Language acquisition Essay

Discuss coinciding and historical approaches to language. In op determine to the totally historical view of language of the previous hundred years, Ferdinand de de Saussure emphasized the wideness of seeing from ii distinct and largely exclusive shews of view, which he called concurrent and diachronic. The word chronic has been derived from Greek word chronos which means time. synchronic philology sees language as a living whole, existing as a pass on at a incident point in time (an ital de langue, as Saussure put it, Greek syn-with, chronos time).Diachronic linguistics businesss language in its historical development (Greek dia with, chronos time). Thus descriptive linguistics is known as synchronic linguistics and stu go throughs a language at one particular period of time. Historical linguistics is known as diachronic or temporal linguistics and deals with the development of language through time. For example, the way in which French or Italian have evolved from L atin, and Hindoo from Sanskrit. It besides investigates language change.A study of the change from Old to sum slope is a diachronic study. Old English Middle English chint knight stan ston a o In the same way, the study of a writers development from youth to maturity is an example of diachronic study. The way in which Shakespeares style changes from youth to maturity is also an instance of diachronic study.Saussure says Synchronic linguistics bequeath concern the logical and psychological relations that bind together co-existing terms and from a system in the collective mind of speakers. Diachronic linguistics, on the contrary, will study relations that bind together successive terms, non perceive by the collective mind but substituted for each other without forming a system. Thus synchronic linguistics deals with systems whereas diachronic with units. The relationship between the several(prenominal)(prenominal) aspects of language study was diagrammatically represented by Saussure in the following way C XX1X2X3 B A D Here AB is the synchronic bloc of simultaneities, CD is the diachronic axis of succession. AB is a language realm at an arbitrarily chosen point in time on the line CD (at X) CD is the historical path the language has traveled, and the root which it is going to continue traveling. The point of intersection X indicates that neither excludes the other completely.If CD represents evolution oer a period (say 100 years from 1850 to 1950), X1, X2, X3 represent the successive state of language 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890 and so on. The difference between descriptive or synchronic and historical or diachronic linguistics can be illustrated by the diagram of Saussure itself, who was the first person to point out the want of distinguishing between the two approaches. We may think this is fairly obvious trace if it had non been the case that some quite eminent 19th blow scholars had failed to draw it. And it needs to be drawn.Neither excludes the other completely, of course, there mustiness be a point of intersection in terms of the higher up mentioned diagram. But being aware of, the distinction allows us to focus attention more answeringly on language from a given consistent angle. More everywhere, due emphasis on the synchronic (which had been neglected dimension before Saussure) helps to crystalize the important point that a diachronic investigation always pre-supposes, to some extent a synchronic study. It is im realizable to consider the way a language has changed from one state to another without first knowing something almost the two states to be compared.This need not to be a equalise of complete synchronic descriptions, of course, to complain that it would be a distortion of what linguists very do in practice but some nonhistorical analysis is immanent as a preliminary. Saussure rounds off his discussion with various analogies, of which his simile with a game of chess is perhaps the most famous. If w e walk into a room while a chess game is being played, it is possible to assess the state of the game by simply studying the position of the pieces on the board (as long as we know the rules) we do not normally need to know the previous moves from the beginning of the game.And likewise the state of board at every move is implicit in both pattern of play we may wish to study. The synchronic/diachronic distinction, Saussure claims, is very much like this. And, without wanting to push the analogy also far, we can agree with him. Throughout the 19th century linguistic query was very strongly historical in character. One of the principal aims of the character was to group language families on the basis of independent development from a common source, or to study language change.The description of a particular language was made subsidiary to this general aim, and there was little sideline in the study of a language of a given residential district without reference to historical cons ideration. Saussures distinction between diachronic and synchronic investigation of the language is a distinction between two opposing view points. Nevertheless, valid diachronic work has to be found on severe synchronic work because no valid didactics about linguistic change can be made unless good description of a language does exist. Similarly a synchronic affirmation may well reflect certain historical developments.For example, two vowels of tremble and real are described as being basically distinguishable because the historical facts show different sources for the ee and the ea. On the other hand, we fancy statements like ought is the past tense of owe and dice is the plural of die. One can point out that these statements are diachronically, but not synchronically, true. A synchronic approach is enough to gain mastery over a contemporary language, but it is necessary to have a diachronic description to understand the evolution of that language.