Intro to Linguistics Final

We were discussing the ordination of women. The bishop asked what I thought. Should women take the services? So long as it doesn't have to be me, I wanted to say, they can be taken by a trained gorilla. 'Oh yes,' Geoffrey chips in, 'Susan's all in favour. She's keener than I am, aren't you, darling?' 'More sprouts anybody?' I said

"more sprouts anybody?" violated maxim of relevance

Maxim 4 MANNER

(How to give information) Avoid obscurity of expression (avoid the use of jargon (specialized terms) and needlessly complex sentence structures) Avoid ambiguity (avoid saying things that have multiple meanings, unless listeners can know which you mean) Be brief Be orderly (organize what you say in some way, and tell stories in chronological order)

hyper correction

an attempt to be overly "correct" resulting in the production of language different from the standard ("between Harlan and I" instead of "between Harlan and me") ex: People say "This is a matter between Kim and I" but correct is: "This is a matter between Kim and me."

Grice's Maxims (4 kinds)

the conversational rules that regulate conversation by enforcing compliance with the cooperative principle--following these Maxims helps to ensure that utterances are "felicitous" 1) quality 2) relevance (or relation) 3) quantity 4) manner

definition of pragmatics

the study of how context affects language use; both whether or not a particular utterance is felicitous in a given context and how the context affects that utterance's meaning or interpretation -pragmatics is the study of the ways people use language in actual conversations. Study both how context helps to determine whether a particular utterance is appropriate of not, how changes to context alter sentence's meanings

At the concert last night, Dolly Parton produced a series of sounds corresponding somewhat to the score of "The Star-Spangled Banner".

violated maxim of manner

John rode into the sunset and jumped on his horse.

violated maxim of manner

Postmaster: Here's your five-cent stamp. Shopper, with arms full of bundles: Do I have to stick it on myself? Postmaster: Nope. On the envelope

violated maxim of manner

Wife: Darling..... What's the story with that new watch on your wrist? • Husband: Oh, this watch you're talking about! I knew it... I told my boss that my wife would becurious when she sees it. Oh, honey you have no idea how much they're satisfied with my performance, lately!

violated maxim of manner (too much)

Sarah: Did you enjoy the party last night? • Anna: There was plenty of oriental food on the table, lots of flowers all over the place, peoplehanging around chatting with each other...

violated maxim of manner, quantity

Reporter: So were celebrating your birthday last week? Old film diva: Yes, I turned 40! Reporter: I'll actually turn 150 next month.

violated maxim of quality

Wow! You're such a punctual fellow! Welcome to the class. • Student: Sorry sir! It won't happen again

violated maxim of quality (being truthful)

Mother: Did you study all day long? Son who has been playing all day long: Yes, I've been studying till know!

violated maxim of quality (the boy is not truthful)

A: How are we getting there? B: Well WE'RE getting there in Dave's car

violated maxim of quantity

A: I met John and Mary the other day. They have two children now. B: Are they planning on having a third? A: Well, actually, they already have a third child.

violated maxim of quantity

Ali: Where are you, Majid? • Majid: I'm in my clothes

violated maxim of quantity (info insufficient)

John: Where have you been? I searched everywhere for you during the past three months! Mike: I wasn't around. So, what's the big deal?

violated maxim of quantity ???

A: Isn't Larry the biggest jerk you ever met? B: Well, it sure is nice for this time of year, isn't it?

violated maxim of relevance

A: Will Bob go to that party? B: Is the Pope catholic?

violated maxim of relevance

Army Officer: Name? Neddy Seagoon: Neddy Seagoon Army Officer: Rank? Neddy Seagoon: Private Army Officer: Sex? Neddy Seagoon: Yes, please

violated maxim of relevance

Bob: What were you and Anna talking about? You were looking at me all the time! • Marry: Oh, well... why don't we go get something to drink?

violated maxim of relevance

Teacher: Why didn't you do your homework? • Student: May I go and get some water? I'm so thirsty

violated maxim of relevance

ex: What do you do for a living? What I do is that I'm an instructor and the subject matter that I teach is linguistics.

violation of Maxim of Manner

ex: "I'm a brain surgeon" Actually, you have never seen the inside of an operating room

violation of Maxim of Quality

ex: Is Jamie dating anyone these days? Well, she goes to Cleveland every weekend

violation of Maxim of relevance

"She was entirely dressed in articles of clothing and had nothing on her feet except a pair of socks and two shoes."

violation of maxim of manner

ex: Leslie read fifty pages and opened her book

violation of maxim of manner

ex: My mother didn't really want my room to be painted purple. I was worried that I wouldn't get good grades at the new school. When I was a child, my favorite color was purple."

violation of maxim of manner

(4) It's the taste

violation of maxim of manner (ambiguous)

A: What is the Capital City of Indonesia? B: I believe it's Bogor, or maybe Jakarta, Indonesia has wide territory.

violation of maxim of quality

ex: A: What time is it? B: It's two o'clock, in fact it's four pass two, and now it's Sunday.

violation of maxim of quantity

ex: Letter of Reference: Mr. Jones is polite, neatly dressed, and is always on time for his classes.

violation of maxim of quantity

Mom: Have you done your homework? Son: My bicycle is broken mom.

violation of maxim of relevance

Grice

H.P. Grice (1913-88) philosopher that formulated the Cooperative Principle, according to which we are instructed to make sure that what we say in conversation furthers the purposes of the conversation

positive politeness

Politeness -politeness is part of communicative competence of native speakers, knowing what is polite in given context is so important -Generally consists of normative or expected linguistic and extralinguistic strategies culturally agreed to be interactionally appropriate for a given situation. Positive Politeness Oriented toward positive face wants, a speaker is trying to show he likes his addressee. -appealing to solidarity, friendliness, in-group -ex: Hey buddy, do me a favor and lend me a pen? -uses T in T/V

truth condition

The set of conditions that would have to hold in the world in order for the proposition expressed by some sentence to be true ex: The Queen of English is sleeping -This would be true if at a specific time she was actually sleeping

definition of semantics

The study of linguistic meaning, how expressions convey meanings. MEANING INVOLVES RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND THE WORLD. CONTEXT -lexical semantics: A subfield of semantics that studies meanings of lexical expressions -compositional semantics: A subfield of semantics that studies the meanings of phrasal expressions, and how those meanings arise given the meanings of the lexical expressions they contain and how they are syntactically combined

semantics

The study of linguistic meaning, how expressions convey meanings. MEANING INVOLVES RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND THE WORLD. CONTEXT -lexical semantics: A subfield of semantics that studies meanings of lexical expressions -compositional semantics: A subfield of semantics that studies the meanings of phrasal expressions, and how those meanings arise given the meanings of the lexical expressions they contain and how they are syntactically combined

variation

internal variation within a single language, there are different ways of expressing the same meaning, inherent to all human languages/speakers of a language language variation differences across language...Ex: labels, grammatical structure language variety any form of language characterized by systematic features. can range from idiolects to dialects to distinct languages. Internal variation exists at all the levels of linguistic structure: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics phonetic variation another label for speech sound. -every utterance produced is somewhat different -SOUNDS phonological variation pronunciation differences between dialects, including regional "accents." -SOUNDS morphological variation differences between how morphemes are distributed (hisself vs himself for possesive) -can use completely different morphemes for the same function -FORM syntactic variation sentence formation; , The categories words belong to and how words are put together to form sentences. -SENTENCES lexical variation vocabulary differences between dialects. -common in different styles: the choice of works you use depends on register/style -WORDS

Interviewer: Did the United States Government play any part in the Duvaliers' departure? Did they, for example, actively encourage him to leave? Official: I would not try to steer you away from that conclusion.

official = violated maxim of manner: wasn't brief

Maxim 2 RELEVANCE (or relation)

Be relevant; stay on topic. Following this maxim helps to prevent random topic shifts, and allows us to make inferences about what others have said. ~People often break this rule willingly to change the subject of a conversation~

Maxim 1 QUALITY

Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate Evidence. In order to follow the first maxim, we also have to follow the second though people differ in what they think is good evidence

truth value

Either true or false. The reference of a sentence -the ability to be true or false is the ability to have a truth value. -defining characteristic of a proposition -to figure out whether a proposition is true or false, we have to evaluate it with respect to the world.

etic vs. emic

Etic Description -like "phonetic" Describes from and objective outsiders POV, not taking into account the local significance of certain actions. -ex: The main raised his hand to about eye level, palm out, fingers extended, and moved it back and forth at the wrist. Emic Description Insiders description of the events in that meaning of the actions is taken for granted and described as the viewer sees it. -ex: the man waved

felicity condition

(felicity, infelicitous) describes an utterance that is appropriate for the context in which it is uttered -utterance that is felicitous is one that is situationally appropriate, appropriate relative to the context in which it is uttered -ex: What do you do for a living? I'm a linguistics professor at Ohio State -utterance is infelicitous if it is inappropriate in some way -ex: What do you do for a living? I have a job. My favorite color is purple too. felicity conditions: the circumstances required to render a particular variety of speech act felicitious

factors of variation

-internal variation exists at all levels of linguistic structure: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicon -Regional and geographic factors -Social factors: socioeconomic, age, gender, ethnic

isogloss

-result of dialectologists fieldwork are plotted on maps, boundaries of areas where a particular linguistic form is used are marked by lines called isoglosses -bundle of isoglosses: -when many isoglosses surround the same region/separate the same group of speakers -indicates that the speech of a particular group is different in a number of ways from that of other groups around it -usually mark boundaries between dialects

Joan: I've been dating this new guy for a while now, but I think I need to break up with him. He's always late, he never has any money, and I think he was hitting on my roommate last night. Ivan: (Uttered in a sarcastic tone) He's a real keeper.

Ivan violation of maxim of quality (said something he thought was false)

idiolect

Language use that is typical of a particular person -every native speaker has one. Doffers systematically from idiolects of other native speakers

Maxim 3 QUANTITY (how much info to give)

Make your contribution as informative as is required. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

phonological borrowing

borrowing -the transfer of lexical items or even structoral properties from one language to another -an outcome of language contact Phonological borrowing -occurs when a language adopts new sounds/phonological rules from a language which it is in contact -can come about through borrowing of words: ex: English got sound [3] from French loanwords (rouge, leisure, measure, prestige) rather than being directly borrowed from French as an individual sound. -phonological borrowing is not limited to sounds. ex: Phonological rules that convert root-final [k] to [s] in word pairs like electric/electricity, borrowed into English from French.

dialect

dialect is any variety of a language spoken by a group of people that is characterized by systematic differences from other varieties of the same language in terms of STRUCTURAL OR LEXICAL features

register

different levels of speech formality. -formal vs. informal, casual vs. careful

performative verb

performative speech act: particular action named by the verb is accomplished in the performance of the speech act itself. ex: someone can say "I am throwing a ball" without a ball actually being thrown. But, someone cannot say "I promise to take you to the store later" without actually making such a promise. performative verb: a verb that denotes a linguistic action; a verb that is used to perform the act that it names ex: I assert . . . I ask again, I order, I request, I'm threatening you, I'm warning you, I bet you, I advise you.

Cooperative Principle

principle formulated by the philosopher H.P. Grice, stating that underlying a conversation is the understanding that what one says is intended to contribute to the purposes of the conversation -people intend to be cooperative conversational partners

diglossia

situation where different languages/dialects are used for different functions -sometimes choice of language is determined by the social setting -ex: Standard Arabic in literature and writing, local varieties of Arabic in regular conversation -ex: Africa: French/English = at school, African languages at home

definition of sociolinguistics

study of the relationship between language varieties (idiolects) and social structure as well as the interrelationships among different language varieties

accent

systematic phonological variation