linguistic magazine3

Language
Authors' perspective:
Ferdinand de Sausurre
Noam Chomsky & Michael Halliday

Ferdinand de
Sausurre
‘‘If we could embrace the sum of word-images
stored in the minds of all individuals, we could
identify the social bond that constitutes
language. It is a storehouse filled by the
members of a given community through their
active use of speaking, a grammatical system
that has a potential existence in each brain, or,
specifically, in the brains of a group of
individuals. For language is not complete in any
speaker; it exists perfectly only within a
collectivity.’’
‘‘Language is a system of
interdependent terms in which the
value of each term results solely from
the simultaneous presence of the
others … [for example]. To determine
what a five-franc piece is worth one
most know: (1) that it can be
exchanged for a fixed quantity of a
different thing, e.g. bread; and (2) that
it can be compared with a similar
value of the same system, e.g. a onefranc
piece, or with coins of another
system (a dollar, etc.)…
…In the same way a word can be
exchanged for something dissimilar, an
idea; besides, it can be compared with
something of the same nature, another
word. Its value is therefore not fixed so
long as one simply states that it can be
‘exchanged’ for a given concept.’’

Noam Chomsky
‘‘It seems clear that we must regard
linguistic competence – knowledge of a
language – as an abstract system
underlying behavior, a system
constituted by rules that interact to
determine the form and intrinsic
meaning of a potentially infinite number
of sentences.’’
‘‘Linguistic theory is concerned primarily
with an ideal speaker-hearer, in a
completely homogeneous speech
community, who knows its language
perfectly and is unaffected by such
grammatically irrelevant conditions as
memory limitations, distractions, shifts of
attention and interest, errors (random or
characteristic) in applying his knowledge of
the language in actual performance.’’

Michael Halliday
‘‘Every text – that is, everything
that is said or written – unfolds in
some context of use; furthermore, it
is the uses of language that, over
tens of thousands of generations,
have shaped the system. Language
has evolved to satisfy human needs;
and the way it is organized is functional with respect to these needs.’’
‘‘Spoken and written language, then, tend to display different KINDS of
complexity; each of them is more complex in its own way. Written language
tends to be lexically dense but grammatically simple; spoken language tends
to be grammatically intricate but lexically sparse’ … ‘The value of having
some explicit knowledge of the grammar of written language is that you can
use this knowledge, not only to analyze the texts, but as a critical resource
for asking questions about them.’’

What does the quote tell you about their
perspective on the study and analysis of
language?
Soleany Guerrero’s answers
Teresa Olea’s answers
Ferdinand de Saussure's first quote:
makes me understand his perspective on the
study and analysis of language as a process
that takes place in a context in which an
individual carries out the process of
learning a language from their interaction
with their cultural environment, where the
information that they acquire is associated
with representations of reality through
sounds (words), and these sounds then travel
to the memory of the individual so they
create a mental image with their own ideas
about possible meaning of that sound.
Ferdinand de Saussure's second
quote: Shows his perspective on the
meanings that can be attributed to words
according to the context in which they are
expressed. There are words with two or more
relationships to a specific topic and at the
moment in which the individual makes use
of a word with the characteristics mentioned
above, it is the same individual who will
examine how to relate its meaning in the
correct way according to the subsequent
words that accompany to the main word.
Ferdinand de Saussure's first quote:
Individuals are expanding our language as
we interact with other people, since all this
information that we receive in the exchange
of words our brain is collecting a series of
information that helps us enrich our lexicon.
Ferdinand de Saussure's second
quote:
The language allows changes to be made
according to the context where it takes place,
in an event where a specific topic is exposed,
they cannot explain it with a sophisticated
vocabulary, but must be explicit according to
the audience present.

Soleany Guerrero’s answers
Teresa Olea’s answers
Noam Chomsky’s first quote:
Shows an idea about language, which
suggests that the process of learning a
language is taken as a complex competence
where the individual must break down an
entire linguistic creation for their
understanding and have in mind that the
formation of language must be presented by
following specific rules that will allow the
development of more elaborate and clear
ideas.
Noam Chomsky’s second quote:
This phrase represents the idea of language
development as an activity that have to be
perfect, where individuals belong to an
environment where the actions of the sender
and receiver must be consciously developed
in a totalitarian way in relation to their
language in order to communicate and
keeping in mind that there should be no
setbacks or mistakes to convey a message.
Noam Chomsky’s first quote:
According to what I was able to interpret
about this phrase by Noam Chomsky, about
linguistic competence, it is that the
knowledge of a language is something that is
not specific that does not have its own reality
but is hidden, the human brain can observe
various objects, but he cannot fully identify
them, if he does not come to recognize
certain characteristics of them.
Noam Chomsky’s second quote:
In a community when their language is
homogeneous they will not present any
difficulties in speaking because they all have
the same language, this way makes the
speaker fluent which will be more practical
for their development and learning.

Soleany Guerrero’s answers
Teresa Olea’s answers
Michael Halliay’s first quote:
Represents that language learning has been
an activity that has been used and improved
since the beginning of the existence of
civilizations and that in its development and
advancement has generated social structures
that seek to satisfy the needs of being human
through the exercise of transmitting ideas
through written or oral language and that
due to its repeated practice the ways of
communication have been improved.
Michael Halliay’s second quote:
Indicates that the act of oral and written
communication depends on a development
process that can be difficult depending on
the case. The author manages to express that
oral language can be a bit complicated
grammatically, but the variety of words used
is scarce, on the other hand written language
can have a great variety of words but its
grammar tends to be easy.
Michael Halliay’s first quote:
This phrase means that the language is an
instrument that allows us to communicate
and interact with other people, through
which we can learn different methods of
teaching it.
As the needs are presented in a context,
words are studied to have a better
understanding with the exposed.
Michael Halliay’s second quote:
When we speak, it is difficult for us to write
because you cannot write as you speak,
writing requires a prudent time to organize
ideas coherently, it is very important to have
knowledge because when speaking and
writing you must take into account the
grammatical rules of a language.

Why is Linguistics definitely considered a
science? In your answer, involve the other
language areas such as semiotics, philology
and literature.
According to Bauer, L. (2007). Like the
biological sciences, linguistics is
concerned with observing and classifying
naturally occurring phenomena.
Linguistics came to be called science for
two reasons; The first was because to
achieve advances in its research it needs to
have financial help from institutions that
support scientific studies; and second,
because it had all the necessary
requirements that a discipline must have
to be called in such a way.
Linguistic it is considered to be a science
because it undergoes a process that
requires a subjective study, just like
scientists, linguists also build their own
investigations, collect a series of data that
lead to demonstrate its origin, after carry
out all the pertinent studies, make their
demonstrations about the knowledge of
the language. In addition, it has
characteristics that point to the scientific
method therefore it is considered a
science.
Several branches are also broken down
that help to understand their environment
in a deep way, which are:
Semiotics: is responsible for the study
and development of the meaning of signs
(words), which together form a main idea
in the process of communication and
language.
Philology: this science is in charge of
studying the grammar of a language
through a journey through its literary
history, looking for cultural comparisons
in the development of language through
ancient and modern texts.
Literature: this trade is born through the
development of language, either orally or
in writing. It has to do with the study of
the expression of thought, usually in a
textual way.

The concept of ‘double articulation’ is a
classic one at identifying language, please,
explain it, and give examples.
Double articulation
According to André Martinet (1949). Language is doubly articulated: when speaking or
listening, language is doubly articulated: When speaking or listening we notice the presence
of certain linguistic units that have meaning and that keep a certain independence from each
other.
It is a linguistic process that occurs when two units of grammar come together, which are
morphemes and phonemes.
Morpheme: it is the small part of a word that stores the main information of its meaning.
For example:
Boy + ish
The morpheme is the word "boy"
Phoneme: it is represented as the minimum unit of a word that manages to form significant
sounds to give a final concept of what is being spoken. For example: Collins Dictionary ‘’In
English, the phoneme /p/ includes the phonetically differentiated sounds represented by p in
“pin,” “spin,” and “tip” ‘’.

Human language is different from other
semiotic systems; explain at least three
characteristics that according to Linguistics
are unique to human language.
1. Productivity: This trait is closely
related to what
Noam Chomsky called "limitless scope"
and Humboldt "discrete infinity." It is
about the unlimited capacity that natural
language possesses human to generate
messages from a finite and relatively small
number of basic units (phonemes,
morphemes).
The human being is in the ability to form
a large number of words from phonemes
and morphemes through the construction
of meaning.
2. Displacement: Human beings are
able to learn a second language,
and interpret it according to the
needs and the context in which we
find ourselves, we can reach
another place where words do not
give the same meaning as we
speak, we are able to adapt.
3. Reflection of information: this
characteristic refers to the fact that
the human being in the process of
communication and learning
language is capable of stopping to
reflect on the facts.