Chapter Two

LINGISTICS
(Read Chapter 2 / p.39 – p.66)
1. What is Linguistics?
Linguistics is the ‘language science’ or the ‘scientific study of language.’ There are two major
goals of linguistics:

- Bring on unconscious knowledge of language to the level of consciousness;

- Show how the different units of language are combined and operate on the human brain.

Linguistics, as distinguished from the learning of individual languages, is relatively a new

subject. The focus is on Language as a universal component of human behavior and faculties,
and not a specific language. Therefore, the interest is in human language in general, and the
universal principles of all the languages of the world. A linguist is not someone who speaks a
language or many languages (polyglot), but speaks about a language(s). Here comes the close
relationship of linguistics to other disciplines like psychology, sociology,
anthropology…Linguistics, as the scientific study of language, or the scientificity of modern
linguistics, is apparent in the following principles:

- Objective: Linguistics considers all languages to be equal and deals with them equally.
There are no such prejudiced, unscientific labels as ‘primitive,’ ‘pure,’ ‘beautiful,’
‘cultured,’ ‘sophisticated’…languages.
- Empirical: Linguistics is not speculative or intuitive. It’s based on experimentation that
deals with the observation and analysis of specific data, and then, formalization of
principles and generalizations.
- Exhaustive: The exhaustiveness of linguistics refers to the fact that it deals with all
relevant data or facts that are part of its interest and analyzes every linguistic element
from different angles.
- Consistent: The consistency of linguistics reflects the absence of contradictions or
contradictory elements, that is all the parts of the analysis must be consistent with the
whole.
- Economy (ical): This principle refers to the precise terminology and notation. Also,
repetition is not allowed, that is, more economical statements containing fewer concepts
are preferred to longer ones.
We can infer, then, that linguistics is a kind of social science that can be classified under the
class of empirical sciences. It reflects how people behave and interact with each other by means
of language. Linguistics is not as accurate and precise as natural/exact sciences because of the
fact that its subject matter is language in its interaction with human nature, society, and culture.
This reflects the elusive character of language and the difficulty to analyze it accurately and
profoundly as in the exact sciences.

2. Difference between Traditional Grammar and Modern Linguistics

“Traditional Grammar” refers to the kind of linguistics that developed during the Greek,
Roman, and a major part of Arabo-Islamic scholarship, and continued during the Middle Ages,
the Renaissance and even into modern times. The influence of the sociocultural factors and
philosophical trends of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was very apparent. Many
misconceptions and prejudices about language that are still held by many people throughout the
world are a result of such a grammar. Among the many contradictions between Traditional
Grammar and Modern Linguistics, there are the following:

- Traditional Grammar did not study language for language’s sake (as a complex and
highly system of communication), but in relation to other disciplines, namely literature
and philosophy. Otherwise, language was not an autonomous subject as in modern
linguistics. The autonomy of linguistics, however, does not mean isolation but
interaction with other disciplines.
- T.G had an unbiased reaction against the spoken medium of language. The rules of the
written form were wrongly imposed on speech. In Modern Linguistics, however, as we
have seen earlier, there is the primacy of speech over the written medium.
- T.G was basically prescriptive, making, prescribing and giving rules. Otherwise, it was
not concerned in how people really and actually speak and write, as in M.L, but acted
as an authority imposing principles and standards. By contrast, M.L does not prescribe
but describe (a descriptive grammar). The major focus is account for the unconscious
knowledge of how people really speak and write.
- T.G tried to preserve the ‘purity’ of language from ‘corruptions,’ because, for T.G,
language change was always for the worse since it always brought about corrupt forms.
However, for M.L, change is an inherent feature of natural languages, as a logical result
of social and historical changes. Language change is neither for the worse nor the better
but it is perceived in relation to the function of language in society.
 - M.L is more objective and empirical in its principles and attitudes than T.G, making
use of both theory and practice. It is free from misconceptions and prejudices about
particular languages, dealing objectively with every language. Also, like any other
science, it makes use of specific terminology, more accurate and precise, technical
terms to avoid misunderstanding and vagueness. To refer precisely to the data of
particular languages or to language in general, M.L has introduced specific notational
conventions like the following:
∑ / / obliques for phonemes or phonological forms;
∑ [ ] square brackets for phonetic segments;
∑ { } curly brackets for morphemes or parts of words;
∑ ( ) parentheses for optional segments…etc.
However, there is not a total agreement among linguists on all kinds of notational
conventions; we may find two linguists using slightly different notations to make the
same distinctions, while others do not use the notations consistently.

3. Synchronic vs. Diachronic Linguistics: Synchronic (or descriptive) linguistics refers

to the study of language or a specific state of language at a given point in time.
Diachronic (or historical ) linguistics is the study of language through history, or the
evolution of language through time (e.g., Old English→Middle English→Modern
English). De Saussure was the first to stress the importance/primacy of synchronic
linguistics/descriptive linguistics. Since the first part of the twentieth century, there
was a reaction against 19th century’s comparative philology, historical linguistics and
etymology of words in their ‘correct’,‘pure’form or meaning. Languages are actually
subject to change, and no language remains stagnant or uniform. So, they can best be
studied both from synchronic and diachronic perspectives.

4. Subfields of Linguistics:
∑ Diachronic vs. synchronic linguistics
∑ General linguistics vs. descriptive linguistics: General linguistics is concerned with all
the components of language in general - the nature of our course – (phonology, morphology,
syntax, semantics..), in addition to historical and comparative studies, sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics, applied linguistics…It provides linguistic concepts, models and methods
useful for the description of language. Descriptive linguistics, on the other side, deals with
 the description of particular language data, using the principles and techniques of general
linguistics.
∑ Theoretical linguistics vs. Applied linguistics: Theoretical linguistics studies language as
an end in itself with the aim of providing a theory describing and accounting for the rules
governing the structure of that language. Applied linguistics, comparatively, deals with the
application of linguistic concepts, methods and research findings to a wide variety of
specific domains such as teaching, language acquisition, translation, computational
linguistics…
∑ Microlinguistics vs. macrolinguistics: Microlinguistics is directly concerned with the
analysis of language structure (e.g., phonology, morphology, syntax…) without involving
extralinguistic factors like the sociocultural, historical, psychological…ones.
Macrolinguistics linguistics investigates these extralinguistic factors involved in all kinds
of human communication. It contains microlinguistic features in addition to the
paralinguistic aspects of cultural behavior…since “everything that concerns human society
involves language, and everything that involves language can be the subject matter of
linguistics.”(p.49) Nowadays, linguistics is involved in a lot of domains and fields like
sociology, psychology, anthropology, language teaching, language disorders, language
planning, machine translation, telecommunication, computing…etc.
∑ Schools of linguistics (p.51-p.62)
ÿ Traditional linguistics includes Greek philosophy, the medieval period, the
Greco-Roman period, the Indian tradition, the Arab linguistic tradition, and the
Renaissance. These traditions also represent stages of linguistics development.
ÿ Modern school of linguistics: Modern linguistics started with De Saussure (1916)
and his Cours de Linguistique Générale that highly influenced many subsequent
linguists like E. Sapir, A. Martinet, W. Labov, N. Chomsky…Three major schools
have been predominant since the turn of the 20th century:
a- The Structuralism with the two eminent figures De Saussure (1916) and
Bloomfield (1933). Language is considered a structure or units studied
independently of other aspects of human behavior. Structural linguistics was
influenced by psychological behaviorism (J.B. Watson B.F. Skinner) that
considers language as part of human behavior subject to stimulus and response
and habit formation…
b- The Functionalism or functional school: The structuralists’ views were
opposed by the British linguist M.A.K. Halliday (1973), the American
 philosopher John Searle (1971) and the French linguist André Martinet (1962)
who think that language must be studied as a means of communication, not as
structure. Both structure and function must be taken into account to understand
the nature of language. The focus on the internal organization of language in
terms of the function it serves in society.
c- The Mentalist school: it was founded by Noam Chomsky who adopts the
rationalist view (mind) of language (Cartesian linguistics and the Port Royal
Grammarians). He is known for his anti-behaviorist tendency; language is not
part of human behavior but “a mirror of the mind” (1972). The linguist must
start describing detailed grammars of individual languages or “Particular
Grammar”; the next stage is to formulate the general (or universal) features
shared by these languages, or what he called “Universal Grammar.” While De
Saussure’s distinction between Langue and Parole has a sociological orientation
(‘Langue’ as knowledge passed from generation to generation while ‘parole’
refers to individual speech in society), Chomsky’s distinction between
competence and performance is psychological; competence is the unconscious
knowledge stored in the brain during early childhood, reflecting the activity of
mind, while performance reflects the actual usage of speech. So, linguistics, for
Chomsky, is part of cognitive psychology.