

Bilingualism is not an obstacle or burden; it is rather an enabling and enriching phenomenon. Knowing two or more languages, not only enriches a person’s linguistic repertoire, it also make the bilingual person more versatile in communicative and interactional terms, more open-minded, and more receptive tot he varied cultural conventions and customs and usages. Bilingualism also increases a person reach in terms of information and knowledge.

Consequences for the Bilingual Group

In cases when entire groups or communities are characterized by wide spread bilingualism, there is a general tendency to allocate, different roles to the two languages. Thus, the group may use one language for a set of functions and the other language for a different set of functions.

If the functions are to be seen in some king of hierarchical order, one language may be regarded as ‘high’ (H) and the other language (used for day-to-day, ordinary activities) may come to be regarded as ‘low’ (L). The two language in such situations are said to be ‘diglossic’.

Consequences for L1 and L2

The co-existence and habitual use of the two languages may have the following consequences:

(a) L1 and L2 due to mutual influence, may undergo structural changes at the level of sound, syntax, vocabulary and semantics.

(b) One language may for instance, come to be perceived as the language of education, opportunity, prestige or status, while the other may not be perceived to have these attributes.

(c) Bilingual users of the two languages may begin to switch from L1 toL2 and vice-versa (code-switching) or to even mix the languages (code-mixing).

(d) Where institutional and education support is given to L1 and L2 in large measure, it may come to viewed as an imposition or an unwanted burden. It may also happen that one language is viewed as language of power, prestige and opportunity leading to negative attitude toward the other language. In extreme cases this lead to the partial or total loss of the neglected language.

Standardization refers to the process by which a language gets codified in some way. Quite often certain events or items may also be associated with this process. In the case of the standardization of English it is customary to mention such things as Wycliffe's translation of the Bible into English, Caxton's establishment of the printing press in England and Dr. Johnson's dictionary of English published in 1755, etc.

Apart from such events or items, linguists and sociolinguists generally agree that the coming into being of a standard language i.e. the process of standardization involves four stages. Einar Haugen in his paper ‘Dialect, Language, Nation’ first published in year 1966 has proposed the following four stages:

(i) Selection

First of all, one variety of a language has to be selected from amongst the several varieties that are used by speakers of a language. If we look at the process of selection in different ages and places, we shall find that the variety that gets selected is more often associated with power. The power may be economic, political, cultural or a combination of two or more of these. It is perhaps reasonable

to expect that in any society, the 'elite' - political, economic or cultural - would see to it that the variety of language they use is chosen for standardization. We need to remind ourselves again and again that the selection of a particular variety is not a socially natural and innocent process.

(ii) Codification

Once a particular variety has been selected, it needs to be codified i.e. the grammatical rules, the norms of pronunciation, the spellings and other writing conventions have to be 'fixed'. This stage of the process of standardization involves the writing of standard grammars, manuals of pronunciations, thesauruses, reference books, dictionaries. Codification and the fixing of norms of usage imply that the forms enshrined in the grammars and other reference books come to be seen as the only 'correct', 'pure', 'elegant' or 'sophisticated' forms. This codified, frozen set of linguistic norms thus comes to be accepted as 'The Correct' standard and becomes the reference point used for treating all other varieties as deviations from the norm, as sub-standard or non-standard.

(iii) Elaboration of Function

The standard language, once codified, is not expected to be used in informal contexts i.e. in domains such as the family, the neighbourhood or the playfield or in semi-formal interactions between peers, buyer-sellers or across-the-counter situations. However, in formal, public domains this standard language is a must. The most powerful and pervasive use of the standard language is in education.

Higher education, technical education and scientific education, especially, call for the use of standard language. Government agencies, law and judiciary, bureaucracy, diplomacy, trade and commerce - all these again call for the use of the standard language. As the standard language comes to be used in more and more domains it needs to be expanded in terms of special, technical vocabularies, which often requires the creation of new words and new terminologies. Several

standard languages meet this requirement by drawing upon classical sources - English, for instance, draws much of its technical/special lexicon from Latin and Greek, while in the case of Hindi, the source is Sanskrit.

(iv) Acceptance

The variety that gets codified and standardized has to gain wide acceptance within the community. The speakers, though belonging to diverse dialect-groups, must come to recognise, accept and cherish it as their 'language'. Sometimes it may so happen that the standardized language is also recognized as the 'national' or 'official' language, thus giving its users a distinct national-linguistic identity. English, in its standardized form, is the national, official and dominant language in England, the U.S.A. and Australia. Hindi is the 'National official' language in India, while languages like Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada and Manipuri are recognized, used and accepted as official languages in their respective states. Acceptance of standardized languages, thus, gives people distinct regional or national identities and this, in turn, further strengthens the prestige and power of the standard languages.

There have been three schools of thought among the theorists of style : the Dualists ,the Monists, and the Pluralists.

One group of Dualists contend that language is used as a dress of thought - when it is fancy it attracts the reader's attention and at its most transparent the degree of style is almost at zero --- in any case the degree of style makes no difference to the thought content. Another group of dualists hold that the choices operate at two levels : choice of content and choice of expression or (style). The concept of 'stylistic value' is brought in to show the difference between 'sense' and 'significance'.

The Monists equate the choice of expression with the choice of content and allow no room for paraphrase and translation. It tends to eliminate any discussion of language or style.

Both these schools are based on a simplistic approach. The Pluralists take account of the complexities of literature and its appreciation. It adopts tenets of both the dualist and monist schools. It considers style in terms of the functions of language and accepts that a piece of text can be multifunctional. It distinguishes between 'sense' and 'reference' and also takes account of the variant and invariant factors involved in the choices underlying style. It studies style in terms of 'foregrounding' and 'de-automatization' and helps to a clearer, more objective and convincing analysis of style and literary appreciation.

While Dualism accepts stylistic variants with stylistic values, it does not explain how language creates a particular cognitive view of things. Pluralism, however, holds that language contributes to the entire concept of the content and does not function as a mere dress of thought or a manner of expression.

While Monism views a text as an undifferentiated whole of language (style) and content, Pluralism has a theory of language and can show how linguistic choices are inter-related to one another within a network of functional choices.

Pluralism, therefore, becomes a more sophisticated approach, much better able to analyse the intricate working of literature and leading to a more enlightened appreciation of it.