1、How do you interpret the following definition of linguistics: linguistics is the scientific study of language.

It is a scientific studies because it is based on the systematic investigation of linguistic data, conducted with reference to some general theory of language structure. In order to discover the nature and rules of the underlying language system, what the linguist has to do first is to collect and observe language facts, which are found to display some similarities, and generalizations are made about them; then he formulates some hypotheses about the language structure. But the hypotheses, thus formed have to be checked repeatedly against the observed facts to fully prove their validity.

In linguistics, as in any other discipline, data and theory stand in a dialectical complementation; that is, a theory without the support of data can hardly claim validity, and data without being explained by some theory remain a muddled mass of things.

 

 

 

2、The design/defining features of human language (Charles Hockett)

(1) Arbitrariness

----No logical (motivated or intrinsic) connection between sounds and meanings.

  ----- No natural and inevitable link between the sound and the meaning

Exception: Onomatopoeic words and Some compound words.

(2) Productivity/creativity

We can speak an endless number of sentences with a limited vocabulary and one sentence can expand into endless theoretically possible sentences in the way of recurring

Exception: and bee dancing is used only to indicate food sources, which is the only kind of message that can be sent through the dancing.

(3) Duality

• Lower level----sounds (meaningless)
• Higher level----meaning (larger units of meaning)

Exception: the grouping of the three sounds/k/,/a:/,and/p/ can mean either a kind of fish(crap), or a public place for rest and amusement(park).

(4) Displacement

Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of communication.

Exception: Yesterday which book did you read?

(5) Cultural transmission

Language can transmit Culture which the language contains.

Exception；an English speaker and a Chinese speaker are both able to use a language, but they are not mutually intelligible. This shows that language is culturally transmitted.

 

 

3、word formation

(1)Compound

It refers to those words that consist of more than one lexical morpheme, or the way to join two separate words to produce a single form.  icecream, sunrise, paperbag

(2)  Derivation

It refers to the formation of new words by adding affixes to other words or morphemes.

Unconscious, national, nationalize

(3) Blending

It refers to the form of compounding, in which two words are blended by joining the initial part of the first word and the final part of the second word, or by joining the initial parts of the two words.

Smoke + fog = smog 烟雾

(4) Abbreviation

1)cutting the final part ( or with a slight variation)  advertisement-----ad

2) cutting the initial part    aeroplane -----plane

3) cutting both the initial and final parts accordingly   refrigerator ---- fridge

(5) Acronym(I)

It is made up from the first letters of the name of an organization, which has a heavily modified headword. WB : World Bank

Acronym(II)

This process is also widely used in shortening extremely long words of word groups in science, technology and other special fields. VAT : value added tax 增殖税

(6) Back- formation

It refers to an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix from a longer form already in the language

Editor ------edit

(7) Borrowing

Latin: cancer, page, i.e.(that is) e.g.( for example) etc. (et cetera)

Chinese: taji, chow mein, kung-fu

Japanese: Judo

French, German, Italian, Spanish

(8) Invention

Since economic activities are the most important and dynamic in human life, many new lexical items come directly from the consumer items, their producers or their brand names such as Kodak, Coke, nylon, and others to cope with the Invention of new entities.

4. XP rule

1.XP rule: specifier + head + complement

2. XP rule: (Specifier)X’

X’ à X(complement)

3. XP rule :(Specifier) X (Complement*)

 

4. XP rule:(Spec) (Mod) X (Complement*) (Mod)

Complement: (in grammar) that part of the sentence which follows the verb and which thus completes the sentence.

Features:

Ø      one or more complements are permitted

Ø      (eg. A story about a sentimental girl with purple umbrella …)

Ø      words that can take CP are not verbs alone. As, Ns and Ps can all take CP

Ø      (e.g. take it; poor as a chuch mouse;the man with hat;right near the fireplace)

Ø      A certain lexical item requires a certain type of complement.

Ø      (e.g. come to school; go to bed; look through it)

 

Modifier: is used to specify optionally expressible properties of heads.

Modifier position in English

Modifier	Position	example
AP	Precedes the head	a very careful girl
PP	Follows the head	open with care
AdvP	Precedes or follows the head	read carefully; carefully read

 

5. 请从Behaviorism 的角度来举例说明其意义：

Behaviorists attempted to define the meaning of a language form as the “situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer.”

 

S__Tang Wanyi_____r--------s______Vicky______R

When Tang Wanyi sees an apple and wants to have it, she has a physical stimulus, (represented by the capital letters), which gives rise to a verbal response(r) to Vicky. For instance, she might say to Vicky ”I’m thirsty”. What she says results in a verbal stimulus to Vicky (represented by the small letter S). This stimulus, in its turn, leads to a non-verbal response from Vicky, such as picking the apple for her.

 

 

6. synonymy(同义现象)

Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms

1) Dialectal synonyms---- synonyms used in different regional dialects（地区方言）

autumn - fall, biscuit - cracker, petrol – gasoline 地方

2) Stylistic synonyms----synonyms differing in style,（文体风格上不同）

   kid, child, offspring; start, begin, commence;

 3) Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning（examples in Mandarin)（情感上和评价判断上的不同）

合作者/同谋；结果/下场；鼓励/…；领袖/…；赞扬/…团结

4) Collocational synonyms（搭配意义上的不同）

A group of people; a herd of wolves; a swarm of bees

5) Semantically different synonyms(语义不同)

surprise/astonish; finish/complete

 

 

7、locutionary act, illocutionary act，perlocutionary act

For example,“It is cold in here.”

Its locutionary act is the saying of it with its literal meaning “the weather is clod in here” ;

Its illocutionary act can be a request of the hearer “to shut the window” ;

Its perlocutionary act is the effect brought about; it can be “the hearer’s shutting the window or his refusal to comply with the request”.

(作业本)

You have left the door wide open

①    the locutionary act performed by the speaker is his utterance of all the words ”you”, ”have”, ”door”, ”open”, etc. thus expressing what the words literally mean

②    the illocutionary act performed by the speaker is that by making such an utterance he has expressed his intention of speaking. i.e. asking someone to close the door.

③    The perlocutionary act refers to the effect (result) of the utterance. It can be “the hearer close the door or refuse to comply with the request.

 

 

8、Four maxims of CP (I)

The maxim of quality

----Do not say what you believe to be false.

----Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

The maxim of quantity

----Make your contribution as informative as required for the current purpose of the exchange.

----Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

The maxim of relation

----Be relevant ( make your contribution relevant).

The maxim of manner

----Avoid obscurity of expression.

----Avoid ambiguity.

----Be brief.

----Be orderly.

（先判断在分析，先判断是不是relation从literal meaning是不是同一个主题）

Conversational implicature 会话含义，言外之意；会话含意

In real communication, however, speakers do not always observe these maxims strictly. These maxims can be violated for various reasons. When any of the maxims is violated, i.e. both the speaker and the hearer are aware of the violation, our language becomes indirect, then conversational implicature arises.

 

 

 

填空，definition  判断   选择

Phonetics: the study of sounds used in linguistic communication led to establishment of phonetics

 

Phonology: how sounds are put together and used to convey meaning in communication.

 

Morphology: is concerned with the internal organization of words. It studies the minimal units of meaning morphemes and word-formation processes

 

Syntax: the study of how word combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the formation of sentences.

 

Semantics: it examines how meaning is encoded in language. It is concerned with 1)meanings of the words. 2) levels of language below the word and above it

 

Pragmatics: the study of the use of language in communication, particularly the relationships between sentences and the contexts and situation in which they are used.

 

Sociolinguistics: the study of all these social aspects of language and its relation with society form the core of the branch

 

Psycholinguistics: relates the study of language to psychology. It aims to answer such questions as how the human mind works when we use language, how…. , how…

 

Articulatory phonetics发音语音学

----from the speakers’ point of view, “how speakers produce speech sounds”

--------speaking

Acoustic phonetics声学语音学；

----from the physical way or means by which sounds are transmitted from one to another.

-------sounding

Auditory phonetics听觉语音学

----from the hearers’ point of view, “how sounds are perceived”

--------listening

 

 

Classification of consonants

---- English consonants may be classified according to two dimensions:

 

• The manner of articulation

 

• The place of articulation

 

 

Broad transcription ---- used in dictionary and textbook for general purpose, without diacritics, e.g. clear [l ], [ pit ] 

 

Narrow transcription ---- used by phonetician for careful study, with diacritics, e.g. dark [ l ], aspirated [ p ]

 

Semantics----the study of language meaning.

Meaning is central to the study of communication.

 

Naming theory’s Limitations

1) Applicable to nouns only.

2) There are nouns which denote things that do not exist in the real world.

3) There are nouns that do not refer to physical objects but abstract notions.

 

Conclusion on semantic triangle

The symbol or form refers to the linguistic elements (words and phrases);

The referent refers to the object in the world of experience;

Thought or reference refers to concept.

Relations:

The symbol or a word signifies things by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the minds of the speaker;  and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.

 

 

7. Antonymy(反义现象)

Antonymy: refers to the oppositeness of meaning.

1. Gradable antonyms----there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair. Old-young, hot-cold, tall-short

2. Complementary antonyms----the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other. Alive-dead, male-female, …

3. Relational opposites----exhibits the reversal of the relationship between the two items

Husband-wife, father-son, doctor-patient, buy-sell, employer-employee, give-receive…

 

 

8. Homonymy（同形异义）

Homonymy---- the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form, e.g. different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both.

Homophone ---- when two words are identical in sound, rain-reign, night/knight, …

Homogragh ---- when two words are identical in spelling. tear(n.)-tear(v.), lead(n.)-lead(v.), …

Complete homonym---- when two words are identical in both sound and spelling, ball(E,F), bank, watch, scale, fast, …

 

Polysemy----the same one word may have more than one meaning.

• “table” may mean:
• 1. A piece of furniture
• 2. All the people seated at a table
• 3.The food that is put on a table
• 4. A thin flat piece of stone, metal wood, etc.
• 5. Orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.

   ……

 

X entails Y(蕴含关系)

• X: John married a blond heiress.
• Y: John married a blond.

 

• X: Marry has been to Beijing.
• Y: Marry has been to China.

 

• Entailment is a relation of inclusion. If X entails Y, then the meaning of X is included in Y.
• If X is true, Y is necessarily true; if X is false, Y may be true or false.

X presupposes Y（预射关系）

• X: His bike needs repairing.
• Y: He has a bike.

 

• Paul has given up smoking.
• Paul once smoked.

 

• If X is true, Y must be true; If X is false, Y is still true.

 

The Relatedness between Language and Society

There are many indications of the inter-relationship between language and society.

1. Language is often used to establish and maintain social relationships

2. The use of language is in part determined by the user’s social background. (social class, age, sex, education level, etc.)

3. Language, especially the structure of its lexicon, reflects both the physical and the social environments of a society. (“snow” for Eskimo)

4. As a social phenomenon language is closely related to the structure of the society in which it is used, the evaluation of a linguistic form is entirely social ( the postvocalic [r] ).

 

 

Predication analysis(III)

1) The meaning of a sentence is not to be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its component words, e.g “The dog bites the man” is semantically different from “The man bites the dog” though their components are exactly the same.

2) There are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning, e.g.

*Green clouds are sleeping furiously.

*Sincerity shook hands with the black apple.

Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called selectional restrictions.

 

 

According to the number of arguments contained in a predication, we may classify the predications into the following types:

One-place predication: smoke, grow, rise, run, …

Two-place predication: like, love, save, bite, beat,…

Three-place predication: give, sent, promise, call, …

No-place predication: It is hot.

I like you(two place)

It is hot (no place)…

 

 

Performatives’ Features (Austin’s)
 “I declare the meeting open.”

1. first person, singular subject

2. simple present tense

3. indicative mood

4. active voice

5. performative verbs

基本上所有的动词都是perfomatives

 

 

Searle’s Classification of Speech Acts (1969) （判断出是那一种）

Assertives/representatives（陈述）

---- Stating or describing, saying what the speaker believes to be true, e.g.

I think the film is moving.

I’m certain I have never seen the man before.

I solemnly swear that he had got it.

   …

I think it is good.

Directives（指令）

---- Trying to get the hearer to do something, e.g.

I order you to leave right now.

Open the window, please.

Your money or your life!

  …

Sit down, please.

Commissives （承诺）

---- Committing the speaker himself to some future course of action, such as promise or a threat. e.g.

I will bring you the book tomorrow without fail.

If  you do not stop fighting, I’ll call the police.

I promise to come.

Expressives（表达）

----Expressing the speaker’s psychological state(feeling and attitudes) about something,such as an aplology, a complaint, to thank someone, to congratulate someone. e.g.

I’m sorry for being late.

 I apologize for the sufferings that the war has caused to your people.

   …

You are so wonderful!

Declarations（宣告）

----Bringing about an immediate change in the existing state or affairs, e.g.I now appoint you chairman of the committee.

You are fired.

I now declare the meeting open.

   …

I now pronounce you man and wife.

 

Note: All the acts that belong to the same category share the same purpose but differ in their strength or force, e.g.(1)

I guess / am sure / swear he is the murderer.

e.g.(2)In order to get someone open the door, we can choose one from a variety of the forms in below:

 Could you open the door, please!

 Can you open the door!

 Do you mind opening the door?

 Open the door!

 The door please!

 

 

Language change

periods

1) 449—1100: Old English

Beginning: English-speaking Anglo-Saxon and Jutes invaded into the British Isles

The End: “Norman Conquest” : the arrival of Norman French invaders

Glæs;         guma;              gat

----glass       ---man             ---goat

“Beowulf”---England 8century poem,brave warrior

2) 1100—1500 Middle  English

Beginning: “Norman Conquest” : the arrival of Norman French invaders

The End:“European Renaissance Movement”

Latin and French

“The Canterbury Tales”----

Geoffrey Chaucer (1345-1400)

3) 1500—the present Modern English

Beginning: “European Renaissance Movement”

The End: the present

Diphthongs appears: ai, au, ei, eu, ou, oi

Because of pressing industry overspreading, the spelling forms are determined/less changes.

 

Regional dialect

Reason: This differentiation is accounted for the lack of communication in the old days when travel was difficult.

 

Female Speech’s Features

1. Women are usually more status-conscious than men in the English-speaking world; therefore, their speech closely approaches the standard variety than the speech of men.

2. The female speakers tend to have a wider range in their intonation.

3. Female speech is, on the whole, less assertive and thus sounds to be more polite than male speech.

 

 

Register: a Speech Variety used by a particular group of people, usually sharing the same occupation (e.g. doctors, lawyers) or the same interests (e.g. stamp collectors, baseball fans).

In a broader sense, according to Halliday, “language varies as its function varies; it differs in different situations.” The type of language which is selected as appropriate to the type of situation is a register.

Halliday further distinguishes three social variables that determine the register:

• field of discourse,
• tenor of discourse,
• mode of discourse

Field of discourse: what is going on: to the area of operation of the language activity. It is concerned with the purpose (why) and subject matter (about what) of communication. It can be either technical or non-technical.)

Tenor of discourse: the role of relationship in the situation in question: who are the participants in the communication and in what relationship they stand to each other. (customer-shop-assistant, teacher-student, etc.)

Mode of discourse:  the means of communication. It is concerned with how communication is carried out.  (oral, written, on the line…)

 

 

Standard Variety:

=standard dialect

=standard language:

the variety of a language which has the highest Status in a community of nation and which is usually based on the speech and writing of educated native speakers of the language.

The standard variety is a superimposed, socially prestigious dialect of a language. It is the language employed by the government and the judiciary system, used by the mass media, and taught in educational institutions, including school settings where the language is taught as a foreign or second language.

 

 

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, proclaimed that the structure of the language people habitually use influences the ways they think and behave, i.e. different languages offer people different ways of expressing the world around, they think and speak differently, this is also known as linguistic relativity.

Sapir and Whorf believe that language filters people’s perception and the way they categorize experiences. This interdependence of language and thought is now known as Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

(文化影响语言，语言影响文化)

 

 

The inadequacy of behaviorist view

1. What they imitate must be based on what the children have already known instead of what is “available” in the environment.

2. They imitate words selectively and according to their own understandings of the  sounds or patterns.

3. how children acquire complex language system.

 

 

Language acquisition device: LAD  the capacity to acquire one’s First language, when this capacity is pictured as a sort of mechanism or apparatus.

 

 

Universal Grammar: a theory which claims to account for the grammatical competence of every adult no matter what language he or she speaks. （了解一下UG）（prototype原型）

It claims that every speaker knows a set of principles which apply to all languages and also a set of Parameters that can vary from one language to another, but only within certain limits.

According to UG theory, acquiring a language means applying the principles of UG grammar to a particular language, e.g. English, French or German, and learning  which value is appropriate for each parameter.

 

 

Motherese’s Features

1. shorter utterances than speech to other adults

2. grammatically simple utterances

3. few abstract or difficult words, with a lot of repetition

4. clearer pronunciation, sometimes with exaggerated Intonation patterns

Comment

Behaviorists view sounds reasonable in explaining the routine aspects;

The innatist accounts most plausible in explaining children’s acquiring complex system;

And the interactionist description convincing in understanding how children learn and use the language appropriately from their environment.

 

 

Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH)

---- Eric Lenneberg argues that the LAD, like other biological functions, works successfully only when it is stimulated at the right time ---- a specific and limited time period for language acquisition.

The strong version of CPH suggests that children must acquire their first language by puberty or they will never be able to learn from subsequent exposure.

The weak version holds that language learning will be more difficult and incomplete after puberty. (Support in Victor’s and Genie’s cases)

 

 

Vocabulary development

1) Under-extension (外延缩小）

2) Over-extension（外延延伸）

3) Prototype theory

Grammatical development

1) Telegraphic speech (2)

2) Sentences of three main elements (2.5)

 

 

 

 

 

Contrastive analysis (CA)

the comparison of the linguistic systems of two languages, for example the sound system or the grammatical system. Contrastive analysis was developed and practiced in the 1950s and 1960s, as an application of Structural Linguistics to language teaching, and is based on the following assumptions

1. The main difficulties in learning a new language are caused by interference from the first language. （language transfer）

2. These difficulties can be predicted by contrastive analysis.

3.Teaching materials can make use of contrastive analysis to reduce the effects of interference

1970s, it declined and was replaced by Error Analysis

• Language transfer ：the effect of one language on the learning of another. Two types of language transfer may occur.
• * “I am here since Monday.”
• “ I have been here since Monday.”
• Because of the transfer of the French pattern
• Je suis ici depuis lundi
• Negative transfer,负向转移 also known as interference, is the use of a native language pattern or rule which leads to an Error or inappropriate form in the Target Language. For example, a French learner of English may produce the incorrect sentence
• “table, transport,restaurant, surprise”
• Positive transfer,正向转移 is transfer which makes learning easier, and may occur when both the native language and the target language have the same form. For example, both French and English have the word ‘table’, which can have the same meaning in both languages.

Interlingual errors

Interlingual errors mainly result from cross-linguistic interference at different levels such as phonological, lexical, grammatical or discoursal etc. For examples,

   a. Substitution of [t] for [W] and [d] for [T]: threeàtree, thisàdis.

   b. Shortening of long vowels: sheepàship, meetàmit

Intralingual errors

The intralingual errors mainly from faulty or partial learning of the target language, independent of the native language.

• Two types of errors have been well exploited:

   overgeneralization & cross-association

True or False

1. In an exciting argument, the speakers could express themselves fluently?

2. In an exciting argument, the speakers have grammatical expressions all the time?

3. After your listening others’ speech, could you repeat it totally?

4. About pre-school children who can not read but can speak, do you think they can identify the noun and verb in speaking? (“an apple” is a thing; “run” is an action)

5. And also about pre-school children who can not read but can speak, do you think they can define the term “noun”?

三、pair

Prescriptive vs Descriptive

He love that picture. We see a film yesterday.

Prescriptive ----lay down rules for “correct” linguistic behavior in using language

(tradition grammar)

“Give me that cup.” “ Could you bring me that cup?” “ Cup!”

Descriptive ---- describe/analyze linguistic facts observed or language people actually use (modern linguistics)

 

 

Synchronic vs diachronic

A Grammar of Modern Greek

The Structure of Shakespear’s English

Synchronic study---- description of a language at some point of time

 

 

Langue vs parole (F. de Saussure)

Langue ---- the abstract linguistic system shared by all members of the speech community.

Parole ---- the realization of langue in actual use.

Saussure takes a sociological view of language and his notion of langue is a matter of social conventions.

 

Langue is the lexical, grammatical, and phonological constitution of a language to be implanted in the native speaker’s mind (or brain) in childhood as the collective product of the speech community envisaged as a supra-individual entity in its own right. In speaking his language the speaker could only operate or perform within this langue; what he actually uttered was parole, and the only individual control he could exercise was when to speak and about what to speak.

 

The aim to distinguish them is to abstract langue from parole.

The reason to distinguish them is that parole is simply a mass of linguistic facts, too varied and confusing for systematic investigation.

 

	Langue	Parole
1.	abstract	concrete
2	all the members	in actual use
3	linguistic competence of the speaker	actual phenomena or data of linguistics (utterance)
4	not	accessible
5	social	individual
6	essential	accidental
conclusion	Social bond constitutes language	Active use of speaking

 

 

 

Competence and performance (Chomsky)

Competence ---- the ideal user’s knowledge of the rules of his language

Performance ---- the actual realization of this knowledge in linguistic communication

Chomsky looks at language from a psychological point of view and to him competence is a property of the mind of each individual.

 

 

 

1.Complementary distribution
2. Phonemic contrast;
3.Minimal pair.

Complementary distribution----allophones of the same phoneme are in complementary distribution. They do not distinguish meaning. They occur in different phonetic contexts. They never occur in the same context.

Phonemic contrast----similar sounds, meanwhile can be used to distinguish the two phonemes, they are said to form a phonemic contrast.

Minimal pair----two words in a language which differ from each other by only one distinctive sound (one Phoneme) and which also differ in meaning.

 

 

Derivational morpheme & inflectional morpheme

kindness; international; friendly

root & affix

----- Derivational morphemes(friendly

talks; talking; talked; boy’s; apples

stem & affix

----- Inflectional morphemes(friends)

 

 

 

 

 

Lexical meaning
---basic notion of meaning

sense: a dog: a domestic canine mammal, occurring in many breeds that show a great variety in size and form.

Reference: the dog. a particular dog, we all know which one it is.

 

1.Pragmatics vs. Semantics

	Pragmatics	Semantics
1	Study of the language in use	The study of meaning
2	Concerning the context	Intrinsic, inherent
3	More indeterminate, sth extra	More constant
4	Related to the context	Inherent side of meaning
5	Pragmatics = meaning – semantics

2.Context

Context---- occurs before and/or after a word, a phrase or even a longer utterance or a text. The context often helps in understanding the particular meaning of the word, phrase, etc

Types:

1. context of situation: Do you prepare enough ?

2.context of culture: Jane Eyre

 

 

3.Sentence meaning vs. utterance meaning

	Sentence meaning	utterance meaning
1	Abstract and context-independent meaning	concrete and context-dependent meaning
2	literal meaning of a sentence	intended meaning of a speaker
3	What does X mean?	What did you mean by X?

The meaning of an utterance is based on sentence meaning; it is realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context.

 

 

Speech community and speech variety

• different languages will be spoken by different communities;
• different languages will be spoken in different context;
• different languages will be spoken on different occasions.

Speech Community

Speech community­---- a group of people who form a community and share the same language or a particular variety of a language.

 

a group of people who form a community, e.g. village, a region, a nation, and who have at least on Speech Variety in common

Speech Variety

American English, Australian English, Indian English.

Speech variety/language variety---- any distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or a group of speakers. In sociolinguistic study three types of speech variety are of special interest, i.e. regional dialects, sociolects and registers.

 

 

Pidgin  vs  Creole

A pidgin is a special language variety that mixes or blends languages and it is used by people who speak different languages for restricted purposes such as trading

A pidgin usually has a limited vocabulary and a reduced grammatical structure which may expand when a pidgin is used over a long period and for many purposes.

 

When a pidgin has become the primary language of a speech community, and is acquired by the children of that speech community as their native language, it is said to have become a Creole.

 

 

Bilingualism and Diglossia

Bilingualism: a person who knows and uses two languages.

Diglossia: When two languages or language varieties exist side by side in a community and each one is used for different purposes, this is called diglossia

In some speech communities, two languages are used side by side with each having a different role to play; and language switching occurs when the situation changes. This constitutes the situation of Bilingualism.

According to Ferguson (1959), diglossia refers to a sociolinguistic situation similar to bilingualism. But in stead of two different languages, in a diglossia situation two varieties of a language exist side by side throughout the community, with each having a definite role to play.