Levels of language, units of language, levels and approaches of the language researches

Unit 1. The Approaches of Actual

Language Researches

Lesson 1. Approaches of Actual

Language Researches

1. The postulates of linguistics. 2. Levels of the language and levels of the language researches. 3. The objects of the language researches and modern problems. 4. The connection between language and other fields of science.

Postulates of linguistics

Postulate – is a fundamentaltenet, which is not proved but is taken as an axiom or vice versa which is grounded, explained, proved little by little as a basic idea. Postulates determine the aspect of scientific researches and the ways of research. There are four postulates in linguistics.

The first postulateisabout identities and differences. According to this postulate we should research what language units are identical and what ones are different; what kinds of differences are in a language; what kinds of language conditions determine the identities and differences; what kind of conditions determine the use of one or another language unit. In other words, all of language differences should be researched for grounding this postulate.

The second postulate is about paradigmatic. There are two kinds of relations between, language units in linguistics – paradigmatic and sintagmatic. Paradigmatic relations are between language units in different classes (synonymic, antonymic, etc). Sintagmatic relations are between language units in the speech. In accordance with this postulate we should research speech, discourses, texts etc.

The third postulate is about synchronism and diachronism. According to this postulate we should research language phenomena in one of two aspects. The first aspect is based on the language material of specific historical period. It’s a synchronimous aspect. Another one is based on the learning of language phenomenon in their historical changes. In this case scientists learn language of some periods comparing language phenomena and discovering the kinds of changes and the factors causing them.

The fourth postulate is about motivation of language sign.It confirms in follows: language sign is not motivated. But there are many facts in language disproving this postulate. A lot of language units are motivated partly or on the whole. For example, the word “mother” is not motivated; the word “grandmother” is motivated partly and the word “sputnic” in the meaning of “satellite” is motivated on the whole.

This postulate is being tested now, therefore learning the units' motivation is very important and topical.

Levels of language, units of language, levels and approaches of the language researches

It is an accepted fact that the levels of language and levels of language researches are different notations.

Language levels and units are shown on the scheme:

The levels of language researches are shown in the table:

Levels of language	Levels of language researches
Phonetic	Phonetic, morphemic, stylistic
Morphemic	Grammatical (morphemic, morphological), lexical, stylistic
Lexical	Lexical, idiomatic, semantic, phonetic, grammatical (morphemic and morphological), stylistic
Syntactical	Syntactical, stylistic

What postulates of linguistics are considered respect to each of the language researches levels?

The major approaches of the language researches are generative grammar, semantics, cognitive linguistics and pragmatics.