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Lecture 2:
1) Contributions of Chomsky and Halliday
a) Chomsky’s Universal Grammar
b) Systemic functional grammar (SFG)
2) Language and meaning
3) Linguistic forms and syntactic functions
a) Units and rank of units: Definitions
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CONTRIBUTIONS OF CHOMSKY AND HALLIDAY
Two different schools of linguistics
CONTRIBUTIONS OF CHOMSKY
♫ American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist.
♫ Noam Avram Chomsky was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 7, 1928.
♫ He received his early education at Oak Lane Country Day School & Central High School,
Philadelphia.
♫ He continued his education at the University of Pennsylvania where he studied linguistics,
♫ mathematics, & philosophy.
♫ In 1955, he received his Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania,
♫ 1957 published syntactic structures: surface & deep structure (levels of representation).
♫ Introduction of transformational grammar
♫ 1960s: He studies grammar as a body of knowledge possessed by language users.
♫ Since the 1960s, Chomsky’s maintained that much of this knowledge is innate, implying that
children need only learn certain parochial features of their native languages
♫ Competence & performance
♫ 1986: i-language & e-language
♫ i-language: mentally represented linguistic knowledge that a native speaker of a language has.
♫ e-language encompasses all other notions of what a language is, for example that it is a body of
knowledge or behavioural habits shared by a community
♫ 1990: Chomsky abandoned the original notion of Deep Structure & Surface Structure.
♫ Initially, 2 additional levels of representation were introduced (LF — Logical Form, & PF —
Phonetic Form),
♫ In the 1990s Chomsky sketched out a new program of research known as minimalism, in which
Deep Structure & Surface Structure no longer featured & PF & LF remained as the only levels
of representation.
♫ Chomsky believes that linguistics should be concerned with the grammars internalised in the
human mind & the universal linguistic principles which he believes we are programmed with by
our human genes.
♫ He doesn’t think that social uses of language are of any serious academic interest, & he doesn’t
concern himself with texts, discourse or communication.
♫ Indeed, he argues that language is not essentially a medium of communication; it is just
something we are born with.
♫ Furthermore, Chomsky believes that linguistics is a sub-branch of psychology, whereas Halliday
investigates linguistics as it were sub-branch of sociology, therefore pays much attention to
pragmatics & discourse semantics.
♫ In fact, Chomsky emerged from the American Structuralist tradition.
♫ His work can be seen as a part of the American Structuralist tradition in many respects, though
one can’t deny its revolutionary impact.
LET104: LECTURE 2
Deep Structure
Deep structure: underlying structure of a linguistic utterance.
Deep structure is generated by phrase structure rules.
The structure that contains all the units & relationships that are necessary for interpreting meaning
of the sentence.
Surface Structure
Surface structure: directly observable actual form of sentences as they’re used in
communication
Surface structure is generated by transformational rules.
Sentences or phrases that are pronounced or written.
Competence Performance
A set of rules that have been internalized in a Any actual utterances a speaker makes in a
person’s mind particular situation
Transformational rules
NP1 + Aux + V + NP2 →
John + will + write + a story
NP2 + Aux + be + en + V + by + NP1 →
a story + will + be + en + write + by + John
LET104: LECTURE 2
♀ The British born Australian linguist Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday developed his
grammatical theories out of work begun by his former tutor, the British linguist J.R. Firth.
♀ His systemic grammar put emphasis on the role of meaning in a theory of grammar.
♀ In addition, his approach to any field of linguistic study links social context with language.
♀ Furthermore, his functional approach is also applied to other disciplines including discourse
analysis & stylistics, phonology, sociolinguistics, computational linguistics, language education,
& language acquisition.
♀ Halliday developed this linguistic theory.
♀ As the name suggests, it has 2 characteristics: systemic & functional.
☻ The SYSTEMIC part comes directly from the first linguistics chair in Britain John Rupert Firth.
☻ It means language elements form into systems.
☻ The use of language involves a network of systems of choices.
☻ The items in a system are in a choice relation with each other.
☻ From Bronislaw Malinowski, Halliday’s inherited the idea that language is a social
phenomenon, & emphasizes the study of language in relation to the functions it performs.
☻ Halliday is very concerned with the uses to which linguistic description can be put.
☻ He writes that his grammar is functional in the sense that it’s designed to account for how the
language is used, & he immediately goes on to talk about text: every text - that is, everything
that is said or written - unfolds in some context of use.
☻ Halliday approaches language from point of meaning & purpose, & provides a sound theoretical
framework for dealing with questions about how & why we come to use language as we do for
being & becoming who we are.
LET104: LECTURE 2
Structural Analysis
☺ 1 fundamental concept in functional grammar is basic concept where structural analysis is based
☺ These include structural units which can be arranged on a scale of rank, elements of which
they’re composed, & r/ship of realisation by means of which units of 1 rank are related
☺ A unit: any stretch of language which constitutes a semantic whole & which has a recognized
pattern that is repeated regularly in speech or writing.
☺ The 4 structural units which can be arranged in order of magnitude on what is called a rank-scale
are clause, group, word, & morpheme.
☺ The principle on which the rank scale works is that, in an actual clause, an item at any rank is
made up of 1 or more items from the rank below.
☺ Thus a clause is the maximal grammatical unit
☺ It’s made up of 1 or more groups; each group is made up of 1 or more words, & each word is
made up of 1 or more morphemes, the morpheme being the minimal unit.
☺ At each rank of linguistic unit, there are various classes of unit.
a) classes of clauses c) classes of word
b) classes of groups d) classes of morphemes.
Interpersonal Function
֎ The way we act upon 1 another thru language, how we interact with other people – giving &
requesting info, etc- & how we express our judgment & attitudes
֎ Language serves to set up & maintain social & personal relations, including communication roles
such as questioner & respondent, & to express the language user’s own attitudes & comments on
the content of an utterance.
֎ This is the interpersonal function of language.
֎ The interpersonal function is to establish, or maintain social relationships btwn people.
Textual Function
♯ The way in which language is organized in relation to its context.
♯ It’s important in the creation of coherence in spoken & written text.
♯ Language makes links with itself & with features of the situation in which it is used.
♯ This is what enables the speaker or writer to construct a text, & enables the listener or reader to
distinguish a text from a set of sentences.
♯ This is the textual function of language.
♯ The textual function is to create written or spoken TEXTS which cohere within themselves &
which fit the particular situation in which they are used.
LET104: LECTURE 2
COMMUNICATIVE ACTS
In the following dialogue, we can distinguish various types of communicative act, or speech act,
by which people communicate with each other: making statements, asking questions, giving
directives with the aim of getting the hearer to carry out some action, making an offer or promise,
thanking or expressing an exclamation.
Here is part of a recorded conversation taken from a sociological project of the University of
Bristol.
The speakers are Janice, a girl who runs a youth club & disco in an English town, & Chris, one of
the boys in the club, who is 19 & works in a shop.
In a communicative exchange such as this, btwn 2 speakers, the kind of meaning encoded as
questions, statements, offers, reminders & thanks is interpersonal meaning.
Asking & stating are basic communicative acts.
LET104: LECTURE 2
For the initial stages of analysis it may be helpful to mark off the boundaries of each unit by a
symbol, such as those adopted in the example.
The symbol for ‘clause boundary’ is a double vertical line ||, that for ‘group boundary’ is a
single vertical line |, & that for ‘word boundary’ is simply a space, as is conventionally used in
the written language.
The independent clause is the equivalent of the traditional ‘simple sentence’ (independent clause
= simple sentence).
The relationship btwn the units is, in principle, as follows.
Looking downwards, each unit consists of 1 or more units of the rank below it.
Thus, a clause consists of one or more groups, a group consists of one or more words & a word
consists of one or more morphemes.
For instance, Wait! consists of one clause, which consists of one group, which consists of one
word, which consists of one morpheme.
More exactly, we shall say that the elements of structure of each unit are realised by units of the
rank below.
LET104: LECTURE 2
CLASSES OF UNITS
Classes of Clauses
A. Finite & non-finite clauses
Non-finite verbs include:
1. the infinitive (inf.) (be, eat, lock, go) sometimes called the ‘bare’ infinitive;
2. the to-infinitive (to-inf); (to read, to understand, to fail)
3. the participle -ing form (-ing) (being, eating, locking, going);
4. the past participle form, symbolised in this course as -en (been, eaten, locked, gone).
to-infinitive clause They want to hire a caravan.
bare infinitive clause Tim helped her carry her bags upstairs.
-ing participial clause We found Ann sitting in the garden.
-en participial clause The invitations were sent written by hand.
Classes of Groups
Groups are classified according to the class of the word operating as the main or ‘head’ element.
Headed by a noun, an adjective, an adverb & a verb respectively, we can identify the following
classes:
1. Nominal Groups (NG) 3. Adjectival Groups (AdjG)
films ● good,
quite good at languages ● wonderful films by Fellini
2. Verbal Groups (VG) 4. Adverbial Groups (AdvG) fluently
return ● very fluently indeed
will return
Classes of Words
Words are classified grammatically according to the traditional terminology, which includes
noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, pronoun, article & conjunction.
These ‘parts of speech’ are divided into two main classes, the open & the closed.
The open classes are those that freely admit new members into the vocabulary.
They comprise noun, verb, adjective & adverb.
The closed classes (preposition, pronoun & article) don’t easily admit new members.
Prepositions have gradually expanded their membership somewhat by admitting participles such
as including, concerning, but remaining classes are very resistant to introduction of new items.
This has been noticeable in recent years when attempts have been made to find gender-neutral
pronouns.
Classes of Morphemes
Words are made up of morphemes.
We shall consider the morpheme to be an abstract category that has either a lexical or a
grammatical meaning.
We’ve already indicated a word such as effects can be considered as formed from the lexical
morpheme {EFFECT} + the {PLURAL} morpheme.
These abstract categories are realised by morphs such as effect & -s or /ifekt/ & /s/, the actual
segments of written & spoken language, respectively.
LET104: LECTURE 2