ENG 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Universal Grammar, Steven Pinker, Grammar
Document Summary
The study of language structure, how we acquire it and how we use it to communicate. The goals of linguistics are: to determine properties of language, to discover the rules governing the properties of language, to explain our knowledge & use of language. Linguistics shares with other sciences a concern to be objective, systematic, consistent, and explicit in its account of language. Like other sciences, linguistics aims to collect data, test hypothesis, devise models, and construct theories. A means for expressing ideas, thoughts, emotions. Systematic and variable, simple and complex, creative and symbolic, innate and constructed, cognitive and social. A psychological faculty, a mental organ innate. Language is the highest and most amazing achievement of the human mind the birth of language is the dawn of humanity. The line between man and beast between the highest ape and the lowest savage is the language line. (langer, language and thought)
