HBET1103 Introduction To General Linguistics - Vaug17 (Bookmark)

HBET1103
Introduction to General Linguistics
Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

HBET1103
INTRODUCTION
TO GENERAL
LINGUISTICS
Assoc Prof Dr Yap Ngee Thai

Project Director: Prof Dato Dr Mansor Fadzil
Open University Malaysia
Module Writer: Assoc Prof Dr Yap Ngee Thai

Universiti Putra Malaysia
Moderator: Assoc Prof Hazidi Abdul Hamid

Developed by: Centre for Instructional Design and Technology

First Edition, August 2017

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM), August 2017, HBET1103
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without
the written permission of the President, Open University Malaysia (OUM).

Table of Contents
Course Guide xixv
Topic 1 Introducing Linguistics 1

1.1 What is Linguistics? 2
1.2 Fundamental Concepts 3
1.2.1 Mother Tongue 4
1.2.2 Language and Literacy 4
1.2.3 Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammars 5
1.2.4 Linguistic Competence and Performance 7
1.3 Design Features of Language 8
1.3.1 Features Shared by All Systems of Communication 8
1.3.2 Features Shared by Some Systems of Communication 9
1.3.3 Features Shared by Only Human Languages 10
1.4 Development of Modern Linguistics 11
Summary 13
Key Terms 14
References 14
Topic 2 Sounds of Language 15

2.1 Applications of Phonetics and Phonology 16
2.2 Phonetics 17
2.2.1 The Vocal Tract 19
2.2.2 Types of Speech Sounds 20
2.3 Phonology 23
2.3.1 Phonemes and Allophones 23
2.3.2 Distribution of Phonemes and Phonotactics 24
2.3.3 Syllable Structure 25
2.3.4 Prosody 26
2.4 Phonetic Transcription 28
Summary 29
Key Terms 30
References 30

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topic 3 Structure of Words 31

3.1 Types of Words 32
3.1.1 Lexical Words 32
3.1.2 Function Words 33
3.2 Morphemes: Free and Bound 34
3.3 Derivational and Inflectional Affixes and Clitics 36
3.3.1 Derivational Affixes 36
3.3.2 Inflectional Affixes and Clitics 38
3.4 Allomorphs 40
3.5 Morphological Analysis 41
Summary 44
Key Terms 45
References 45
Topic 4 Structure of Sentences 46

4.1 What is Syntax? 47
4.2 Hierarchical Structure 49
4.2.1 Constituency Units 50
4.2.2 Constituency Tests 51
4.2.3 Lexical and Structural Ambiguity 52
4.3 Syntactic Units 55
4.3.1 Clauses 56
4.3.2 Phrases 56
4.3.3 Phrase Structure Rules 58
Summary 60
Key Terms 61
References 61
Topic 5 Semantics and Pragmatics 62

5.1 What is Meaning? 62
5.2 Semantics 64
5.2.1 Reference and Sense 64
5.2.2 Semantic Features 65
5.2.3 Word Relations 66
5.2.4 Structural Semantics: Thematic Roles 69
5.3 Describing Meaning Across Cultures 71
5.3.1 What is Cognitive Semantics? 71
5.3.2 Metaphors 72
5.3.3 Categories in the Mind 73
5.3.4 Natural Semantic Metalanguage 73

TABLE OF CONTENTS v
5.4 Pragmatics 76
5.4.1 Sentence versus Utterance 76
5.4.2 Speech Acts, Performatives and Illocutionary Force 77
5.4.3 Felicity 78
5.4.4 Grices Maxims 79
Summary 81
Key Terms 82
References 82
Topic 6 Sociolinguistics 83
6.1 Language as a Social Phenomenon 83
6.1.1 Speech Community 84
6.1.2 Interactive Context 84
6.2 Social Varieties and Variation 85
6.2.1 Regional Variation 85
6.2.2 Social Dialects 87
6.2.3 Age Related Variation 88
6.3 Registers 88
6.4 Bilinguals and Language Use 90
6.5 Language Shift and Endangerment 92
6.5.1 Language Shift 92
6.5.2 Language Death 93
Summary 94
Key Terms 95
References 95
Topic 7 Psycholinguistics 97
7.1 Language and Cognition 97
7.2 Language and Processing 99
7.2.1 Speech Perception 100
7.2.2 Sentence Processing 102
7.2.3 Speech Production and Perception Models 103
7.3 Language and the Brain 106
7.3.1 Physical Features of the Brain 106
7.3.2 Lateralisation 107
7.3.3 Brain Imaging Techniques 108
Summary 110
Key Terms 111
References 112

vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topic 8 Language Acquisition 113

8.1 First Language Acquisition 114
8.1.1 The Cooing and Babbling Stage 114
8.1.2 The Holophrastic or One-word Stage 115
8.1.3 Two-word Stage 115
8.1.4 Telegraphic Stage 116
8.1.5 Basic Mastery 116
8.2 How Children Learn Language 116
8.2.1 Conditioned-response Learning 117
8.2.2 Imitation 118
8.2.3 Hypothesis Testing and Learning from Analogy 119
8.2.4 Innate Predisposition to Learn Language 120
8.3 Second Language Acquisition 121
8.3.1 First Language versus Second Language Learning 122
8.3.2 Factors Influencing Second Language Learning 123
Summary 128
Key Terms 129
References 129
Topic 9 Human Language and Animal Communication 131

9.1 Animal Communication Systems 131
9.1.1 Bees 132
9.1.2 Birds 134
9.1.3 Monkeys 135
9.2 Teaching Animals Human Language 136
9.2.1 Teaching Chimpanzees Sign Language 137
9.2.2 Bonobos and Gorillas 138
9.3 Origins and Evolution of Human Language 139
9.3.1 Divine Source 139
9.3.2 Natural-sound Source Theories 140
9.3.3 Oral-gesture Theory, Physiological Adaptation 141
and Genetic Changes
Summary 142
Key Terms 144
References 144

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
Topic 10 Unity and Diversity in Language 145

10.1 Universals of Language 146
10.2 Language Typology 148
10.2.1 Morphological Typologies 151
10.2.2 Syntactic Typologies 153
10.2.3 Phonological Typologies 154
10.3 Explaining Unity and Diversity of Language Structures 155
Summary 156
Key Terms 157
References 157

viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

COURSE GUIDE

COURSE GUIDE xi
COURSE GUIDE DESCRIPTION

You must read this Course Guide carefully from the beginning to the end. It tells
you briefly what the course is about and how you can work your way through
the course material. It also suggests the amount of time you are likely to spend in
order to complete the course successfully. Please refer to the Course Guide from
time to time as you go through the course material as it will help you to clarify
important study components or points that you might miss or overlook.
INTRODUCTION
HBET1103 Introduction to General Linguistics is one of the courses offered in the
Bachelor of English Studies and in the Bachelor of Education (TESL) programmes
at Open University Malaysia (OUM). This course is worth 3 credit hours and
should be covered over eight to 15 weeks.
COURSE AUDIENCE
This course is offered to students undertaking the Bachelor of English Studies
and other related programmes.
As an open and distance learner, you should be acquainted with learning

independently and being able to optimise the learning modes and environment
available to you. Before you begin this course, please ensure that you have the
right course material, and understand the course requirements as well as how the
course is conducted.
STUDY SCHEDULE
It is a standard OUM practice that learners accumulate 40 study hours for every
credit hour. As such, for a three-credit hour course, you are expected to spend
120 study hours. Table 1 gives an estimation of how the 120 study hours could be
accumulated.

xii COURSE GUIDE
Table 1: Estimation of Time Accumulation of Study Hours
Study
Study Activities
Hours
Briefly go through the course content and participate in initial discussion 3
Study the module 60
Attend 3 to 5 tutorial sessions 10
Online participation 12
Revision 15
Assignment(s), Test(s) and Examination(s) 20
TOTAL STUDY HOURS ACCUMULATED 120
COURSE OUTCOMES
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
1. Demonstrate an understanding on how language is analysed at different

levels;
2. Construct your own annotation and analysis of language at different levels;

and
3. Discuss language issues with confidence in your own expertise.
COURSE SYNOPSIS
This course is divided into 10 topics. The synopsis for each topic is presented as
follows:
Topic 1 gives an overview of linguistics as a scientific study. The core areas of

linguistics and fundamental concepts in linguistics are discussed. In addition,
you will be introduced to the other topics that will be covered in this course.
Topic 2 explores how knowledge in phonetics and phonology can be useful in

daily life. Basic concepts in phonetics and phonology are introduced. This topic
focuses on the production and the organisation of phones in the English
language.

COURSE GUIDE xiii
Topic 3 focuses on the structure of words. You will learn how to identify
different parts of speech in English words. You will also learn about the internal
structure of complex words, and the difference between free and bound
morphemes as well as inflectional and derivational morphemes.
Topic 4 introduces the study of sentence structure. The notion of

ungrammaticality and native speaker judgement will be discussed. You will
learn how to identify natural groupings of words or constituents. You will learn
how to draw simple tree diagrams to illustrate your understanding of
hierarchical structure in sentences.
Topic 5 discusses the study of meaning (semantics) and meaning in context

(pragmatics). This topic completes the main core components in linguistics. The
rest of the topic will focus on the interface of linguistic knowledge and other
areas of study such as child development, psychology, sociology and
anthropology.
Topic 6 focuses on examining language as a social phenomenon. Types of

language varieties will be discussed. Factors that are related to variation in
language and factors that influence language choice will also be covered. This
topic will also cover the threat of extinction for some languages and what
linguists are doing to manage the situation.
Topic 7 discusses the focus of psycholinguistics and examines the connection

between language, cognitive processes and the brain. Brain areas that are related
to language processing will be identified and the types of language impairments
related to brain damage will also be discussed.
Topic 8 introduces how language is acquired by discussing the developmental

milestones that children go through. The topic will also cover child bilingualism
which is becoming more common these days before discussing factors that
influence second language acquisition.
Topic 9 examines the system of communication of bees, birds and monkeys. For
each system discussed, the types of signals that are used are described and
similarities and differences of these systems with human language are discussed.
Topic 10 discusses similarities and differences found among languages of the

world. The notion of language universal is introduced. Different language
typologies are introduced before discussing explanations for unity and diversity
found in the worlds languages.

xiv COURSE GUIDE
TEXT ARRANGEMENT GUIDE

Before you go through this module, it is important that you note the text
arrangement. Understanding the text arrangement will help you to organise your
study of this course in a more objective and effective way. Generally, the text
arrangement for each topic is as follows:
Learning Outcomes: This section refers to what you should achieve after you
have completely covered a topic. As you go through each topic, you should
frequently refer to these learning outcomes. By doing this, you can continuously
gauge your understanding of the topic.
Self-Check: This component of the module is inserted at strategic locations

throughout the module. It may be inserted after one sub-section or a few sub-
sections. It usually comes in the form of a question. When you come across this
component, try to reflect on what you have already learnt thus far. By attempting
to answer the question, you should be able to gauge how well you have
understood the sub-section(s). Most of the time, the answers to the questions can
be found directly from the module itself.
Activity: Like Self-Check, the Activity component is also placed at various

locations or junctures throughout the module. This component may require you
to solve questions, explore short case studies, or conduct an observation or
research. It may even require you to evaluate a given scenario. When you come
across an Activity, you should try to reflect on what you have gathered from the
module and apply it to real situations. You should, at the same time, engage
yourself in higher order thinking where you might be required to analyse,
synthesise and evaluate instead of only having to recall and define.
Summary: You will find this component at the end of each topic. This component
helps you to recap the whole topic. By going through the summary, you should
be able to gauge your knowledge retention level. Should you find points in the
summary that you do not fully understand, it would be a good idea for you to
revisit the details in the module.
Key Terms: This component can be found at the end of each topic. You should go
through this component to remind yourself of important terms or jargon used
throughout the module. Should you find terms here that you are not able to
explain, you should look for the terms in the module.

COURSE GUIDE xv
References: The References section is where a list of relevant and useful

textbooks, journals, articles, electronic contents or sources can be found. The list
can appear in a few locations such as in the Course Guide (at the References
section), at the end of every topic or at the back of the module. You are
encouraged to read or refer to the suggested sources to obtain the additional
information needed and to enhance your overall understanding of the course.
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
No prior knowledge required.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
Please refer to myINSPIRE.
REFERENCES
Bergmann, A., Hall, K. C., & Ross, S. M. (2004). Language files: Materials for an
introduction to language and linguistics. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State
University Press.
McGregor, B. W. (2015). Linguistics: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, England:

Bloomsbury.
Steinberg, D. D., & Sciarini, N. V. (2006). An introduction to psycholinguistics.

Harlow, England: Pearson Longman.
TAN SRI DR ABDULLAH SANUSI (TSDAS) DIGITAL

LIBRARY
The TSDAS Digital Library has a wide range of print and online resources for the
use of its learners. This comprehensive digital library, which is accessible
through the OUM portal, provides access to more than 30 online databases
comprising e-journals, e-theses, e-books and more. Examples of databases
available are EBSCOhost, ProQuest, SpringerLink, Books24x7, InfoSci Books,
Emerald Management Plus and Ebrary Electronic Books. As an OUM learner,
you are encouraged to make full use of the resources available through this
library.

xvi COURSE GUIDE

Topic Introducing
Linguistics
1
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. Describe what is studied in linguistics;
2. Define fundamental concepts in linguistics;
3. Explain the design features of language; and
4. Discuss the concerns of different subfields of modern linguistics.
INTRODUCTION
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. People who study languages are
called linguists and we will understand what linguistics is by looking at what
linguists do when they study language. This topic will introduce you to the
different aspects of language that is important for a linguist to pay attention to.
ACTIVITY 1.1
Try to recall an encounter when you are trying to learn a new foreign
language. What do you pay attention to in the new language? In some
way, we may be like novice linguists when we are learning a new
language.

2 TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING LINGUISTICS
1.1 WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?

Linguistics is the study of language. It describes the basic components of language.
All of you know English. English is a language. However, what is language? What
does it mean to say you know English? What do you know when you know a
language? These are the components of linguistic knowledge and you probably have
listed some ideas related to these when you attempted Activity 1.1. Let us have a
look at some of these components:
(a) Phonetics and Phonology

When you know a language, you know the speech sounds of the language.
For example you will know that cat and kick begin with the same initial
sound. You will also know the speech patterns of the language; how speech
sounds are combined in that language. For example, you will know that
zug is a possible word in English while zkik is not, even though you
have never heard of either word because they do not exist in English.
(b) Morphology
You will know some words in the language and what they mean. For example,
you probably know the word tie in English and what it means. You will
probably also know that untie has the meaning of reversing what tie
means. You will know that there are two parts in the word untie because
you know of other words such as undo and unzip which also have two
components in the word: un + do and un + zip.
(c) Syntax
You will also know how to combine words to form a sentence when you know
a language. For example, you will know that Maniam loves his son is a
grammatical sentence in English; however Loves Maniam his son is not. You
will also know that some sentences are related. For example, you will know that
Joe is sleeping is a statement, while Is Joe sleeping? is a question.
(d) Semantics and Pragmatics

You may also know the difference between what is said and what is meant if
you know the language well. For example, when someone says Its really
hot, he may not be simply describing the condition of the room which is hot
but may be indirectly requesting for you to switch on the fan or the air
conditioning, or to even open the windows. The literal meaning is covered in
semantics while the contextual meaning is covered in pragmatics.
These are the core components of linguistic knowledge. We have this knowledge
when we know a language. We may not realise that we have this knowledge
because sometimes we may not have conscious knowledge of these facts. In the
following topics, we will look at each components of linguistics and examine what

TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING LINGUISTICS 3
it tells us about language. You may read ahead if you are interested to know more
about these components. Topic 2 till Topic 5 introduce these components in more
detail.
SELF-CHECK 1.1
Match the following definitions with the core areas of linguistics.
Phonetics and Phonology Morphology Syntax
Semantics Pragmatics
(a) Study of speech sounds and sound patterns
(b) Study of word structure
(c) Study of sentence structure
(d) Study of literal meaning of words or utterances
(e) Study of contextual meaning of utterances
1.2 FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

Before we proceed with the description of what is involved in linguistics, it is
important to understand some fundamental concepts that are often assumed in the
study of language to avoid misunderstanding as we cover the rest of the topics in
this course. To begin, let us first understand how linguistic knowledge is discovered
and used.
Some linguists are interested in describing a language by observing how native

speakers of that particular language use the language. What we mean by native
speakers of the language are speakers who grew up acquiring or learning the
language from the natural environment. It could either be from:
(a) Everyone around him or her speaking that language; or
(b) His family members and caretakers speak it and the native speaker grows up
speaking that language without necessarily being taught.

We may also document the language that is used by a particular group of speakers.
This was often done with a pen and writing pad. Now with technology, linguists
have become more sophisticated. We may record naturally occurring conversations,
discussions and create collections of speech and written texts for analysis.
1.2.1 Mother Tongue

Some linguists use the term mother tongue instead of native language to refer to the
language that is acquired when you are a child from your mother. In Malaysia, the
concept of mother tongue or native language is often not a simple matter as some
Malaysians grow up speaking more than one language and they may learn other
languages when they start schooling and may be more comfortable using the new
language learnt compared to their mother tongue. For example, studies have shown
that most Malaysians from the Chinese ethnic background speak at least three to
five languages. The other communities in Malaysia are also becoming increasingly
bilingual. Some speak two or more languages from birth. We will examine this
interesting phenomenon again in Topic 6 when we discuss languages used in
bilingual communities.
ACTIVITY 1.2
1. What language is your native language? This may be a language

that you grew up speaking. You may or may not be able to read and
write in this language, but you should be able to understand and
speak this language.
2. Are you most proficient in your mother tongue? Do you know

anyone who can speak more than one language at the competence
level of a native speaker or near-native like? Discuss further.
1.2.2 Language and Literacy

Every child will acquire at least one language and will acquire it almost effortlessly
by the time he reaches the age of four. He will be able to speak and understand the
language without being formally taught the language. This is the nature of
language and this is the reason why language is considered as a special
endowment of the human species. Literacy skills however, need to be taught.
Nobody grows up learning how to read and write without being taught. In fact,
not every language has a writing system. Many languages of the world are only
spoken languages without a writing system. Therefore, you will need to remember

the difference between language and literacy. When we talk about language, we
usually refer to speaking and comprehension. It would be rare that we refer to
reading and writing as these are literacy skills which require effortful learning.
1.2.3 Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammars

We started off this topic by drawing upon similarities observed from your
experience in learning a new foreign language. However, the way a linguist
describes the grammar of a language may be different from the way a language
teacher would approach it. Teachers are concerned with you learning what is
considered as grammatical by referring to rules in a grammar book about how to
construct sentences and form words in a language. We say teachers are prescriptive
in their approach to the grammar of the language. Therefore, the rules that the
language teachers refer to are prescriptive grammars. Prescriptive grammars have
to be followed.
However, most linguists describe a language in order to come up with a descriptive

grammar of the language. They depend on the judgement made by the native
speakers of the language on how the language is used by the community. For
example, if we are to describe Malaysian English, we will find that Malaysians like
to use the particle -lah in their speech. Imagine this situation when you are trying
to persuade your friend to help you babysit while you rush to finish your
assignment. Your friend may say she does not know how to change the diapers
among other excuses. You may end up persuading her by saying Can-lah, Dont
worry. I will be here also what? Just need someone to keep an eye on Ah boy while
I write my assignment.
English teachers may label such utterances as ungrammatical or broken English but
to a linguist who is trying to understand what is acceptable as a Malaysian variety
of English, they will not label these utterances as ungrammatical. They will depend
on what is considered as acceptable or used by Malaysian speakers of English. As a
Malaysian speaker of English myself, of course we do not use this in writing and
formal situations, but this may be the preferred form with close friends as compared
to the more formal alternative which may sound distant: Im sure you can do it.
Dont worry. I will also be here to help. I just need someone to keep an eye on my
son while I complete my assignment. We will discuss more about varieties of
English in Topic 6.

Among other speakers of English, there are other examples of prescriptive rules
that are found in grammar books about good use of English. However, if we
observe native speakers of the language, they do use these constructions or
utterances and they are not grammatically incorrect. Let us look at the following
examples where prescriptive grammar will say it is bad grammar to use double
negatives, split infinitives and ending a sentence with a preposition (refer to Table
1.1).
Table 1.1: Examples of Good and Bad Grammar
Prescriptive Grammar Bad Grammar Good Grammar
Use of double negative You dont know nothing. You dont know anything.
Split infinitives to badly want something to want badly something

to be done to be done
Ending a sentence with a Who do you wish to To whom do you wish to

preposition donate the money to? donate the money?
However, the use of double negative is common in Old English and in African
American Vernacular English. It is also common in Middle English to end
sentences with prepositions. You will probably feel more comfortable using what
is considered as bad grammar as the alternative sounds very formal. The point is,
it is important that some rules are prescribed but they are not meant for all
situations. Certainly not all grammatical rules of a language is necessarily
prescriptive as there could be varieties of the same language that observe different
grammar rules. Malaysian English is a good example. What is considered bad in
standard formal English is actually good or acceptable in Malaysian English.
Linguists try not to impose their own standards of what is considered good or bad
but rely on the judgment of the speakers of the language which are usually based
on what they would normally say or use.
Hence, linguists work with descriptive grammars to describe grammatical rules in

the language, while teachers tend to follow a prescriptive grammar as they are
concerned with students getting good marks when they are tested for their
proficiency of the language. In conclusion, both prescriptive and descriptive
grammars are there for rather different purposes. We just need to be aware that
there is such a difference when we work with language.

ACTIVITY 1.3
1. Discuss some descriptive rules for the use of Malaysian English.
2. Provide specific examples of utterances which may be acceptable in

Malaysian English but not in standard varieties of English.
1.2.4 Linguistic Competence and Performance

Another important basic concept in linguistics is the difference between linguistic
competence and performance. Linguistic competence refers to the linguistic
knowledge that we have of a language. Linguistic performance, on the other hand,
refers to how you use the language. We often make judgement about linguistic
competence by examining linguistic performance of the person. This is done because
we do not have direct access to what we know about a language. Most of our
linguistic knowledge operates at the subconscious level.
As I mentioned earlier, this knowledge may not operate at the conscious level;
however it is there if we know how to elicit it. We may not be able to describe what
we know, but we know it. To illustrate how this knowledge may work at the
subconscious knowledge, think about how we recognise the faces and voices of our
family members, friends and acquaintances. We just know a familiar face or a voice;
however we may not be able to describe the features of the face or the voices that
help us identify the voice or the face. If you need to describe these features for
someone to draw the face, you would need to pay very close attention to specific
features of the eyebrows, the shape of the eyes, nose, mouth, jaw and chin, and this
may prove to be difficult even though we do recognise the face of the person. Having
linguistic knowledge is somewhat similar. You can do things in the language you
know, but you may not be able to explain how you know it. Have you had the
experience where you know a sentence is grammatically correct or incorrect because
it sounds right or wrong but you cannot say what is right or wrong about it? This is
an analogy to describe how you use your subconscious knowledge.
Most times, we would like to think that there is a match between the observed
linguistic performance and what we consider as your linguistic competence.
However, we all know that this may not necessarily be the case all the time. Our use
of the language is often affected by many different factors. At times, our
performance may lag behind our competence. This may happen when there are
other factors affecting our performance. For example, you may know English well
and would normally speak it flawlessly. However, if you have been working the
whole night trying to finish an assignment and have not had any sleep for 48 hours,
you may not be able to speak fluently as you may be extremely tired and your mind
is just not quite working right. To give you another example, if you try to speak after
visiting the dentist who had just given you an injection to numb your gum and
tongue, you would have difficulty speaking accurately. These are examples of
poorer performance but these performances do not reflect your linguistic
competence. At times your linguistic performance is temporarily compromised
because of these other factors; however your linguistic competence remains intact.
ACTIVITY 1.4
Examine the following situation and discuss them in terms of linguistic

competence and performance.
Situation 1: Student A makes an error because he was careless.

Situation 2: Student B makes the same error again and again not
knowing that it is an error.
1.3 DESIGN FEATURES OF LANGUAGE

Is language just a system of communication? Most linguists believe that language is
more than just a system of communication. The linguist Charless Hockett developed
a list of features to describe what it means to be a language. We will discuss these
features by grouping them according to those that are universally shared by all
systems of communication, those that are shared by only some systems of
communication and those that are unique to the human language.
1.3.1 Features Shared by All Systems of

Communication
Let us have a look at some features shared by all systems of communication.
(a) Mode of Communication

Language shares this feature with other systems of communication because
language can be used for communication. In a system of communication,
messages are sent and received. In the case of sign language, speakers transmit
messages in the form of speech or gestures and these messages are decoded by
the listener.

(b) Semanticity and Pragmatic Function

All signals used in a system of communication must have meaning and
function. In other words, communication must be shared by the people using
this system of communication or there is a risk of a breakdown.
1.3.2 Features Shared by Some Systems of

Communication
Now let us have a look at some features shared by some systems of communication.
You will find that there are more features here as follows:
(a) Interchangeability
Some systems of communication can only transmit while others can only
receive. A radio station can only transmit messages. You will need to have a
call-in programme to allow messages to be received. However, humans can do
both transmitting and receiving. We can speak or use sign language, as well as
comprehend speech and interpret sign gestures.
(b) Cultural Transmission

This feature explains why language is not genetically coded. We learn the
language of the environment. We speak the language that has been
transmitted to us through cultural transmission. Just because our parents
speak a particular language, it does not guarantee that we will also acquire the
same language unless that language is also used with us. This is something
Malaysians will probably experience readily. For example, my mother speaks
the Hokkien language as her father speaks only Hokkien, however she never
uses this language with us. Instead she uses Cantonese with her children and
my father. In addition, she speaks Hakka with my grandmother who only
knows Hakka. So, I grew up speaking Cantonese and Hakka because those are
the two languages that were transmitted to me in my cultural home
environment. As a result, my siblings and I do not speak Hokkien as my
mother did not speak it to us.
(c) Arbitrariness
Signs and signals in a system of communication and the meaning that is
assigned to it are arbitrary. In the same way, words in a language and the
meaning that are assigned to them are also arbitrary. There is no specific
reason as to why a cat is called a cat in English and kucing in Bahasa
Malaysia, gato in Spanish, goyang-i" in Korean and mao in Mandarin.
When you learn a system of communication or language, you have to learn the
signs and the meaning. When you learn a new language, you need to learn the
words in that language and the meanings of those words too.

(d) Discreteness
This feature refers to the fact that all signals are units that can be combined to
form larger units. For example, every language uses a limited set of speech
sounds to encode words in the language. There are restrictions to how you can
combine speech sounds to form syllables and there are many possible ways to
combine different syllables to form different words. Once we have words, we
have ways to combine words into phrases and sentences. Although units in
the language may be limited, there are limitless ways to combine these units.
1.3.3 Features Shared by Only Human Languages

Other than features shared by all and some systems of communication, there are also
features that are shared only by human languages such as:
(a) Displacement
We can use language to talk about things and events that are happening now.
We can also use language to talk about things and events that happened long
ago or those that have yet to take place. We can talk about our imagination and
create ideas that nobody has seen or experienced or thought about before. This
is a unique feature of the human language, but not with other systems of
communication which are often much more restricted.
(b) Productivity
Human language is productive. We may have a limited set of speech sounds
or gestures, a limited number of words, but there is no limit to the number of
ways we can combine these basic units to form new words and new sentences.
However, this does not mean that language has no rules and regulations. All
languages are governed by specific rules, however even these rules allow for
productivity.
ACTIVITY 1.5
1. Can you think of an example of a rule in the English language

which describes productivity of the language?
2. Do you think displacement is a good test of whether animals have

a system of communication or a language like humans have?

1.4 DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN LINGUISTICS

In previous subtopics, we have discussed the study of languages which focuses on
describing the grammars of a language. This includes descriptions of the:
(a) Sound patterns of the language (phonology);
(b) Word structure (morphology) and word meaning (lexical semantics);
(c) Sentence structure (syntax); and
(d) Meaning of expressions in context (pragmatics).
Notice the term grammar is used here in a very broad sense. The grammar of a
language includes more than just rules on how to combine sentences into phrases
and sentences.
Some linguists focus their attention on doing descriptions of grammar for a specific
language. There are many languages in the world that have yet to be described
and some of these languages have been classified as endangered languages as the
speakers are mostly elders in the communities who are already very old and the
number of speakers are very small. The younger members of their communities
may not speak the language as a result of language contact or language and
education policies. In Malaysia, many of the orang asli languages and the
indigenous languages of Sabah and Sarawak fall into this category. There are
sporadic efforts made to document these languages before they go extinct as such
efforts fulfil two main goals:
(a) It helps preserve the cultural identity of indigenous communities in

Malaysia; and
(b) It presents an opportunity to other linguists who are interested to examine

universal patterns in language to test their theories with a newly described
language.
Some linguists, however, focus their work on documenting variations within a

particular language. For example, various dialects of Bahasa Malaysia exist in
Malaysia. Similarly, it is probably evident that most of us can speak and
understand a variety of English that is different from the standard variety spoken
in the UK and US. While some may hold a negative attitude towards the Malaysian
variety of English, by referring to it with derogative reference such as Manglish or
rojak English, others may embrace it as a form of our cultural identity. Whichever
side of the fence we may belong to, there is still merit in trying to describe what is
unique in this variety and to examine the universal patterns that a particular
language variety possesses. This focus falls within the scope of sociolinguistics, the
focus of Topic 6, where we will discuss and examine language and its social
context.
However, the development of modern linguistics is not limited to just descriptions

of a particular language or its variety. Modern linguistics has also been influenced
by developments in other fields of study which examine the interaction of
language and other fields such as education, sociology and psychology. For
example, language teachers and applied linguists who are interested in the
applications of linguistic knowledge to possible enhancements in the teaching and
learning of a specific language now contribute to developments in a subfield called
second language acquisition. It is now widely acknowledged that the way we learn
a first language is different from the way we approach our first language or mother
tongue.
Researchers in psychology, particularly human development psychologists, focus

on understanding the processes involved in the acquisition of the mother tongue.
These researchers continue to study first language acquisition and the challenges
that are presented in understanding language delay or language impairments in
the development process. Work is also focused on identifying good diagnostic
tools in bilingual and multilingual contexts. These topics will be examined further
in Topic 7 (Psycholinguistics) and Topic 8 (Language Acquisition).
Developments in modern linguistics are also influenced by studies comparing

human linguistic capacities with natural communication systems of animals.
Language in its biological context will be discussed further in Topic 9, while unity
and diversity in languages and differences that makes each language unique will
be discussed in Topic 10.
ACTIVITY 1.6
Watch the following online video by cognitive psychologist, Steven

Pinker. He describes the study of language and the developments in
linguistics as a means to understand how the human brain works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE

Linguistics is the study of language.
The core components of linguistics include phonetics, phonology,

morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
Phonetics and phonology deal with the study of speech sounds and the
organisation of sound patterns in a language.
Morphology refers to the study of word structure, while syntax looks at how
words are strung together to form sentences.
Semantics deals with literal meaning, while pragmatics focuses on the meaning
in context.
Linguistic knowledge is elicited from the knowledge that native speakers have
of their language. Linguistic knowledge is often unconscious knowledge.
Language is not writing. Many languages in the world do not have a writing
system.
The ability to speak and understand language is available to every child. Most
children acquire language rather effortlessly.
Reading and writing are considered literacy skills that must be taught and
learnt.
Language is not just a system of communication. Two design features of

language; displacement and productivity are unique to human language.
The development of modern linguistics has resulted in the development of

new subfields such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and second language
acquisition.

Arbitrariness Native speakers

Cultural transmission Phonetics
Descriptive grammar Phonology
Discreteness Pragmatics
Displacement Prescriptive grammar
Language acquisition Productivity
Linguistic competence Psycholinguistics
Linguistic performance Semantics
Linguistics Sociolinguistics
Morphology Syntax
Mother tongue
University Press.

Bloomsbury.

Topic Sounds of
Language
2
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Describe the application of phonetics and phonology;
2. Explain how speech sounds are produced;
3. Identify the phonemes of a language;
4. Discuss the difference between phonetics and phonology; and
5. Transcribe words using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
INTRODUCTION
This topic introduces you to the study of speech sounds and speech patterns in
language. You may find that there are a lot of technical terminologies that are
introduced in this topic and you may wonder why anyone would go through so
much trouble to learn all these concepts and terminologies. You may also wonder
if this topic is relevant to your daily life. These are good questions to have. Life has
so much to offer and time is limited. If we have to invest time on something, it
should be worth the time spent. So, let us start the topic by exploring how
knowledge of phonetics and phonology can be very useful in daily life.

16 TOPIC 2 SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE
2.1 APPLICATIONS OF PHONETICS AND

PHONOLOGY
Have you observed how children learn to speak? Early child speech is
characterised by cries of excitement that sound like aaahhh... and playful
exploration of the lips such as brrr.... (when they rattle their lips) or when they tap
their fingers on their lips while sounding out ahh.... resulting in a sound that we
associate with American Indians in some films. Eventually, they start to babble
with sequences such as ba..ba..ba or wa..wa..wa.. and so on. Usually, developing
babies will move on to use single words and short phrases and eventually
sentences. Normally, we do not pay attention to the development as they tend to
develop rather quickly within a very short period of time once they start to speak.
While children tend to say things differently from the way adults do in the
beginning, most children will grow out of it and will soon speak like adults. For
example, young children may shorten words. Instead of saying banana they may
say nana. My nephew started calling his elder brother Jemy instead of
Jeremy even after we tried to correct him. My niece would say she wanted bed
when she meant bread. However eventually, they got the right pronunciation as
they grew older. Some differences in child speech are normal. All children go
through the same phase. However, some children stay in the child phase for a
longer period and some seem to have difficulty growing out of these early phases
of child speech.
These children may face difficulties in language development. They may start to
speak much later than their peers and they may not be easily understood even
when they do speak. Some parents and caretakers may notice this difference in
children while others may not. Early detection of speech anomalies or delay in
language development is an important indicator for early intervention for a variety
of learning disabilities. It is important to know what these indicators are and to be
able to describe them when we want to get help. This is how knowledge in
phonetics and phonology will be of great help. More details about language
acquisition will be discussed in Topic 8.
A good knowledge of phonetics and phonology is needed by clinical speech and

language therapists when they diagnose children with language delay and
learning difficulties. Special needs teachers who are involved in teaching children
with language delay also need to have a good understanding of phonetics and
phonology. Apart from these two professions, there are also other applications of
phonetics and phonology. Some examples are in forensic linguistics, as well as in
teaching and learning of pronunciation to normal developing children and adults
in language classrooms. Even if these are not the professions that you are
interested in, training in phonetics and phonology can help develop analytical

TOPIC 2 SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE 17
skills and improve awareness about cognitive processes that are involved in
speech production and perception. We will explore some of these areas in Topic 9
when we discuss psycholinguistics. Let us get started now with the basics in
phonetics and phonology and what these two areas involve.
ACTIVITY 2.1
The following are examples of words from two Malaysian children who
were four years old. Should the parents or teachers be concerned? Why?
If we tell you that these children grew up in Kelantan, would this affect
your decision?
(a) abai instead of bye-bye
(b) iput instead of siput (Malay word for snail)
(c) ayang instead of sayang (Malay word for like or love)
2.2 PHONETICS
What is phonetics? Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. The scope of the study
in phonetics can be narrow. For example, a phonetician may choose to investigate
the speech sounds found in a specific language. Most undergraduate students
begin their study of phonetics by focusing on the speech sounds of one language.
The scope of the study can also be wide. Some phonetician may focus on all
possible speech sounds in human languages. Naturally, if the latter were the focus,
one would have to look at speech sounds in different languages.
There are three subfields within phonetics; each subfield focuses on addressing
different questions about speech sounds.
(a) Articulatory phonetics focuses on the production of speech sounds. In order

to understand how speech sounds are produced, we will need to know the
vocal tract and the function of specific vocal organs. We also need to know
about the airstream mechanisms and how the airstream is modulated in the
vocal tract to produce different types of speech sounds.
(b) Acoustic phonetics focuses on understanding the physical properties of

speech sounds. The most basic physical properties that are often used to
describe speech sounds include frequency, duration and intensity. Acoustic
analysis of speech sounds is done with the help of a computer. An open-

source computer software called PRAAT has been developed by Paul

Boersma and David Weenick from the University of Amsterdam for
analysing speech sounds. You can download this software for free. To
illustrate the physical properties of speech sounds mentioned previously, let
us look at an example.
Figure 2.1 is a screenshot of what is displayed on PRAAT for the word sit.
The upper half of the figure illustrates the waveforms, while the lower half
of the figure presents the spectrograms of the sound segments. The y-axis on
the upper half of the figure represents amplitude of the wave while the
y-axis of the lower spectrograms represents frequency. The x-axis for both
halves represents time in milliseconds.
Figure 2.1: Waveform and spectrograph of sit
We will not be focusing on acoustic phonetics in this course, but you can
measure physical properties of speech and inspect them in a very objective
manner using software for acoustic analysis. Application of acoustic
phonetics can be found in forensic linguistics, computer assisted teaching
and learning of pronunciation as well as automatic speech recognition.
(c) Auditory phonetics focuses on the ways in which speech sounds are
perceived by the ear and the mind. Among the questions addressed in
auditory phonetics is whether all physical properties of a particular speech
sound are given equal emphasis.

ACTIVITY 2.2
Watch the following video on how we perceive speech. Do we only rely

on what we hear? Are we also affected by what we see during speech
perception?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0
2.2.1 The Vocal Tract

The production of speech sounds involves two important elements. The first
element is airstream mechanism, while the second is the speech organs and how
they modify the airstream. Most speech sounds are produced by the aggressive
pulmonic airstream which is the airstream from the lungs. The air is pushed past
the larynx and out through the oral cavity or through the nasal cavity.
The articulators or speech organs involved in producing speech sounds are shown
in Figure 2.2. They can be organised into three major systems: the respiratory
system, the phonatory system in the larynx (voice box) and the articulatory system.
Each subsystem plays a different role in the production of speech sounds.
Figure 2.2: The vocal tract

Let us have a look at these major systems in further detail:
(a) Respiratory System

The respiratory system involves the vocal organs below the larynx. Here we
have the lungs and the diaphragm.
(b) Phonatory System

This system involves the larynx or the voice box. The opening in the larynx
that allows for air to escape from the windpipes or the trachea into the oral
cavity is controlled by the vocal folds in the larynx. Different configuration
of the vocal folds produces different phonation of speech sounds such as
voiced and voicelessness, creaky and breathy voice quality.
(c) Articulatory System

The articulators in the oral tract play an important role in determining the
type of speech sounds that are produced. Active articulators are articulators
that can move. The lips and the tongue are two active articulators in the oral
tract. The non-mobile parts in the oral tract are called passive articulators.
They include the upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate or
velum, uvula, and the wall of the pharynx. The positioning of the active and
passive articulators determines the manner of articulation and the place of
articulation for the consonants.
ACTIVITY 2.3
Watch the following video on the anatomy of the larynx and configuration
of the larynx for different phonations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6K35fvBjn4
2.2.2 Types of Speech Sounds

Speech sounds can be classified based on the way they are produced. Consonants
are speech sounds that are produced with some obstruction to the airstream in the
oral cavity. Vowels are speech sounds that are produced with no obstruction in the
oral cavity. Let us have a look at these two types of speeches in further detail as
follows.

(a) Consonants
Consonants can be described based on where the obstruction is made (place
of articulation) and the manner of obstruction to the airstream (manner of
articulation). Some consonants are produced with vibration of the vocal
cords (voiced) while others are not. Table 2.1 presents the consonants that are
found in English.
Table 2.1: Consonant in Standard British English (Received Pronunciation)
Place of Articulation
Labio- Alveo-
Bilabial Interdental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
dental palatal
Stops p (pat) t (ten) k (cat)

b (bat) d (den) g
(get)
Nasal m n (net)
(met) (sing)
'Manner of Articulation
Fricatives f (fan) (thin) s (sue) (shoe) h

(hen)
v (than) z (zoo)
(van) (beige)
Affricates
(cheap)

(jeep)
Approximants w l (late) j (yet)

(wet)
r (rate)
(b) Vowels
Vowels are described based on the position of the tongue, the configuration
of the lips, how the mouth is opened and whether or not the airstream
escapes through the nasal cavity. Table 2.2 shows the vowels that are found
in Standard British English. All back vowels in English are rounded. The top
row provides information about the positioning of the tongue. With front
vowels, the lips are also stretched, while back vowels are produced with the
lips rounded. Mid and low vowels are produced with the jaw dropping to a
lower position compared to high vowels. Try saying the example words in
succession from high to low vowels and pay attention to the configuration of
the lips, the openness of the mouth and the position of the tongue. These

three articulators change the shape of the oral cavity which results in the
production of different vowels.
The vowels in Table 2.2 are produced with the tongue in a relatively steady
state throughout the articulation and we call these types of vowels
monophthongs. However, some vowels are produced with changes in the
state or position of the tongue. We call these vowels diphthongs. Try saying
the word soy and saw and pay attention to the vowel in these words. In
articulating the word soy, you will start with your lips rounded and end
with your lips stretched. Due to the change in the lip shape, you may not
notice the shifts in your tongue position. Now, try saying the same word
again but this time with a smile. You will notice your tongue is stretching to
the front. Shift between saying the words soy and saw and you will
notice the difference in the tongue between the articulation of what we call a
diphthong and a monophthong.
Table 2.2: Monophthongs in Standard British English (Received Pronunciation)
Front Central Back

i: (seat) u: (pool)
High
(sit) (pull)
e (set) : (heard) (cot)
Mid
(hut) : (cord)
Low (sad) a (hard)
Table 2.3 presents some examples of diphthongs that are found in British,
American and Malaysian English. You will notice some blanks. Do you know why
this is the case?
Table 2.3: Diphthongs in Three Varieties of English
Standard British General American

Words Malaysian English
English English
buy [a] [a] [a]
boy [] [] []
cow [a] [a] [a]
say [e] [e] [e]
no [] [o] [o:]
here [] [i:]
chair []

ACTIVITY 2.4
1. Identify the consonants in the pronunciation of the following

words:
cement, phone, trick, vague, tongue, mosque, measure, leech,
bridge
2. Identify the vowels in the pronunciation of these words:

beat, bit, bat, bell, ball, bail, bike, bitten, boast, robot, leak, lake, look
3. Try this online resource to learn about the sounds in English.

However, be aware of differences in the phonetic symbols used.
http://www.shiporsheep.com/
2.3 PHONOLOGY
Phonology is the study of speech patterns in a specific language. Every language
will have a specific way of organising the speech sounds in the language. Each
language will determine which speech sounds or phones are linguistically relevant
to the language. What this means is that different languages will choose different
phones used to encode meanings of words in the lexicon, our mental dictionary.
2.3.1 Phonemes and Allophones

In English, the difference between the phones, [p] and [b], matters because we use
it to contrast meaning in words like pin and bin. Similarly, difference between
[i:] and [] is important as we use the difference to encode differences in meaning
between beat and bit. When we find pairs of words that differ only in one pair
of sound that occurs in the same position in the word (minimal pairs), we have
found the phonemes that matter in the language. Phonemes are the units of sound
that can be used to encode contrast in meaning. The consonant and vowel charts
presented in Table 2.1 and Table 2.2 are phonemes in English.
Some phones are not phonemic in one language but are phonemic in a different
language. For example, if you pay attention to how Malaysians pronounce the /p/
in pat, you may notice that some of us say it with an extra puff of air while others
do not. We call this difference aspiration. Most English native speakers will
pronounce the /p/ in pat with aspiration. However, we do not really pay
attention to this difference even if they do not because it does not affect the
meaning of the word. We say that [p] and [ph] are different allophones or different

ways to pronounce the word pat. Allophones are non-contrastive. They only
show variations in pronunciation. However, if you speak Thai, the difference
matters as pronouncing it differently would result in saying two different words.
For example, [pa:] is the word for forest in Thai while [ph a:] is the word for the
verb to split. If you speak Thai you will have to pay attention to aspiration or you
will say the wrong things and Thai speakers will be confused by what you are
trying to say. Thai phonology and English phonology are different in this respect.
2.3.2 Distribution of Phonemes and Phonotactics

Another aspect of phonology is distribution of phonemes and the co-occurrence of
different phonemes in words which we call phonotactics. You may not realise you
have this knowledge when you know a language, but you do. For example, you
may never have heard of the word blik but you will probably not frown if we
want to name a new product blik. However, you will probably think it is odd if
we choose to name the product as bkik or btik. Do you have the same reaction?
Do you know why?
You probably would not protest with blik because it sounds like a possible
combination of sounds in English, and therefore it is a possible English word. We
just do not have a word with this sequence of phonemes. We say there is a lexical
gap. We have words that begin with bl- such as blend, blind, black and block.
However, it will be almost impossible to find a word that begins with bk- and bt-
in English. Phonotactic knowledge refers to the knowledge about possible sound
sequences. Phonotactic knowledge also refers to knowledge of phoneme
distribution. You will know that the [] in English is found only in the final and
middle position such as sing and singer. It never occurs at the beginning of
the word. The same can be said about the sound [] in words like beige and
measure. However, this is not the case in Hakka Chinese where [] occurs in the
initial position of a word. For example, [a] refers to the pronoun I and me. Also
[] occurs in the initial position of a word in French. The name Jacque in French
begins with [].
Phonotactics is part of phonology, the speech pattern of a specific language.

Languages can differ in how the phonemes are distributed in the language and we
can see this pattern when we pay attention to distribution of individual phonemes
or sequences of phonemes.

2.3.3 Syllable Structure

Another way to look at how different phonologies may differ is to look at the types
of syllables that are permissible in a particular language. What are syllables?
Syllables are sequences of phonemes. In English, the smallest syllable is a single
vowel. We can also form syllables with a combination of one consonant and one
vowel. The word easy is a two-syllable word. The first syllable consists of only
a single vowel while the second syllable is a CV syllable.
English has many syllable types: V, CV, CVC, VC, CCV, CCVC, CCVCC, and VCC
just to name a few types. That is because English allows up to a sequence of three
consonants at the beginning of a syllable with words such as spring and split,
and a sequence of four consonants at the end of the word such as tempts.
However, there are many languages that allow for fewer syllable types.
Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese for example have only CV, CVC and CCVC
syllables. That is why when words are borrowed from English into these
languages, interesting changes occur. Take for example, the loanword for friend
and fans (as in football fans) and cheese in Cantonese? Can you describe the
changes? Can you explain the reason for these changes in pronunciation when
English words are borrowed into Cantonese? The word friends is pronounced
as [fan] while the word fans is pronounced like the word fancy [fan.si:], except
stress is placed on both syllables, the same stress on its syllables is also seen with
the Chinese word for cheese [qi.si:]. The reason is related to how Cantonese tries
to preserve its syllable shapes. When words move from one phonological system
to another, the recipient language will try to keep its own rules. Syllable shapes in
the receiving language will be maintained. Therefore, we will find consonant
deletion to simplify the syllable and insertion of vowel to create new syllables to
support such borrowings.
Such changes are not limited to Cantonese. You will find systematic differences in
contact situations when words are borrowed from one language into another
language. Interesting examples are also found in English loanwords in Korean,
Japanese, Bahasa Malaysia and similarly if we look at French and German
loanwords into English. Do you know any examples of those loanwords?

2.3.4 Prosody
Prosody refers to the melody of a language. Prosody includes stress patterns,
rhythm and intonation. Some languages have predictable stress patterns which
produce a predictable rhythmic melody of speech. For example, words in
Hungarian are always stressed on the final syllable. Some languages have different
stress assignment rules. Some Arabic languages have a complicated way of
assigning lexical stress. Stress assignment depends on the available syllables in the
word, the number of syllables and whether or not there is a heavy syllable.
Syllables with long vowels and consonant clusters in coda positions are considered
heavy syllables and they attract stress in these Arabic varieties.
Stress assignment in English, however, is less predictable although there are some
guidelines on how stress is assigned in a word. For example, there are many two
syllable words in English that can function as verbs and nouns. For example, the
words increase, report, research and produce. If these words are used as
nouns, the first syllable is stressed and is said with a rising tone when pronounced
in isolation. When these words are used as verbs, it is the second syllable that
receives stress. Although there are some rules that can guide stress assignment in
English words, some are not predictable and need to be learnt. That is why primary
and secondary stress marks are found in dictionary entries that indicate how these
words are pronounced.
Intonation refers to the movement of pitch within an utterance. Intonation can be

placed even on a single word utterance and it can change the meaning that is
conveyed. For example, there can be a number of ways to say the word good
and really. If these words are said with the falling intonation, there is a sense of
finality (the speaker is done with his turn to talk) and the speaker sounds serious.
If they are said with a rising intonation, then this is a sense of non-finality (the
person has not finished his turn to talk and will likely continue to talk) and it
implies doubt from the speaker. He is questioning whether something is good and
the truth of the situation. Have a look at Figure 2.3 to see the difference between a
falling and rising intonation when pronouncing the word good and bad.

Figure 2.3: Falling and rising intonation in English
We can also apply the same intonation to longer utterances and these intonation
patterns can be interpreted in the same way. Different intonation patterns can also
be applied to convey different attitudes of the speaker. When the default or usual
intonation patterns are not used, the speaker may be trying to convey some
attitudinal meaning in his speech. When we know a language, we also know what
is the usual intonation of saying something and what could be implied if we
change our intonation.
ACTIVITY 2.5
1. How many syllables are there in the following words?
history, preparation, pronunciation, dictionary, scenery, divorce,

divorcee, camera, government.
2. Your answers for the above question may depend on how you
pronounce those words. Which syllable of those words sound more
prominent?

2.4 PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

The consonant and vowel charts presented in subtopic 2.2.2 uses the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). You can now transcribe how a word is pronounced using
the IPA and find the pronunciation of a new word in the dictionary. You can
transcribe phonemically what was said by providing a phonemic transcription.
You can also provide a phonetic transcription that captures the specific ways of
the message conveyed. Linguists may go further and do a broad phonetic
transcription but that is probably too detailed and we will not go into it for this
course.
A phonemic transcription focuses on the meaning of the utterance. When a

phonetic transcription is provided, you can use allophones in the transcription as
well. Here, the actual way as to how the words are pronounced, and the blending
of sounds and omission and other changes can be recorded. Variations in the way
a particular speaker speaks in normal speech can also be recorded as shown in the
following examples. Can you spot the difference between the two transcriptions
given?
(a) Phonemic transcription: /w z hi: tu:de/ Where is he, today?
(b) Phonetic transcription: [w:s h tde]
ACTIVITY 2.6
1. Transcribe how you would pronounce the words provided in

Activity 2.4 and 2.5. You can compare your transcription with those
provided in an English dictionary.
2. The following is the transcription of a few utterances. Can you

make out what these utterances are about?
ju: me fan z dfklt n bgn bt ju: me n s let tu:

a lv fnetiks n fnli
a hp ju: wl tu:

Articulatory phonetics focuses on the articulation of speech sounds.
Acoustic phonetics focuses on the physical properties of speech sounds.
Auditory phonetics examines the physical properties of speech that is attended

to during speech perception.
The vocal organs can be organised into three systems: the respiratory system,
the phonatory system and the articulatory system.
Consonants are produced with some obstruction in the vocal tract. The place
and manner of articulation characterises the types of consonants that are
produced.
Vowels are produced with no obstruction in the vocal tract. Different types of
vowels are produced depending on the configuration of the lips, the tongue
and the openness of the mouth.
Phonology is the study of speech patterns in a language.
Phonemes can be identified by identifying minimal pairs in the language.
Allophones are different variations or pronunciation of a single phoneme.
Phonotactics refer to the distribution of phonemes in a language.
Languages differ in the type of syllable structure that is allowed in the

language.
Prosody refers to the melody of language. Prosody includes stress patterns,

rhythm and intonation.
Intonation patterns can be used to convey attitudes of the speaker.
Phonemic transcription focuses on the meaning that is conveyed.
Phonetic transcription captures the actual way a word or an utterance is

pronounced by a specific speaker.

Acoustic phonetics Minimal pairs

Allophone Nasal
Alveolar Palatal
Alveo-palatal Phoneme
Approximants Phones
Articulatory phonetics Phonotactics
Auditory phonetics Prosody
Bilabial Rhythm
Dental Stress
Fricative Syllable
Glottal Voiced
Intonation Voiceless
Baskaran, L. M. (2005). A Malaysian English primer: Aspects of Malaysian English

features. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: University of Malaya Press.
Carr, P. (2003). English phonetics and phonology. London, England: Blackwell.
Davenport, M., & Hannahs, S. J. (2005). Introducing phonetics and phonology (3rd
ed.). London, England: Arnold.

Bloomsbury.
Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology: A practical course (4th ed.).
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Topic Structure
of Words
3
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Identify the parts of speech for words;
2. Describe morphemes in complex words;
3. Distinguish derivational from inflectional affixes;
4. Discuss allomorphs and allomorph conditioning; and
5. Conduct simple morphological analysis.
INTRODUCTION
This topic introduces you to the study of words in languages. What comes to your
mind when you think about words? You may say meaning, relation between
words, such words with similar meanings such as pretty and beautiful or
words with opposite meaning such as hot and cold, day and night.
Morphology examines the meaning of words as well; however the study of word
meaning (lexical semantics) is covered in more depth in Topic 5. So, what will be
the focus of this topic? We will look at types of words (parts of speech) and the
internal structure of words and examine the internal structure of complex words.
Let us now begin with the different types of words in English.

32 TOPIC 3 STRUCTURE OF WORDS
3.1 TYPES OF WORDS

In this subtopic, we will examine the different types of words. Generally, we can
classify words based on the function they play in the language. Some words are
content words and they carry lexical meaning. Others are function words and they
carry only grammatical meaning.
3.1.1 Lexical Words

Lexical words are also called content words. These words belong to open-class
words as you can create new words and add them to the stock of existing lexical
items in the language. Can you think of new words that have been introduced
recently because of the Internet technology and mobile phone applications? It is
now common to hear people say things like Just google it up or You should
tweet this. Words like google and tweet are new words that have come into
the English lexicon because of the popularity of these applications.
Lexical words can be categorised into different parts of speech: noun, verb,
adjective and adverb.
(a) Nouns are words that describe a person, an object, a place or a situation.
Some examples of nouns are sister, father, chair, pencil, canteen, school and
cafe. Abstract concepts such as poverty, democracy are also nouns. Names of
people such as Peter, Johan, Siti and names of places such as Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia and Bank Negara are proper nouns.
(b) Verbs are words that denote action, state and events such as write, explain,
construct, eat, sleep and pretend.
(c) Adjectives are words that describe the property of nouns. For example,
words like happy, true and honest are adjectives as they can be used to
describe the property of a person or situation. We can use these words in the
following utterances: He is a happy boy, That statement is true and You
should try to be honest to yourself as well.
(d) Adverbs are words that describe adjectives, other adverbs, and verbs.
Examples of adverbs are words such as very, extremely, slightly, slowly and
quickly.

TOPIC 3 STRUCTURE OF WORDS 33
3.1.2 Function Words

Function words are words that do grammatical work in the language. Examples
of function words are pronouns such as I, you, we and they; prepositions,
such as above, below, and between, while conjunctions include those such
as and, but, because and when. Unlike lexical words which are open-
classed words, function words are closed-class words. You can easily add a new
lexical word in a language but you rarely add a function word.
Function words can also be categorised into different parts of speech depending
on the function of these words in the language. Now, let us have a look at examples
of pronouns, determiners, prepositions and conjunctions.
(a) Pronouns are function words that can be used to substitute or stand in for
nouns. Personal and possessive pronouns in English can be organised into a
paradigm as shown in Table 3.1. First person pronouns refer to the
speaker(s); second person pronouns are parties that are addressed in the
conversation; while third person are the parties that the speakers refer to.
Table 3.1: Personal Pronouns and Possessive Pronouns in English
First Person Second Person Third Person
Subject I, we You he, she, they
Object me, us You him, her, them
Possessive mine, ours Ours his, hers, theirs
Apart from personal and possessive pronouns, there are also indefinite
pronouns such as someone, anyone, everybody, nobody,
somebody, anything, something, everything and nothing;
demonstrative pronouns such as this, that, these and those; and
interrogative pronouns such as who, what, when, whose, where,
why and how much. Some relative pronouns have the same form as
interrogative pronouns but they are not used in questions. Can you identify
the relative pronouns in the sentences provided as follows?
(i) The student who wrote the essay is the top student in class.
(ii) Jane likes to eat ice-cream that has melted.
(iii) She wants to know when we would meet again.

(b) Determiners are function words that precede the noun. They include words
such as a and an (indefinite articles) as well as the (definite article).
(c) Prepositions are function words that show grammatical meaning in relation
to time and space. Words such as in, on, above and below all show
spatial relation such as shown in the following utterances: in the box, on
the box, above the table and below the table. The same prepositions can
also be used in other contexts to convey a slightly different relational
meaning. For example, in two days, for a week, above fifty ringgit and
below zero degrees Celsius.
(d) Conjunctions are also function words and they can be used to join phrases or
utterances. The conjunctions are also referred to as coordinating conjunctions
and subordinating conjunctions. Do you know how to distinguish
coordinating conjunctions from subordinating conjunctions? And and
but are examples of coordinating conjunctions, while because and
when are subordinating conjunctions. There are many more such
conjunctions in English.
ACTIVITY 3.1
Identify the parts of speech for each word in the quote:
(a) Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be

done without hope and confidence Helen Keller.
(b) Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to
succeed is always to try just one more time Thomas Edison.
3.2 MORPHEMES: FREE AND BOUND

You may have noticed that most function words are simple words. However,
lexical words can be more complex, as they are formed with a combination of
meaningful units or morphemes. Let us examine two words that are closely related
in meaning: happy and unhappy. The meanings of these two words are
related. They are opposites, you may say. Yes, what makes one the opposite of the
other? The addition of un to happy. We say that the word happy has only
one morpheme, while the word unhappy has two morphemes.

A morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning. The word happy cannot be broken

down to any smaller units of meaning. Hap does not have any meaning, and
neither does py. We say happy is a monomorphemic word since it has only
one unit of meaning, one morpheme, and the morpheme is a free morpheme since
the word happy can stand alone and its meaning does not depend on another
morpheme. On the other hand, the word unhappy has two morphemes: a free
morpheme and a bound morpheme. A bound morpheme cannot stand alone. The
prefix un cannot be used without being attached to a free morpheme. You can
say Im happy and hes not. However, you probably would not say Im happy
and hes *un unless you are trying to be funny and you know the others will
understand what you are trying to pull off. The asterisk mark is used to indicate
the source of ungrammaticality in the utterance.
There are many prefixes and suffixes in English that are bound morphemes. Can
you think of more examples of words that are formed with bound morphemes?
Some examples are provided in the following activity. Try to decompose these
words to identify the morphemes in these words.
ACTIVITY 3.2
Sort the following list of words according to the number of morphemes

there are in each word:
Redo Collect
Uncover Recall
History Typist
Disappear Reaction
Honesty Artistic
Remember Reflections
Magical Nomination
Personality

3.3 DERIVATIONAL AND INFLECTIONAL

AFFIXES AND CLITICS
We are now ready to discuss the internal structure of the word. Some words are
simple words. The internal structure is fairly straightforward. As mentioned
earlier, the word happy consists of only one morpheme. However, the word
unhappy has two morphemes. The word is formed by attaching the prefix un
to the free morpheme, happy. We say happy is the root word. There are two types
of affixes: derivational affixes and inflectional affixes. How do we distinguish
these two types of affixes? In addition to affixation, some bound morpheme are
clitics. We will discuss how to distinguish these bound morphemes in the
following subtopics.
3.3.1 Derivational Affixes

Derivational affixes are the bound counterparts of lexical words. Derivational
affixes are used in the process of generating new words. The process of derivation
may or may not result in a change of word category. There are many derivational
affixes in English as shown in Table 3.2. Pay attention to the word formation rules
for these examples. Notice that prefixation often result in no change to the lexical
category. However, suffixation often result in a change of lexical category.
Table 3.2: English Derivational Morphemes
Word Formation Rules Examples
UN + Adjective Adjective unhappy, unreal,
DIS + Verb Verb disappear, dislocate
UN + Verb Verb undo, untie
RE + Verb Verb redo, retake, resit, revisit
Adjective + NESS Noun happiness, creativeness
Verb + ABLE Adjective believable, reliable, doable
Adjective + LY Adverb quickly, slowly,
Noun + AL Adjective magical, personal, national
Adjective + EN Verb brighten, lighten, sweeten
Verb +IVE Adjective creative, active,

The examples provided in Table 3.2 are simple examples. The internal structure of
these words is relatively simple. For example, Figure 3.1 shows the diagram of
some of these words.
Figure 3.1: Internal structure of morphological complex words
Some morphologically complex words may involve more derivational processes.

Let us try to examine the word creativeness. To derive creativeness, we need
to apply an additional word formation rule to the structure produced above for
the word creative shown in Figure 3.1(3). In this example, it is pretty
straightforward as both suffixes are added one after another, the same applies for
the structure for creativeness shown in Figure 3.2.
Figure 3.2: Internal structure for creativeness
However, with other words, addition of the prefixes and suffixes do not occur in
a linear order, meaning from left to right. Let us look at the word unbelievably
which consists of four morphemes: un + believe + able + ly. The root of
the word is believe (V) and to derive the word unbelievably, we have the
application of multiple word formation rules. In such complex words, it can be
tricky to figure out which word formation rule applies first. Look at the sequence
of word formation processes and the structure of the word presented in Figure 3.3.
Notice affixation does not occur from left to right? The first derivation involves the
morphemes believe + -able, and the prefix un is attached to the stem
believable. As shown in Figure 3.3, there is hierarchical order in the word
formation process. Some bound morphemes are combined first before others and

the combination does not occur from left to right in a linear order. How can we
explain the reason behind the order of the word formation rule that is presented
in Figure 3.3? The word formation rules and the meaning of the derived words
provide clues to the internal structure of words. We cannot derive unbelieve first
because the meaning of unbelievably is not about reversing the work done by
the verb. Rather, the meaning of the word is related to not believable.
Figure 3.3: Internal structure of unbelievably
The above example in Figure 3.3 shows that there is hierarchical order in the
internal structure of words. We will also see evidence of hierarchical order in the
structure of words in sentences in Topic 4.
3.3.2 Inflectional Affixes and Clitics

Inflectional affixes are the bound counterparts of function words. Most function
words are free morphemes. However, some grammatical meaning is encoded
using bound morphemes. For example, most plural nouns require an addition of
a final word suffix. Table 3.3 presents a list of English inflections. Notice that the
type of inflectional affixes is limited. Just as function words are closed-class words,
inflectional affixes are also limited in number.

Table 3.3: English Inflections and Clitics
Inflectional Morphemes Bound Morpheme Examples
1. Plural -s pens, daisies, watches, sheep
2. 3rd person agreement -s writes, sews, catches
3. Past tense -ed picked, robbed, waited
4. Present participial -ing driving, writing, painting
5. Past participial -ed wanted, confused, selected
6. Comparative -er bigger, smaller, tighter
7. Superlative -est biggest, smallest, tightest
8. Possessive s (clitic) Johns, the childs,
The last example is not an inflectional morpheme. Linguists distinguish

inflectional morphology from clitics. Other examples of clitics include the bound
morphemes nt in contracted forms such as havent, cant, and shouldnt.
ACTIVITY 3.3
Identify the word formation rule for the following complex words and
draw a diagram to show the internal structure of each of these words.
(a) Beautifully;
(b) Convincing;
(c) Acceptance;
(d) Recognition; and
(e) Government.

3.4 ALLOMORPHS
In the previous topic, we have discussed the idea of allophone and phonemes.
Allophones are the different surface forms of a single phoneme. A similar pattern
is also observed in morphology. Morphemes are the minimal unit of meaning.
Some morphemes have more than one surface realisation. For example, the plural
form of nouns in English has five different allomorphs. Plural nouns can be
realised in five different ways as shown in the examples shown in Table 3.4.
Table 3.4: Allomorphs for Plural Nouns in English
Allomorph Singular Nouns Plural Nouns
Zero morpheme Sheep Sheep
-s [s] Pen Pens
-ies [z]** Daisy Daisies
-es [z]** Watch Watches
-en [n] Ox Oxen
** Some Malaysian speakers of English may pronounce such endings as [s] instead of [z]
and [s] instead of [z].
The zero morpheme refers to no change in the phonological form of the plural
noun. The first and the final allomorph are for irregular nouns. The selection of the
zero morpheme and en for these words are lexically determined. However, with
the other regular plural nouns, the selection of the allomorph is determined by the
final sound segment of the root noun. Do you know which sounds trigger the
selection of [z], [s] and [z]?
Examples of allomorphic variations are also found with English past tense verbs
as shown in Table 3.5. Like the plural nouns, cases of zero morphemes are also
found with past tense verbs. Apart from that, we also have what is called
suppletive forms like the go-went pair. There is no similarity between go and went.
A suppletive form is a completely different form that is used to replace the root
form. This process is called suppletion. Like the regular plural noun forms, the
regular past tense verbs also has allomorphs that are selected based on the final
sound of the root verb. Can you figure out the conditioning involved in the
selection?

Table 3.5: Allomorphs for Past Tense Verbs in English
Allomorph Root Verb Past Tense
Zero morpheme Cut Cut
Suppletive forms Go Went
-ed [t] Pick [k] picked [pkt] and not *[pkd]
-ed [d] Rob [b] robbed [rbd] and not [rbd]
-ed [d] Wait [t] Waited [watd]
-ed [d] Play [e] Played [pled] and not *[pled]
ACTIVITY 3.4
English verbs in the simple present tense need to show agreement in

terms of number with the subject. Therefore we have different forms of
the verb in the following sentences. Notice how the pronunciation of the
verb endings also show variability. Describe the allomorphy found with
these verbs in English.
(a) Mary dances like an angel.
(b) Muthu likes to play football.
(c) They like to watch movies.
3.5 MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

The ability to identify meaningful units of a word is an important skill in learning
a language. Studies have shown that children with better morphological
awareness perform better in reading, vocabulary and spelling tasks (Bowers, Kirby
& Deacon, 2010). Studies have also shown that morphological analysis is an
effective vocabulary learning strategy among university students in science related
programmes of study (Paiman, Ngee & Mei, 2015). Given the benefits of
morphological awareness, it may be useful to appreciate how this awareness is
developed naturally among children and what teachers can do to develop this
awareness further. Let us begin by addressing the question about how we may
identify morphemes in a language. This is best done by trying to perform a
morphological analysis on a language that you may have little knowledge of. Lets
attempt to do this in the following.
The following sentences are taken from Korean. Try to analyse the sentences and
the meaning provided in the gloss and try to identify the morphemes in this
language.
(1) Goyangiga apeuda. The cat is sick.

(2) Agiga apeuda. The baby is sick.
(3) Tokkiga gwiyeobda. The rabbit is cute.
By just comparing sentence (1) and (2), you should be able to identify the words
related to cat, baby and sick. You will probably realise that the subjects also
appear before the adjectives in Korean. Using this information you can further
deduce the words related to rabbit and cute. Your analysis may bring you the
following findings shown in Table 3.6.
Table 3.6: A Preliminary Analysis of Words in Korean
Meaning Words/Morpheme
Cat (noun -subject) goyangiga
Baby (noun -subject) agiga
Rabbit (noun -subject) tokkiga
Sick (adjective) apeuda
Cute (adjective) gwiyeobda
However, are these Korean words complex words? Do these words have more
than one morpheme? There seems to be some repetitions of sounds that suggest
the possibility that these words may be composed of more than one morpheme.
For example, all the nouns are subjects and they end with ga. Perhaps ga is
a suffix that indicates that these nouns are subjects. Similarly, if you look at the
adjectives, they also all end with da. This is also a potential morpheme,
however it is not clear what it may indicate: adjective marker, present tense marker
or declarative sentence marker. With these possible guesses, we can examine
sentences in Korean where these nouns are used as objects in a sentence and
determine whether the sentence still ends with da if the tense is changed to the
past tense.

Now have a look at the following sentences.
(4) naneun goyangileul boassda. I saw the cat.

(5) naneun agileul boassda. I saw the baby.
(6) naneun tokkileul boassda. I saw the rabbit.
(7) geuneun tokkileul boassda. He saw the rabbit.
(8) naneun tokkileul bogoissda. I am looking at the rabbit.
(9) agiga tokkiege kiseuhagoissda. The baby is kissing the rabbit.
(10) agiga tokkiege kiseuhago issseubnikka? Is the baby kissing the rabbit?
From these additional sentences, we can now confirm our morphemic analysis for
Korean words and also identify more morphemes in Korean. We can now conclude
that ga is probably a subject marker, while leul is an object marker. Another
subject marker is neun which is used with pronouns. Notice that all the sentences
still ends with da although the final word may not be an adjective, however the
verb see or kiss is in the past tense and the present progressive. This suggest
that the suffix da is not a tense marker nor an adjective or verb marker but
probably a declarative marker. Compare the final ending in sentence (9) and (10)
and you will be able to confirm this. Questions do not end with the suffix da but
end instead with ka. Of course, there is a lot more to Korean morphology, and
we will not be able to identify all the morphemes in Korean but I hope you will now
have an idea of how to go about doing a morphological analysis in any language.
We have now done a simple morphological analysis on Korean words. Table 3.7
presents a more refined morphemic analysis of Korean words.
Table 3.7: A More Refined Morphemic Analysis of Korean Words
English
Categories Morphemes
(Translation)
Lexical Nouns cat goyangi
baby agi
rabbit tokki
Verbs saw boass
Adjectives sick apeu
cute gwiyeob
Functional Subject marker -ga, -neun
Object marker -leul
Pronoun I na
he geu
Declarative marker -da
Interrogative marker -ka

ACTIVITY 3.5
The sentences used in the morphological analysis for Korean were

generated using Google translate. Attempt this with your coursemates
and choose another language and try to do the same morphological
analysis for another language. Start with simple sentences and a few
words to work out an initial analysis of the morphemes in that language.
Beware of translation inaccuracies as Google translate is not always

accurate. You can try translating some sentences in Bahasa Malaysia to
verify this. But it may still be alright if you choose well documented
languages. You can choose a language that you have some partial
knowledge so you can verify the translation and the analysis.
Morphology is the study of words in language.
Lexical words or content words are open-class words.
Lexical words can be categorised as noun, verb, adjective or adverb.
Function words are words that do grammatical work in a language.
Function words are closed-class words and new items are rarely added.
Function words include pronouns, determiners, prepositions and conjunctions.
A morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning.
Derivational affixes are used to form words.
Inflectional affixes are the bound counterparts of function words.
Allomorphs are different surface forms of a single phoneme.
Suppletive forms are lexically selected.
Regular morphology is phonologically conditioned.

Adjective Inflectional morpheme

Adverb Lexical words
Allomorph Morpheme
Allomorph conditioning Noun
Bound morpheme Preposition
Conjunction Pronouns
Derivational morpheme Suppletion
Determiner Suppletive forms
Free morpheme Verb
Function words Zero morpheme
University Press.
Bowers, P. N., Kirby, J. R., Deacon, H. S. (2010). The effects of morphological

instruction on literacy skills: A systematic review of the literature. Review of
Educational Research, 80, 144179.
Finegan, E. (1999). Language: Its structure and use (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle
and Heinle.
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2003). An introduction to language (7th
ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle.
Paiman, N., Ngee, Y. N., & Mei, Y. C. (2015). Effectiveness of morphemic analysis
of Graeco-Latin word parts as a vocabulary learning strategy among ESL
learners. 3L; Language, Linguistics and Literature, The Southeast Asian
Journal of English Language Studies, 21, 2, 3145.

Topic Structure of
Sentences
4
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Identify grammatical and ungrammatical sentences;
2. Discuss ungrammatical sequences of words in terms of constituency;
3. Explain the concept of hierarchy in the study of sentence structure;
4. Use constituency tests to identify phrases and clauses; and
5. Draw a tree diagram to show the structure of a sentence.
INTRODUCTION
Have you taken notice of how many sentences you can understand in English or
in your mother tongue? We do not usually pay attention to this, but if we do, we
will be quite amazed. We could possibly understand and produce an infinite
number of sentences once we have full knowledge of a particular language. What
constitutes a full knowledge you may ask?
To understand the structure of sentences, we must look at the basic unit or building
blocks for larger units of the sentence. In the previous topics, we discussed
phonemes and morphemes which are the basic units in phonology and
morphology. In this topic, we will go beyond the word level and look at units
above the word level. We will look at how words are put together to form groups
and how these groups are put together to form sentences.

TOPIC 4 STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES 47
4.1 WHAT IS SYNTAX?

Before we look at possible groupings of words, we need to understand the notion
of grammaticality. In Topic 1, we discussed the differences between prescriptive
and descriptive grammars. Recall that a prescriptive grammar tells you what is
considered correct or incorrect according to the standards prescribed by a
grammar book. A descriptive grammar, on the other hand, identifies
grammaticality by describing what a specific group of language users actually do
with the language. It also depends on intuition of the specific group of language
users about acceptable and possible sequences of words. We will be tapping into
this intuitive knowledge about acceptable and possible sequences when we
evaluate grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in English.
A grammatical sequence of words would be a sequence that you would use as a

speaker of the language, and other speakers of the same language would most
likely share the same judgement as you do. For example, you would most likely
say Jane is a beautiful young girl is a well-formed or grammatical sentence in
English, and you will agree that the following two sentences are both
ungrammatical. Ungrammatical sentences are indicated with the asterisk notation
at the beginning of the sentence.
(1) *A beautiful is young Jane girl.
(2) *Jane is girl a young beautiful.
Can you explain why these sentences are ungrammatical? Your answer will most
likely be related to possible sequencing of words. Sentence (1) is a word salad. It
will be difficult to even begin to say what is right or wrong about it. Sentence (2)
is less of a word salad and it is probably easier to describe what went wrong. In
sentence (2), the noun is placed before the article and the adjectives, but we usually
have the article before the noun such as a fight, and a boy and if there are
adjectives that describe the noun, the noun usually appears after the adjectives
unless you insert the relative pronoun who as in the example a girl who is
young and beautiful.
You may also notice that some sequences of adjectives are acceptable while other
sequences are not. It is acceptable to have beautiful before young but not
young before beautiful. Similarly, you have probably heard of the sequence:
a wise old man, but not an old wise man. An attempt to describe why some
sequencing of words is not possible falls under the study of syntax. The rules of
grammar are the rules that explain possible and impossible sequencing of words
in a language. Some of these observations may end up in grammar books as they
48 TOPIC 4 STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES
are useful rules to know when we want to teach the grammar of the language.
However, you do not need to know these rules to discover syntax of a language as
we tend to rely on our intuition of the language. Due to the variety of language
and difference in the proficiency level of English, some of your judgements about
grammaticality of the sentences may be different. You should also pay attention to
these differences as it may indicate your use of a different grammar of the
language. Second language learners could have different interlanguage grammars,
just like how native speakers of different varieties of English have different
grammars of the language. We will be discussing more about interlanguage
grammars in Topic 8 when we discuss second language acquisition.
Another important point to keep in mind is that grammaticality does not depend
on whether or not the sentence is meaningful. If you read both sentence (1) and (2)
again, you may say you can still guess the meaning of these sentences even though
the words are all jumbled up. That is why sometimes, we can still communicate in
a foreign language when we do not have very good command of the language yet.
Language users are good at trying to guess meaning from ungrammatical
utterances.
You can also get grammatical sentences that do not make sense at all. The famous
example given by Noam Chomsky is shown as follows.
(3) Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
The sentence is grammatical as it does not violate any of the rules for combining
words into groups and larger groups into the sentence, but it does not make sense.
We usually describe ideas in terms of whether they are good or bad, possible or
impossible to implement, fantastic or bizarre, but we do not label ideas with
colours unless we use it metaphorically and relate it to mean environmentally
friendly ideas. Even so, it is difficult to try to make sense of what it means to say
something is colourless and yet green at the same time. In addition to this, ideas
cannot sleep as only subjects that are alive can sleep, and they can sleep soundly
but it is impossible to grasp what it may mean to sleep furiously. The sentence
sounds like a possible sentence in English, just a nonsensical one as we cannot
make out what it means.
In the next subtopic, we will examine in more detail what we mean by possible or
grammatical groupings of words in English and how these groups are put together
to form sentences.

ACTIVITY 4.1
The following are word salads. Rearrange the words into possible
sequences. There may be more than one possible answer in some cases.
(a) garden the in out trees under the

(b) beautiful painted scenery a
(c) carefully arranged bouquet of flowers a
(d) that vase boy broke the who
4.2 HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE

In this subtopic, we will discuss hierarchy in sentence structure. However, before
we turn to sentences, let us try to understand hierarchy within a family to see the
groupings of family members in a family tree (see Figure 4.1). Members higher up
in the hierarchy are usually older compared to those lower in hierarchy in the
family tree. We can group members in the family tree according to the generation
that they belong to. The grandparents group, the parents group, the children group
and the grandchildren group. Children are offspring of specific pairs of parents
and the association is done this way. We will use a similar concept to talk about
groupings in sentences.
Figure 4.1: Hierarchical structure in a family tree

4.2.1 Constituency Units

Words in a sentence belong to natural groupings and we call them constituents.
For example, if we look at the following sentence, we may be able to group the
words in the sentence in a number of ways.
(4) The little girl bought the beautiful dress in the shop.
You may group the sentence into two big groups: The little girl and bought the
beautiful dress in the shop. We can have this grouping because we know the
sentence tells us someone did something. The subject, the little girl can replace
someone, while bought the beautiful dress in the shop tells us what the subject
did. However, notice that we can easily divide the second group further to three
smaller groups: bought, the beautiful dress, and in the shop as each group play
a different function in terms of showing relational meaning between groups of
words. Bought is the action, the beautiful dress is the object that is affected by
the action, and in the shop tells you the location of where the event of buying
took place.
We can use brackets to show the relational meaning by grouping words that work
together [see sentence (5)]. Notice that every open bracket is matched with a close
bracket. What is within a bracket is a natural grouping of words. We can also draw
a tree diagram to show this relation as we did with the family tree diagram.
(5) [[The little girl] [bought [the beautiful dress] [in [the shop]]]]

Sentence (5) is presented using an unlabelled tree diagram. The diagram is currently
unlabelled as we have not inserted labels for the units for each grouping (see Figure
4.2). Notice that each word is related to other words in the sentence just like each
person in a family tree is related to some other members in the family tree.
Figure 4.2: Constituency units in a sentence
The whole sentence is a group in itself because it could be a group in another

sentence. For example in sentence (6), sentence (5) becomes the object of what is
said. You could potentially extend the sentence indefinitely long as you could keep
embedding a sentence within another sentence as sentence (7) shows.
(6) [He [said [the little girl bought the beautiful dress in the shop]]]
(7) [She said [he said [the little girl bought the beautiful dress in the shop]]]
4.2.2 Constituency Tests

In the previous section, we have identified constituents by relying on our intuitive
knowledge of English. This works but there are considerations or constituency
tests that have been developed by linguists to help us identify natural groupings
of words in a language. The basic principle behind these tests is that words that
belong to a group work together as a group. Now, let us have a look at a few
examples of constituency tests.
(a) Substitution Test

If you can replace a whole group of words with a single word, you can be
quite confident that the words represent a constituent. We used this test
earlier when we said the little girl can be replaced by someone, the
pronoun she, or a proper name like Jane. Pronouns cannot replace only
the word girl or little girl as it does not make sense to have the she or

the little she. This is evidence that the three words in the little girl work
together as a group.
(b) Movement Test

Words that belong to the same constituency must all move together to
demonstrate that they belong to the same constituency. For example, two
processes must take place in order to form the question: Where did the little
girl buy the beautiful dress? First, the phrase in the shop needs to be
substituted by the question word where. Then the question word has to
undergo movement as the surface sequence of the words is different in a
question compared to a declarative sentence. Notice that the question word
cannot replace only the word shop and move to the beginning of the
sentence leaving the other words behind as shown in sentence (8). We use
the asterisk notation to indicate ungrammatical sentences.
(8) *Where did the little girl buy the beautiful dress in the?
(c) Stand Alone Answers to a Question

If the group of words can stand alone as an answer to a question, we also
have good reasons to believe that the group of words belong together
naturally and form a constituent. For example, using the same example, we
can say in the shop to answer the question: Where did the little girl buy
the beautiful dress?
4.2.3 Lexical and Structural Ambiguity

Some sentences may have more than one interpretation. Ambiguity in the
interpretations could result from lexical ambiguity. Words that have multiple
meanings contribute to lexical ambiguity. Classic examples of lexical ambiguity
are words like ball and bank. When used in an utterance, the context often
helps disambiguate the meaning, so confusion can be avoided. However, in a
neutral sentence, it is often not clear which meaning of the word is the intended
one as shown in the following examples.
(9) He enjoyed the ball.
(10) He enjoys walking to the bank.
Sentence (9) can be interpreted as enjoying a round object (the ball) or a party
where people go dressed up in fancy attire. Similarly, sentence (10) could mean he
enjoys walking to a particular financial institution or to the river bank.

Another form of ambiguity is structural ambiguity where the interpretations

available depend on the relation of constituents with other words in the sentence.
Sentence (4) which we discussed earlier could have two possible interpretations
depending on how we interpret the function of the final phrase in the shop.
Figure 4.3 and 4.4 show the two possible interpretations. Both interpretations are
possible because in the shop could be describing the location of the dress or the
location where the buying took place. This form of ambiguity is called structural
ambiguity because the ambiguity is related to the different representation of the
sentence. We can show the two possible interpretations by drawing two possible
tree diagrams as shown in Figure 4.3 and Figure 4.4.
Figure 4.3: First interpretation of a girl buying a dress

Figure 4.4: Second interpretation of a girl buying a dress
Can you identify the difference in the two tree diagrams? Where is the phrase in
the shop located in the two tree diagrams? We have not discussed the labels
which are used in the tree diagrams yet. We will do them in the next subtopic. The
triangle in the diagrams (see Figure 4.3 and 4.4) indicates that there is internal
structure which is not shown in the diagram.
The sentence can be disambiguated by blocking one interpretation as done in

sentence (11) where a word is added to show where the little girl did the work of
buying the dress. Sentence (11) is now no longer ambiguous and it has only one
interpretation.
(11) The little girl bought the beautiful dress in the shop online.

ACTIVITY 4.2
Draw a tree diagram for the following sentences. When there are two
possible interpretations, draw both trees to show the structural differences.
(a) George drove Jane to school.

(b) Johan gave some money to the beggar.
(c) Siti ate all the fruits in the kitchen.
(d) The boy wanted the eggs in the basket.
(e) They planted trees along the road.
(f) He saw the beggar from his town in a fancy restaurant in Ipoh.
4.3 SYNTACTIC UNITS

We have discussed the natural groupings of words or constituents and the
hierarchical structure that is found in sentence structures. We shall move on to
labelling these constituents so that we can now include these constituent labels in
the bracketing and tree diagram. There are computer programmes that can draw
the tree diagrams if we provide the labelled bracketing. This is another reason why
you may want to be familiar with both notations. The computer programme will
only draw what is indicated. It does not evaluate the correctness of the diagrams
drawn.
In the previous topic, we have discussed categories for words. These categories
will help us to identify syntactic units within a sentence. Recall that we have lexical
categories such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. We also have functional
or grammatical categories such as determiners, prepositions, pronouns and
conjunctions. In syntax, we recognise two types of groupings: clauses and phrases.
The tree diagram will use labels for the lexical category of the words as well as
labels for intermediate groupings such as phrases and clauses.

ACTIVITY 4.3
The programme that is used to generate the tree diagrams in this topic is
available from http://www.ironcreek.net/phpsyntaxtree.
Go online and familiarise yourself with the usage of this programme.
4.3.1 Clauses
A simple sentence is a clause. This is because clauses can also be embedded within
another sentence. As shown in sentence (6) and (7), we have the distinction
between a dependent clause and an independent clause. Clearer examples of
dependent clauses are given as follows. The sentences in (12) are complex
sentences as they all include a dependent clause and an independent clause. The
dependent clause cannot stand alone. It depends on another clause to be
grammatical. The independent clause on the other hand is a completed sentence.
Can you identify the dependent clauses? They have been underlined in the
following examples.
(12) Dependent and independent clauses:
(a) He worked very hard because he was poor.
(b) He moved to Kuala Lumpur after he started working at OUM.
(c) The boy who was chosen for the task is my brother.
(d) I would donate more money to the poor, if I were a millionaire.
4.3.2 Phrases
Phrases are intermediate syntactic units between the word and the clause level.
We will discuss only three types of phrases (noun phrases, verb phrases and
prepositional phrases) in this subtopic as they are the most basic types and less
controversial. You may be introduced to other phrases in a more advanced course
on syntax.

(a) Noun Phrase

A noun phrase (NP) is a phrase that contains a noun and that word must be
the most important element in the phrase. Examples of noun phrases include
Jane, the girl and the little girl. Noun phrases come in all shapes and
sizes too. Some contain only one word as in the proper noun, Jane, while
others may have more internal structure. Figure 4.5 shows the internal
structure of these noun phrases.
Figure 4.5: Structures of noun phrases
(b) Verb Phrase

A verb phrase (VP) contains at least one verb and that verb must be the most
important word in the phrase. Examples of verb phrases include slept and
ate an apple. Notice that verb phrases come in different sizes and shapes
too. Some verb phrases contain only one word as in the intransitive verb
slept, while the other example has more internal structure. Figure 4.6
shows the internal structure of these verb phrases.
Figure 4.6: Structures of verb phrases

(c) Prepositional Phrase

A prepositional phrase (PP) contains a preposition and a noun phrase.
Examples of prepositional phrases include phrases such as with a book
and across the field. As prepositional phrases are often used to describe
the location of an object, they are often found within another noun phrase as
shown in Figure 4.7 for NPs with embedded PPs. Prepositional phrases can
also indicate the direction of an action. Therefore, we can find PPs embedded
within VPs as shown in (iii) column of Figure 4.7.
Figure 4.7: Structures of prepositional phrases
ACTIVITY 4.4
Revise the tree diagrams you have drawn for the sentences in Activity
4.2. Include labels for the structural units as shown in the previous
examples (see Figure 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7). You can use the label S for a
sentence to indicate clauses. Since all the sentences are simple sentences,
you will only have one clause in your tree diagrams.
4.3.3 Phrase Structure Rules

What we have introduced so far are very simple examples of natural groupings of
words. These groupings provide evidence for phrase structure rules operative in
a language. For example, a prepositional phrase (PP) is usually composed of a
preposition (P) and a noun phrase (NP). We can use the phrase structure rule
notation in (13) to indicate this generalisation.
(13) PP P NP

This is the simplest phrase structure rule. The phrase structure rules for noun
phrases and verb phrases are more complex as there are many ways to group
words into a noun phrase and a verb phrase in English. As shown previously, the
noun phrase can have only a noun or more words. Therefore, the phrase structure
rule in (14) for the noun phrase introduces categories in brackets to indicate that
these other categories are optional and may not be found in all noun phrases.
(14) NP (Det) (Adj) N (PP)
The phrase structure rule in (14) allows us to generate the sentences in (15) and
many more that are similar.
(15) (a) N: Jane

(b) Det N: The boy
(c) Det Adj N: The little girl
(d) Det N PP The book on the table
(e) Det Adj N PP The pretty dress in the shop
We can also spell out the phrase structure rules for the verb phrase and the
sentence as shown in (16) which describes noun phrases such as those listed in (17).
(16) VP V (NP) (PP)
(17) V: slept
V NP: ate the apple
V PP: slept in the room
V NP PP: bought the dress in the shop
The phrase structure rules in (14) and (16) are not complete as there are many other
possible word combinations which are not captured by these rules. For example,
you can have a verb phrase with two objects such as gave Mary a flower. Due to
these sequences being possible in English, the phrase structure rules in English
must allow for two noun phrases in a verb phrase. We can amend the phrase
structure rule in (16) to (18) to allow for two noun phrases in the verb phrase.
(18) VP V (NP)2 (PP)

As we find more possible grouping, we can continue to do this until we have a

complete phrase structure rule that accounts for all possible word grouping for a
particular phrase. At this point, you may ask why go through so much trouble to
identify the phrase structure rules. Once we have identified these phrase structure
rules, we have an explanation of what are possible and impossible word groupings
in the language. We will not attempt to do that here, as it can get rather complex,
but you can refer to Chapter 5 of an online book, The Grammar Book by
Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman (1999) to see more examples
of phrase structure rules in English. The link to the book is provided in Activity
4.5.
ACTIVITY 4.5
Refer to The Grammar Book by Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane

Larsen-Freeman (1999). You may find the textbook online here: https://
flaviamcunha.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/the-grammar-book-an-
eslefl-teachers-course-second-editiona4.pdf
Read and summarise the phrase structure rules provided and compare
your answer with your coursemates.
Syntax is the study of sentence structure.
The grammaticality of a sentence does not depend on meaning.
Phrases are intermediate units between the word and the clauses level.
Examples of phrases include the noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP) and the
preposition phrase (PP).
The most important word in the phrase determines the type of phrase we have.
Phrasal groupings of words are determined using constituent tests.
Words within a constituent work together as a group.
Two main syntactic units are phrases and clauses.
There are two types of clauses: dependent and independent clauses.

There are two types of ambiguity: lexical and structural ambiguity.
Structural ambiguity can be shown by drawing different tree diagrams for each
interpretation of the sentence.
Clause Labelled bracketing

Constituency test Noun phrase
Constituent Phrase
Dependent clause Prepositional phrase
Embedded clause Structural ambiguity
Grammaticality Syntactic units
Hierarchical structure Tree diagram
Independent clause Verb phrase
Carnie, A. (2002). Syntax: A generative introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The grammar book. Boston, MA:
Heinle & Heinle.
Finegan, E. (2012). Language: Its structure and use (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage
Learning.
ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Miller, J. (2002). An introduction to English syntax. Edinburgh, England:

Edinburgh University Press.

Topic Semantics and
Pragmatics
5
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Distinguish reference from sense;
2. Identify different word relations;
3. List semantic properties for a group of words;
4. Discuss the role of context in determining utterance meaning; and
5. Explain the difference between semantics and pragmatics.
INTRODUCTION
Have you noticed how when people argue they dont actually mean what they
say? Utterances taken out of context often lead to misunderstanding. In this topic,
we will look at the various ways we derive meaning from language. We will
discuss how words, sentences and utterances convey meaning. We will also
discuss how we infer meaning from what is said and what is not said.
5.1 WHAT IS MEANING?

Meaning is the message that is conveyed through words, sentences and utterances.
Meaning is derived from what is said as well as what is not said. Let us look at a
conversation between two people out on a first date (see Figure 5.1).

TOPIC 5 SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS 63
Figure 5.1: Conversation between two people out on a first date
Do you think they will meet for a second date? Maybe. Maybe not. Of course it
will be difficult to make a good guess based on just a short conversation and
without understanding the conversation before and after this exchange, or about
the previous experience Joe and May have on dating. Nothing is said about May
liking or not liking Joe and vice versa. However, we can always make one possible
conclusion from drawing inferences from the exchanges in the conversation using
our knowledge of how things work in the real world.
Let us examine the three levels of meaning we can get from looking at the
conversation carefully. The first level involves word meaning. Words here refer to
single word units or multiword units in idiomatic expressions. The meaning that
is conveyed in the conversation depends on the meaning of the individual words
used in each utterance. Words have literal meaning and non-literal meaning. For
example, if someone says dont let the cat out of the bag. They could literally
mean there is a cat in the bag which needs to stay in the bag or they could be
referring to some shared secret knowledge between the people speaking and that
the shared information between them needs to be kept a secret from others. The
non-literal meaning is available if we know that the expression is an idiomatic
expression with a fixed meaning. Hence, these non-literal meanings need to be

64 TOPIC 5 SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS
learnt. In the previous conversation, the meaning of something light does not
mean literally weighing less. It could mean a meal without a full course of starters,
main course and dessert, or a meal which is not too filling, or even a meal with
smaller portions.
Apart from literal and non-literal meaning of simple and multiword units, there is
also meaning that is conveyed from the way words are put together. We refer to
this meaning as structural meaning or sentence meaning. You can choose to hide
certain information by choosing certain way of expressing the same ideas. For
example, instead of saying My doctor or Someone has advised me to take
things easy which reveals the agent of advising or conceals it with a pronoun, the
speaker could also choose to hide the agent (person doing the work of the verb) by
using the passive voice and utter I have been advised to take things easy. These
two sentences convey similar meaning and can be considered as synonymous
sentences or paraphrases, but the essence of what is conveyed is slightly different.
Finally, we also have contextual meaning or utterance meaning, meaning that is

conveyed by taking into account the specific speaker and hearer in a specific
context. If we know the pattern of past behaviours or the age of the participants in
the conversation, their educational background, how the date was set up, where
the conversation is taking place, what other plans they have or people they know,
we may have a different interpretation of the conversation. The first two types of
meaning fall within the scope of semantics, while utterance meaning falls under
the field of pragmatics.
5.2 SEMANTICS
In this subtopic, we will discuss in more detail the types of meaning that is derived
from words and the relation of words (lexical semantics) and sentences (sentence
meaning). Let us start by considering the difference between reference and sense.
Both are complementary parts of meaning and are needed to understand lexical
meaning as well as sentence meaning.
5.2.1 Reference and Sense

Does truth matter in our understanding of meaning? When we tell someone I
have been advised to take things easy. Ive been working too many late hours,
although not mentioned, we assume there is someone in the real world, a real
person, who has given the advice. It would be a doctor, a friend, a co-worker or a
parent. We consider this as a reference to some reality in the real world. However,
the utterance could have also been a white lie, just to present an excuse to shorten
an uninteresting date night. In this case, the reference is made to some imaginary

person who does not exist because it is a lie. Some utterances have no reference
because they do not exist. For example, we can say No woman has become the
Prime Minister of Malaysia. The statement is true but there is no reference made
as none exist. The fact that we can understand such utterance goes to show that
meaning is more than just making reference to a real or imaginary world.
Some utterances do not make any reference but it has what we call sense. Greetings
such as hello, abstract nouns such as love and honesty, and function words
such as is, the, and, of do not refer to a specific entity in the real world but
we know what the words mean by deriving the sense from its relation to other
words in the language. With greetings and abstract nouns, we can conjure a mental
image of what it means. What comes to your mind when you see the word
honesty or love? You may think of your parents, your husband or wife, or
your children for love. You may think about the story of The boy who called
wolf for honesty, or you may get the image from a memory of a television scene
of a witness who is taking an oath before the judge asks to tell the truth and nothing
but the truth. How do we get the sense of function words then? Look at the
following sentences.
(a) That is the head teacher.

(b) That is the head of a teacher.
The meaning and sense that we get from these sentences is different because of the
usage of function words. Function words such as the, of, and a shows
relation between words. Therefore, the head teacher and the head of a teacher
conveys a different sense and the sentence may or may not pick out the same
referent in the real or imaginary world.
5.2.2 Semantic Features

Word meaning can be analysed and represented using semantic properties or
semantic features. Semantic properties are smaller components of meaning that
help form the mental image of the word in the mind of the speaker. For example,
what comes to mind when you think of the word woman and girl? What is
the difference in the meaning of a woman and a girl? Age? Stage of life? This
difference can be shown using semantic properties that describe these two words:
Woman female, adult, human

Girl female, child, human

These properties can be changed to features using a binary system of + [with

this semantic property] and [without this semantic property]. Therefore, we
can capture the observation that woman and girl share two properties but
differ in terms of the property of being an adult.
Woman [+ female, +adult, +human]

Girl [+ female, -adult, +human]
Words that share the same semantic properties can then be grouped together in
the same semantic domain. Have a look at the features of some animals in the
following example.
dog cat tiger puppy kitten cub

[animate] + + + + + +
[adult] + + + - - -
Words like dog, cat, tiger would share the semantic features of [+adult,
+animate] while puppy, kitten and cub share the features [+animate, -adult].
This approach is one way to show the difference in meaning between words.
However, there is more to meaning of words than the sum of semantic features as
we will discuss in the next section.
5.2.3 Word Relations

Words can be related to one another in many different ways. Some relations may
not be related to meaning but to the way they are spelled and pronounced. For
example, homophones are words that are pronounced the same way regardless of
whether they are spelled the same or not. For example, bank (the financial
institution and the riverbank) refer to different entities. For example, boy and
bouy are both pronounced as [b] but they refer to two different objects in the
world. Homographs, on the other hand, refer to words that are spelt in the same
way but may or may not be pronounced the same way and have different
denotation meaning. For example, bear (the animal) and bear (carry or
support) are spelt and pronounced the same way but they have different
denotation meaning as indicated in parenthesis. Another example is the word
read used in two contexts as in the sentence I have read [red] his work and
Please read [ri:d] it again.

We will now examine some word relations that relate to meaning. In some cases,
we will represent these relations using a taxonomic hierarchy. These are ways to
visualise the relation between words.
(a) Hyponymy
Words can also be related in terms of how specific or general the words are
in relation to other words. For example, blue, green, yellow and orange are
all colour terms. We can classify these specific colour terms as hyponyms
while the word colour is the superordinate term as shown in the taxonomic
diagram in Figure 5.2. Similarly, Figure 5.3 shows that dog, cat and tiger
are all more specific than animal.
Figure 5.2: Hyponyms of colours
Figure 5.3: Hyponyms of animals
(b) Meronymy
Some words are related in terms of a part-whole relation. For example, eyes,
nose, mouth, ears are words that form part of the face. Similarly, wheel,
pedal, seat, and handlebar are parts of a bicycle. We say these words are
meronyms. However, meronyms are different from hyponyms. Hyponyms
shows a-type-of relation but meronyms do not. Therefore, we can say A dog
is a type of animal (a hyponyms), but we cannot say, A nose is a type of
face (nose face: meronym).
(c) Synonymy
Two words that convey the same meaning or have similar meanings are
called synonyms. Examples of synonyms include small and little, tasty
and delicious, daddy and father, and beautiful and pretty. Some
of these pairs are not interchangeable in some circumstances. For example,
we can use beautiful to describe a painting or a person regardless of
gender, but we tend to use pretty only for young girls, women and things or

objects but rarely with the male gender unless we are trying to say that he is
very feminine as in a pretty boy.
(d) Antonymy
Two words that convey opposite meaning are called antonyms. Examples of
antonyms include dead and alive, and win and lose. These examples
are also called complementary antonyms or non-gradable antonyms as one
implies not the other. You are either dead or alive, you cannot be both.
However, there are antonyms that convey meaning on a continuum, we call

them gradable antonyms. These antonyms allow for intermediate degrees
between two opposite extremes. For example, hot and cold; easy and
difficult; and wet and dry. With gradable antonyms, you can use the
comparative and the superlative suffix -er and -est with these adjectives. For
example, you can have cold, colder and coldest. You cannot do this
with complementary antonyms like dead or alive.
Other pairs of antonyms like right and left; and up and down are
called reverses as one reverses the other in terms of direction of movement.
Converses are pairs of words that show contrasting viewpoints. Examples of
converses include lend and borrow; send and receive; and give
and receive.
(e) Polysemy
Polysemy refers to words that have related senses. For example, McGregor
(2015) presents the word ear in the following sentences with different but
related senses of the word ear:
(1) I put cotton wool in my ear.

(2) He listened to their difficulties with an impatient ear.
(3) That phonetician has a good ear for tone.
(4) I tried to get her ear.
In sentence (1), the word refers to the physical ear which is an organ of
hearing. In sentence (2), the word ear is used with a focus on what is heard
or the act of hearing. Sentence (3) uses the word ear to refer to hearing ability
while sentence (4) refers to getting attention from someone. Although the
same word is used in all four sentences, the sense that is conveyed is different
for all four cases. We refer to these different senses of the same word as
polysemy.

ACTIVITY 5.1
1. List the semantic properties/features of the following words.

(a) car, truck, bicycles, bus
(b) chair, stool, sofa, bench
(c) run, climb, eat, jump, give
(d) book, table, chair, poverty, wealth
2. Describe the relation of these word pairs:

(a) leave arrive
(b) finger hand
(c) love hate
(d) furniture bed
(e) teacher tutor
(f) buy sell
(g) dark bright
(h) speak talk
5.2.4 Structural Semantics: Thematic Roles

We now turn to another component of meaning: structural semantics or also
known as compositional semantics. Structural semantics look at how the structure
of a sentence contributes to the meaning conveyed. Let us look at an example to
understand the role of structure on meaning. Notice that the discussion will
revolve around constituents related to the verb.
(5) Jane kissed the little girl.

(6) The little girl kissed Jane.

In the sentences provided, the participants involved in both sentences are the
same, but the meaning conveyed is different. In sentence (5) the little girl
received the act of kissing, but in sentence (6), the little girl did the action of
kissing. Depending on the position filled by the noun phrase the little girl, the
meaning that is conveyed changes. We say the thematic roles of the participants
are determined by the meaning of the verb in the sentence. In sentence (5), Jane is
the agent, while the little girl is the patient or theme, but in sentence (6) the reverse
holds. We can change the form of the verb and keep the position of the phrase as
shown in sentence (7). In sentence (7), the little girl is assigned the role as theme or
patient and not as agent.
(7) The little girl was kissed by Jane.
We have only looked at two types of thematic roles: agent and theme or patient.
Table 5.1 shows other types of thematic roles as reported in Fromkin, Rodman and
Hymes (2003).
Table 5.1: Types of Thematic Roles
Thematic Roles Description Example
Agent The one who performs the action Joyce ran.
Theme The one or thing that undergoes an Mary found the puppy.
action
Location The place where an action happens It rains in Spain.
Goal The place to which an action is Put the cat on the porch.
directed
Source The place from which an action He flew from Miri to

orginates Penang.
Instrument The means by which an action is Jo cuts hair with a razor.

performed
Experience One who perceived something Helen heard Robert

playing the piano.
Causative A natural force that causes a The wind damaged the

change roof.
Possessor One who has something The tail of the dog

wagged furiously.
Source: Fromkin et al. (2003)

ACTIVITY 5.2
Identify the thematic roles (agent, theme, location, goal, instrument,

source, experience, causative, possesor) of each noun phrase (NP) in the
following sentences:
(a) John drove Mary from her school to the department store.
(b) The teacher heard her noisy neighbours dancing all night.
(c) She left the toast on the table.
(d) The burglar picked the lock with a knife.
(e) The heat warped the plastic cover.
5.3 DESCRIBING MEANING ACROSS CULTURES

There are two basic ways to approach semantics. First, by regarding that meaning
is something that exists in itself: words are therefore expressions for something
that exists out there. This is the realistic approach and the techniques discussed
previously are from this approach. The second approach is called the cognitive
approach or cognitive semantics which regards meaning as expressions or
representations of mental structures, things that only exist in our heads.
5.3.1 What is Cognitive Semantics?

In general, cognitive semantics emphasises on lexical meaning rather than
sentence meaning. Cognitive semantics generally regards a linguistic sign (for
example, words) as linking a sound pattern to a concept that exists in the minds of
individuals. Because of this, cognitive semantics are generally more concerned
with the meaning of words as understood by individuals although they tend to
direct their interest to societys meaning of words. Cognitive semantics is guided
by the following principles:
(a) Meaning is a concept: we call these cognitive models;
(b) Our perceptions determine our cognitive models: the way we think of the
world, determines the way we see the world;

(c) Semantic elements are based on spatial or topological objects. This is why
some branches of cognitive semantics often work with metaphors;
(d) Cognitive models are image-schematic. Image schemas are affected by

metaphoric and metonymic operations; and
(e) Semantics is important to syntax and determines syntax. This is because the
meaning we want to convey determines the structure of the sentence we
construct and when we analyse sentences the sentence structure determines
the meaning we understand from it.
5.3.2 Metaphors
One of the cognitive mechanisms of meaning in cognitive semantic is metaphor.
Metaphor is when one concept is understood via another. Usually we try to
understand a difficult, obscure or abstract concept by drawing a parallel between
it and another more common and concrete concept. Therefore, metaphors are
when we understand one concept via another. This involves a target domain
(tenor) which describes a concept (for example: time) and a source domain
(vehicle) which provides the analogy (for example: money) and we finally have
the metaphor that helps us understand a concept or an aspect of the concept (for
example: time is money this is to show that time is valuable like money). Table
5.2 explains some common features of metaphors.
Table 5.2: Features of Metaphors
Features Descriptions
Conventionality (novelty) Each metaphor exhibits a unique relationship between

the target and the source.
Systematicity (possibility of Metaphors are systematic. There is a logic that governs

extension) the relationship between the representations and
meaning.
Asymmetry (does not work We say time is like money but we do not hear
both direction) money is like time.
Abstraction (from abstract to We understand abstract concepts by relating it to

concrete) concrete concepts because it makes them easier to
understand, it does not work the other way around.

5.3.3 Categories in the Mind

Metaphors allow us to organise our view of the world by creating categories for
things in the world as we perceive it. This is where our cultures often differ, we
put different things in different categories and we value the things in these
different categories differently. For more on this, look at the works of George
Lakoff and others in the same school of thought.
Figure 5.4 gives a simple example of the differing categories at how food is
perceived by different cultures.
Figure 5.4: Different cultures perceive food differently
It should be noted that these mental categories, as with other categories of the
mind, are fuzzy categories, as items from one category can pass into another
regularly. Categories in the mind may result from the following processes:
(a) Knowledge representation (conceptual structure); and
(b) Meaning construction (conceptualisation).
5.3.4 Natural Semantic Metalanguage

Another branch of cognitive semantics is natural semantic metalanguage (NSM).
It is based on the ideas of a famous philosopher, Leibniz (16461716), who believed
that all human beings are the same and therefore have the same brain functions.
This means that all our brains work in the same way. Leibniz argues that there is
a language of our mind. One of his notable works, includes the creation of a
philosophical language knows as Lingua Generalis, which was to be adopted as a
universal language for all.
Anna Wierzbicka argues that this universal language is not a language per se but
a programming language which our mind uses to create and convey meaning,
she calls language Lingua Mentalis (Language of the Mind henceforth NSM).
NSM is conceptual but it is made up of a set of very basic concepts called Semantic

Primitives or Semantic Primes. These concepts have their exact counterparts in all
human languages. Table 5.3 gives the classic format of the NSM semantic primes,
in three formats (updated to current thinking, for example, positioning touch
with the space grouping, using (Be) mine for possession).
Table 5.3: Semantic Primes (English Exponents)
Sematic Primes Groups

I, you, someone, something~thing, Substantives
people, body
kind, part Relational substantives
this, the same, other~else Determiners
one, two, much~many, little~few, some, Quantifiers
all
good, bad Evaluators
big, small Descriptors
think, know, want, dont want, feel, see, Mental predicates
hear
say, words, true Speech
do, happen, move Actions, events, movement
be (somewhere), there is, be Location, existence, specification
(someone/something)
(be) mine Possession
live, die Life and death
when~time, now, before, after, a long Time
time, a short time, for some time, moment
where~place, here, above, below, far, Space
near, side, inside, touch
not, maybe, can, because, if Logical concepts
very, more Augmentor, intensifier
like Similarity
Notes: Primes exist as the meanings of lexical units (not at the level of lexemes) and
exponents of primes may be words, bound morphemes, or phraseme. They can be
formal and complex, that is morphologically. Or they can have combinatorial variants
or allolexes (indicated with ~). Each prime has well-specified syntactic (combinatorial)
properties.
Source: Goddard and Wierzbicka (2014)

Using the Semantic Primes and basic grammar, we can explicate (break down and
make simple) complex values and concepts in our language and culture, we call
these, explications.
We can then reconstruct these explications using semantic primes in another

language which can then be understood by speakers of that language thus
enabling us to convey the concept across language and cultural barriers. Some
claim that this trivialises a culture because each one of these value laden words
carry so much nuances, history and related meanings. The point of the explication
is not to convey the whole meaning, but to convey just enough of the core meaning
of the term to enable dialogue to start from a common point that it is perfectly
understood by both parties. The following is an example that shows explications
for the term happy and the verb to do.
(a) someone X is happy (at this time):
someone X thinks like this at this time:

many good things are happening to me as I want
I can do many things now as I want
this is good
because of this, this someone feels something good at this time

like someone can feel when they think like this
(b) [D] X suruh Y (to do A) =
X said something like this to Y:

I want you to do this
X said it like X was saying at the same time:

I know you will do it because I say this
ACTIVITY 5.3
Refer to the following links for more information regarding the Natural
Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and discuss the use of semantic
explications in describing meaning with your coursemates.
https://www.griffith.edu.au/humanities-languages/school-humanities-
languages-social-science/research/natural-semantic-metalanguage-
homepage

5.4 PRAGMATICS
So far, we have discussed how meaning is derived from words and sentences. We
will now look at utterances in context. We will discuss how context influences the
meaning that is conveyed. The context includes both linguistic context as well as
situational context. We will examine how listeners make inferences based on the
information presented in the utterances heard.
5.4.1 Sentence versus Utterance

It is important to start with a clear distinction between the meaning of a sentence
and that of an utterance. An utterance may contain a sentence, but the same
sentence may represent several utterances. A sentence is a linguistic unit but an
utterance is an event. One can say the same sentence twice. Imagine someone
saying Help me, please. The linguistic meaning in the sentence remains the
same. However, the meaning that is conveyed by the first utterance and the second
utterance is not the same. The second utterance could be a desperate plea since the
first one fell on deaf ears. It could have been said with more intense emotion or
with less emotion depending on the emotional state of the speaker of having to
utter the same sentence twice.
When we examine the pragmatic meaning in utterance, we will examine the

linguistic context as well as the situational context. Linguistic context refers to the
discourse what is said before and after the utterance of interest. Situational
context refers to the people involved in the conversation, the setting or
surrounding, the time period and the knowledge that is shared between the people
involved in the conversation. The situational context is important to help find
concrete references for deictic expressions used in utterances. The use of some
words would not be interpretable without an understanding of the context in
which some deictic expressions are used. Have a look at the following examples:
(a) Pronouns and person deixis such as these people and that person;
(b) Place deixis such as here and there; and
(c) Time deixis such as now and at that time.
Without understanding the context, it is difficult to interpret the meaning and the
implication of an utterance such as That person is there now.

ACTIVITY 5.4
What is the difference between a sentence and an utterance? Are all

utterances complete sentences? Reflect on your daily conversations and
discuss this with your coursemates.
5.4.2 Speech Acts, Performatives and Illocutionary

Force
Another way to interpret meaning from utterances is to examine the speech acts
performed. Speech acts refer to actions that are performed by an utterance. For
example, when I say I promise I will be there, I am performing the act of
promising. The act of promising is called an illocutionary force. In English,
examples of performative verbs include warn, dare, apologise,
pronounce, declare, challenge and order, just to name a few. Utterances
made with these verbs actually execute the acts and their respective illocutionary
force. We say they are direct speech acts.
However, not all speech acts are that explicit. We have typical illocutionary forces
for different syntactic forms as shown in Table 5.4.
Table 5.4: Typical Illocutionary Forces and Their Syntactic Forms
Utterance Form Typical Illocutionary Force
(8) Jane swims 20 laps every day. Declarative Statement
(9) Does Jane swim 20 laps today? Interrogative Question
(10) Swim 20 laps every day. Imperative Command
The context helps determine whether the speech act performed is indeed what is
typically associated with its form. For example, when sentence (8) is uttered with
a rising intonation, it could indicate disbelief and the speaker may be questioning
the truth of the meaning asserted. When this happens, the declarative sentence is
not performing its typical illocutionary force. Instead, it is performing the force of
questioning although the form it takes is declarative and not interrogative.
Sentence (9) takes the form of an interrogative and typically performs the act of
questioning. However, not all questions perform the act of questioning. For
example, when someone asks Can you speak English? they may be indirectly
requesting for help. Similarly when sentence (10) is uttered, depending on the
relationship of the speaker and the hearer and their power relations, it could be

interpreted as an advice or a suggestion instead of a command (imperative).

Besides, if pronounced with a rising intonation, it would be questioning a
suggestion or command. When the illocutionary force is different from what is
typically expected, we say the utterances are indirect speech acts.
Indirect speech acts are often used to sound more polite. For example, instead of
commanding someone to do something by saying Open the door, a question
form like Could you please open the door? makes the request more polite.
ACTIVITY 5.5
Determine the typical illocutionary force of these utterances. What

additional meaning could it convey if these utterances are indirect speech
acts?
(a) Do you have any plans this weekend?
(b) I have no more energy to work.
(c) The students are happy to do more homework.
(d) Look! There are only three jars of cookies left on the shelf.
5.4.3 Felicity
We use context to help us figure out meaning of an utterance. However, we also
depend on some rules or conditions for the utterance to be meaningful. When we
discussed syntax, we talked about grammatical and ungrammatical sentences.
Ungrammatical sentences are those that put words together without following
rules of combination in the language.
In pragmatics, we have felicity as a condition that has to be met for the speech acts
to achieve its intended purpose. An utterance is said to be felicitous if it is
contextually appropriate for the speech act to be performed.

Let us look at some examples of infelicitous responses. It is clear that the responses
provided in Example 1 and Example 2 are infelicitous as the responses are not what
is usually expected.
Example 1:
A: Will you marry me?
B: # Im hungry.
Example 2:
A: Where do you live?
B: # The food here is delicious.
5.4.4 Grices Maxims

What is usually expected from exchanges in a conversation is governed by
cooperative principles also known as Grices Maxims. When these expectations are
not met, we make inferences about possible meaning of the utterances made.
When we engage in conversation, we are often guided by four maxims of

conversation which form part of the cooperative principle. These maxims are the
maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relevance and maxim of manner
(Grice, 1975). Let us have a look at these in more detail.
(a) Maxim of Quantity

The maxim of quantity dictates that we should provide just enough
information, not too much and not too little. Look at the following exchanges.
Which of the following exchanges flouts this maxim? Both. The first example
gives too little information, while the second one gives too much.
Example 3:
B: In Selangor.
Example 4:
B: In a rented room on the top floor of a beautiful and well-maintained
apartment in Ampang Jaya.

(b) Maxim of Quality

The maxim of quality dictates that we should not lie or make unsupported
claims. This means we should only say what we believe to be the truth or
have evidence to back up its truth. This maxim is flouted if you do not know
but pretend to know.
(c) Maxim of Relevance

This maxim dictates that you say only what is relevant to the topic of the
conversation. Flouting this maxim makes the response infelicitous as
discussed in the previous section.
(d) Maxim of Manner

This maxim dictates that we should be coherent in our contributions. We
should try to be brief, orderly and unambiguous in our speech.
When interpreting responses in a conversation, we assume that these principles

are followed and we make inferences assuming that the speakers are responding
while keeping these principles in mind. For example, refer to Example 3 when the
maxim of quantity is flouted, we may infer that person B is not interested in the
conversation or in disclosing where he or she lives. Similarly, if we look back at
the dialogue of the couple on their first date, the response to what they should
order is not limited to just suggestions of food items but irrelevant disclosure about
the work conditions which can be interpreted as disinterest with the date and
giving an excuse to end the night out early.
When responses are longer than expected, we may also wonder whether the
speaker is trying to conceal some other truths by rattling off on something
irrelevant. We may also infer that the speaker is uncomfortable about something
if some maxim is being flouted. By observing how the principles work and when
and how they are flouted, we can make inferences about what is not said but is
implied.

ACTIVITY 5.6
1. Consider the following conversation. Discuss the pragmatic meaning

that can be inferred from the response given.
Mother: Have you finished your homework?

Son: Today is Saturday.
2. Read the article from Grice (1975) on Logic and Conversation. Make
notes of additional examples about the maxims of conversations. Can
you provide more examples from observations of your own
conversation? The article is available online in the following link:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/studypacks/Grice-Logic.pdf
Meaning is made up of both reference and sense.
Word meaning can be analysed using a set of semantic properties or in terms

of its relation with other words.
Polysemous words are words that share a related sense.
Felicity must be met for speech acts to be performed.
The cooperative principles govern how we engage in conversation.
Inferences can be made when exchanges flout the cooperative principles.

Antonym Literal meaning

Contextual meaning Meronym
Cooperative principle Non-literal meaning
Deictic expression Performatives
Felicity conditions Polysemy
Homographs Reference
Homophones Sense
Hyponym Speech acts
Illocutionary force Synonym
Inferences
Learning.
ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A. (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics
across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press.
Grice, P. H. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgans (Eds.),

Speech Acts. New York, NY: Academic Press.

Bloomsbury.

Topic Sociolinguistics
6
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Identify main types of language varieties;
2. Discuss factors related to language variation;
3. Identify factors that influence language choice; and
4. Explain how language shift and language death occur.
INTRODUCTION
Do all speakers of English use English in the same way? Do foreigners understand
us when we speak English the Malaysian way? In this topic, we will discuss
variations in language use, factors that affect language variation and language
choice. We will also discuss the threat of extinction for some languages and what
linguists are doing to manage the situation.
6.1 LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Language can be viewed from the perspective of how it is used with a particular
group of speakers. This is the perspective taken in sociolinguistics where language
is studied as a social phenomenon. Sociolinguists ask questions like Do speakers
speak the same language in all situations with anyone and about anything?
Take a minute to reflect on your own language use. What would you say to your
close friend if you are hungry around noon? Would you say Lets take a break
and refuel or would you say Would you like to take a break and go for lunch?
Would you ever say Lets go makan? What would influence your choice? We
will now discuss the social factors that influence language use.

84 TOPIC 6 SOCIOLINGUISTICS
6.1.1 Speech Community

All of us belong to a specific speech community depending on the languages that
we know and use. McGregor (2015) defines a speech community as a group of
people who shares the same language or languages and more or less the same
norms of language use. The language norms refer to the general features of the
language use: the pronunciation (accent), lexical items and grammatical structures
that are commonly used by a particular group of speakers.
Variations that occur within a particular language, depending on the geographic

location of the speakers, are called regional variation. American English is
generally different from British and Australian English. Malaysian and
Singaporean English are also different from one another in very subtle ways,
although we may share many similar features. For example, Malaysians as well as
Singaporeans will understand the use of lah and one in the utterance This one
lah. An English speaker from Australia, England or America may stop at just
This one and point at the object referred to or use a completely different
utterance if the intent was to suggest. He or she may say You should use this.
However, Singaporeans may say You ever go there to mean Have you ever
gone there? (Ho & Wong, 2001). The use of ever is not familiar to Malaysian
English speakers.
Variations can be divided using national boundaries but there may be variation
within a particular variety. For example, there are also variations among speakers
of English in different parts of America. The English spoken by Americans living
in the southern states of the US is distinct from those who live in Boston and from
those who live in the Midwest or the West. We will discuss regional variation in
more detail later. For now, it is important to note that our speech may be different
because we are using a regional or local variety of English. Since most Malaysians
speak more than one language, we also belong to more than one speech
community.
6.1.2 Interactive Context

The use of language can also differ depending on the context. Our choice of words
and structures could be different, depending on who we are speaking to and the
social role we play in that interactive context. We may choose to be more formal
and official depending on the social role we are playing in that communication
context. Are we the leader of the group? The head of department? Company
representative? Or a member of the group? Are we expected to be formal in that
communicative context? Our personal identity and how we like others to view us
may also influence the way we choose to speak. Going back to the earlier example,

TOPIC 6 SOCIOLINGUISTICS 85
we may code switch (use two language codes in our utterances) if we know that
our listeners understand Malay or at least the Malay words we use in the utterance.
In our earlier example, we may say Lets go makan if we know our listeners
know the meaning of makan is to eat.
ACTIVITY 6.1
Watch the following TEDtalk about sociolinguistics by Vera Regan and

discuss your findings with your coursemates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAGgKE82034
6.2 SOCIAL VARIETIES AND VARIATION

In this subtopic, we will examine variations resulting from various extra linguistic
factors such as region, socioeconomic status and age. We will examine the
language features of different speech communities defined by influences of these
factors.
6.2.1 Regional Variation

Have you listened to speakers of English from other parts of the world? We may
have difficulty understanding them if they have a very strong accent and if we are
not familiar with that accent. They may also use words that may or may not refer
to the same things we know in Malaysia. In this section, we will examine some
differences in three varieties of English: American English, British English and
Malaysian English. Although there are variations within these regional varieties,
we will focus on differences in the standard varieties. We will discuss differences
in the pronunciation, words and expressions used.
(a) Phonological Variation

One major way American, British and Malaysian English can be
distinguished is in the way some words are pronounced. These differences
affect more than just the words that are listed here: chair, tour, car and park.
The difference is rather systematic as a result of the types of diphthongs and
triphthongs that are found in these varieties of English, and whether or not
they pronounce the /r/ in postvocalic position in the language. Malaysians
often do not pronounce the final /r/ just like some British varieties.
However, we also do not always replace the /r/ with the schwa // as done
in some of these British English dialects. As a result, most Malaysians will

pronounce car as [ka:] and not [ka] and chair as [t:] instead of [t], but
tour as [t] or [tu] and not [t:] or [tu:].
(b) Semantic Variation

Apart from differences in terms of accent, the other most noticeable
difference in regional varieties is the use of specific lexical items. For
example, at a hair salon in the US, a woman may be asked if she wants to
have bangs. However in the UK, you will be asked if you want to have a
fringe. Do you know the meaning of a fringe, or bangs? They refer to the
same thing. Similarly flat is used in the UK, while apartment is used in
the US. In Malaysia we use both, but there is a class difference. Flats are often
cheaper than apartments, while condominiums refer to the more luxurious
living spaces in high rise towers.
(c) Morphological Variation

Malaysian English uses particles such as lah, one, man and what, and the use
of these particles distinguishes Malaysian English from other varieties of
English (Baskaran, 2005). Are you familiar with the use of the following
particles? Have a look at the following examples (Baskaran, 2005):
(1) I told you what, you didnt believe me.

(Dont you remember I told you.)
(2) He wont reach Ipoh tonight, man, how can?

(Im convinced he wont reach Ipoh tonight.)
(3) She very proud one.

(She is a proud character.)
(4) They not Malaysians lah, they Singaporean one.

(For heavens sake, they are not Malaysians; they are all Singaporeans.)
Rowe and Levine (2012) also described how Southerners in the US distinguish you
and yall (short for you all) as singular and plural pronouns when you is used
for both the singular and plural in other varieties of English. Therefore, when
referring to one person or a group of people, we can say You need to do this but
in the Southern states in the US, you would have to say Yall need to do this.

ACTIVITY 6.2
1. Watch this youtube video showcasing impersonation of 30 English

accents. Do you recognise these accents? Do you think the
impersonations were accurate? What were some of the stereotypes
mentioned in the video? You may discuss these points of view in
your online forum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtB1W8zkY5A
2. List some English words that are pronounced or used differently in

Malaysia compared to those used in other parts of the world.
3. Google up descriptions of other regional varieties of English. What

are the features that distinguish these varieties from standard
English varieties in the US and UK?
6.2.2 Social Dialects

Socioeconomic status refers to the social standing of an individual or a group in
society and it is often measured based on income, education and occupation.
Language use can also be described for different social groups identified according
to their socioeconomic status. Sociolinguists often describe language use of the
working class and the middle class. The working class people often have lower
levels of education and they are often engaged in manual or semi-skilled jobs. The
middle class people generally have higher levels of education and they are most
likely engaged in professional jobs. The middle class may also be divided further
to lower-middle class and the upper-middle class. The language use of different
social groups is distinct. William Labov, a renowned sociolinguist, studied
language use of different groups of people in New York City in two different
studies (Labov, as cited in Finegan, 2012). In the first study, he investigated the
pronunciation of postvocalic /r/ among workers in three department stores in the
city which were:
(a) Saks (upper-middle class store);
(b) Macy (middle class store); and
(c) Klein (a lower class discount store).

He examined the pronunciation of the /r/ in words like fourth and floor by
the workers in these three stores. As dropping of the /r/ was considered to be less
prestigious and characteristic of the kind of speech that the people in the lower
socioeconomic standing had, his study showed that workers in the more
prestigious stores retained the /r/ more often than workers in the discount store.
In another study, Labov (1966) also examined the pronunciation of the ing suffix
as [] instead of [n]. His study showed that members in the upper-middle class
pronounced more [] compared to members in the lower-middle class, working
class and lower class. Members in the lower class produced the lowest number of
[] as compared to the other social groups.
6.2.3 Age Related Variation

Another factor that influences language use is age. Different generations of
speakers speak the same language differently. We can see this difference if we
observe changes in the language used in films produced in different time periods.
For example, the language used in films in the 1950s and 1960s are different
compared to current films. Malaysians who love P. Ramlee films can also observe
the difference in the Malay language used then and the Malay language used now
in contemporary films.
We can also study the language used by different generation of speakers within
the same family. Do your grandparents speak the same way as your parents do?
What about the way your parents speak among their peers and the way you speak
with your friends? You may notice that you may make use of more technology
terminologies compared to your parents and your grandparents who grew up
without current modern technologies such as the microwave, the smartphone, the
Internet and social media applications such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Concepts such as friends, like, blog, tweet, WhatsApp and Grab may
not feature in the speech of the older generation who may be less technologically
savvy with social media applications. Concepts of what are polite and impolite
request may also be different.
6.3 REGISTERS
We may choose to speak differently depending on who we are speaking to, what
we are talking about and the setting in which the interaction takes place. These
factors give rise to variations which are referred to as different registers. According
to McGregor (2015), registers are varieties that result from choices made in the way
we use language and these registers include secret varieties and respect varieties.

(a) Secret Varieties

Examples of secret varieties include professional and occupational registers
that are understood by in-group members but not out-group members. Such
varieties are often characterised by use of technical jargons that are only
understood by in-group members. For example, legal language used by
lawyers and other legal professionals typically involves legal jargons and
convoluted sentences that are seldom used in non-legal contexts.
(b) Respect Varieties

When speech is directed to the elders in a community or to people higher in
power or social status, there may be a need to show respect and politeness
by means of the words and the grammatical structures used. In English for
example, the use of please and thank you is the norm in making polite
requests. However, in other languages, more options may be available in the
language to demonstrate respect and politeness. For example, Korean has a
rather complex system of honorific, lexical and grammatical choices to mark
respect.
Look at the options that are available in Korean for the question Do you know?
presented in Table 6.1. In English, we have possibly two or three ways of asking
this question. The other possible way is to request indirectly by saying Tell me if
you know or I wonder if you know. However in Korean, there are many
different ways to say this. Harris (2005) in his book Roadmap to Korean, presents
23 different ways to ask the same question. Let us just examine four examples.
Example (5) is used in formal context that demands a higher degree of politeness.
While, example (6) and (7) may be used in casual speech and example (8) is used
when speaking to young children.
Table 6.1: Formal and Casual Forms of Asking Do You Know in Korean
Do you know Form
(5) al-go kae-sheem-nee-ka? Formal and extremely polite

know honorific
(6) a-ra yo? Polite and common

know honorific
(7) a-ra? Casual and common

Know
(8) a-nee? Casual and common especially to children

Know

ACTIVITY 6.3
Do you know of any other language that has a register for polite speech?
Try to look up information about Javanese and compare that to what is
found in Korean. Are these two languages similar or different in the
registers that are available in the language?
You can find Javanese registers explained in the given site:

http://aboutworldlanguages.com/javanese
6.4 BILINGUALS AND LANGUAGE USE

Bilinguals are people who can speak two or more languages. The way bilinguals
use the languages in their repertoire is also an interesting phenomenon to
sociolinguists. When do bilinguals use one language instead of the other languages
that they know? How do they make decisions about which language to use? What
influences language choice among bilinguals? Do they mix the language codes in
their speech or writing? How and when do they use code mixing and code
switching? These are some questions that will be discussed in this subtopic.
Most of you are likely to be bilingual. If you are reading this, you must know
English and at least one other language. Most Malays know at least two varieties
of Bahasa Malaysia the formal variety or the high variety taught in school and
the colloquial or low variety acquired at home. The high variety is usually used in
a formal context while the low variety is used in informal conversations among
friends and family members. This phenomenon is also known as diglossia and we
say the Malay speaking community in Malaysia is diglossic. Can we also say the
same about the other ethnic groups in Malaysia?
Think about the situations in which you use English and those when you use the
other language or languages that you know. Are there any specific situations or
contexts that influence your language choice? Do you use a particular language
with specific groups of people, or when you talk about specific topics? These
contextual factors that influence language choice are called domains.
I speak Cantonese to my mum, Cantonese and English with my siblings, Hakka to

my late grandmother who knew only Hakka, English and Malay at work with my
colleagues and local students, and only English with international students. With
my multilingual friends, I use Malay, Cantonese or English and I also code-mix
and code-switch in specific situations.

Code-switching refers to the use of two or more languages in an interaction. For

example, I met up with my classmates recently and I found myself sometimes
speaking in Cantonese and sometimes speaking in English. However, when I use
Cantonese, I completed my sentences in Cantonese before mixing my speech with
a different language code. The following utterances are examples of code
switching. There are two sentences in example (9). One sentence is uttered in
Korean while the other is in English. Similarly in example (10), the first sentence is
uttered in Bahasa Malaysia while the second is uttered in English. Switching
involves change of language code above the clause level.
How are you?
(9) Anyong haseyo. Can I speak with Mr. Kim, please?

Peace be with you (honorifics)
(10) Apa khabar? How is everything?

What news
Code-mixing, on the other hand, involves switching to a different language code

within the same clause. For example, it is rather common to find Malaysians using
specific Malay lexical items while speaking in English. Similarly, it is also common
to find English lexical items while speaking in Malay. In example (11), the word
sombong which means proud is a Malay lexical item but it is inserted into an
English utterance. In example (12), the English pronoun I is used instead of its
equivalent saya in Malay. Similarly in example (13), the English pronoun you
is used instead of awak in Malay. These examples are common examples of
code-mixing by Malaysian bilingual speakers.
(11) I told you hes not sombong. You can approach him easily.
(12) Kan I dah cakap awal-awal.

(Havent I warned you earlier).
(13) Jaga diri baik-baik. Jangan nanti you menyesal.

(Take care of yourself. Dont regret it later.)

ACTIVITY 6.4
Record your interaction at work and with your friends. Pay attention to
how you use language in these interactions. Which language did you use
for each exchange? Do you notice any instances of code-mixing and code-
switching? Discuss your observations with your friends on the online
forum.
6.5 LANGUAGE SHIFT AND ENDANGERMENT

Language change is inevitable. All languages undergo change. As society
undergoes change, language use is stretched to accommodate these changes in
society. Take for example, the introduction of the Internet and smartphone
technologies. To keep up with advancement in technology, lexical meanings of
words are stretched to accommodate new needs. New words may be introduced
or borrowed into the language or words may undergo semantic shift to
accommodate the new meaning attached to existing words. For example, look at
how we are using the word like in Facebook. The meaning of like in the
traditional sense has changed. For example, when we like a post or comment on
Facebook, do we necessarily like what is written? Sometimes, we like a post just
to show support and when we do not like the post, we may not dislike
whatever that is posted. We may be just too busy. Similarly, we can also examine
the meaning of friend and befriending in our traditional use of the word and
the current way it is used in Facebook. What does it mean to accept someone as a
friend on Facebook or to unfriend someone on Facebook?
6.5.1 Language Shift

In a bilingual speech community, changes in society may also affect language
choice in the speech community. The use of one language may overshadow the
use of the other languages. When this occurs, we have a language shift, where the
use of one language may be replaced by another language. We see this happening
among the Chinese ethnic communities in Malaysia, where the use of local Chinese
languages is being replaced by the language of instruction in schools, Mandarin
and English. Sim (2012) reports that fewer Chinese ethnic children in Malaysia are
able to understand and speak their heritage languages such as Hokkien,
Cantonese, Teo Chew and Hakka as these languages are not the language of
instruction in Chinese-medium schools.

What causes language shift? Several factors have been identified to have an
influence. Sudden physical and social separation of speakers resulting in reduced
opportunities for interaction may result in the development of new language
varieties as these social groups will develop independently in different directions.
Language shift may also be influenced by higher economic gain and attitudes
towards the use of a particular language or variety. In Malaysia, the use of English
has gained more prestige as compared to the use of other local languages. A good
command of English is perceived as desirable as it gives the students access to
better job opportunities and possibly higher pay and access to higher education
options as the language of instruction in most private tertiary institutions is
English.
6.5.2 Language Death

When language shift affects the whole speech community, we may find one
language being endangered as there are fewer speakers of the language available
to maintain the use of the language. In most cases, language shift occurs gradually.
As the elders in the speech community passes away, the language will eventually
reach a point where no speakers of the language remain. When this happens,
language death occurs.
Language death can also result from natural disasters or war which wipes out the
entire speech community. McGregor (2015) reports two cases of sudden language
deaths. The first occurred in Western China when the Mongolian emperor Genghis
Khan killed the Xixia or Tangut population who spoke a Tibetian-Burman
language. The second example provided was the volcano eruption in Indonesia
which wiped out all the speakers of Tambora that was spoken in the island of
Sumbawa.
In the case of gradual language shift, efforts to prevent language death may be
taken. One of the steps that can be taken is to document these endangered
languages that are at risk so that future effort can be made to maintain or to revive
the use of that language. Documentation of languages involves describing the
sound system, the lexical items and the grammatical system of these endangered
language as well as the cultural context of language use of these languages.

Language variation may result from extralinguistic factors such as region,

socioeconomic status and age.
Regional varieties are characterised by differences in pronunciation (accent),

lexical items and morphology.
Social dialects refer to language norms in different social groups.
Speakers may choose to speak differently depending on who they are speaking
to, what they are talking about and the setting in which the interaction takes
place.
Secret varieties and respect varieties are two examples of registers.
Secret varieties are often characterised by the use of technical jargons that are
only understood by in-group members.
Respect varieties refer to the use of different registers to encode formal features
of language that represent politeness.
Code-switching refers to use of two language codes above the clause level.
Code-mixing is the use of two language codes within the same clause.
Language shift occurs when the use of one language is replaced by another
language.
Factors that influence language shift include sudden physical and social
separation, higher economic gain and attitudes towards the use of a particular
language.
Language death occurs when a language no longer has any speakers.
Documentation of endangered languages is one of the efforts towards

maintaining and reviving language use to prevent language death.

Accents Language documentation

Code-mixing Language shift
Code-switching Regional varieties
Dialectal variation Registers
Diglossia Respect varieties
Endangered languages Secret varieties
Language choice Social varieties
Language death Speech community
Baskaran, L. M. (2005). A Malaysian English primer: Aspects of Malaysian English

features. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: University of Malaya Press.
University Press.
Learning.
Harris, R. (2005). Roadmap to Korean. Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym.
Ho, M. L., & Wong, I. F. H. (2001). The use of ever in Singaporean English. World
Englishes, 20(1), 8779.
Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City.

Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.


Bloomsbury.
Rowe, B. M., & Levine, D. P. (2012). A concise introduction to linguistics. Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Sim, T. W. (2012). Why are the native languages of the Chinese Malaysians in
decline? Journal of Taiwanese Vernacular, 4(1), 6295.

Topic Psycholinguistics
7
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Describe the relation between language and thought;
2. Discuss how language is processed for comprehension and production;
3. Identify brain areas related to language processing; and
4. Distinguish language impairments related to brain damage.
INTRODUCTION
We use language everyday to get things done. We speak, we listen, we read and
possibly write on a daily basis. Nevertheless, how often have we stopped to think
about the processes involved in performing these basic skills? Language use is so
fundamental in human existence that we sometimes take language use for granted
until we lose the ability or we have to deal with someone who has lost this ability.
In this topic, we will discuss the focus of psycholinguistics and examine the
connection between language, cognitive processes and the brain.
7.1 LANGUAGE AND COGNITION

Psycholinguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study and the goals of this field of
study are to understand how people produce and comprehend language, and
acquire or learn language. These processes are also studied by looking at how
language is represented and processed in the brain.

98 TOPIC 7 PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
There is a close association between thought and language, however we can

distinguish them as thought processes are not the same as language processes. We
may think in a particular language and we may convey our thoughts using a
specific language but thought processes are separate from language processes.
How do we know this is indeed the case?
Let us explore some activities that can be done without language. Can we count
without using language? Maybe so and maybe not. However, can we recognise
quantity without language? Can we match or sort objects according to size or
shape or colour without using language? Can we perform some mental task
without using language? Can we gesture to communicate without using language?
Can we guess the intent of a gesture without understanding the language in a
foreign language context or in a noisy environment when we cannot hear what
was said? Have you visited a gallery or a museum just to look at the displays and
appreciate things with only a smile on your face and not say anything? Have you
experienced a feeling or a sensation but you do not have the words to describe it?
These are some examples of cognitive processes that are not necessarily associated
with language unless you start to attach words to these experiences.
Studies on language impairment also provide evidence that thought and language
can be disassociated. Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), for
example have difficulty in learning language but their performance in non-verbal
intelligence tests and cognitive tasks is within the normal range. On the other
hand, there are children who have been diagnosed with Williams Syndrome who
have difficulty with cognitive tasks but have good language skills.
As language use interacts with the cognitive system, we will now turn our
attention to general cognitive processes to understand what these are. It is
important to understand that cognitive processes can operate independently
without language although most of the time, they tend to overlap because
language use is so basic to our daily life.
Let us begin by trying out a simple exercise. Take a deep breath, be silent for a
moment. You may close your eyes and just pay attention to your surroundings.
What do you notice? You may notice the noise in your surroundings, maybe the
fan or noise from the air conditioner or your friends who are still talking. You may
hear an occasional notification from a friends smartphone. You may hear yourself
wondering what this is all about. You may feel tension in your body. You may
even feel discomfort because it is hot or maybe your sitting posture is not
comfortable. You may feel some sensation on your skin. Maybe an itch here and
there. You may be worried about something in recalling a past event that
happened. You may be daydreaming, feeling sleepy or bored. You may be feeling
happy, or sad or just restless wondering what this is all about and when you can

TOPIC 7 PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 99
open your eyes. Some of these experiences involve language but some are simply
felt without language unless you start to label your experience with words.
Cognitive processes involve mental processes. What cognitive processes have you
experienced in this exercise? Are the following some of your answers? Sensory
perception, noticing, knowing, recognition, attention and recall of past events or
experiences. Most of these cognitive processes are also involved when processing
language information.
ACTIVITY 7.1
Watch the following video on Williams syndrome and Specific Language

Impairment (SLI) and cognitive processes. Discuss what you found
interesting when watching these videos and share it with your
coursemates.
(a) Where everybody wants to be your friend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF4DiqEdN3w
(b) What is SLI?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqu7w6t3Rmo
(c) Sophies Story: SLI in adulthood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvDuMr47rcs
(d) 10 cognitive process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RepGFwCFI1w
7.2 LANGUAGE AND PROCESSING

In psycholinguistics, we are interested in building models of mental
representations of the grammar and the lexicon that underlie language use. In
order to understand the processes involved in language processing,
psycholinguists also develop models that explain how the grammar and lexicon
are accessed in speech perception and production. We will now discuss what is
involved in speech perception, sentence processing and speech production.

7.2.1 Speech Perception

Have you tried listening to a speech in foreign language? What makes
comprehension of foreign speech difficult? Can you tell where the words begin
and where they end? This is a basic problem which must be solved during speech
perception. Speech processing is not a trivial process. There are three reasons why
this process is difficult.
(a) The speech signal is continuous. There are some pauses in the speech stream
but they do not necessarily coincide with word boundaries. Listener needs
to be able to segment the speech stream to identify the phonemes, syllables
and words from the speech stream.
(b) The physical characteristics of the speech segments may differ depending on
which sound segment is in their neighbourhood. We do not notice these
differences but these differences are in the sound waves. For example, when
you say see and so, do you realise that the way you are pronouncing [s]
is different in these two words? Say them in front of a mirror and pay
attention to your lips. Do you know why you pronounce the same sounds
differently? This difference is related to the vowel that occurs after [s]. If you
pronounce only the vowels in see and so, you will notice a difference in
your lip shape. When we pronounce [s] in so, we are already getting the
lips ready to pronounce the vowel. This phenomenon is called coarticulation.
Since coarticulation is common in speech, we have parallel transmission of
information about the consonant and the vowel in the speech signal, which
makes speech recognition more complex.
(c) There is also variability resulting from different speakers. We have our own
unique pitch range and rate of speech. Depending on the variety of language
spoken, there are also differences in the way we pronounce certain speech
sounds. The speech sounds that are produced by different speakers are
different, yet we can ignore these differences and focus on extracting the
needed information to construct the meaning in the message.
Despite speech perception being a complex process, we seem to be able to do this

effortlessly once we have acquired the language. What makes speech perception
seem like an easy process? There is a lot of variability in the speech stream but we
do not need to pay attention to all these differences. We will now discuss the
specific processes that facilitate speech perception.

(1) Categorical Perception

We categorise speech sounds according to specific acoustic criteria. For
example, the difference between a voiced and voiceless stop is made by
paying attention to the range of voice onset time (VOT). Voice onset time is
the time taken after the release of the stop and the initial vibration of the vocal
chords for the production of the vowel. Voiced stops involve vibration of the
vocal chords, however voiceless stops do not. The VOT for [b] could be
between the range of 0 to 20 ms while the VOT for [p] could be between 60
to 80 ms for English native speakers. In an experiment where the value of
VOT is manipulated, and we hear syllables or words with different
increments of VOT, we do not hear the difference in the VOT. When asked
to make a decision between the two categories, when the VOT of the segment
is between 30 to 50 ms, we may have less agreement about the category of
the sound presented as it lies near the boundary. Any VOT values before the
boundary will be identified as [b] while those with VOT after the boundary
will be identified as [p].
(2) Constructive Speech Perception

Another reason why speech perception seems to be an easy process is
explained by the way we attend to incoming speech information. We do not
just rely on information in the speech signal. We also rely on our world
knowledge about the topic of conversation and what words are expected to
be used within a particular context. In order words, when we listen to speech,
we are not passive listeners. We are actively reconstructing the message
based on the incoming speech signal using our knowledge about the speech
context. Speech perception involves both bottom-up and top-down
information processing. The bottom-up process uses information from the
speech signal and the phonemes that are retrieved by categorical perception.
The top-down process uses our world knowledge to predict words that may
be relevant to the speech context. The top-down process speeds up lexical
search as we match incoming information to our predictions. That is why we
can still comprehend speech in a noisy environment as we tend to fill up the
blanks in the incoming speech signal.
ACTIVITY 7.2
What do the following experiences tell you about speech perception?
(a) Our ability to complete the sentence of the speaker before he

finishes saying the sentence.
(b) Miscommunication resulting from differences in accented speech.

7.2.2 Sentence Processing

In the previous section, we discussed the processes involved in speech recognition
that enabled the words in the speech stream to be identified. Speech
comprehension does not stop there. We need to understand how the words are
related to construct the message. Look at the example of sentences as follows. The
words used are very similar, however the meaning that is conveyed is different
depending on how the words are related to other words in the sentence. Can you
explain the difference in meaning?
(1) (a) Jane heard the boy snoring in class.

(b) Jane heard the boy was snoring in class.
The two sentences in (1) differ only in the function of the phrase snoring in class.
In sentence (1a), the phrase snoring in class gives you more information about
what Jane heard. Jane heard the physical sound of snoring from the boy. However,
in sentence (1b), with the addition of the copula be verb, the phrase snoring in
class is describing what the boy is doing and it is embedded in a dependent
clause. Somebody reported to Jane that the boy was snoring in class. How can we
get these two different meaning? Obviously, we need to construct different
representation of the words extracted from the incoming speech signal. We refer
to this process as parsing. Parsing is done as the words are being extracted from
the speech signal. At the point when the phrase the boy is recovered from the
speech signal, the same structure may be built for both sentences. The NP the
boy may be parsed as the object of the verb heard. However, when the copula
be verb was enters the process, the structure has to be reanalysed. The parser
has to build a complex sentence structure and the NP the boy needs to be the
subject of the embedded clause.
These types of sentences show how we may need to reparse our sentences to get
the intended interpretation. Another example that shows the involvement of
parsing in sentence comprehension are garden path sentences such as those shown
in (2).

Sentence (2a) is the garden path sentence as the listener may misinterpret the verb
raced as the main verb of the sentence until the second verb, fell is
encountered. This sentence is possible because English allows for relative clauses
to be reduced resulting in ambiguity in interpreting the verb raced as the verb
of the main clause. When the second verb fell is encountered, it becomes clear
that the first verb cannot be the main verb but the verb of the embedded clause.
There is no ambiguity in reading sentence (2b) as the use of that clearly indicates
the structure of the relative clause.
(2) (a) The horse raced past the barn fell.

(b) The horse that was raced past the barn fell.
ACTIVITY 7.3
Look at the following sentences.
(a) The teacher said the boy hit the girl.
(b) The teacher said the boy was hit by the girl.
Can you point out the difference in the meaning expressed? Explain what
interpretation must be given to the NP the boy in the two sentences. If
you stop reading when you get to the NP the boy, do you have a strong
preference to make the NP the boy the agent of the embedded verb?
Discuss why you think this may be the case.
7.2.3 Speech Production and Perception Models

So far, we have discussed the processes involved in speech perception and
sentence processing. We will now look at speech production. The processes
involved in speech production can be said to be the reverse of speech perception.
In comprehending speech, we segment speech signals, find the words in the
speech signal and parse the words in the speech signal to construct the intended
message. In speech production, we start off by conceptualising the message. Then,
we select words from our lexicon and construct the sentence structure to encode
the message. With the words inserted, the phonological representation of what we
want to say is sent off to our articulation system which then articulates this
message.

The diagram in Figure 7.1 and 7.2 summarise the processes involved in speech
perception and speech production. Do we have any evidence that these processes
actually take place? How do we know we actually parse words to build a syntactic
representation of what we want to convey?
Figure 7.1: Processes involved in encoding speech

Source: Adapted from Fernndez and Cairns (2011)
Figure 7.2: Processes involved in decoding speech

Source: Adapted from Fernndez and Cairns (2011)
How do we know the model presented in Figure 7.1 represents the process that is
involved in speech perception and production? We may have some intuition about
some of these processes but the rest of them are not accessible to the conscious
knowledge. For example, we know that we have to conceptualise what we want
to say. We may have experiences when we are so dumbfounded by what we see
or hear that we do not know how to respond. On the other hand, you may have
experienced an episode when you were very angry with someone. Eventhough
you knew exactly what you wanted to say, you chose to keep it to yourself as to
avoid from anyone getting hurt. These types of experiences provide some evidence
for the different stages involved in speech production where conceptualisation is
the initial process and articulation is the final process. However, we do not have
explicit knowledge of the process involved in lexical search and parsing.
Evidence for these processes comes from observations of speech errors. We do not
make bizarre speech errors. Analysis of speech errors show they are rather
systematic and they provide evidence that syntactic representation is constructed
before phonological representations of the utterance is made. For example,
Fernandez and Cairns (2011) reported the following production errors.
(3) whipped cream and mushrooms

Intended utterance: whipped cream and strawberries
(4) All I want is something for my elbows.

Intended utterance: All I want is something for my shoulders.
(5) We roasted a cook.

Intended utterance: We cooked a roast.
In utterance (3) mushrooms were uttered instead of strawberries. Notice both

words are edible food items. In sentence (4) elbows are replaced by shoulders.
Both words are body parts. In both examples, the words that were uttered in error
were semantically related to the intended word. They are also similar in terms of
the grammatical structure (both are plurals) and are structurally similar to the
intended words. Nouns replaced nouns. However, the production error in
sentence (5) is an interesting example. It provides evidence that syntactic structure
and lexical insertion takes place before phonological representations are built. The
words that got switched are roast and cook. Notice both verbs can function as verb
or noun in its bare form. The function is determined by the position that it occupies
in the sentence. This example also suggests that lexical insertion occurred before
morphological rules were applied. Otherwise, the expected error would have been
We roast a cooked, but we rarely get this type of error.
ACTIVITY 7.4
Discuss in the online forum the types of production errors you have
encountered among Malaysian speakers of English. Do they also show
the same similarities as those described in this topic? Do you find slips
of the tongue that involve replacements with words that are similar in
semantics and syntactic categories?

7.3 LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

The brain is an important organ as it controls almost everything we do daily.
Language use is one of these functions. We will now turn our attention to the role
of the brain in language processing.
7.3.1 Physical Features of the Brain

The brain, as shown in Figure 7.3 consists of three major parts: the cerebrum,
cerebellum and the brainstem. The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain and
this is the part that looks like a walnut. It can be divided to two halves: the left and
the right hemispheres. Each hemisphere can be further divided into four different
lobes: the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe and the occipital lobe.
Each lobe is responsible for processing of different kinds of information. For
example, the frontal lobe processes information for speech production. The
temporal lobe manages perception and auditory information. On the other hand,
the occipital lobe processes visual information.
Figure 7.3: Anatomy of the brain

Source: Adapted from MedlinePlus (2017)
The left and right hemispheres are connected by the corpus callosum which
consists of bundles of nerve fibres. The brain is covered by a thick layer of
membrane which is called the cortex. Specific parts of the brain cortex are often
referred to the function that it performs. For example, Figure 7.3 also shows the
location of the visual cortex (occipital lobe), the motor cortex (frontal lobe), the
somatic sensory cortex (parietal lobe) and the auditory cortex (Wernickes area).
7.3.2 Lateralisation
Lateralisation refers to the localisation of cognitive functions to either the left or
the right hemisphere of the brain. For example, for most individuals who are right-
handed, the left hemisphere is more dominant for language processing and
analytic reasoning. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, is dominant for
processing music and performing tasks that involves visual and spatial
information.
Evidence for lateralisation of brain functions come from the discovery of two
specific language centres: Brocas area and Wernickes area that is predominantly
located in the left hemisphere of the brain. The Brocas area is the centre
responsible for speech production. Damage to the Brocas area will result in
Brocas aphasia, a form of language impairment that is associated with difficulty
in producing fluent speech. The speech produced by a Brocas aphasic patient
consists mainly of lexical items. Therefore, Brocas aphasia is also referred to as
agrammatic aphasia as grammar is often absent in the speech of these patients.
The other language centre is Wernickes area and it is called the speech
comprehension centre. Patients with Wernickes aphasia have fluent speech,
however they have difficulty understanding others and others have difficulty
understanding them too as their speech often do not make sense. You should
watch the videos provided in the links in Activity 7.5 to get a better idea of these
characteristics of speech in these two types of aphasia.

ACTIVITY 7.5
Have you encountered anyone who has suffered from aphasia due to
brain trauma or stroke? Watch the following videos on Brocas aphasia
and Wernickes aphasia. Discuss with your coursemates the differences
or similarities of symptoms seen between each patient shown in the
videos.
(a) Brocas aphasia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocIUW3E-go
(b) Wernickes aphasia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTdMV6cOZw
7.3.3 Brain Imaging Techniques

Let us now discuss two brain imaging techniques that are non-invasive and that
have been used to understand language processing. These two brain imaging
techniques complement one another as one method is good for localisation of brain
function while the other is excellent for identifying time related sequencing in
language processing.
(a) Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine is a gigantic magnet and it
is used to measure blood flow in the brain to identify different parts of the
brain that is involved in specific language processing. The principles behind
this method of imaging depends on the assumption that more oxygen is
consumed by the specific part of the brain that is responsible for processing
specific information and this increased demand for oxygen results in
increased blood flow to the specific region of the brain. This imaging
technique is excellent for locating specific brain area responsible for specific
processing. However, it is not efficient in tracking changes in the time course
taken by different processes involved in language processing.
(b) Electroencephalography (EEG)

The second type of brain imaging technique which is also non-invasive
involves tapping into event related potentials (ERPs) using the
electroencephalography (EEG) machine. An EEG machine measures
electrical activity of neurons in the brain which is captured by electrodes
placed on the scalp. These electrical responses (amplitude of voltage and
direction, either positive or negative) are captured while subjects are

presented with a language task either aurally or visually. There are well-
documented responses that relate to semantic and syntactic anomaly.
Examples of sentence pairs that show semantic and syntactic anomaly are
shown in the following example Sentences (6) from Osterhout and Nicol (as
cited in Fernandez & Cairns, 2011). The first sentence (6a) is grammatical.
However, sentence (6b) is semantically anomalous (semantically odd) while
(6c) is syntactically anomalous (ungrammatical).
(6) (a) The cat wont eat.

(b) The cat wont bake.
(c) The cat wont eating.
Difference in electrical responses can be detected at about 400 ms after the

presentation of the word eat or bake. A difference is also registered at about
600 ms after the presentation of the word eat and eating. These responses are
called the N400 (semantic anomaly) and P600 (syntactic anomaly) and these are
the known event related potentials that are used to examine other effects during
language processing.
ACTIVITY 7.6
Go to the following link and find out how fMRI works. Discuss your
answers with your coursemates.
(a) https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/divisions/fmrib/what-is-fmri/
introduction-to-fmri/
(b) https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/divisions/fmrib/what-is-fmri/a-
spin-around-the-brain

Psycholinguists are interested in building models of mental representations of

the grammar and the lexicon that underlie language use.
Language processes and thinking are closely associated but they can be
dissociated.
Specific Language Impairment (SLI) is a language impairment. Children with

SLI have deficits in language processing but they have normal IQ.
Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects cognitive processing but

leaves language processing intact.
Speech perception is difficult because the speech stream is continuous and

there is coarticulation in human speech.
Variability in the speech signal comes from coarticulation effects, variation

between speakers and noise in the environment.
Speech perception involves both bottom-up and top-down processing of

information.
Listeners use world knowledge and knowledge of the language to aid lexical
search and reconstruct the representation of information from the incoming
speech signal.
Speech production involves conceptualisation of ideas, lexical selection,

construction of syntactic, phonological representations and articulation to
produce speech.
Production errors are systematic and they provide evidence for

representations built in the planning of speech.
The brain is divided into three parts: cerebrum, cerebellum and brainstem.
The cerebrum consists of two hemispheres which are connected by the corpus
callosum.
Each hemisphere consists of four lobes: frontal, temporal, parietal and

occipital.

The frontal lobe controls speech production; the temporal lobe controls
perception and recognition; and the occipital lobe processes visual
information.
The Brocas area and Wernickes area are usually located in the left hemisphere
for most people.
Damage to the Brocas area result in difficulty to produce fluent speech and
process grammar.
Brocas aphasia is also referred to as agrammatic aphasia.
Damage to the Wernickes area result in difficulty with comprehension and

meaningful production of speech. Speech production is fluent but incoherent.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) are two

non-invasive brain imaging techniques.
Functional MRI tracks blood flow in the brain and it provides reliable
information about the location of specific processes in the brain.
EEG captures electrical activity of neurons from electrodes placed on the scalp.
Event related potentials (ERPs) provide reliable temporal information about

specific brain responses to visual and auditory stimuli during language
processing.
Aphasia Lateralisation
Bottom-up processing Lexical search
Brocas aphasia Localisation
Categorical perception Parsing
Coarticulation Sentence processing
Event related potentials Top-down processing
Functional MRI Wernickes aphasia
Language and thought Word recognition

University Press.
Fernndez, E. M., & Cairns, H. S. (2011). Fundamentals of psycholinguistics.

Chichester, West Sussex: Blackwell.

Bloomsbury.
MedlinePlus. (2017). Brain: Medical encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://

medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/1074.htm

Topic Language
Acquisition
8
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Describe the milestones of language development for children;
2. Discuss how children learn language;
3. Elaborate on the similarities and differences between first and second
language acquisition; and
4. Explain factors that influence second language acquisition.
INTRODUCTION
Have you interacted with infants and toddlers? I am sure you would speak with
them but do you know if they could understand what you were saying and when
they would begin to understand language? Have you noticed that when children
start to speak, they are often difficult to understand? Parents and caretakers are
better at guessing what they are trying to say. We will discuss how language is
acquired in this topic. We will start with first language acquisition by looking at
the developmental milestones that children go through. Then we will discuss
second language acquisition and child bilingualism which is becoming more
common these days before discussing factors that influence second language
acquisition.

114 TOPIC 8 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
8.1 FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

All children will acquire at least one language if they are not born with any
language impairments. Just like children naturally learning to sit up and crawl,
stand, walk and run without anyone actually teaching them how to do so, they
also acquire the language in their environment in a natural way. Most children will
be able to speak by the age of four or five but no child is born to read and write.
Speaking and listening is acquired naturally by children, however effort and
instruction is needed for the development of reading and writing. That is why the
term language development is used when we talk about a childs ability to speak
and comprehend spoken language, but we use the term literacy development to
talk about the childs ability to read and write.
Let us now examine the general language development milestones that children
go through. Most of the language development milestones are described in terms
of speech production. Comprehension of language is trickier to assess as we need
to infer from the childs nonverbal responses such as gaze, head turns, facial
reactions and gestures to determine if he or she has understood what is said. For
this reason, we will discuss the language development milestones together with
some cognitive development milestones as the latter gives us clues about
comprehension of speech for young infants. Although the examples provided in
the discussion here mainly refers to the English language, all children of diverse
background will go through very similar stages regardless of which language is
being acquired.
8.1.1 The Cooing and Babbling Stage

Some linguists refer to this stage as the prelinguistic stage as the child has not
begun to produce adult-like language. However, this does not mean the child does
not understand language yet. Cooing begins as early as around two months. This
is when the child vocalises syllables such as [gu:] in a repeated manner. Notice, the
consonant is a velar consonant and the vowel is a back vowel. Do you know why
most infants start with these consonants? At this stage, the infant is unable to hold
the weight of his or her head because the neck muscles are still not strong enough.
Infants at this stage are carried with neck support and are always in a reclining
position either in a crib on a mattress or an infant seat. The infant has already
started experimenting with vocalisations which requires control of the airstream
but he or she has yet got the strength to move the tongue muscles to a more
forward position.

TOPIC 8 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 115
As the child grows older and is able to sit up by six months, the child will begin to
produce a wider range of consonants and vowels. This is when canonical babbling
which involves production of the same CV (C = consonant, V = vowel) sequences
such as [ba:ba:ba:] and [da:da:da:] starts to appear. Notice the syllables are still
duplicates of the same kind. When the child starts to produce combinations of
different CV sequences, we say the child is at the variegated babbling stage.
Examples of production at this stage include sequences of syllables such as
[bagadabibu] and adults often think that the child is trying to speak but we cannot
make out the words yet.
8.1.2 The Holophrastic or One-word Stage

By the time the child celebrates his or her first birthday, the child will know a few
words and is able to produce some of them although the words may not sound
very adult like yet. For example, we would expect the child to be able to call out
for his mother with [ma] or [mama] and may be able to request for milk or food by
saying [mm.mm]. At this stage, these one word utterances can convey various
meaning. The child could be pointing to the dog and say [wowo] which is quite
common for a child who speaks Cantonese. The one word utterance could mean
Thats a wowo or it could be a request to get the toy dog I want the doggie. At
this stage, the childs utterance is made up of mostly lexical items that are objects
in his or her surroundings. Kinship terms such as daddy, mommy are common
words uttered. Words referring to objects such as toys and place names are also
common. Studies have shown that early words include nouns such as ball,
doggie, kitty, teddy, car and train as well as words for food items such
as milk, cookie, bread and soup, not to mention verbs such as want and
go. Some function words may also be used such as up and out, as the child
may make requests to be picked up or be taken out for a walk. These early words
are words that are frequently used in interaction between the child and the
caretaker and it involves objects that are found in their immediate environment.
8.1.3 Two-word Stage

By the time, a child reaches about 18 months, the child may start to put two words
together. For example, the child may say more cookie or want ball. What
would a Malay child say at this stage? What would a child who speaks Mandarin
or Cantonese at home say at this stage? At this stage, syntax is said to be emerging.
Childrens utterances are beginning to take the shape of phrases that are
permissible in the language they are acquiring. Clearer distinction of meaning are
conveyed using different combinations of two words. For example, the two words
may indicate actor-action (for example, daddy eat), subject-location (for
example, teddy bed), action-action/activity (for example, go walk).

8.1.4 Telegraphic Stage

Children start to utter multiple word utterances in their third year. An example of
possible utterances at this stage is Mommy like teddy to mean Mommy likes
teddy and Daddy eat cookie to mean Daddy is eating the cookie. Notice at
this stage, the utterances are telegraphic like with mainly lexical words and hardly
any grammatical morphemes or function words. As the child develops further,
other function words such as articles, prepositions and the plural and past tense
inflections will gradually begin to appear in the childs utterances.
8.1.5 Basic Mastery

The child will acquire basic mastery in the language by the age of four or five.
Some children start attending playschool or kindergarten around the age of three
or four. This is when they can understand and follow a sequence of instructions.
Children will begin learning to read and write and they will soon begin to recall
sequence of events and will be able to follow and recall stories and make up
imaginary tales too.
ACTIVITY 8.1
Watch the following video about developmental milestones for children.

Apart from language development, the video discusses other cues that
can be used to assess a childs development? Discuss what these are in
the online forum.
(a) Developmental Milestones: Baby Talk from First Sounds to First

Words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7WAfwKi88Q
(b) Baby and Toddler Milestones by Dr. Lisa Shulman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZSjm0drIGM
8.2 HOW CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE

Linguists and developmental psychologists have been intrigued with how
children go about learning their mother tongue. We will review proposals about
how children learn their mother tongue and consider the merit and weaknesses of
each proposal.

8.2.1 Conditioned-response Learning

In the 1950s, behaviourist psychologists argued that humans learn everything in
the same way, through conditioned-response. To understand how conditioned
response learning is applied to language learning, let us begin with an
understanding of what conditioning means. Conditioning is what happens when
we associate a specific stimulus in the environment to an expected response. The
classic example of conditioning is the association made between a natural stimulus
(presence of food) with a natural response (salivating). Ivan Pavlov showed that
the natural response can be associated with a conditioned stimulus (for example,
ringing of a bell) if the natural stimulus is presented simultaneously and
repeatedly with the conditioned stimulus. The dog will salivate when only the
conditioned stimulus (ringing of the bell) is presented. We say the dog has been
conditioned to associate the ringing of the bell to expect presentation of food.
Therefore, the natural response (salivating) is present when they hear the bell
without smelling or seeing food. Figure 8.1 demonstrates Pavlovs theory about
conditioning.
Figure 8.1: Pavlovs theory about conditioning a dog to

associate the ringing of a bell to expect the presence of food
Source: Harris (2006)
How do we apply this reasoning to language learning? Children will associate the
use of language with their specific experience of the world. For example, a child
may eventually associate hearing the word milk, to seeing milk in the bottle and
being fed milk. As mentioned earlier, early words are nouns in the childs
immediate environment, such as kinship terms (mommy and daddy), food items
(milk, cookie and bread) and toys (ball, car and teddy). Early verbs that are
acquired are also associated with activities that involve activities done with or by
the child, for example drink, eat, sleep, give, want, pee and poo.
Apart from classical conditioning, behaviourist psychologists also propose operant

conditioning and they argue that the association between conditioned stimulus and
responses are strengthened or weakened with positive and negative feedback. When
the correct association is made, the child receives positive feedback in the form of
smiles, praises and other forms of positive responses. However, when an
inappropriate association is made, negative or no responses may follow. Positive
and negative feedback provide reinforcement for learning to gradually take place.
8.2.2 Imitation
Another strategy that is proposed to assist child language acquisition is the use of
imitation. Children are very good imitators. They observe what adults do and
imitate their behaviour. Children learn their mother tongue by listening to the
language spoken by their caregivers and reproduce speech by imitating what is
said around them. This strategy explains why children can learn any language in
their environment and they are not limited to the languages spoken by their
parents as the language learnt is not hard-coded in their genes. Therefore, a Malay
child can grow up learning Chinese, Russian or English if they have enough
exposure to these languages in their environment. The child may not speak Malay
unless his or her parents or caregiver speaks Malay to him or her.
This strategy has some merits in explaining how children learn language from
their environment but it does not explain why the childs language is different
from the language adult speakers use. A childs early words are often different
from those produced by an adult. For example, they may say [wawa] for water,
[nana] for banana, [bd] for bread and [nk] for snake. Furthermore, children who
are acquiring English often overgeneralise past tense inflections for irregular
verbs. Children were found to produce go-ed instead of went and hitted
instead of hit. Adults do not make these mistakes. Clearly, these overgeneralised
forms are not learnt by imitating adult speech.
The earlier two strategies that were proposed to explain child language acquisition
have been criticised by linguists such as Noam Chomsky. Chomsky argued that
the mechanisms that underlie learning a language have to be rather different from
the strategies that are used to learn non-language skills. The conditioned-response
learning theory and imitation theory could work rather well for acquisition of
word meaning. However, it falls short when we try to apply it to explain the
development of syntax. Children are seldom corrected when their speech is not
adult like. Adults and caregivers do not make errors that children produce such as

go-ed and hitted. Several studies have shown that even when adults try to
correct the errors in a childs speech, the child may not be able to make the
necessary correction.
For example, my sister tried to correct her sons pronunciation when he was two
years old. He could repeat after his mother and pronounce the following words
rather accurately in Cantonese: mama, papa, popo, koko. However, he
had difficulty with certain words such as yima [jima] which means mothers
older sister or aunt. Instead, he would either pronounce [jida] despite several
attempts to correct his pronunciation. He eventually moved on to pronounce the
word as [mima] before correctly pronouncing it six months later. McNeill (as cited
in McGregor, 2015) provided the following example which shows the futility of
attempts to correct a childs utterance, and in this example, the focus is not on
pronunciation but on syntax. The child persisted in the use of double negatives
despite attempts from the mother to correct this.
Child: Nobody dont like me.

Mother: No, say Nobody likes me.
Child: Nobody dont like me.
(Eight repetitions of this dialogue.)
Mother: No, now listen carefully: say Nobody likes me.

Child: Oh! Nobody dont likes me.
8.2.3 Hypothesis Testing and Learning from Analogy

The observation that children make overgeneralisation errors such as go-ed and
hitted for the past tense forms of irregular verbs such as go and hit suggests
that children have wrongly applied the rule of adding ed to all verbs. The fact that
children can recover from this error to correctly apply the ed suffix to only regular
verbs suggests that children must be able to form a hypothesis about the grammar
of their mother tongue, test and correct the hypothesis to arrive at a more accurate
version of the grammar.
While this proposal seems plausible, it has been criticised as well as the accuracy
of the hypothesis formed depends on the ability of the child to extract the right
kinds of information from the language input to form the right hypothesis. How
do children know what to pay attention to within such a short period of exposure
to the language when linguists who have worked with a particular language for
years may still have difficulty figuring out how a particular language works?
Children are also not trained to look for specific information in the language. We

can be exposed to a specific language as an adult for many years and still not be
able to comprehend and speak the language like a child. Surely, there must be
more to the language acquisition process than just finding patterns of rules from
exposure to the language that is spoken.
Moreover, children do not make bizarre errors. Even the type of possible errors in
child speech seems to be restricted. Children and adults also have intuitions about
what are ungrammatical or impossible sequences of words in their mother tongue,
even though they may have never heard those sentences before. Due to these
observations, some linguists argue that conditioning, reinforcement and imitation
cannot explain all aspects of first language acquisition. Instead, linguists such as
Noam Chomsky and cognitive psychologists, Steven Pinker have argued that
language is specific to the human species and children are born with a
predisposition to acquire their mother tongue from exposure to language spoken
in their home environment. This proposal is also called the innateness hypothesis.
8.2.4 Innate Predisposition to Learn Language

Noam Chomsky proposed that children are born with a language acquisition
device (LAD) which is already pre-wired with general principles that constraints
the type of grammars that can be acquired. These general principles are also called
Universal Grammar (UG). Universal Grammar is like a master key. Just like a
master key is able to open all locks, UG principles apply to all languages of the
human species.
The innateness theory or hypothesis argues that children do not need to build the
grammar of the mother tongue from scratch. Children only need to pay attention
to specific information guided by knowledge about language (Universal
Grammar) that is already pre-wired in their brain. This way, the child would be
able to attend to the right types of information and would be able to figure out the
grammar of their mother tongue in a relatively short period of time. We can think
of it as completing an essay by filling in the blanks that have been identified. Surely
this is easier than having to write the essay from scratch. This proposal also
explains why children do not make bizarre errors as the errors are also constrained
by the way language works in general. This theory also explains why children can
acquire their mother tongue within a short period of time. Going back to the same
example of completing an essay by just filling in the blanks, the errors that are
possible are also restricted to the available blanks and the way these blanks are
interpreted. You will be able to complete the essay quickly than if you had to write
every word in the essay.

ACTIVITY 8.2
Does talking to children affect language acquisition? Watch the following

video on this issue and discuss with your coursemates on your observation
of practices in your family and other families in your country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpHwJyjm7rM
8.3 SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Most Malaysians know more than one language. Some may learn two languages
simultaneously at home as their parents may be bilinguals who speak both
languages at home. Some may learn one language from their parents and another
from their caregivers. Children may start to learn a second language only when
they start school or kindergarten.
Before we examine the processes involved in second language acquisition, let us

try to examine how to identify a second language. First, try to identify your mother
tongue. This will be the language you speak and hear from birth. If you grew up
with your parents, with either your mother or father as the primary caregiver, your
mother tongue is most likely the language spoken by your mother, your father or
both.
Most Malaysians will know and speak more than one language. Furthermore, with
interethnic marriages being common, more so in Sabah and Sarawak, we may have
a mixture of languages being used in the home environment. More affluent
families who engage domestic helpers from Indonesia, the Philippines, or
Cambodia may have the influence of other varieties of English or other languages
such as Malay and Indonesian Malay being used in the home environment. If a
child grows up speaking two or more languages from birth, they are native
bilinguals. However, if you speak only one language at home and learnt the other
language(s) in kindergarten or school, then your second language is the language
learnt at school. For most Malaysians, that language is likely to be English or
Malay.
A second language refers to the language that is learnt after having gained some
mastery of the mother tongue. You can try to compare what you can remember
about learning your mother tongue and the second language. Did you learn a
second language in the same way as you did with your mother tongue? Can you
remember how you learnt your mother tongue? What about your second

language? Do you remember how easy or difficult it was to learn your second
language? How proficient are you in the second language?
8.3.1 First Language versus Second Language

Learning
Do we learn a second language in the same way as we do with our mother tongue?
Are the processes involved in first language acquisition the same as those involved
in second language acquisition? These are the questions that will be discussed in
this section. Let us start by examining the difference between first and second
language learning.
The first obvious difference is that with the first language or the mother tongue, the
child starts without knowing any language. However, in most cases, a child or an
adult would have mastered the first language initially before learning the second
language. Hence, he or she can already communicate in one language. Learning a
second language involves learning a different language code. The other obvious
difference is that the first language is often acquired from birth within the first few
years of life. Furthermore, the child is never taught the first language. It is always
learnt in a naturalistic environment through interaction with the first language.
The second language on the other hand, can be learnt early or late during
adulthood. The purpose for learning the second language could also vary. Some
learn it naturally as it is the language used in their interaction with friends and
family or in school. On the other hand, others learn it as a subject in school or
possibly in a foreign language course. The context in which the second language
is learnt can also vary considerably. Some students may be immersed in the second
language as is the case of migration to a country that uses the second language.
Some may only have exposure to the language in the classroom. Even when the
context of learning is very similar, there is also a lot of variability within a group
of second language learners. Some second language learners are more successful
than others in learning the language. Success in learning the second language is
also influenced by non-linguistics factors such as aptitude and motivation. Due to
the variability in the context for second language learning, it can be difficult to
compare progress made by different groups of second language learners or
between different individuals within the same group as individual variability also
exists.
Nevertheless, the language properties of the second language acquired can often
be described in the following ways:
(a) Second language speech is different from native speech. This difference is
sometimes referred to as foreign accented speech;

(b) Second language speech and writing may have more grammatical errors as
some second language learners do not achieve mastery in the language;
(c) Some second language learners take a very long time to learn the
grammatical system of the second language, and they may only reach a
certain level of proficiency as learning a second language may take
considerably more effort and time for most learners; and
(d) Second language learners performance may be different from native

speakers of the language in terms of processing speed and accuracy. Native
speakers tend to respond faster and more accurately compared to second
language learners in completing language related tasks in the same language.
8.3.2 Factors Influencing Second Language Learning

There is more variability in the speed and success level achieved in learning a
second language. In this section, we will review four factors that influence second
language learning: age, first language influence, aptitude and motivation.
(a) Age Effects

Evidence for a critical age for learning the first language has been proposed
based on observations made with children who were raised by animals (wild
children), or children who were raised in confinement and deprived of
interaction using language. Victor, the wild boy who was discovered when
he was about 11 or 12 years old in Aveyron, France could not speak despite
attempts to teach him to speak. However, he could learn to read and write
words. Genie (not her real name), was another wild child who was raised in
isolation, locked in a room and chained to a potty. She was discovered in
California, US when she was 13 years old and had difficulty in acquiring
speech and language despite attempts to teach her language which included
sign language. For more details about Genies language development, watch
the video on Genie in the link provided in Activity 8.3.
However, case reports of children who received rehabilitation at a younger

age were found to make better progress. Isabelle who was confined to her
mute mother till she was 6 and a-half years old, was reported to be able to
learn to speak after 20 months of intervention. Helen Keller, another example
of early intervention, was born with normal hearing and sight but
subsequently became deaf and blind due to illness when she was nineteen
months. Helen who was exposed to language again at the age of seven was
able to speak, read and write in Braille. These reported cases of failure with
older children and success with younger children were taken as evidence to
support the idea that there is a critical age for learning language (Steinberg
& Sciarini, 2006).
This argument was subsequently extended to explain why adult second

language learners are less successful in learning the second language,
particularly in terms of pronunciation. Children can gain mastery of two
languages simultaneously from birth if they are exposed to language input
from both languages in their interaction. However, there may be a critical
period where sensitivity to language input is reduced. Studies on infant
speech perception have shown that few-days-old infants are sensitive to
phonemes not found in their mother tongue, however adults who speak the
same mother tongue as the children cannot discriminate these phonemes.
These children lose their sensitivity by the end of the first year as they attend
to only what is important in the language that they are learning (Yeni-
Komshian, 1998).
Studies on grammatical judgement of English sentences by immigrants to the

US showed that children who migrated to the US when they were younger
performed better in the task compared to those who arrived at a later age
(Johnson & Newport, 1989). The early arrivers were more successful in
learning the second language. Taken together, the evidence from first and
second language learning seem to suggest that there is an advantage in
learning a second language at a younger age.
However, there are studies that have challenged the critical period
hypothesis. These studies show that native like performance was achievable
for second language learners who started learning the second language at a
later age. The novelist Joseph Conrad was one example discussed by
psycholinguist Thomas Scovel (as cited in Steinberg & Sciarini, 2006). Joseph
Conrad was a native speaker of Polish and he only started learning English
when he was 20 years old, but he became a famous English novelist. Other
studies have also recorded near native like performance of second language
learners who started learning a second language past puberty. However, it
cannot be denied that there are age effects on second language learning.
(b) First Language Influence

First language influence can be negative or positive depending on how
similar or different the language systems are. If the two language systems are
similar, second language learners often find it easier to learn the second
language as the same rules apply in their mother tongue. For example,
Malaysians do not face much difficulty learning basic word order in English
as the basic word order in Malay is very similar to the word order in English.
English sentences have the basic subject-predicate or subject-verb-object
sequence. Malay sentences also have the same word order. Unlike English
and Malay, languages like Korean have a different word order. Sentences in
Korean have a subject-object-verb sequence. In the following example (1), (2)

and (3), notice that the verb is at the end of the sentence. While we have
prepositions in English and Malay, Korean has postpositions.
(1) English: Johan saw Mariam in the restaurant.
(2) Malay: Johan nampak Mariam di restoran.

Johan see Mariam at restaurant.
Johan sees/saw Mariam at the restaurant.
(3) Korean: Johan-shi-nun Mariam-ul siktang-eso bo-att-eyo

Johan-subject Mariam-object restaurant-at see-past-
honorific
Johan saw Mariam at the restaurant.
However, if we examine the grammar of Malay and English more closely, we

will find structural differences too. For example, in English, adjectives appear
before the noun, but in Malay it appears after the noun as shown in the noun
phrases in examples (4) and (5). Therefore, a common error found among
beginners of English speakers who speak Malay is the use of the Malay word
order in English sentences. Malay learners of English may say the girl
beautiful instead of the beautiful girl. This is an example of negative
influence from the first language. However, these differences can be
overcome with increasing exposure in the second language acquisition.
Therefore, advanced learners of English seldom make this error.
(4) The beautiful Girl
article adjective noun
(5) Gadis jelita itu
Noun adjective that

Malay learners face more difficulty in learning other aspects of the English
grammatical system such as the correct use of verb tense in English.
Malaysians are often confused about when to use the present perfect and the
simple past tense as they both refer to a past event. Look at the sentences in
(6-8). Do you know which sentence is using the simple past tense and which
sentence is using the present perfect tense? In what situations would these
sentences be most appropriately used?
(6) Johan has just finished his homework. He is watching his favourite
TV programme now.
(7) Johan finished his homework before he watched his favourite TV

programme.
(8) Johan *finish his homework before he *watching his favourite TV

programme.
The first sentence in example (6) uses the present perfect tense and this
sentence is followed by a sentence in the present progressive tense. The
present perfect tense is used to talk about a past event which has significance
to the present time. In this example, the sentence that follows the sentence in
the present perfect describes an ongoing activity in the present time. Contrast
this with sentence (7). Both verb forms in this sentence are in the simple past
tense. You can use these sentences when you are talking about two past
events. Although it is not indicated in the sentences when these two events
occurred, the past time is understood in the context of usage. The sentence in
(8) is an example of a common grammatical error that some learners make.
Can you explain what is ungrammatical about the verb forms in this
sentence? Can you think of examples of frequent errors in English grammar
among Malaysian learners of English?
(c) Aptitude and Motivation

How do some learners achieve native-like performance in the second
language? We will now consider aptitude and motivation, these are two non-
linguistic factors that have been shown to influence success rate greatly.
Some learners have a natural gift for learning language. They are just very
good at remembering new words and figuring out the grammatical system
of the new language. These learners often enjoy learning a second language
or a foreign language. We say they have an aptitude for learning a second
language.

Apart from having a specific gift for language, some learners may also be
more successful at learning a second language because they put more effort
in learning the second language. We say that these learners are highly
motivated learners. These learners may be motivated to learn the language
because of the potential advantage they get in mastering the second language
such as better education and job opportunities which may translate to
making more money and being more successful in life.
Other learners may be motivated to learn a second language because they

want to assimilate with the people who speak that language. They want to
be identified as members of the same group who speaks the target language.
These learners usually enjoy learning the language and they may even
identify themselves more closely with the culture of the native speakers of
the target language. If the second language is English, they may use an
English name, and they may even enjoy eating western cuisines such as fish
and chips and bread pudding. They may have friends who are English native
speakers and they may enjoy spending more time interacting with English
native speakers or those who speak English. Studies on language acquisition
of migrants have shown that those who assimilate with the native speakers
culture tend to make better progress compared to those who do not wish to
assimilate with the target language culture.
ACTIVITY 8.3
1. Watch the video on Genie for further information on her

language development. In your opinion, what was the main factor
that impeded her language development?
https://documentarystorm.com/secret-of-the-wild-child/
2. Watch Janet Werker talk about her studies on infant speech

perception in the video link provided as follows and discuss how
age affects speech perception.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXWGnryjEaY
3. Discuss your own experience of learning a second language? What

were the factors that helped or impeded your progress in learning
the second language?

All children go through very similar language developmental milestones

regardless of the language that is acquired as the mother tongue.
The prelinguistic stage includes cooing and babbling.
During the one-word or holophrastic stage, children use one word utterances
to communicate different meaning.
Adult-like constructions in the childs speech begin to emerge at the two-word

stage.
During the telegraphic stage, grammatical morphemes and function words are
usually missing.
Most children gain mastery in the mother tongue or first language when they
are four or five years old.
Various theories have been proposed to explain first language acquisition:
Conditioned-response learning;
Imitation; and
Hypothesis testing, which includes learning from analogy and the

innateness theory.
A second language is any language that is learnt after mastery of the first
language.
A native bilingual is a term referred to those who learnt two languages from
birth. They are also called simultaneous bilinguals.
The processes that are involved in first and second language learning may be
different.
Second language learners generally take a longer time to learn a second

language compared to the time taken to acquire their mother tongue.

Second language productions (speech as well as writing) tend to have more

errors compared to the language produced by the native speakers.
Second language learners may process the language differently and at a slower
rate compared to native speakers of the language.
Factors that influences second language learning includes age, first language
influence, aptitude and motivation.
Age effect Imitation

Canonical babbling Innateness hypothesis
Conditioned-response learning Overgeneralisation errors
Cooing Telegraphic stage
Critical period hypothesis Two word stage
First language influence Universal grammar
Holophrastic stage
University Press.
Gleason, J. B., & Ratner, N. B. (1998). Language acquisition. In J. B. Gleason, & N.

B. Ratner (Eds.). Psycholinguistics. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning.
Harris, H. (2006). How dog training works. Retrieved from http://animals.

howstuffworks.com/pets/dog-training.htm
Johnson, J. S., & Newport, E. L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language
learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as
a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 6099.


Bloomsbury.
Steinberg, D. D., & Sciarini, N. V. (2006). An introduction to psycholinguistics.

Harlow, England: Pearson Longman.
Yeni-Komshian, G. H. (1998). Speech perception. In J. B. Gleason, & N. B. Ratner

(Eds.). Psycholinguistics. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning.

Topic Human
Language and
9 Animal
Communication
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Describe animal communication systems based on the examples given;
2. Distinguish human language from animal communication systems;
3. Discuss the achievements made in teaching animals human language;
and
4. Explain theories on the origin and evolution of the human language.
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever wondered if animals communicate or talk to each other in the same
way humans talk to one another? Do you think animals have language? Are there
any similarities or differences in animal communication systems and the human
language system? These questions will be discussed in this topic.
9.1 ANIMAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

Animals do communicate with one another and with other species in their
environment. The way they communicate may not be immediately apparent.
Studies have shown that animals communicate using scent, calls, songs and they
also use gestures. We will examine the communication system of bees, birds and
monkeys in this subtopic. For each system discussed, we will examine the types of
signals that are used and we will discuss whether the system of communication is

132 TOPIC 9 HUMAN LANGUAGE AND ANIMAL COMMUNICATION
as complex as what we have in language. In Topic 1, we identified two design

features that are unique to the human language:
(a) Displacement which refers to our use of language to talk about the past and
the future; and
(b) Productivity which is the ability to form limitless utterances from a finite set
of meaning and sound units.
In this subtopic, we will examine animal communication systems to see if they

display any evidence of displacement, productivity and cultural transmission. The
first two features have been argued as features that are only available in the human
species. If animal communication systems also show these features, then the
argument that language is uniquely human cannot be supported.
At this point, you may ask why it should matter if animals have or do not have a
language like humans do. If you have watched any of the movie series Planet of
the Apes, you may get some idea. On a more serious note, most linguists believe
that language is a species specific property. Hauser et al. (2014) have also argued
that no relevant parallels to human linguistic communication have been found
among the animal communication systems surveyed and none to the underlying
biological capacity found among different human species. Let us now review
some of the animal communication systems before reviewing the arguments
against animal language.
9.1.1 Bees
Honeybees use a waggle dance to communicate about the location of nectar to
other bees in the hive. The waggle dance performed provides information about
the location of the nectar source. If the location is near the hive, a round waggle
dance is performed. This sends the other foraging bees in all directions near the
hive. If the distance of the nectar source is more than 50 metres away, the waggle
dance involves a movement that looks like a figure-eight and the bee only waggles
on the diagonals of the figure-eight shape. Information about the direction of the
nectar source is indicated by the angle between the diagonal, the path where the
bee waggles and the direction of the sun. The lengths of the waggle on the
diagonals indicate the distance of the nectar source from the hive. Figure 9.1
illustrates the waggle dance.

TOPIC 9 HUMAN LANGUAGE AND ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 133
Figure 9.1: The waggle dance is a communication system

used by bees to relay the location of food source from the hive
Source: http://www.reed.edu/biology/courses/BIO342/2012_
syllabus/2012_WEBSITES/mkam_site-5/adaptive_value.html
The studies on bees seem to suggest that communications engaged by bees are not
limited to attending to a stimulus in the immediate environment. The waggle
dance seems to suggest that the communication system used by bees illustrate
displacement. Bees can talk about the past and the future and are not limited to
just the here and now. There seems to be some units of meaning involved in the
waggle dance. If so, we may be able to claim that the bee dance is indeed some
form of bee language. However, more recent findings have disputed this claim.
They have argued that the dance is performed to get the other bees to start foraging
and the waggle dance is done to rub off scent from the flowers to other bees, so
that, they can use the scent of the flowers to find the location of the nectar.

ACTIVITY 9.1
Watch the following videos that explains the honeybee waggle dance.
There is a short version and a slightly longer version. Watch both
versions and describe the communication system that the honeybee has.
(a) Short version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg
(b) Long version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFDGPgXtK-U
9.1.2 Birds
Have you heard birds chirping on a tree branch? Have you seen birds returning to
their nests in the evening and how noisy they can be? Have you wondered if they
talk after being out the whole day foraging for food? We now turn to studies that
have examined vocalisations of birds.
There are two distinct types of bird vocalisations: calls and songs. All birds have
distinct calls that play a range of different functions such as to:
(a) Alert other birds of danger;

(b) Coordinate the flock as they fly in the air;
(c) Convey hunger;
(d) Convey pain;
(e) Communicate between parents and offspring; and
(f) Make mating calls.
Some birds also have songs. While calls are usually short, ranging over just a few
syllables, songs are longer and more elaborate. Songs are usually used to attract
the opposite sex. Therefore, bird songs are species specific. Another interesting
difference between calls and songs is that while a call seems completely innate,
there is an element of learning involved with bird songs. Studies have shown that
birds need to be exposed to bird songs in their natural environment within fifty
days of hatching or they will not learn to sing the same way.

The discussion suggests that cultural transmission is needed for some bird species
to learn the bird song of their own species. It also shows that there is a critical
period for learning the bird songs. These two features are also found in the
acquisition of human language.
Birds need to learn the songs from other birds in their natural habitat. They need
the necessary input in the natural context and probably the interaction or
experience for the right song to be acquired. Cultural transmission is also an
important feature of human language. Children acquire languages that are
culturally transmitted to them. There is no genetic determinism in terms of the
specific language that is acquired by children as their first language. Just because
your parents are from Malay, Dusun, Kayan, Bidayuh, Chinese, Indian or English
heritage, it does not mean you will definitely speak languages of your heritage. If
your parent(s) and the people whom you interact with do not speak your heritage
language with you, you will not be exposed to such language input and therefore
no cultural transmission will occur and you will not acquire it. Hence, just as birds
need to acquire the bird songs within a critical period, human children also need
to acquire their first language within a critical period too as discussed in Topic 8.
Children who are exposed to language input or interaction post puberty have
difficulty acquiring syntax. While the evidence from birdsongs support cultural
transmission and the critical period of acquiring these songs, there is still
insufficient evidence to show that the structure of animal communication is similar
to what we have found in human language.
ACTIVITY 9.2
Watch the following video that explains bird calls and bird songs. Why
do birds communicate using sound? Discuss with your coursemates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X5WMu_oJnQ
9.1.3 Monkeys
We will now examine the communication system in mammals which are closer to
humans in terms of evolution. Like humans, monkeys are mammals and like birds,
they also have specific calls for specific functions. The vervet monkeys have at least
20 types of calls depending on the type of predators that are spotted. These
monkeys also exhibit different types of responses to these calls. For example, when
they hear the short cough-like call that indicates sightings of an eagle, the monkeys
look up and run for cover. However, if they hear a high-pitched chutter which

signals the presence of a snake, they raise themselves on their hind-legs and look
downwards towards the ground in search of the snake. Apart from danger calls,
the vervet monkeys, being members of a social group, also have calls to solicit
support and to show submission in the group.
Like the birds, the communication system of the vervet monkeys seems to be
limited to danger calls and communication with other members of the group.
There is no evidence of transferring information like what we have in human
language. We can use language to talk about the past and the future, to convey
information that is not restricted to danger or as a response to an immediate
stimulus. We can use language to talk about our imagination, novel ideas and
basically anything that our mind chooses to entertain. This seems to be a major
difference between the human language and animal communication. But of
course, this difference is still being debated. It is possible that animals may be
capable of the types of talk that humans engage in, but we just have not found a
way to decipher these signals.
ACTIVITY 9.3
Watch the following video about the animal communication systems we

have discussed earlier. You will get a better sense of how these animals
communicate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHFon1HMT1o
9.2 TEACHING ANIMALS HUMAN LANGUAGE

Other mammals such as chimpanzees and gorillas have also been studied to
examine the plausibility of teaching animals the human language. What do
researchers hope to show by trying to teach animals a human language or a sign
language? One of the main purposes is to demonstrate whether language is indeed
a unique property for the human species and whether the development of
language for humans engages a cognitive system which is more developed as
compared to those available in other animal species. Can you see where the movie
Planet of the Apes got its inspiration from?

9.2.1 Teaching Chimpanzees Sign Language

One of the earliest attempts to study whether apes can learn a human language was
conducted in 1913. Attempts were made to raise a chimpanzee like a human child
in a home environment to see if the chimpanzee would acquire language. The
attempt failed but in the late 1940s, a similar study was conducted with a
chimpanzee named Viki who was reported to produce only four words such as
mama, papa, cup and up, however was able to recognise about 100 words.
Later studies abandoned the attempt to teach chimpanzees to speak because the
vocal tract of the chimpanzee is different from the human vocal tract. Moreover,
knowledge of language is not restricted to being able to speak. Language is an
abstract system and sign language also has features of spoken language. Since apes
also use gestures in communicating among themselves, later studies focused on
teaching chimpanzees a sign language.
In the 1960s, another chimpanzee by the name Washoe was taught the American
Sign Language by Allen and Beatrice Gardner. Washoe was reported to have
learned 160 signs and was able to ask and answer questions, follow instructions
and use these signs in a wide range of communication acts. The same success was
also replicated with other chimpanzees, and Washoe was reported to have taught
her adopted chimpanzee daughter, Loulis, how to sign merely through
interactions with Washoe and other signing chimpanzees. What is amazing from
these studies is that the chimpanzees were able to combine signs in a specific order
to convey meanings such as gimme sweet and come open.
ACTIVITY 9.4
Watch the following YouTube video on why chimpanzees cannot speak.

Discuss on the differences between man and the chimpanzees ability to
speak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv7Z0WxQCEc

9.2.2 Bonobos and Gorillas

Attempts to teach animals language is not restricted to just chimpanzees.
Psychologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh worked with Kanzi, a bonobo, another ape
species. Kanzi was raised among other apes that were taught to use a computer
keyboard to communicate with humans. Kanzi would often watch as his adoptive
mother received training. Kanzi was found to have the basic ability to understand
simple grammar. In his attempts to communicate with the researcher, he used
different word order to convey the thematic distinction of subject and objects. For
example, to show that Matata (his adoptive mother) had initiated an action, the
verb was placed in the second position for an utterance such as Matata bite.
However, to indicate that someone had grabbed Matata, the verb was placed first
before the object, Matata.
Koko, a gorilla, is another ape species that demonstrated exceptional ability to

learn sign language. Koko was reported to had an active vocabulary of 375 signs
at the age of seven. By the age of thirty-eight, she had learnt about 1,000 signs and
2,000 words of spoken English. Koko was also able to chat online on the Internet
with the help of interpreters as she could understand speech but could not read
the Internet exchanges. She was able to answer questions posed to her on
American Online.
Videos of the interaction with bonobos and gorillas, suggest that they are capable
of understanding language. However, there is a lot of scepticism about what these
studies show. Some researchers have even questioned the validity of the reports
of these studies. They argue that it is possible that the apes may be sensitive to cues
unintentionally provided by the researchers. While the sceptics agree that apes can
be taught words of a language, they are less convinced about their ability to learn
the grammar of a language. What do you think?
ACTIVITY 9.5
Watch the following videos on Kanzi and Koko. Discuss whether you
think animals have language on the online forum.
(a) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRM7vTrIIis
(b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKauXrp9dl4
(c) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk

9.3 ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF HUMAN

LANGUAGE
In this subtopic, we turn our attention to the evolution of language in the human
species. Before we discuss early and current theories about the origins of language,
we will first review early records about the origin of human language. However,
we need to bear in mind that these theories could be mere speculations as it is
almost impossible to find any physical evidence to support any of these theories.
Linguists, in particular, will not be able to come up with the necessary evidence as
it involves examination of human fossils, and possibly genetic evidence within and
across species. These investigations would most likely involve archaeologists,
anthropologists, neurobiologists and geneticists rather than linguists.
9.3.1 Divine Source

Some religious books have accounts that suggest that language came from a divine
source. In the Christian tradition, the book of Genesis records that God created
Adam and gave him the power to name things. The story of the Tower of Babel in
the book of Genesis also provides accounts for subsequent diversity of languages.
In the Hindu tradition, language is reported to have originated from Sarasvati, the
wife of Brahma, creator of the universe. Other religious traditions also have these
similar claims. Babylonians attributed language to the god Nabu, while Egyptians
attributed language to the god Thoth. However, these claims are difficult to verify
as there are insufficient evidence to support them.
An experimental attempt was made by the Egyptians around 600 BC to find out
what children would speak if they were isolated from the environment. Two
newborn infants were brought up in the company of goats and a mute shepherd
for two years. The children were reported to have produced the word bekos
which denoted bread in Phrygian and not in Egyptian and the conclusion made
then was that the original language was Phrygian. A similar study was also
conducted by James IV of Scotland at around 1,500AD and the study reported that
the children spoke Hebrew. However, these findings were not supported by later
discoveries of children who were brought up in the wild or were isolated from
human contact that grew up without the presence of language. For example,
Victor, the wild boy who was discovered when he was about 11 years old in
Aveyron, France, did not aquire language. He was subsequently taught to learn
but had little success. Similarly, Genie (mentioned in Topic 8), the girl who was
isolated, also had little success with speech but was more successful with sign
language. These children were able to learn new vocabulary, but there was little
evidence of success with learning syntax.

9.3.2 Natural-sound Source Theories

This theory attributes the origin of language to imitations of natural sounds in the
environment which are heard by early men and women. Many different versions
of this theory exist and different names are given to them depending on what
sounds are discussed to motivate the theory. We will examine each of these
theories as they are quite amusing.
One theory is called the bow-wow theory. The motivation for this theory comes
from the observation that there are a lot of words that are onomatopoeic.
Onomatopoeic words are words that echo natural sounds such as animal cries,
hence the name the bow-wow theory. For example, in English we have words such
as moo, hiss, cuckoo, as well as bang, splash and buzz. This theory takes the iconic
view to language rather than the view that sound and meaning correspondence is
arbitrary.
A different version of this theory attributes the origin of language to sounds made
by a person when involved in physical work. This theory is called the yo-heave-
ho theory. In the evolution of the human species, a group of men could have
developed a set of grunts and groans and other calls to coordinate people to work
together. The yo-heave-ho theory places the development of language within a
social context, and it is possible that there may be some similarities in early human
communication and animal communication systems. We discussed similar animal
calls in our discussion of animal communication which involves calls to coordinate
flocking together in the air by birds.
However, there are many soundless and abstract words in language which cannot
be explained by these theories. More recent theories attempt to look at the
evolution of the human species to provide plausible answers about the origin and
evolution of human language. We turn to these newer theories now.
ACTIVITY 9.6
Watch the following video about the origin of language and answer the
following questions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWDKsHm6gTA
(a) Explain how the migration of people resulted in the development

of new language.
(b) How do linguists group languages into language family?

9.3.3 Oral-gesture Theory, Physiological Adaptation

and Genetic Changes
The oral-gesture theory argues that human language originated from bodily
gestures. Our human ancestors probably communicated using gestures before
their vocal tracts were developed to produce speech. Early expressions may be
pairings of gestures and vocalisations such as grunts, and over time, a shift is made
to using only vocalisations as this shift frees up the hands to do something
different. Vocalisation alone as a means of communication also allows
communication in the dark.
This shift would have required biological changes to the vocal organs as well as
the brain and some evidence of human evolution seem to be indicative of this
plausibility. For example, in a study by Corballis (as cited in McGregor, 2015), it
was found that the human species some five or six million years ago, had
developed bipedalism, which was using two feet for movement. However, we do
not know if bipedalism is indeed related to the development of speech in humans.
Suggestions made by Arbib (as cited in McGregor, 2015) seems more convincing,
though still speculative. Arbib suggested that biological evolution of the brain
could have led to the brain being ready for language development and a key
development in the evolution of the brain involved the system of mirror neurons
that link perception and production of motor acts of grasping a situation. These
mirror neurons were found in the region of cortex in a monkeys brain that maps
to the area to our Brocas area that controls speech production.
More recent genetic findings have uncovered a link between a specific gene,
FOXP2 that is responsible for language. The discovery of this gene was made by
geneticists in 2001 when they found that mutations to this gene are associated with
a type of language disorder. Children with specific language impairment (SLI)
have articulation difficulties and problems with grammatical processing.
However, since language is not completely absent in these children, this gene
could only share partial responsibility. Nonetheless, the discovery of this gene
provides stronger support for the claim that biological evolution could have made
the human species genetically predisposed to learn language.
As mentioned earlier at the beginning of this subtopic, these theories are still
speculations, however you can see how the theories have developed as more
information about human evolution has became easily available.

ACTIVITY 9.7
Read the following online article on the Mystery of Human Evolution

and note down main points about how animal communication studies
are compared to studies in child language acquisition. Also note the
skepticism raised by the authors about the usefulness of evidence from
paleontology and genetic studies towards developing our understanding
of the evolution of human language.
Hauser, M. D., Yang, C., Berwick, R. C., Tattersall, I., Ryan, M. J.,
Watumull, J., Chomsky, N., & Lewontin, R. C. (2014). The mystery of
language evolution. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 401. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019876/
Animals have a communication system that may appear rather complex.
Honeybees do the waggle dance to inform other foraging bees about the
location of a new nectar source.
Vocalisations from bird species can be distinguished in terms of length.
Calls are only a few syllables long. Bird songs are much longer and are part of
species specific mating rituals.
Bird songs are culturally transmitted and there appears to be a critical period
for learning the bird songs.
Vocalisations made by vervet monkeys include danger calls and calls to solicit
support and to show submission in the group.
Animal communication seems to be restricted to immediately available

stimuli.
Chimpanzees were not successful in learning human speech but they can
understand human speech and sign language.

Bonobos and gorillas were also rather successful in learning signs and words
of spoken language, and some very basic grammar.
Early records about the origin of language were mostly from religious texts
and most make claims about a divine source.
Early experimental studies which involved isolating infants and children from
human contact were not conclusive. The Egyptians claimed that their original
language was Phrygian while James IV of Scotland claimed that theirs was
Hebrew.
Children who grew up in the wild or in isolation did not acquire any specific
language. In fact, even with rehabilitation, they could not speak.
Early theories about the origin of language include the bow-wow theory, the
yo-heave-ho theory and the oral gesture theory.
The bow-wow theory is motivated by imitations of naturally occurring sounds.
The yo-heave-ho theory is motivated by associations between language and

grunts and calls to coordinate behaviour in a social context.
More recent theories make connection between human evolution and genetic
mutation to the origin and evolution of human language.
Mutation of the FOXP2 gene was found to be associated with specific language
impairment where speech production and grammatical processing is affected.
Theories about the origin of language are speculative as it is almost impossible

to find any physical evidence to support these theories.
Current investigations about the evolution of human language points towards

a possible genetic link that made the brain predisposed for learning language.

Bipedalism Onomatopoeic words

Bow-wow theory Oral-gesture theory
Cultural transmission Productivity
Danger calls Specific language impairment (SLI)
Displacement Vocalisations
Genetic predisposition Yo-heave-ho theory
introduction to language and linguistics. Columbus. OH: The Ohio State
University Press.
Hauser, M. D., Yang, C., Berwick, R. C., Tattersall, I., Ryan, M. J., Watumull, J.,
Chomsky, N., & Lewontin, R. C. (2014). The mystery of language evolution.
Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 401. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.
gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019876/

Bloomsbury.
Rowe, B. M., & Levine, D. P. (2012). A concise introduction to linguistics. Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Yule, G. (2010). The study of language (4th ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.

Topic Unity and
Diversity in
10 Language
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Describe the meaning of linguistic universals;
2. Distinguish language typology from language families;
3. Identify some examples of language typology; and
4. Discuss reasons for similiarities and differences found among languages.
INTRODUCTION
How many languages can you understand? Are these languages similar or highly
different from one another? Do you know of similarities and differences between
English and other languages? In this topic we will examine how languages are
similar and different from one another. We will also discuss reasons why some
languages are similar at some levels of analysis and different at other levels of
analysis. In our discussion of these similarities and differences, we may make
references to languages that you do not know. We will look at the work done by
linguists who call themselves linguistic typologists and language typologists.

146 TOPIC 10 UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN LANGUAGE
10.1 UNIVERSALS OF LANGUAGE

There are about 7,000 languages spoken in the world. Some of these languages do
not have an orthography or writing system. Some have a writing system, but the
letters are not what we may be familiar with in English. If you can read Mandarin,
Tamil and English, you have learnt three very different writing systems. However,
all writing systems are related to the spoken languages, therefore we will not
examine the writing system when we compare languages. Instead, we will focus
on how the spoken languages are organised.
Linguists, particularly typologists, are interested in discovering basic principles

that are shared in all languages. We call these principles language universals.
There are generally two categories of language universals: absolute and non-
absolute universals. Absolute universals are principles that are shared by every
language that we know so far. Non-absolute universals are principles that are
shared by many or most languages but not all. In fact, these should probably be
called tendencies instead of universals. Let us look at some examples of these two
types of universals (refer to Table 10.1).
Table 10.1: Absolute and Non-absolute Universals
Absolute Universals Non-absolute Universals (Tendencies)
All languages have consonants and Most languages have nasal stops.
vowels.
Most languages have an alveolar
All languages have lexical and stop.
functional words.
Most languages distinguish verbs
All languages have phrases and and nouns.
clauses.
These principles are so general and you may wonder what we can get from
identifying these principles. Language universals tell us what is possible and what
is not possible in language. For example, if we never see a particular combination
of sounds in a specific language, such as [blk] or [ttt] in English, it could be just a
coincidence that we do not have such a word or there could be some constraint
prohibiting the combination of sounds to make such words possible. The former
is called a lexical gap while the latter are called phonotactic constraint violations.
If we find the same violation in all languages, then we know it must be a constraint
that affects all languages. We call this type of constraint a universal constraint.

TOPIC 10 UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN LANGUAGE 147
There are two further classifications that can be made of language universals and
these are:
(a) Implicational; and
(b) Non-implicational universals.
With absolute universals, they can be either implicational or non-implicational. Let

us look at some examples. Absolute implication universals make a further
statement about the language which involves another property. In the examples
shown in Figure 10.1, the statement about the occurrence of mid vowels entails the
occurrence of high vowels too.
Figure 10.1: Implication and non-implicational universal and tendency
Once we have identified a universal principle, the next step would be to try to
understand these principles. For example, why is it impossible in human language
to produce the same sequence of alveolar stops as a word? An understanding of
absolute universals may help us understand the nature of our biological
predisposition that we are born with that helps us figure out the grammatical
system of our mother tongue. The principle that is wired in us may be something
like words in combinations of sounds that contrast in some aspect of articulation.
Therefore, if we hear a sequence of alveolar stops produced artificially, we will not
recognise it as a possible word in any language but as just noise in the surrounding.
At this point, you may realise that it is not a simple task to identify universal
principles, particularly absolute universals. We have to be absolutely sure that no
language actually allows a particular principle to occur or that all languages allow
a particular principle to occur. As mentioned earlier, we have about 7,000
languages spoken in the world but not all these languages are well-documented.
How many languages can a linguist inspect before he or she can make such a

claim? Two languages? Twenty? Two hundred? Two thousand? All? From those
that are documented, most of them are European languages. Fewer records are
found of non-Western languages. There could also be languages that have yet been
discovered or documented. Therefore, in making claims about absolute language
universals, we have to be cautious as our knowledge of world languages is still
limited.
ACTIVITY 10.1
Try to compare some of the linguistic features in English with another

language that you know. Are they similar to what we have in English?
What are the differences?
Discuss your findings with friends who speak the same languages as you
do and then with those who speak other languages? Have you found
some general principles shared in these languages?
10.2 LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY

One of the challenges in identifying language universals is to have a thorough
understanding of the worlds languages. One way of classifying languages is to
look at the ancestry of the languages and to group them into language families.
There are 141 different language families and the top six major language families
are:
(a) Afro-Asiatic includes approximately 366 languages;
(b) Austronesian includes approximately 1,224 languages;
(c) Indo-European includes approximately 440 languages;
(d) Niger-Congo includes approximately 1,526 languages;
(e) Sino-Tibetan includes approximately 452 languages; and
(f) Trans-New Guinea includes approximately 478 languages.
There are an approximate total of 4,486 languages in these top six language
families which is two-third of the total number of living languages in the world
today. It should be noted that the number of speakers of a language can be as small
as two or as large as millions (Simon & Fennig, 2017). Which language families do
Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil belong to?

English belongs to the Indo-European language family. Within this language

family, there are many sub-branches but most Indo-European languages are
spoken in European countries as shown in Figure 10.2.
Figure 10.2: The Indo-European language family

Source: http://norse-mythology.org/wp-content/uploads
/2014/05/Indo-European-Language-Family-Tree.jpg)
The Malay language belongs to the Western branch of the Austronesian or Malayo-
Polynesian language family. Languages in this family can be found in Indonesia
(mainly Sumatera), Malaysia, Brunei and some areas of Vietnam. Mandarin is
probably the widest spoken Chinese language apart from being the official
language of China. It is also known as Putonghua (Peoples Republic of China),
Guoyu (Taiwan) and Huayu (Malaysian and Singapore). There are however
dialectical differences between these variations of Mandarin. In the case of
Mandarin, it is easier to list the types of Mandarin than to track its origins. The
types of Mandarin include, Jilu Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin, Southeastern
Mandarin, Beijing Mandarin, Dungan, Standard Mandarin and Taiwanese
Mandarin. Tamil is a member of the Dravidian languages which includes Telugu,
Kannada and Malayalam. Tamil uses a script called Vattulettu. Its users are
indigenous to southern India but today, due to migration, it can be found in
significant numbers in Malaysia, America, Canada and Britain.
Notice that the languages spoken in Malaysia come from very different language
families. However, when we look at specific typological parameters, the
classification can cut across different language families. We can classify languages
based on the phonemic inventories of the language. Malay, German and French
are languages that have both voiced and voiceless stops. Languages such as

Korean, Tamil and Mandarin Chinese have only voiceless stops. However, if we
examine a different linguistic parameter, we may group the languages differently.
For example, if we classify the languages based on whether they have prepositions
or postpositions, we will have Malay, Mandarin Chinese, German and French in
the group with prepositions but Tamil and Korean in the group with postpositions.
Notice how Mandarin Chinese has changed group membership depending on the
linguistic parameter that is chosen for the classification. Also notice how the
grouping cuts across different families.
In the next subtopic we will examine more examples of typological parameters. In

principle, languages can be grouped according to any linguistic parameter.
However, we will not use absolute linguistic universals as it would not be
informative. For example, we know that all languages have vowels. If we classified
languages based on whether or not they have vowels, we will not have done any
interesting classification. It would be more meaningful to classify languages based
on non-absolute universals or tendencies.
ACTIVITY 10.2
Go online and look for maps showing different language families in the
world. Try to identify the language families of the following languages:
(a) Spanish;
(b) German;
(c) Korean;
(d) Japanese;
(e) Arabic;
(f) Zulu;
(g) Turkish; and
(h) Persian

10.2.1 Morphological Typologies

Languages of the world can be classified according to morphological types. There
are generally two basic morphological types: analytic or synthetic. There are three
subtypes within the group of synthetic languages: agglutinating, fusional and
polysynthetic languages. We will now look at each of these morphological types.
It should be noted that languages may belong to more than one category.
(a) Analytic Languages

Languages such as Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese are examples of
languages with analytic morphology. These languages are also called
isolating languages because they have very few bound morphemes. These
languages also lack inflectional morphology. They do not have case and
number marking on verbs or nouns as shown in sentence (1-3). For
simplicity, the tone markings are not included in the sentences presented
(1-3).
Notice the same noun dianying is used when we have movie for the
singular noun and movies for the plural noun. Also the same verb form is
used with singular or plural subjects. We have the same form: xiang for
want and kan for watch in all cases, but in English, we use want
with plural subjects. In addition, the pronoun I and you is used even if
they refer to singular nouns and wants for singular subjects.
(1) W xiang kan dianying

I want watch movie
I want to watch a movie
(2) Ta xiang kan dianying

He/she want watch movie
He/she wants to watch a movie
(3) W mn xiang kan hen duo dianying

I plural want watch very many movie
We want to watch a lot of movies

(b) Synthetic Languages

The three synthetic language types can be distinguished in terms of how easy
the bound morphemes are identified in the language.
(i) Agglutinating languages have very clear morpheme boundaries.

Examples of agglutinating languages include Turkish, Hungarian,
Greenlandic Eskimo and Swahili. Notice how this morphological type
cuts across various language families, and each bound morpheme
carries only one meaning. Complex words are created by loosely
putting together additional morphemes to the stem. Table 10.2 shows
some examples on how prefixes are attached to the verb stems in
Swahili.
Table 10.2: Verb Stems in Swahili
Swahili Literal Meaning English
ni-na-soma I-present-read I am reading
tu-na-soma you-present-read You are reading
ni-li-soma I-past-read I was reading
ni-ta-soma I-future-read I will read
Source: Bergmann, Hall & Ross (2007)
(ii) Fusional languages have bound morphemes too but the affixes cannot
be easily separated from the stem and it is often difficult to identify
where one morpheme begins and where it ends. Languages such as
Spanish are considered fusional languages. Sometimes, these
languages are also called inflectional languages.

Look at the following examples in Spanish (refer to Table 10.3). Do you

notice the fusion between person agreement and tense? There are three
different suffixes but each suffix does not contain only one morpheme.
The suffix is a fusion of tense and person agreement. For example, o
indicates first person singular in the present tense. In contrast e
indicates first person singular in the past tense, while a indicates third
person singular in the present tense. Two meaning units are fused into
one suffix ending and you cannot separate these two meaning units.
Table 10.3: Bound Morphemes to Spanish words
Person Agreement/Tense Spanish English
First person singular/present tense hablo I am speaking
First person singular/past tense habla S/he is speaking
Third person singular/present tense hable I spoke
Source: Adapted from Bergmann et al. (2007)
(iii) Polysynthetic languages are languages that are morphologically rich

with many long and complex words which may combine several stems
and affixes. A single word in these languages would usually be coded
as multi-clause expressions in other languages. Table 10.4 shows an
example of this with the language of the Koyukon people, who speak
an Athabaskan language in Alaska.
Table 10.4: Polysynthetic Language of the Koyukon People
Koyukon to-tseeyh-ghee--tonh
Literal meaning water-boat-PRF-CL-put:long:object
English He launched a boat
Source: McGregor (2015)
10.2.2 Syntactic Typologies

Another very common way of grouping languages into typologies is by looking at
the basic word order pattern, particularly the relative order of subject (S), object
(O) and verb (V) in a simple clause. Take for example the expression Susan likes
ice cream. The most common word orders are SOV and SVO. Malay, English,
Mandarin Chinese have the same SVO word order as shown in the utterances in
Table 10.5, while Korean, Japanese and Tamil have the SOV word order.

Table 10.5: Languages with SVO and SOV Word Orders
Word Order Languages Utterances
SVO English Susan likes ice cream

Malay Susan suka aiskrim
Mandarin Chinese S shn xihuan bngqln
SOV Korean sujan-eun aiseukeulim-eul joh-ahanda

Japanese Szan aisukurmu-ga sukidesu
Tamil Cucn ais kirm virumpukir
The other possible word orders are much less frequently found. Tagalog has the
VSO word order, while Malagasy has the VOS word order. Hixkaryana, a
language spoken in Brazil is reported to have OVS word order while Urubu which
is also spoken in Brazil has the OSV word order. Some languages such as Acehnese
and most Australian languages have free word order (McGregor, 2015).
If you are multilingual, you may notice that while language predominantly uses
the SVO construction, it can and often does also have the SOV sentence
construction. Malay, for example, generally uses the SVO construction: Saya suka
durian (I like durian). However, we can also use the SOV construction in certain
situations: Ini saya suka (This I like). You may have also heard Malay speakers
say something like this: Suka gila betul dia dengan orang tu (He really adores
that person). In this example, the structure is VSO.
10.2.3 Phonological Typologies

Languages of the world can be typologised according to the presence or absence
of phonemic tones in the language. Languages that have phonemic tones include
Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Hokkien, Vietnamese, and African languages such
as Yoruba and Hausa. Languages such as English, Malay, Tamil and most
European languages do not have a phonemic tone system.
Note that while a language does not use tones to differentiate meaning, tonal
difference can still lead to differences in meaning when different tones are used,
however this usually includes pragmatic differences. For example: the question is
that all? can express a range of emotional meaning from anger to exasperation to
frustration depending on the context.

Finer distinctions can be made about the type of tone system that is found in these
languages. For example, the Chinese languages have contour tones, where the
change of pitch is important. Mandarin Chinese has the level tone, falling, rising
and fall-rise tone. African languages, on the other hand, do not have contour tones.
They have register tones that look at the relative difference in pitch and not the
shape difference in pitch. They have high, mid and low tones.
ACTIVITY 10.3
Watch the following video from the Virtual Linguistics Campus on how
languages can be classified according to different structural parameters.
Identify typological parameters mentioned in the video. Are there any
additional parameters that were not covered in this subtopic? What are
they?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOEaAD2x9ac
10.3 EXPLAINING UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF

LANGUAGE STRUCTURES
How can we explain why languages can be so similar to the extent that we can find
a language universal that unifies all languages while at the same time describes the
diversity found using different typological parameters? Three main explanations are
often offered to explain unity and diversity in language structures:
(a) The first reason relates to the possibility that all languages could be traced
back to one single origin. However, as explained in the previous topic about
the origin of language, this claim is difficult to support. However, similarity
in terms of ancestry is a real possibility. Languages from the ancestry could
share many linguistic characteristics.
(b) Another plausible explanation is the fact that human language is constrained
by the same biological structure found in the human species. We have the
same vocal organs, and hence can only use them in the way they are made.
This reason relates to real physical constraints and constraints on how
linguistic signals are perceived as sensory signals and processed by the brain.
(c) The final explanation falls on the utility of language. All languages are used
to perform very similar functions in everyday language use. There are
cultural differences in different parts of the world in terms of social
behaviour which includes language behaviour. Hence, we may use language
differently in different parts of the world and in different social contexts.
Linguistic universals are basic principles found in all languages.
Universals can be absolute or non-absolute (tendencies).
Non-absolute universals or tendencies are principles found in many or most

languages.
Implication universals show the relation between two universal statements.

The truth of one principle implies the truth of another principle.
Languages that are grouped according to its relation to other languages in

terms of ancestry are classified as members belonging to the same language
family.
Language typology classifies languages based on similarity on a specific

linguistic parameter.
There are two basic morphological types: analytic and synthetic languages.
Analytic languages have very little bound morphology.
There are three types of synthetic languages: agglutinating, fusional and

polysynthetic languages.
There are two very common word orders: SVO and SOV.
Languages can be classified into those with phonemic tone and those without.
Some languages have contour tones while others have register tones.
Language universals and diversity can be explained based on the following

arguments: all languages may have a single origin; languages are constrained
by the same vocal organs that produce and the same brain functions that
process them; all languages are used to perform social acts of communication
which may be similar as well as different.

Absolute universals Lexical gaps

Agglutinating languages Non-absolute universals
Analytic languages Non-implicational
Basic word order Phonotactic violations
Contour tones Polysynthetic languages
Fusional languages Register tones
Implicational universals Synthetic languages
Language universals Universal constraints
University Press.
McGregor, B. W. (2015). Linguisitcs: An introduction (2nd. ed.). London, England:

Bloomsbury.
Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (2017). Ethnologue: languages of the world (20th
ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Retrieved from https://www.ethnologue.
com/statistics/family

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HBET1103

Introduction to General Linguistics

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

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Module Writer: Assoc Prof Dr Yap Ngee Thai

Moderator: Assoc Prof Hazidi Abdul Hamid

Developed by: Centre for Instructional Design and Technology

First Edition, August 2017

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Topic 1 Introducing Linguistics 1

Topic 2 Sounds of Language 15

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Topic 3 Structure of Words 31

Topic 4 Structure of Sentences 46

Topic 5 Semantics and Pragmatics 62

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Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Topic 8 Language Acquisition 113

Topic 9 Human Language and Animal Communication 131

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Topic 10 Unity and Diversity in Language 145

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COURSE GUIDE DESCRIPTION

As an open and distance learner, you should be acquainted with learning

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Table 1: Estimation of Time Accumulation of Study Hours

Briefly go through the course content and participate in initial discussion 3

Study the module 60

Attend 3 to 5 tutorial sessions 10

Assignment(s), Test(s) and Examination(s) 20

TOTAL STUDY HOURS ACCUMULATED 120

1. Demonstrate an understanding on how language is analysed at different

2. Construct your own annotation and analysis of language at different levels;

3. Discuss language issues with confidence in your own expertise.

Topic 1 gives an overview of linguistics as a scientific study. The core areas of

Topic 2 explores how knowledge in phonetics and phonology can be useful in

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Topic 4 introduces the study of sentence structure. The notion of

Topic 5 discusses the study of meaning (semantics) and meaning in context

Topic 6 focuses on examining language as a social phenomenon. Types of

Topic 7 discusses the focus of psycholinguistics and examines the connection

Topic 8 introduces how language is acquired by discussing the developmental

Topic 10 discusses similarities and differences found among languages of the

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TEXT ARRANGEMENT GUIDE

Self-Check: This component of the module is inserted at strategic locations

Activity: Like Self-Check, the Activity component is also placed at various

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References: The References section is where a list of relevant and useful

McGregor, B. W. (2015). Linguistics: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, England:

Steinberg, D. D., & Sciarini, N. V. (2006). An introduction to psycholinguistics.

TAN SRI DR ABDULLAH SANUSI (TSDAS) DIGITAL

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1.1 WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?

(a) Phonetics and Phonology

(d) Semantics and Pragmatics

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Match the following definitions with the core areas of linguistics.

Phonetics and Phonology Morphology Syntax