Fundamental Linguistic Theories

Why This Matters

Linguistic theories aren't just abstract frameworks—they're the lenses through which you'll analyze every aspect of language on your exams. Whether you're breaking down sentence structure, explaining why children acquire language so effortlessly, or analyzing how social context shapes the way people speak, you're drawing on these foundational theories. Understanding the differences between structuralist, generativist, functionalist, and cognitive approaches will help you tackle questions about language universals, variation, and change.

Here's the key insight: these theories often ask fundamentally different questions about language. Some focus on what language IS (its internal structure), others on what language DOES (its social and cognitive functions), and still others on how language CHANGES (across time and communities). Don't just memorize definitions—know which theoretical framework applies to which type of linguistic question, and be ready to compare their core assumptions.

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Theories of Language Structure

These theories focus on describing and explaining the internal architecture of language—how sounds, words, and sentences are organized into systematic patterns. The core question here is: what are the building blocks of language, and what rules govern their combination?

Structuralism

• Language as a system of relationships—meaning emerges from how elements relate to each other, not from individual items in isolation
• Signifier and signified (the sound/written form vs. the concept it represents) form the linguistic sign, a foundational concept introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure
• Synchronic analysis—structuralists study language at a single point in time, treating it as a complete system rather than tracing historical development

Generative Grammar

• Universal Grammar (UG)—Noam Chomsky proposed that all humans are born with an innate language faculty containing principles shared across all languages
• Competence vs. performance—distinguishes between a speaker's internalized knowledge of grammatical rules (competence) and actual language use (performance)
• Language acquisition puzzle—explains how children acquire complex grammar rapidly despite limited input, known as the poverty of the stimulus argument

Syntax

• Sentence structure rules—governs how words combine into phrases and clauses through hierarchical organization, not just linear word order
• Phrase structure—sentences are built from nested constituents (noun phrases, verb phrases, etc.) that can be represented in tree diagrams
• Grammatical relations—identifies how syntactic positions (subject, object, complement) relate to semantic roles and determine sentence meaning

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Theories of Language and Mind

These approaches investigate the cognitive foundations of language—how the brain processes, acquires, and represents linguistic knowledge. The driving question: what mental mechanisms make language possible?

Cognitive Linguistics

• Language reflects thought—grammatical structures aren't arbitrary but emerge from general cognitive processes like categorization and spatial reasoning
• Conceptual metaphor—abstract concepts are systematically understood through concrete experiences (e.g., "argument is war," "time is money")
• Embodied cognition—rejects the idea of language as a separate mental module; instead, linguistic meaning is grounded in bodily experience and perception

Psycholinguistics

• Language processing—studies real-time comprehension and production, including how listeners parse ambiguous sentences and speakers plan utterances
• Mental lexicon—investigates how words are stored, organized, and retrieved in the brain, including priming effects and word recognition
• First language acquisition—examines developmental stages (babbling, one-word, two-word stages) and the mechanisms underlying children's grammatical development

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Theories of Language in Society

These frameworks examine how language functions in social contexts and how it varies across communities, situations, and time. The key insight: language is never neutral—it's shaped by and shapes social reality.

Functionalism

• Form follows function—grammatical structures exist because they serve communicative purposes, not because of abstract innate rules
• Discourse and context—meaning depends heavily on situational factors; the same sentence can function differently depending on speaker intent and context
• Typological patterns—cross-linguistic similarities arise from shared communicative needs, not from Universal Grammar

Sociolinguistics

• Language variation—systematic differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar correlate with social variables like class, gender, ethnicity, and age
• Language attitudes—speakers hold judgments about dialects and accents that reflect social hierarchies rather than linguistic superiority
• Code-switching—speakers shift between languages or varieties strategically to signal identity, solidarity, or social distance

Historical Linguistics

• Language change—all languages undergo systematic sound shifts, grammatical restructuring, and semantic drift over time
• Comparative method—reconstructs proto-languages by identifying regular correspondences across related languages (cognates)
• Language families—groups like Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger-Congo reveal how languages diverge from common ancestors through migration and isolation

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Core Structural Subfields

These areas represent the fundamental levels of linguistic analysis—the building blocks you'll apply regardless of which theoretical framework you're working within. Every linguistic theory must account for these levels of structure.

Phonology

• Sound systems—studies how languages organize sounds into contrastive units, not just the physical properties of sounds themselves
• Phonemes vs. allophones—phonemes are distinctive sound units that change meaning (e.g., /p/ vs. /b/), while allophones are predictable variants of the same phoneme
• Phonological rules—govern systematic patterns like assimilation, where sounds become more similar to neighboring sounds

Morphology

• Word structure—analyzes how morphemes (the smallest meaningful units) combine to form complex words
• Free vs. bound morphemes—free morphemes stand alone as words ("book"), while bound morphemes must attach to others ("-s," "un-," "-ness")
• Derivation vs. inflection—derivation creates new words or changes word class ("happy" → "unhappiness"), while inflection marks grammatical features without changing core meaning ("walk" → "walked")

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Which two theories most directly oppose each other on whether language structure is innate or emerges from use? What specific claims does each make?

2. A researcher is studying how Spanish-English bilinguals switch between languages depending on who they're talking to. Which theoretical framework best applies, and what key concepts would they use?

3. Compare and contrast phonemes and morphemes: both are "minimal units," but minimal units of what? Give an example showing how each functions differently.

4. If an exam question asks you to explain why children acquire language so quickly despite hearing imperfect input, which theory provides the standard answer, and what is that answer called?

5. A cognitive linguist and a generative grammarian both study metaphor in language. How would their approaches and conclusions likely differ based on their theoretical assumptions?