Microlinguistics macrolinguistics

Unit 3
Microlinguistics & macrolinguistics


1. History
In its earlier stages focused on the linguistic system, i.e grammar and the
lexicon (“microlinguistics”, in James’ 1980 terms)

In the 1980s and 1990s matters of language use discourse structure
(“macrolinguistics”):

Contrastive sociolinguistics (Hellinger and Ammon 1996)
Cross-cultural pragmatics (Wierzbicka 1985, 1992)
Contrastive

rhetoric (Connor 1996)


2. Linguistic Approaches
Microlinguistic approach

Macrolinguistic approach

 The description of the linguistic code, without  Attention to contextual determination of
making reference to the uses of which the

messages and their interpretation, growing

code is put, or how messages carried by this

interest in semantics, sociolinguistics,

code are modified by the contexts in which

discourse analysis, speech-act theory and

they occur.

ethnomethodology.


3. Linguistic framework
CA owes to linguistics the framework within which the two linguistic
descriptions are organized:



CA adopts the linguistic tactic of dividing up the unwieldy concept “a language”
into three smaller and more manageable areas: the levels of phonology,
grammar and lexis.



Use is made of the description categories of linguistics: unit, structure, class and
system.



A CA utilises descriptions arrived at under the same “model” of language.
Self-study: J. Carl 1980, 28 – 60

4. Microlinguistics and CAs
Executing a CA involves two steps: description and comparison:
“… the most effective materials (for teaching an L2) are those based upon a
scientific description of the language to be learned, carefully compared with a
parallel description of the native language of the learner.”
(Fries 1945, 259 in James’ 1980, 63)


4. Microlinguistic CAs
 Description of L1 and L2 and comparison of the two.
1. In terms of descriptions:
 “Parallel description” is that the two languages be described through the

same model of description, (see J. Carl 1980, 35)because of the following
reasons:



Different models can describe certain features of language more successfully than
other models.



If the “same” data from L1 and L2 are described by two different models, the
descriptions are likely to highlight different facets of the data.


4. Microlinguistic CAs
Describe L1 and L2 data independently, using the model which yield the fullest

descriptions of either language, and then translate these two descriptions into a
form which is model-neutral. (J. Carl 1980, 64)

Two descriptions need to be equally exhaustive, or, to use Halliday’s term
(1961, 272) “delicate” – avoiding a description imbalance, in favour of the L2.


4. Microlinguistic CAs
Comparable descriptions of two languages will only be guaranteed if identical
“method” of description are used for description of the two: “since any
differences between these descriptions will not be due to differences in method
used by the linguists, but to differences in how the language data responded to
identical methods of arrangement”. (Harris 1963, 3).


4. Microlinguistic CAs
2, In terms of comparison

Compare “types” than “tokens”
Compare abstract elements rather than their concrete realizations
Identify criteria for comparison – tertium comparationis
How CA ultilises parallel description and comparison of types in L1 and L2
Grammatical CA
Phonological CA
Contrastive Lexicology

Self – study: J. Carl 1980, 66 - 97


Two Aspects of Structure

Of Language

 A sound structure-phonology

 A grammatical structure
 Descriptive Linguist studies both the sound system and the grammatical
system of as many human languages as possible


Phonology
 No single language uses all possible sounds

 Phonemes: the minimal units of sound that signal a difference in meaning
 T/H/E/I/R and T/H/E/R/E
 English language=46 phonemes other languages vary from 15 to 100
phonemes


Morphemes

 Two or more phonemes can be combined to form a morpheme
Should not equate morphemes with words
 Majority of words in any language are made up of two or more morphemes
 Free Morphemes stand alone=Toast
 Bounded Morphemes have no meaning except when attached to morpheme
 Toast +er=Toaster


Grammar

 A highly complex set of rules for combining sounds into phonemes,

phonemes into morphemes and morphemes into words and words into
grammar.

 Two parts: Morphology; set of rules for how morphemes are formed into
words. Syntax: principles for how words are arranged into phrases and
sentences.


4. Macrolinguistic CAs
The formal system of any language which linguists set out to describe has been called

different things by different people: language (Saussure), Competence (Chomsky) (code),
microlinguistics or code- linguistics (J. Carl)

Macrolinguistics: “broad” or “human” linguistics
 Goals: to achieve a scientific understanding of how people communicate
 Attention has shifted from the code to a process: the process of communication

Lyons (1972) identifies three ways in which data is idealized in linguistics:
 Regularisation
 Standardisation
 Decontextualization
Self-study: J. Carl 1980, 98 - 100


4. Macrolinguistic CA
Hyms (1972) proposes that a speaker’s communicative competence should be
the object of linguistic enquiry – i.e How people communicate.

Hyms (1974) identifies six such variables which he suggests the ethnographer of
speaking must refer to in characterising any particular speech event:

Setting
Participtants
Purpose
Key
Content
Channel
Self-study: J. Carl 1980, 100 - 101


4. Macrolinguistic CA
Characteristics of Macrolinguistics

 A concern for communicative competence rather than for “linguistic” competence
in Chomsky’s sense.

An attempt to describe linguistic events within their extra-linguistic settings.
The search for units of linguistic organization larger than the single sentence.

Two areas of Macrolinguistics:

The formal level: how sentences are organized into larger, suprasentential units or
texts.

The functional level: the ways in which people put language to use: this is the field
of discourse analysis (Coulthard, 1977)

4. Macrolinguistic CA
Text analysis
Discourse analysis
Self – study: J. Carl 1980, 102 - 140