Hello everyone! 

Let us to introduce ourselves, we are the team number 09, our names are, Jesus, Perla, Lizeth and Montserrat, in our class of fundamentals of linguistics, we saw a topic about language, and we considered that is very interesting, so now we want to talk about it in our blog. In class we checked the 11th edition of the book An introduction to a language by Fromking, 2017, there she describe seven characteristics of language, here we are going to explain you each of them, we hope you enjoy reading and learning about this awesome topic.

First of all we need to understand what language is:

To explain this we use use the definition of Schmitz (2012), in her book Communication for Business Success is noted that language in all its forms is something that you can use as a way to communicate with the people around you, sharing definitions, experiences and other things. 

Hi, I'm Lizeth and an example I can think of this term is when babies or young children use gestures as a form of language to communicate their wants or needs. When my little cousin was a baby, she used to raise her little arms and open and close her little hands, as a gesture to be held up.

            To understand better about the subject, check this video: 

Linguistic knowledge

This is very important because,  Linguistic knowledge is represented as a system of constraints, a grammar, which defines all and only the possible sentences of the language (Emonds 1980, Ross 1967, Perlmutter 1971, quoted  by Haegeman, 2001, p. 2).

I'm Jesus and I want to share you my personal experience: When I was in elementary school I had English classes and I passed that subject, because my linguistic knowledge, those teachers are maily focused on grammar.

    If you know another example share it with us!

                                               

Knowledge of the sound system

This part is interesting beacuse this is relate to know the sounds that a language has, this allows us to segement a continuous stream of speech in words that has certain meanings. (Szczegielniak, n.d.).

Hello, I'm Perla and I want you to imagine that you decided to start learning Spanish, al the beginning it can be dificult for you to pronounce the letter 'ñ' because you don't usually use that sound, it doesn't even exist in you native language, by the time you learn those new sounds because they are used in your target language.

    Did you have this kind of troubles learning another language? Tell us in the comment section!

Knowledge of words

This concept is mentioned by the Reading Universe Organization (2020), in their page Vocabulary, is noted that it is the ability to recognize and remember words and word components by based on previous information to comprehend their meaning. To improve our word consciousness, you can learn new words, understand its significance and finally add them into your day to day, by using them as you speak with friends or write messages to them.

Lizeth here again, so an example of this are the abbreviations you can use when writing a text message, in my case I use IDK that means I don't know, and people understand what I mean when I send that, because they already know the significance of it. 

Arbitrary relation of form and meaning

This characteristic is related to our knowledge of how the things are represented, (Fromkin, 2017) explained in his book An introduction to a language that we represent the concepts with words that we create, and that we agree to be called in a certain way (this is why language is conventional), but in another country they may have a different word for the same concept, and the word that we use here can mean something completely different.

I'm Perla again, imaging that you go to visit to your Mexican friend but you do not speak Spanish, and he is learning English, so you ask him to go to a librery, because you want to read a book, but your friend take you to buy a book in a bookstore, this because he thought that library was equal to "librería" in Spanish, they seem to be the same but are different things. 

     If you know other examples, please let us know in the comment box below!

The creativity of linguistic knowledge

Nowadays we can see creativity in many aspects of our life and communication is also affected by this. This creativity gives us the ability to produce unlimited new linguistic sequences. The human being is creative in the use of language, so it is not limited to a simple behavior of action and response.  (Fromkin, 2017).

In my free time, I like to write, specifically to create stories, I can observe my creativity of my linguistic knowledge by creating and recreating various sentences, for example: "Lucy stayed home alone", "Lucy stayed home alone because her parents had an urgent work meeting" and so on. This is an example of the creativity of linguistic knowledge.

-Montserrat 

    Do you know someone who write this kinds of stories too? Let us know!

Knowledge of sentences and non sentences.

Ok, as we checked before our linguistic knowledge makes us able to understand a lot of phrases, but also makes us capables of knowing which are acceptable (sentences) and which are not (non-sentences), the only thing they need to be grammatically correct. (Fromkin, 2017).

Here we have some examples:

I my pencil again forgot  ---  I forgot my pencil again.

Friend Ran I and  my every day --- My friend and I RUN every day.  

-Jesus

Game of Sentences & Non-Sentences:

Now, we are going to do a short activity to make sure we have understood what are the sentences and the non-sentences, put below a comment with the time you took to answer it and the three people with the shortest time will win a prize.

                      

Linguistic knowledge and performance.

We know that you can get confuse between linguistic knowledge and linguistic performance, since the first one consists of knowing something and can produce sentences within a language, on the other hand, performance consists of how we apply or use this knowledge, in the same environment. (Fromkin, 2017).

It is clear that there is a big difference between what we know and how we apply this knowledge.

In my experience, I remember that in high school I used to help my classmates in math or Spanish, I would solve their doubts if I understood the activities we had to do or some idea or concept they did not understand; I had to speak to transmit a message (what I knew/linguistic knowledge), however I had to organize my ideas (how I had to use what I knew/linguistic performance) before explaining to them.

-Montserrat

    Share us an example!

Reinforcement games: these games will help you to evaluate your knowledge. 

Crossword: put the concepts in the crossword depending on the description.
Note: there is no space between words, good luck.

Quiz: Answer these few questions

Infography: 

References:

• Fromkin, V., (2017). What's language? in R. Rodman & N. Hyams (Eds.), An introduction to language. (11th, ed pp. 1-8). CENGAGE
• Haegeman, L. (2022). Linguistics: Theory of Principles and Parameters. ScienceDirect. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/linguistic-knowledge
• Reading Universe. (2020). Knowledge of Words. Vocabulary. Consultado en: https://www.readinguniverse.org/copy-of-phonological-expression  
• Schmitz, A. (2012). Communication for Business Success. Creative Commons, (v 1.0), p.14; https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/communication-for-business-success/s06-delivering-your-message.html
• Szczegielniak, A. (s. f.). Introduction to Linguistic Theory: Phonetics:The sounds of language. scholar.harvard.edu. Retrieved November 21 2022, de https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/adam/files/phonetics.ppt.pdf

We hope you enjoyed learning with us, don't forget to comment your favorite part, see you next time!