Fall Asleep While Learning About Linguistics

In this episode of the I Can’t Sleep Podcast, prepare to nod off while we dive into the wild world of linguistics—because what better way to fall asleep than unraveling the science of how we talk, grunt, and occasionally makeup words like “hangry”? From phonetics to syntax, this episode is guaranteed to have you wondering why language is so complicated… or maybe just wondering why you’re still awake. Happy sleeping!

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast,

Where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

I'm your host,

Benjamin Boster,

And today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled,

Linguistics.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

The areas of linguistics analysis are syntax,

Rules governing the structure of sentences,

Semantics,

Meaning,

Morphology,

Structure of words,

Phonetics,

Speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages,

Phonology,

The abstract sound system of a particular language,

An analogous system of sign languages,

And pragmatics,

How the context of use contributes to meaning.

Subdisciplines,

Such as biolinguistics,

The study of biological variables and evolution of language,

And psycholinguistics,

The study of psychological factors in human language,

Bridge many of these divisions.

Linguistics encompasses many branches and subfields that span both theoretical and practical applications.

Theoretical linguistics,

Including traditional descriptive linguistics,

Is concerned with understanding the universal and fundamental nature of language and developing a general theoretical framework for describing it.

Applied linguistics seeks to utilize the scientific findings of the study of language for practical purposes,

Such as developing methods of improving language education and literacy.

Linguistics features may be studied through a variety of perspectives,

Synchronically,

By describing the structure of a language at a specific point in time,

Or diachronically,

Through the historical development of a language over a period of time.

In monolinguals or in multilinguals,

Among children or among adults,

In terms of how it is being learned or how it was acquired,

As abstract objects or as cognitive structures,

Through written texts or through oral elicitation,

And finally through mechanical data collection or practical fieldwork.

Linguistics emerged from the field of philology,

Of which some branches are more qualitative and holistic in approach.

Today,

Philology and linguistics are variably described as related fields,

Sub-disciplines,

Or separate fields of language study,

But by and large,

Linguistics can be seen as an umbrella term.

Linguistics is also related to the philosophy of language,

Stylistics,

Rhetoric,

Semiotics,

Lexicography,

And translation.

Historical linguistics is the study of how language changes over history,

Particularly with regard to a specific language or a group of languages.

Western trends in historical linguistics date back to roughly the late 18th century,

When the discipline grew out of philology,

The study of ancient texts and oral traditions.

Historical linguistics emerged as one of the first few sub-disciplines in the field and was most widely practiced during the late 19th century.

Despite a shift in focus in the 20th century towards formalism and generative grammar,

Which studies the universal properties of language,

Historical research today still remains a significant field of linguistic inquiry.

Sub-fields of the discipline include language change and grammaticalization.

Historical linguistics studies language change either diachronically through a comparison of different time periods in the past-present,

Or in a synchronic manner,

By observing developments between different variations that exist within the current linguistic stage of a language.

At first,

Historical linguistics was the cornerstone of comparative linguistics,

Which involves the study of the relationship between different languages.

At the time,

Scholars of historical linguistics were only concerned with creating different categories of language families,

And reconstructing prehistoric proto-languages by using both the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction.

Internal reconstruction is the method by which an element that contains a certain meaning is reused in different contexts or environments where there is a variation in either sound or analogy.

The reason for this had been to describe well-known Indo-European languages,

Many of which had detailed documentation and long written histories.

Scholars of historical linguistics also studied Uralic languages,

Another European language family for which very little written material existed back then.

After that,

There also followed significant work on the corpora of other languages,

Such as the Austronesian languages and the Native American language families.

In historical work,

The uniformitarian principle is generally the underlying working hypothesis,

Occasionally also clearly expressed.

The principle was expressed early by William Dwight Whitney,

Who considered it imperative,

A must,

Of historical linguistics to look to find the same principle operative also in the very outset of that language history.

The above approach of comparativism in linguistics is now,

However,

Only a small part of the much broader discipline called historical linguistics.

The comparative study of specific Indo-European languages is considered a highly specialized field today,

While comparative research is carried out over the subsequent internal developments in a language,

In particular over the development of modern standard varieties of languages and over the development of a language from its standardized form to its varieties.

For instance,

Some scholars also tried to establish superfamilies,

Linking,

For example,

Indo-European,

Uralic,

And other language families to a hypothetical Nostratic language group.

While these attempts are still widely accepted as credible methods,

They provide necessary information to establish relatedness in language change.

This is generally hard to find for events long ago due to the occurrence of chance word resemblances and variations between language groups.

A limit of around 10,

000 years is often assumed for the functional purpose of conducting research.

It is also hard to date various proto-languages.

Even though several methods are available,

These languages can be dated only approximately.

In modern historical linguistics,

We examine how languages change over time,

Focusing on the relationships between dialects within a specific period.

This includes studying morphological,

Syntactical,

And phonetic shifts.

Connections between dialects in the past and present are also explored.

Syntax is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units,

Such as phrases and sentences.

Central concerns of syntax include word order,

Grammatical relations,

Constituency,

Agreement,

The nature of cross-linguistic variation,

And the relationship between form and meaning.

There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals.

Morphology is the study of words,

Including the principles by which they are formed,

And how they relate to one another within a language.

Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes,

Which are the smallest units in a language,

With some independent meaning.

Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves,

But also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word.

For example,

In English,

The root catch and the suffix ing are both morphemes.

Catch may appear as its own word,

Or it may be combined with ing to form the new word catching.

Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech,

And how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number,

Tense,

And aspect.

Concepts such as productivity are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts,

Which evolves over the history of a language.

The discipline that deals specifically with the sound changes occurring within morphemes is morphophonology.

Semantics and pragmatics are branches of linguistics concerned with meaning.

These subfields have traditionally been divided according to aspects of meaning.

Semantics refers to grammatical and lexical meanings,

While pragmatics is concerned with meaning and context.

Within linguistics,

The subfield of formal semantics studies the denotions of sentences,

And how they are composed from the meanings of their constituent expressions.

Formal semantics draws heavily on philosophy of language,

And uses formal tools from logic and computer science.

On the other hand,

Cognitive semantics explains linguistic meaning via aspects of general cognition,

Drawing on ideas from cognitive science such as prototype theory.

Pragmatics focuses on phenomena such as speech acts,

Implicature,

And talk in interaction.

Unlike semantics,

Which examines meaning that is conventional or coded in a given language,

Pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the structural and linguistic knowledge,

Grammar,

Lexicon,

Etc.

,

Of the speaker and listener,

But also on the context of the utterance,

Any pre-existing knowledge about those involved,

The inferred intent of the speaker,

And other factors.

Phonetics and phonology are branches of linguistics concerned with sounds,

Or the equivalent aspects of sign languages.

Phonetics is largely concerned with the physical aspects of sounds,

Such as their articulation,

Acoustics,

Production,

And perception.

Phonology is concerned with the linguistic abstractions and categorizations of sounds,

And it tells us what sounds are in a language,

How they do and can combine into words,

And explains why certain phonetic features are important to identifying a word.

Linguistic typology,

Or language typology,

Is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison.

Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the common properties of the world's languages.

Its sub-disciplines include,

But are not limited to,

Phonological typology,

Which deals with sound features,

Syntactic typology,

Which deals with word order and form,

Lexical typology,

Which deals with language vocabulary,

And theoretical typology,

Which aims to explain the universal tendencies.

Linguistic structures are pairings of meaning and form.

Any particular pairing of meaning and form is a Saussurean linguistic sign.

For instance,

The meaning cat is represented worldwide with a wide variety of different sound patterns in oral languages,

Movements of the hands and face in sign languages,

And written symbols in written languages.

Linguistic patterns have proven their importance for the knowledge engineering field,

Especially with the ever-increasing amount of available data.

Linguistics focusing on structure attempt to understand the rules regarding language use that native speakers know,

Not always consciously.

All linguistic structures can be broken down into component parts that are combined according to subconscious rules over multiple levels of analysis.

For instance,

Consider the structure of the word tenth on two different levels of analysis.

On the level of internal word structure known as morphology,

The word tenth is made up of one linguistic form indicating a number and another form indicating ordinality.

The rule governing the combination of these forms ensures that the ordinality marker,

Th,

Follows the number ten.

On the level of sound structure known as phonology,

Structural analysis shows that the n sound in tenth is made differently than the n sound in ten spoken alone.

Although most speakers of English are consciously aware of the rules governing internal structure of the word pieces of tenth,

They are less often aware of the rule governing its sound structure.

Linguistics focused on structure find and analyze rules such as these which govern how native speakers use language.

Grammar is a system of rules which governs the production and use of utterance in a given language.

These rules apply to sound as well as meaning and include confidential subsets of rules such as those pertaining to phonology,

The organization of phonetic sound systems,

Morphology,

The formation and composition of words,

And syntax,

The formation and composition of phrases and sentences.

Modern frameworks that deal with the principles of grammar include structural and functional linguistics and generative linguistics.

Subfields that focus on grammatical study of language include the following.

Phonetics,

The study of the physical properties of speech,

Sound production,

And perception and delves into their acoustic and articulatory properties.

Phonology,

The study of sounds as abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning,

Phonemes.

Morphology,

The study of morphemes,

Or the internal structure of words and how they can be modified.

Syntax,

The study of how words combine to form grammatical phrases and sentences.

Semantics,

The study of lexical and grammatical aspects of meaning.

Pragmatics,

The study of how utterances are used in communicative acts and the role played by situational context and non-linguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning.

Discourse analysis,

The analysis of language use in texts,

Spoken,

Written,

Or signed.

Stylistics,

The study of linguistic factors,

Rhetoric,

Diction,

Stress,

That place a discourse in context.

Semiotics,

The study of signs and sign processes,

Semiosis,

Indication,

Designation,

Likeness,

Analogy,

Metaphor,

Symbolism,

Signification,

And communication.

Discourse is language as social practice and is a multi-layered concept.

As a social practice,

Discourse embodies different ideologies through written and spoken texts.

Discourse analysis can examine or expose these ideologies.

Discourse not only influences genre,

Which is selected based on specific context,

But also at a micro-level,

Shapes language as text,

Spoken or written down,

To the phonological and lexicogrammatical levels.

Grammar and discourse are linked as parts of a system.

A particular discourse becomes a language variety when it is used in this way for a particular purpose and is referred to as a register.

There may be certain lexical additions,

New words,

That are brought into play because of the expertise of the community of people within a certain domain of specialization.

Thus,

Registers and discourses distinguish themselves not only through specialized vocabulary,

But also,

In some cases,

Through distinct stylistic choices.

People in the medical fraternity,

For example,

May use some medical terminology in their communication that is specialized to the field of medicine.

This is often referred to as being part of the medical discourse,

And so on.

The lexicon is a catalog of words and terms that are stored in a speaker's mind.

The lexicon consists of words and bound morphemes,

Which are parts of words that cannot stand alone,

Like affixes.

In some analyses,

Compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions and other collocations are also considered to be part of the lexicon.

Dictionaries represent attempts at listing,

In alphabetical order,

The lexicon of a given language.

Usually,

However,

Bound morphemes are not included.

Lexicography,

Closely linked with the domain of semantics,

Is the science of mapping the words into an encyclopedia or a dictionary.

The creation and addition of new words into the lexicon is called coining or neologization,

And the new words are called neologisms.

It is often believed that a speaker's capacity for language lies in the quantity of words stored in the lexicon.

However,

This is often considered a myth by linguists.

The capacity for the use of language is considered by many linguists to lie primarily in the domain of grammar,

And to be linked with competence,

Rather than with the growth of vocabulary.

Even a very small lexicon is theoretically capable of producing an infinite number of sentences.

Stylistics also involves the study of written,

Signed,

Or spoken discourse through varying speech communities,

Genres,

And editorial or narrative formats in the mass media.

It involves the study and interpretation of texts or aspects of their linguistic and tonal style.

Stylistic analysis entails the analysis of description of particular dialects and registers used by speech communities.

Stylistic features include rhetoric,

Diction,

Stress,

Satire,

Irony,

Dialogue,

And other forms of phonetic variations.

Stylistic analysis can also include the study of language in canonical works of literature.

Popular fiction,

News,

Advertisements,

And other forms of communication in popular culture as well.

It is usually seen as a variation in communication that changes from speaker to speaker,

And community to community.

In short,

Stylistics is the interpretation of text.

In the 1960s,

Jacques Derrida,

For instance,

Further distinguished between speech and writing by proposing that written language be studied as a linguistic medium of communication in itself.

Palaeography is therefore the discipline that studies the evolution of written scripts as signs and symbols in language.

The formal study of language also led to the growth of fields like psycholinguistics,

Which explores the representation and function of language in the mind.

Neurolinguistics,

Which studies language processing in the brain.

Biolinguistics,

Which studies the biology and evolution of language.

And language acquisition,

Which investigates how children and adults acquire the knowledge of one or more languages.

Approaches.

Humanistic.

The fundamental principle of humanistic linguistics,

Especially rational and logical grammar,

Is that language is an invention created by people.

A semiotic tradition of linguistic research considers language a sign system which arises from the interaction of meaning and form.

The organization of linguistic levels is considered computational.

Linguistics is essentially seen as relating to social and cultural studies,

Because different languages are shaped in social interaction by the speech community.

Frameworks representing the humanistic view of language include structural linguistics,

Among others.

Structural analysis means dissecting each linguistic level,

Phonetic,

Morphological,

Syntactic,

And discourse to the smallest units.

These are collected into inventories,

E.

G.

Phoneme,

Morpheme,

Lexical classes,

Phrase types to study their interconnectedness within a hierarchy of structures and layers.

Functional analysis adds to structural analysis the assignment of semantic and other functional roles that each unit may have.

For example,

A noun phrase may function as the subject or object of a sentence,

Or the agent or patient.

Functional linguistics,

Or functional grammar,

Is a branch of structural linguistics.

In the humanistic reference,

The terms structuralism and functionalism are related to their meaning in other human sciences.

The difference between formal and functional structuralism lies in the way that the two approaches explain why languages have the properties they have.

Functional explanation entails the idea that language is a tool for communication,

Or that communication is the primary function of language.

Linguistic forms are consequently explained by an appeal to their functional value or usefulness.

Other structuralist approaches take the perspective that form follows from the intermechanisms of the bilateral and multilayered language system.

Biological Approaches such as cognitive linguistics and generative grammar study linguistic cognition with a view towards uncovering the biological underpinnings of language.

In generative grammar,

These underpinning are understood as including innate domain-specific grammatical knowledge.

Thus,

One of the central concerns of the approach is to understand the relationship between cognitive linguistics and generative grammar,

Which is to discover what aspects of linguistic knowledge are innate and which are not.

Cognitive linguistics,

In contrast,

Rejects the notion of innate grammar and studies how the human mind creates linguistic constructions from event schemas and the impact of cognitive constraints and biases on human language.

In cognitive linguistics,

Language is approached via the senses.

A related approach is evolutionary linguistics,

Which includes the study of linguistic units as cultural replicators.

It is possible to study how language replicates and adapts to the mind of the individual or the speech community.

Construction grammar is a framework which applies the meme concept to the study of syntax.

The generative versus evolutionary approach are sometimes called formalism and functionalism respectively.

This reference is,

However,

Different from the use of the terms in human sciences.

Methodology Modern linguistics is primarily descriptive.

Linguistics describe and explain features of language without making subjective judgments on whether a particular feature or usage is good or bad.

This is analogous to practices in other sciences.

A zoologist studies the animal kingdom without making subjective judgments on whether a particular species is better or worse than another.

Perception,

On the other hand,

Is an attempt to promote particular linguistic usages over others.

Often favoring a particular dialect or acrolet.

This may have the aim of establishing a linguistic standard which can aid communication over large geographical areas.

It may also,

However,

Be an attempt by speakers of one language or dialect to exert influence over speakers of other languages or dialects.

An extreme version of prescriptivism can be found among censors.

Who attempt to eradicate words and structures that they consider to be destructive to society.

Prescription,

However,

May be practiced appropriately in language instruction.

Like in ELT,

Where certain fundamental grammatical rules and lexical items need to be introduced to a second language speaker who is attempting to acquire the language.

Sources Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken data and signed data are more fundamental than written data.

This is because speech appears to be universal to all human beings capable of producing and perceiving it,

While there have been many cultures and speech communities that lack written communication.

Features appear in speech which are not always recorded in writing,

Including phonological rules,

Sound changes,

And speech errors.

All natural writing systems reflect a spoken language,

Or potentially a signed one,

Even with pictographic scripts like Dongba writing Naxi homophones with the same pictogram,

And text in writing systems used for two languages changing to fit the spoken language being recorded.

Speech evolved before human beings invented writing.

Individuals learn to speak and process spoken language more easily and earlier than they do with writing.

Nonetheless,

Linguists agree that the study of written language can be worthwhile and valuable.

For research that relies on corpus linguistics and computational linguistics,

Written language is often much more convenient for processing large amounts of linguistic data.

Large corpora of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find,

And are typically transcribed and written.

In addition,

Linguists have turned to text-based discourse occurring in various formats of computer-mediated communication as a viable site for linguistic inquiry.

The study of writing systems themselves is,

In any case,

Considered a branch of linguistics.

Analysis Before the 20th century,

Linguists analyzed language on a diachronic plane,

Which was historical in focus.

This meant that they would compare linguistic features and try to analyze language from the point of view of how it had changed between then and later.

However,

With the rise of Sasharian linguistics in the 20th century,

The focus shifted to a more synchronic approach,

Where the study was geared towards analysis and comparison between different language variations which existed at the same given point of time.

At another level,

The syntagmatic plane of linguistic analysis entails the comparison between the way words are sequenced within the syntax of a sentence.

For example,

The article the is followed by a noun because of the syntagmatic relation between the words.

The paradigmatic plane,

On the other hand,

Focuses on an analysis that is based on the paradigms or concepts that are embedded in a given text.

In this case,

Words of the same type or class may be replaced in the text with each other to achieve the same conceptual understanding.

Thanks for listening to the I Can't Sleep podcast,

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Happy sleeping.

Reviews

Worked a treat, well done that man.
Thank you 😊 🙏

Another good subject to fall asleep to. Thanks Ben.

Brilliant as always - I try to concentrate and learn something but fall asleep and on't remember a thing ☺️🙏

Pretty dull stuff, thank you as it did the trick! 😁