1. Plato’s Cratylus 2 distinct views A) – Language is natural B) - Language is conventional

2. Aristotle The only reality of a name lies in its formal properties No word exists by nature but only by becoming a symbol.

3. CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE 1 – Human language is conventional and symbolic: It has come after many agreements between the members of a given community who decide to assign specific names to things, objects, concepts, etc. 2 – Human Language is a social phenomenon: It is acquired in a social environment and its acquisition is not possible without the participation of the members of the society (wolf child). 3 – Human Language is rule-governed: People do not speak randomly but obey certain rules in order to communicate effectively. The rules are phonological, grammatical, lexical, pragmatic, etc. 4 – Human Language is creative: The uses of language are various, and the range of possible sentences is infinite, despite the limited number of phonological elements present in a given phonological system. 5 – Human Language is context-dependent: The context determines the language to be used (familiarity, politeness, formality, humour, etc.) 6 – Human language can be manifested through two main media: These are the verbal and the written one. 7 - Human language is characterized by its double articulation: The first articulation concerns the articulation of meaningful units (words/monemes) that will make up sentences, and the second articulation which consists in the articulation and combination of the contrastive units (sounds/phonemes) which form words.

4. Words are not things & things are not words Magritte’s pipe

5. What about this?

6. The concept of medium <<< 

7. Speech = Combination of speech sounds (phonemes) into meaningful units e.g. /teibl/ Writing = Combination of graphs representing phonemes e.g. table Spwriting = Combination of sounds,phonemes, graphs, initials, numbers, emoticons, etc. to build meaning. e.g. CUL8er, ASCIIbetical order, ROT13, W2K Bug, etc.

8. The invention of the printing press and its effects on literacy

9. Saussure’s theory of the sign The sign is the whole that results in the mind from the association of the signifier and the signified. Signifier Sign = Relationship Signified

10. Peirce’s theory of the sign A sign, or representamen, is something (S) which stands to somebody (I) for something (O) in some respect or capacity. S = Relationship between Object, Representamen, and Interpretant O R I

11. Mathematical Theory of Communication Shannon & Weaver’s model

12. Lasswell’s communication model

13. Jakobson’s communication model Six Factors (Addresser – Addressee – Context – Message – Contact – Code) corresponding to: Six Functions (Emotive – Conative – Referential – Poetic – Phatic – Metalinguistic)

14. Text and Discourse

15. Cohesion and Coherence

16. Halliday and Hassan and their Three Functions of Language - Ideational function: This relates to the content of what is said. The speaker realizes this function by expressing his experiences of the external world and the internal world of his own consciousness - Interpersonal function: This is the function of language in which the speakers participate in the speech situation. That is our use of language to interact among ourselves, to ask, to relate, to include or exclude and so on. Interpersonal function of language helps to maintain and establish social relations, as well as to influence people’s behaviour and get things done. - Textual function: It is through this function that the speaker is able to communicate with his/her audience. Textual function helps to provide texture to what is said, and quality of coherence and cohesion to what is said. Without texture, text cannot be created.

17. Grammatical Devices to ensure cohesive relationship Reference Substitution Ellipsis Conjunction Nominal Anaphora Nominal Coordinating Conj. Verbal Cataphora Verbal Subordinating Conj. Verb+Object Clausal Compound Adv. Verb+Adv Continuatives Lexical cohesion: reiteration (synonymy, antonymy, repetition), and collocation (certain words occur together) Grammatical correctness + semantic intelligibility

18. What is Meaning? Where do we find Meaning? How is meaning constructed

19. Pragmatics The pragmatic maxim: Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object”. C.S. PEIRCE

21. D/A and Language Teaching