Noam Chomsky's linguistic theory for language acquisition

The Copenhagen school

The Copenhagen School, officially the "Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen (Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague)", was a group of scholars dedicated to the study of structural linguistics founded by Louis Hjelmslev and Viggo Brøndal. In the mid twentieth century the Copenhagen school was one of the most important centres of linguistic structuralism together with the Geneva School and thePrague School.

The Copenhagen School of Linguistics evolved around Louis Hjelmslev and his developing theory of language, glossematics. Together with Viggo Brødal he founded the Cercle Linguistique de  Copenhague a group of linguists based on the model of the Prague Linguistic Circle.

In the mid twentieth century the Copenhagen school was one of the most important centres of linguistic structuralism together with the Geneva School and thePrague School.

Within the circle the ideas of Brøndal and Hjelmslev were not always compatible and Hjelmslevs more formalist approach attracted a group of followers, principal among them Hans Jørgen

Uldall and Eli Fischer Jørgensen, who would strive to apply Hjelmslevs abstract ideas of the

nature of language to analyses of actual linguistic data.

 In the mid twentieth century the Copenhagen school was one of the most important centres of linguistic structuralism together with the Geneva School and thePrague School.

In 1989 a group of members of the Copenhagen Linguistic circle inspired by the advances in

cognitive linguistics and the functionalist theories of Simon C. Dik founded the School of Danish

Functional Grammar aiming to combine the ideas of Hjelmslev and Brøndal, and other important

Danish linguists such as Paul Diderichsen and Otto Jespersen with modern functional linguistics.

Among the prominent members of this new generation of the Copenhagen School of Linguistics

were Peter Harder, Elisabeth Engberg Petersen, Frans Gregersen and Michael Fortescue, and 

the basic work of the school is "Danish Functional Grammar."

Louis Hjelmslev (October 3, 1899, Copenhagen – May 30, 1965, Copenhagen) was a Danish

linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Copenhagen School of linguistics. Born into an

academic family, Hjelmslev studied comparative linguistics in Copenhagen, Prague and Paris

(with a.o.Antoine Meillet and Joseph Vendryes).

žHis most well-known book, Omkring sprogteoriens grundlæggelse, or in English

translation, Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, first published in 1943, critiques the

then-prevailing methodologies in linguistics as being descriptive, even anecdotal, and not

systematising. 

In 1931, he founded the Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague. Together with Hans Jørgen Uldall

he developed a structural theory of language which he called glossematics, which developed the

semiotic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure. Glossematics as a theory of language is

characterized by a high degree of formalism, it is interested only in describing the formal

characteristics of language, and a high degree of logical rigour.

The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen

The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen was founded by Hjelmslev and a group of Danish

colleagues on September 24, 1931. Their main inspiration was the Prague Linguistic Circle,

which had been founded in 1926. It was, in the first place, a forum for discussion of theoretical

and methodological problems in linguistics. Initially, their interest lay mainly in developing an

alternative concept of the phoneme, but it later developed into a complete theory which was

coined glossematics, and was notably influenced by structuralism. Membership of the group

grew rapidly and a significant list of publications resulted, including an irregular series of larger

works under the name Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague.

The London School

Linguistic description evolves a standard language since eleventh century. In the sixteenth century the practical linguistic was flourished in England.

Practical Linguistics 

Orthoepy- it is the codification and teaching the correct pronunciation.

Lexicography- it is the invention of shorthand systems, spelling reform, and the creation

of artificial ‘philosophical languages.’

They induce in their practitioners a considerable degree of sophistication about matters.

linguistics. 

Phonetics

Henry Sweet based his historical studies on a detailed understanding of the working of the vocal organs. He was concerned with the systematizing phonetic transcription in connection with problems of language-teaching and of spelling reform.

Daniel Jones stressed the importance for language study of through training in the practical

skills of perceiving, transcribing, and reproducing minute distinctions of speech- sound.

He invented the system of cardinal reference-points which made precise and consistent

transcription possible in the case of vowels.  

Linguistics

J.R. Firth turned linguistics proper into a recognized, distinct academic subject.

Firth said that the phonology of a language consist of a number of system of alternative

possibilities which come into play at different points in phonological unit such a syllable, and

there is no reason to identify the alternants in one system with those in another. 

Trubetzkoy assumes that the range of sounds found in the special neutralizing environment will

be related in a regular way to the range found in other environments. 

A Firthian phonologycal analysis recognizes a number of ‘systems’ of prosodies operating at

various points in structure which determine the pronunciation of a given form in interaction with

segment-sized phonematic units.

The terminological distinction between ‘prosodies’ and ‘phonematic units’ could as well be

thought of as ‘prosodies’ that happen to be only one segment long. 

Linguistic theory

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Ethnography of Speech

The role of speech in human behavior has always been honored in anthropological principle, if sometimes slighted in practice. The importance of its study has been declaimed, surveyed with insightful detail, and accepted as a principle of field work.

Concept of Ethnography: That the study of speech might be crucial to a science of man has been a recurrent anthropological theme.  Is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group, but revealing more of basic processes because more out of awareness, less subject to overlay by rationalization. Some anthropologists have seen language, and hence linguistics, as basic to a science of man because it provides a link between the biological and sociocultural levels. Some have seen in modern linguistic methodology a model or harbinger of a general methodology for studying the structure of human behavior. 

The Ethnography was pioneered in the field of socio-cultural anthropology but has also become 

a popular method in various other fields of social sciences—particularly in sociology, 

communication studies, history. —that studies people, ethnic groups and other ethnic 

formations, their ethnogenesis, composition, resettlement, social welfare characteristics, as well 

as their material and spiritual culture.   

It is often employed for gathering empirical data on human societies and cultures.Data collection

 is often done through participant observation, interviews, questionnaires, etc. Ethnography aims

 to describe the nature of those who are studied (i.e. to describe a people,anethnos) through 

writing.

Ethnography of communication or Speaking

The Ethnography of communication (EOC) is a method of discourse analysis in linguistics, 

which draws on the anthropological field of ethnography. Unlike ethnography proper, though, it 

takes both language and culture to be constitutive as well as constructive.

In their book Qualitative Communication Research Methods, communications 

scholars Thomas R. Lindlof and Bryan C. Taylor (2002) explain "Ethnography of 

communication conceptualizes communication as a continuous flow of information, 

rather than as a segmented exchange of messages“. According to Deborah Cameron 

(2001), EOC can be thought of as the application of ethnographic methods to the 

communication patterns of a group.

EOC can be used as a means by which to study the interactions among members of a 

specific culture or, what Gerry Philipsen (1975) calls a "speech community." Speech 

communities create and establish their own speaking codes/norms. 

The meaning and understanding of the presence or absence of speech within 

different communities will vary. Local cultural patterns and norms must be understood 

for analysis and interpretation of the appropriateness of speech acts situated within

specific communities

Thus, “the statement that talk is not anywhere valued equally in all social contexts suggest

a research strategy for discovering and describing cultural or subcultural differences in the

value of speaking.

Speaking is one among other symbolic resources which are allocated and distributed in

social situations according to distinctive culture patterns”.

Grammatical Cases

WHO IS CHARLES J. FILLMORE?

Charles J. Fillmore (born 1929) is an American linguist, and an Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

 Dr. Fillmore has been extremely influential in the areas of syntax and lexical semantics. He was a proponent of Noam Chomsky's theory of generative grammar during its earliest transformational grammar phase. He was one of the founders of cognitive linguistics, and developed the theories of Case Grammar (Fillmore 1968), and Frame Semantics (1976).

He was one of the first linguists to introduce a representation of linguistic knowledge that blurred this strong distinction between syntactic and semantic knowledge of a language. He introduced what was termed case structure grammar and this representation subsequently had considerable influence on psychologists as well as computational linguists.

Grammar Case is a system of linguistic analysis, focusing on the link between the valence, or number of subjects, objects, etc., of a verb and the grammatical context it requires.

The system was created by the American linguist Charles J. Fillmore in (1968), in the context of Transformational Grammar. This theory analyzes the surface syntactic structure of sentences by studying the combination of deep cases (i.e. semantic roles) -- Agent, Object, Benefactor, Location or Instrument -- which are required by a specific verb.

For instance, the verb "give" in English requires an Agent (A) and Object (O), and a Beneficiary (B); e.g. "Jones (A) gave money (O) to the school (B).

According to Fillmore, each verb selects a certain number of deep cases which form its case frame. Thus, a case frame describes important aspects of semantic valency, of verbs, adjectives and nouns.
Case frames are subject to certain constraints, such as that a deep case can occur only once per sentence.

Some of the cases are obligatory and others are optional. Obligatory cases may not be deleted, at the risk of producing ungrammatical sentences.

A fundamental hypothesis of case grammar is that grammatical functions, such as subject or object, are determined by the deep, semantic valence of the verb, which finds its syntactic correlate in such grammatical categories as Subject and Object, and in grammatical cases such as Nominative, Accusative, etc.

Fillmore puts forwards the following hierarchy for a universal subject selection rule:

Agent < Instrumental < Objective

That means that if the case frame of a verb contains an agent, this one is realized as the subject of an active sentence.

Case grammar is an attempt to establish a semantic grammar. (Most grammars by linguists take syntax as the starting-point).

Using a modified form of valency theory Fillmore suggests that the verb establishes a set of cases in a sentence: these are like slots, which usually need not all be filled. For example, consider these sentences:

1. Mary opened the door with a key.

2. Mary opened the door.

3. A key opened the door.

4. The door opened.

In (1) the semantic cases are: Mary - agent; the door - object; a key - instrument.

In (2) they are as in (1), except that there is no instrument.

In (3) the cases are: a key - instrument; the door - object.

In (4) the only case is the door - object.

In other words, to open requires at the minimum that the object be specified in a sentence.