语言与应用语言学复习大纲Unit 1 Awareness of Our LanguageIn English, when we use the word language without an indefinite or definite article, like “ Language is a tool of communicationa”ny, ilta mngeuaangse or all languages put together .Here is the first important point about this book: It is about language, not confined to any particular language. When English and Chinese are being talked about, they are used as two specific examples of language. So the title of Unit 1 reads: Awareness of Our Languag . In this context it means any language we as humans speak: It can be Chinese, or English, or French, or German, or Japanese, or Russian, or many others, of course.To summarize Unit 1 in one sentence, this sentence will be: we must appreciate the fact that we owe our humanity and civilization to language. Other animals can beat us in many different ways, but what makes us superior to all of them is our possession of language.In this unit we also attempt to seek an answer to the question: Is language inside or outside the brain? It is known as the nature-nurture controversy. The position we adopt is: humans are born with language capacity that enables them to acquire language, any language, during their formative years. They can also learn any foreign language through efforts in their adulthood.Unit 2 Physical aspects of language.The key points of this unit are: what we hear, and what we read about are physical aspects of language: they are physical representations of language. Language can also be represented in many other ways such as Braille and British manual alphabet. Speech sounds are given a detailed discussion, considering the fact that most of our learners are either in-service teachers or would-be teachers.Unit 3 The symbolic nature of languageThis is the most difficult unit, and at the same time a very important one. From Unit 1 we know that other animals including our closest cousins - chimpanzees and apes, cannot learn a human language. What makes human language so unique is its symbolic nature. Language in its symbolic nature cannot be heard, or read, or seen or touched. We have to find ways (i.e. media) to make it tangible to us. So as a linguist, our job is to see the true nature of language through its media. To help you understand this point, you can think of a situation like this: different media such as sounds, writing systems, Braille, signs, etc. are like different colourful skins that wrap language up. Unit 3 is to peel the colourful skins off to reveal the true nature.The best way to summarize this unit is the graphic picture on page 97, about the relationship between the abstract form / abstract existence and material existence.Unit 4 Language function 1: organizing our experiences of the material worldUp to now, we can see language as an abstract entity with tangible skins. From Unit 4 onwards, the focus of our attention is on what sort of things we do in using language. Technically we call such understanding of language as functional analysis. There are four major functions which are discussed in four units. Unit 4 is on the function of organizing our experiences of the material world. We experience an object through our senses. This experience is vague, slippery and temporary. We use language to make it clear, frozen and stored for future use.The figure on page 150 shows how different people experience the same thing differently.Unit 5 Language function 2: doing things with languageThis unit introduces the notion of speech acts. We do speech acts all the time everyday: we make a request, ask a question, invite someone to dinner, apologize for being late, etc., etc.Unit 6 Language function 3: managing interpersonal relationsThere are all sorts of people and all sorts of relations in the social world. For example, there are teacher-student relation, shop-keeper-customer relation, employer-employee relation, husband-wife relation, etc. Some people are more powerful than others; some are older or more senior than others. All these differences in status, power, gender, and age are carefully handled through the use of language.Unit 7 Language function 4: Talk, talk and talkMost of our waking life is spent on talking, and a great deal of real business is done through talking. The examination of how talk is being carried out is a recent event in the history of linguistics. It is known as conversation analysis or discourse analysis.Unit 8 Language in societyUp to now we have discussed four major functions of language: We use language to (1) organize our experiences of the material world; (2) perform speech acts; (3) manage interpersonal relations; and (4) talk. This unit looks at language from a much broader perspective, namely language in a social and political context. Specifically we focus on language and identity, bilingualism, and language and politics.Unit 9 Language, brain and mindIn Unit 1 we suggested that apes and chimpanzees could not learn hu