Lec. Tuncer Can
“Language is the armoury of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquest”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Divine theory : language is God’s gift to mankind/magic/ different languages are used for religion/prayers
God gave Adam the power to name all things.
Evolutionary theory : 3000 “bekos” / nationalist views/ Aramic/ changes in the brain.
Human Creation : Plato-“Cratylos”(legislator) / naturalist-conventionalist (among people)
Leibniz: Proto-language (monogenesis/ polygenesis) “Tower of Babel” (confusion)
J.J Rousseau : “ will to be free”/ Descartes : “Cries of Nature”
Piaget : “language depends on thought for its development”/ “oral gesture theory” (pantomimic gestures)/ Cognitive view, / L.Carini : “Language just happened”
Chomsky : “
Motor theory of speech perception : we reproduce, unconsciously, the sounds and gestures in our minds.
The Bow-Wow (iconic) : imitation of natural sounds ( onomatopoeic,echo words)
Pooh-Pooh : spontaneous exclamations; cries of fear, anger, pain, disgust, despair, joy.
Sing-Song : romantic side life-sounds associated with love , play, poetic feelings, song, not communicative but expressive, poetic and emotional.
Yo-He-Ho : speech arouse as people work together; moving a tree, lifting rocks (N.S.)
Gesture : communicated by gestures, mouth gestures mixed; articulated nature speech.
Language Functions
Regional origin, social background, level of education, age sex, personality- control reality(Harry Potter :You know who, “Allah Korusun”) – records facts about societies – expression of social identity – unites people
Language and thought : 2 kinds of thinking- 1) not involving thinking (art, painting) – 2) involving language (inductive, deducitve)
“Language is the outward manifestation of human spirit” Humboldt
'Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication and reflection. The fact of the matter is that the "real world" is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.'
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis : “structure of grammar and vocabulary of a person’s language determinesor shapes his view of the world”/ it today can be broken down into two basic principles: linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity.
Sociolinguistics : context of situaiton/ code/ communication : interpersonal social act/speech form –
Participants - message – channel – speech situation – topic
adresser/adressee - form - social relation(mail) - context - context, message
variety of speech - purposes/ fuctions
code-dialect-sociolects - goals-ends-outcome
Strategic Competence :
Linguistic Competence : knowledge of rules of syntax
Communicative Competence : ability that the native speaker possesses to use and interpret language appropriately in the process of interaction and in social relation to social context.
“when to speak, when not; what to talk about with whom when where in what manner”
speech community dialects, sociolects, assimilation, rejection, adaptation, pidgin&creole.
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