1. chapter 12 Theories and School of Modern Linguistics
Lecturer: Rui Liu

2. Contents 1. Saussure and Structuralism 2. The Prague School
3. The London School
4. American Structuralism
5. Transformational –Generative Grammar

3. 1. Saussure and Structuralism
Ferdinand de Saussure
Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts
Structuralism

4. 1. Saussure and Structuralism
Ferdinand de Saussure ( )
-- a Swiss linguist and Sanskritist, A course in General Linguistics in 1916.
-- the founder of modern linguistics in its attempts to describe the structure of
language rather than the history of particular languages and language forms.
-- founder of structuralism.

5. 1. Saussure and Structuralism
Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts
-- Linguistic Sign — Signifier vs. Signified
e.m.
The word “tree” does not refer to
the thing in the world but rather to
a concept in our minds. One uses
deictic markers like “this” or “that”
to relate concepts to objects in
the world.

6. 1. Saussure and Structuralism
Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts
-- Langue VS Parole

7. 1. Saussure and Structuralism
Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts
-- Synchronic VS Diachronic

8. 1. Saussure and Structuralism
Saussure’s Linguistic Concepts
-- Syntagmatic VS Associative

9. 1. Saussure and Structuralism
-- interrelationship between UNITS, (also called “surface phenomena”),
and “RULES”, (the ways that units can be put together);
-- 3 schools of structuralisms
Structuralism
Focus
The Prague School
the function of linguistic structures
The London School
the relationship among linguistic structures
American School
the description and analysis of the form of linguistic structures

10. 2. The Prague School
Prague structuralism is functionalistic in that the Prague School views
language as a combination of structure and function. So language is
a structural system of multifunction, which comprises many interdependent
sub-systems.

11. Focus of linguistic study
2. The Prague School
Phonological Contribution
-- Trubetzkoy’s Phonological Oppositions
-- “principle of Phonology”
Focus of linguistic study
Spoken Language
Written Language

12. 2. The Prague School 9 phonological oppositions
-- Bilateral opposition (双边对立)
-- Multilateral opposition (多边对立)
-- Proportional opposition (均衡对立)
-- Isolated opposition (孤立对立)
-- Privative opposition (否定对立)
-- Gradual opposition (分级对立)
-- Equipollent opposition (等价对立)
-- Neutralisable opposition (抵消对立)
-- Constant opposition (永恒对立)

13. 2. The Prague School
Syntactic Contribution — Functional Sentence Perspective
It examines how language functions in the act of communication.
a sentence contains a point of departure and a goal of discourse.
The point of departure is equally present to the speaker and hearer — it is the
ground on which they meet. This is called the theme. The goal of discourse
presents the very information that is to be imparted to the hearer. This is
called the rheme.
The map is on page five On page five is the map.
Subject Predicate Predicate Subject
Theme Rheme Theme Rheme
Known New Known New

14. 3. The London School
-- “systemic linguistics” and “functional linguistics”
-- emphasize the importance of context of situation and the system
aspect of language
-- Prosodic phonology (John Rupert Firth ( ));
-- Systemic Functional Grammar (M.A.K. Halliday (1925-?));

15. 3. The London School Prosodic phonology -- Firth’s Prosody
Prosodies are features extending over stretches of utterance.
It includes not only pitch, stress, tone and rhythm but also lip rounding or nasalization, when these are used to account for phonological
restrictions, or to characterize grammatical structure.
-- Firth’s Context
to conduct contextual analysis on four levels
1) phonological analysis
2) lexical and semantic analysis
3) grammatical analysis
4) the analysis of the context of situation
-- Firth’s System VS. Structure
system is the theoretical representation of paradigmatic relations,
contrasted with structure for syntagmatic relations

16. 3. The London School Systemic Functional Grammar - Introduction
Halliday built his linguistic theory upon two conceptions of Firth,
one is the concept of system, the other is context of situation.
From “system” derived the syntactic analysis in the London style
— systemic grammar. In Firth’s system-structure theory,
neither of these is given priority. In systemic theory the system takes
priority: the most abstract representation at any level is in paradigmatic
terms. Syntagmatic organization is interpreted as the realization of
paradigmatic features.

17. 3. The London School Systemic Functional Grammar - System
-- Transitivity system: interprets and represents our experience of phenomena
in the world and in our consciousness by modeling experiential meanings in
terms of participants, processes and circumstances.
-- Mood system: central resource for establishing and maintaining an
ongoing exchange between interactants by assuming and assigning speech
roles such as giving or demanding goods and services or information.
So include indicatives (including declarative and interrogative) and imperatives.
-- Theme system : the resource for setting up a local context for a clause by
selecting a local point of departure in the flow of information — theme.
The remainder of the message, the part in which the theme is developed,
is called rheme.

18. 3. The London School systems realize metafunctions Transitivity
Systemic Functional Grammar - Function
-- Ideational metafunction
-- Interpersonal metafunction
-- Textual metafunction
systems
realize
metafunctions
Transitivity
Ideational function
Mood
Interpersonal function
Theme
Textual function

19. 3. The London School Systemic Functional Grammar – Context -- field
-- tenor
-- mode
Relationship among systems, functions and context
Systems
realize
metafunctions
register
Transitivity
Ideational function
Field
Mood
Interpersonal function
Tenor
Theme
Textual function
Mode

20. 4. American Structuralism
Bloomfield
-- stimulus-response reinforcement
-- S stands for practical stimulus, r stands for the substitute reaction of speech,
s stands for the substitute stimulus, and R stands for external practical reaction.
Sapir
-- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, arguing that language moulds mind.
-- The theory has been enormously influential but has for the most part been
superseded by subsequent research. Sapir’s studies on the ethnology and
linguistics or various Native American groups of the United States contributed
greatly to the development of descriptive linguistics.

21. 4. Transformational –Generative Grammar
In the 1950s the school of linguistic thought, known as transformational-generative
grammar, received wide acclaim through the works of Noam Chomsky.
Originally expounded by Noam Chomsky, his students, and colleagues,
transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is an attempt to define the
grammatical rules underlying all of the surface expression of language.

22. 4. Transformational –Generative Grammar
Chomsky’s Syntactic Structure
A syntactic base of language called deep structure, which consists of
a series of phrase structure rules, and a series of rules called
transformations that act upon the phrase structure to form more
complex sentences. The end result of a transformational-generative
grammar is a surface structure that, after the movement, deletion,
insertion, substitution of words and pronunciations, is identical to an
actual sentence of a language.
All languages have the same deep structure, but they differ from each
other in surface structure because of the application of different rules
for transformations and pronunciation.

23. 4. Transformational –Generative Grammar
Chomsky’s Innateness Hypothesis
-- mainly include:
a large part of the grammar is innate and universal in
all human beings (like the ability to walk, unlike the ability to ride a bike);
the part of the grammar which is not innate (and which determines the
structural variation across the world’s languages) is learned via a
language-specific module of the mind/brain.

24. 4. Transformational –Generative Grammar
Structural Linguistics and T-G Grammar
Linguistic school
Structuralism
T-G Grammar
Key figure
Bloomfield
Chomsky
Definition of language
A set of habits
A set of rules
Aim in linguistics
To describe language
To produce a grammar
Types of data collected
Naturally occurring utterances
Any data
Methodology
Inductive generalization
Hypothesis-deductive
View of language learning
Empiricism, behaviorism
Rationalism, mentalism