Newly Edited General Linguistics Tutorial

Author: Chief Editor: Li Ying
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-10-01
Features: This book is based on the idea that general linguistics is the "meta-theory" of linguistics, which should include both the general principles of theoretical linguistics and the general principles of applied linguistics. Therefore, in the construction of its content framework, it integrates the general principles from the research achievements of both theoretical and applied linguistics, effectively reflecting the combination of theory and application. In terms of theory, this book focuses on exploring and introducing new topics and achievements since the 1980s while adhering to the principle of maintaining the continuity of disciplinary knowledge. It emphasizes the study of the two major schools of modern linguistics, particularly the development status and trends of the linguistics of speech. The key topics discussed in this book include: the study of speech style, the application of context theory, the exploration of the "process of speechification," the constraints of cross-cultural communication, the role of nonverbal communication, the proposal of speech act and speech regulation theories, the expression and understanding of speech sentence meaning, the evolution of grammatical research methods, and the types of discourse along with their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic analysis. In terms of application, this book focuses on researching and introducing the guiding significance and practical value of the aforementioned theories in the application of language in radio and television, broadcasting, program hosts' language, and second language teaching. It also discusses some important theoretical issues in sociolinguistics and research on human-machine dialogue.
Excerpt: It underwent cultivation from philosophers and grammarians of ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and China's pre-Qin and Han periods; it was later inherited by the French. In terms of time, it spanned from the second half of the 4th century BC to the later period of the European Renaissance in the 17th century, nearly two thousand years. During this time, representative figures, important events, or works included: 1. Panini's grammar of India; 2. The debate among ancient Greek and Roman philosophers on the relationship between "name" and "thing": "according to essence" and "according to convention," with the concepts of nouns and verbs in Plato's Dialogues; 3. The On the Rectification of Names by the Chinese philosopher Xunzi; 4. The Grammar of the Greek Language by Dionysius Thrax, the Parts of Speech of Greek; 5. Varro's Studies in Latin; 6. The Universal Rational Grammar by Antoine Arnaud and Lancelot (1660). Saussure believed that "universal grammar is based on logic and lacks a scientific and objective view of language itself; its only purpose is to formulate rules to distinguish correct and incorrect forms. It is a normative discipline, far from pure observation, and its perspective must necessarily be narrow" (p. 17). We believe that the connection between language and logic involves the relationship between language and thought, cognition, and that this relationship should be viewed historically and dialectically. (2) Philology is primarily focused on textual criticism, with the aim of interpretation, annotation, and emendation—this is what philology (Philologia) means. One sense of "philology," which the Manual emphasizes, refers to the school of philology advocated by the German philologist Friedrich August Wolf starting in 1777, which combines the study of language with the study of literary history, customs history, and institutional history. Saussure's evaluation of this school is: "undoubtedly, these studies had prepared the ground for historical linguistics." However, "the drawback of philological emendation is that it is too written language and forgets the living language; moreover, it is almost entirely attracted by ancient Greek and Latin artifacts" (p. 18). The other sense of "philology," mentioned in many histories of linguistics, is the Alexandrian school. Alexandria was the capital of Greece, where a group of scholars engaged in the collation and emendation of Homer's epics. In the work of textual annotation and criticism, they discussed some linguistic phenomena and developed some theories of morphology. Many concepts of traditional linguistic classification of parts of speech were established at this time, such as the early distinction of eight parts of speech: substantives, verbs, participles (with both substantive and verbal characteristics), adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions; they also continued the debate on whether linguistic phenomena are "analogical" or "deviant," showing great interest in linguistic research. During the Renaissance, the rise of vernacular literature promoted comparative, applied, and living oral language research; grammar, rhetoric, and logic became compulsory subjects in schools. In China, which corresponds to "philology" in the West, the focus was primarily on Xiaoxue, especially during the flourishing period of phonology. The history of philology is long and glorious; particularly in China, traditional linguistics was primarily based on philology. Philology emphasizes practicality and has made invaluable contributions to language teaching; its achievements also laid the foundation for the birth of modern linguistics.