LANGUAGE AND SPEECH

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 534.

Language in sex

Hypercorrection

Different social, specialized groups

The earnest notions of standard English in America included the idea that only London English (or proper British) can be unacceptable standard and second the idea that the speech of largest business counters might serve as modals for good usage.

We are to differentiate between language and speech. The first attempts to differentiate between language and speech date back to IV BC, and were made by Plato who claimed that words, taken out of sentences and speech, assert and deny nothing. They get their meaning only in sentences, in speech denoting some concrete information about things. This theory was developed later by Aristotle and served as a basis for creating a new grammatical theory containing morphology and syntax.

The name associated with strict differentiation of language from speech is the name of the well-known Swiss linguist – de Saussure. It was he who compared language with chess referring to the fact that both have many elements which organize not an occasionally-built pile, or list, but a unit all the elements of which are interconnected and determine each other, thus forming a system.

Language is a system of rules, laws of different kinds that are the base for speech.

Speech is the manifestation of language.

e. g. Verbs have the category of voice, there are two of them: active and passive. This is a fact of language. But when we create concrete utterances, sentences, word combinations with these forms we obtain facts of speech.

Language and speech are interdependent. Properties of every unit as an element of the system of language determine its combinability, which, in its turn, may develop in the process of speech.

With respect to a speaker it is only natural to present the difference between language and speech as the difference between his linguistic competence and actual performance.

According to R.W. Langacker "... a language is a kind of code, but the code itself must be distinguished from the act of encoding and decoding. The same kind of distinction can be made between a symphony and performance of it. No matter how poorly it is performed, the symphony remains unaffected ... The grammatical description of the language is like the written score of a symphony in this respect. The notes of the score do not describe step by step the precise motions that the conductor makes with his arms, nor do they say what the violinist does with his fingers to produce the right sounds on his instrument. Rather, they symbolize the intrinsic structure of the musical work" [17, 34 – 35].

Language does more than provides a package of ready-made messages. It enables us to produce and understand new words, phrases, and sentences as the need arises. In short, human language is creative – "allowing novelty and innovation in response to new experiences, situations, and thoughts" [7, 1].

But this creativity is rule-governed, and this is a characteristic feature of all levels of language.

e. g. Cf. (a) 1. brace (b) 1. bsarp

2. flip 2. mbit

3. praf 3. ptra

Comparing the words in (a) and (b) we can say that the former are recognizable as possible names for new products or inventions while the latter simply do not have the "appearance" of English words.

The example above illustrates that our subconscious knowledge of English includes a set of certain constraints thus limiting the speaker's freedom in creating new words. The same is true when new words are created from the already existing. W. O'Grady, M. Dobrovolsky write that if speakers of English, learn that there is the word soleme (used perhaps for a newly discovered atomic particle), they then automatically know that something with the properties of a soleme can be called solemic. They also know that to make something solemic is to solemicize it, and they call this process solemicization. Further, they know that the c is pronounced as [s] in solemicize but as [k] in solemic. Without any doubt, they will pronounce solemicize with the stress on the second syllable [7].

Thus, users of a language must possess certain knowledge that enables them to create and understand new utterances, and this knowledge is what constitutes linguistic competence, which is based on a set of rules according to which language works. In this respect it is possible to say that every language has its grammar.