1 Language Descriptions
ANTHONY J. LIDDICOAT AND TIMOTHY J. CURNOW
The importance of language description in applied linguistics has sometimes been questioned (e.g. by Widdowson, 1979, 1980) because of a perception that the theoretical insights of descriptive linguistics are different from the practical needs of language pedagogy. Linguistics has increasingly separated itself from a prescriptive view of language, which formulates rules for what should be said or written, in favor of a descriptive view, which seeks to record the language which people actually use. Contemporary language description, therefore, takes a synchronic approach, that is, language is described as it is at a particular moment in time and does not incorporate the history of the language (diachrony), although languages do of course change over time. Applied linguistics is focused on language, and while many applied linguists are not directly involved with language description, knowledge of the approaches and concepts of linguistic description is an important part of the working knowledge of any applied linguist (cf. Stubbs, 1986). In this chapter, we aim to give a brief overview of the main dimensions of linguistic description and the key concepts involved. The terms we use here are generally accepted, however particular theories may use different terms or define these terms in slightly different ways.
Descriptions of language are often divided into a number of categories and each of these categories has its own principles, concepts, and objects of study. For this paper we have separated language description into the study of the sounds of language (phonetics and phonology), language structures (morphology, syntax, and information structure), and meaning (semantics).
Phonetics
Most languages are transmitted by sounds and one of the most obvious differences between languages is that they sound different. The study of the sounds that human beings make in their languages is known as phonetics. While sign languages, such as British Sign Language and American Sign Language, are clearly not transmitted by sound, there are units in sign languages which correspond to phonetics and phonology, but these will not be discussed here (other areas of language description apply equally to spoken and sign languages).
Transcribing sounds
We are used to the idea of representing language in writing; however, conventional writing systems are not adequate to represent sounds. We need only consider the problems inherent in English spellings such as cough, dough, and through or the different pronunciations of words in US and UK English to see the problems involved in using conventional spellings to represent sounds: the sounds of a language are not the same as the letters of a language even in languages with much less irregularity than English. To overcome the deficiencies of conventional spellings, linguists use a phonetic alphabet such as the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent sounds. IPA has over 100 symbols each representing different possible sounds. Phonetic transcriptions are usually written between square brackets.
The sounds of language
The core of phonetics is to identify the characteristics of the sounds which human beings can use in language. Sounds can basically be divided into two types: vowels and consonants. Vowels are produced by altering the shape of the vocal tract by the positioning of the tongue and lips. Consonants are sounds which are produced by a partial or complete constriction of the vocal tract.
