LIN 1 Lecture 1: Introduction

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6 May 2018
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Department
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Linguistics
Introduction:
Language:
1. Allows share complicated thoughts
2. Negotiate agreements
3. Make communal plans
Language as technology
-humans manipulate their bodies to produce:
1. Sounds
2. Gestures
3. Appearance that encode messages using a shared system
Language is autonomic!
Linguistics-how language works
Scholars who study it are called linguists
Linguistics-is a science
Linguists answer questions about language by observing the behavior of language users.
Through the history of linguistics-the primary source of data for linguists have been the
speech, writing, intuitions of language users around them.
This is not the only way one could imagine learning about language. For example, one
could study respected authorities.
We would go to the writings of the Founding Sage of Danish, for example, and to the
writings of the sage's immediate disciples, to find out the Original Intent, much as
American judges refer to the Constitution.
But, as far as we can tell, this is not how most languages come to be.
We have ancient authorities in plenty, but in most cases these authorities were merely
trying to codify the practices of the people who seemed to them most skillful in the use of
language.
In other words, these authorities were themselves scientific linguists of a sort: they
observed language users and tried to describe their behavior.
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