my essay

AN ACADEMIC ESSAY:

THE SIGNIFICANCE REASONS WHY ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDENTS SHOULD LEARN ABOUT LINGUISTICS

This academic essay is written to fulfil one of the Advanced Writing assignments

Written by

Name                : OKA RODI PUTRA

NPM                : 14 23 037


Class                : A.V.1

Lectured by

PUSPITA DEVI, M.Pd.

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

BATURAJA UNIVERSITY

2016

THE SIGNIFICANCE WHY ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDENTS

SHOULD LEARN ABOUT LINGUISTICS

    Introduction

English Education Department or English Education Study Program is one of educational departments under the FKIP, stands for Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan or Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (In English). This department aims focuses on how to produce candidates of English educator. The students whose major is English education, have to embodied themselves to learn much more English disciplines or courses, including general basic courses (Religion Education, Civics Education, Basic Scientific Knowledge, Basic Cultural-Social Knowledge, and so on); professional-discipline courses (Introduction to Education, The Development of Students, Educational Profession, Learning and Teaching, Language Teaching and Learning Strategies, Language Teaching Media, and so on); and another specific courses, i.e., English literature and English linguistics. Besides learning and comprehending the basic professional courses, English education students have to empower themselves with one significance discipline, that is linguistics.

Marryellen Weimer, Ph.D. assumes that “good teachers display enthusiasm for their subject and a desire to share it to their students in a good knowledge of language, beyond just being all out in educational-profession itself.” In analyzing what she stated above, therefore, it is a high demand in expanding the qualities of good teachers, in this case, English education students, as the candidate of good English teacher, to empower themselves with good knowledge of language, that is learned throughout linguistics.

    Body

    The Definition of Linguistics

    What is Linguistics

Each human language is a complex of knowledge and abilities enabling speakers of the language to communicate with each other, to express ideas, hypotheses, emotions, desires, and all the other things that need expressing. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, specifically language form, language meaning, and language in context.

Linguistics is the study of these knowledge systems in all their aspects: how is such a knowledge system structured, how is it acquired, how is it used in the production and comprehension of messages, how does it change over time? Linguists consequently are concerned with a number of particular questions about the nature of language. What properties do all human languages have in common? How do languages differ, and to what extent are the differences systematic, i.e. can we find patterns in the differences? How do children acquire such complete knowledge of a language in such a short time? What are the ways in which languages can change over time, and are there limitations to how languages change? What is the nature of the cognitive processes that come into play when we produce and understand language?

    The Brief History of Linguistics

    Early Grammarians

The formal study of language began in India with Pāṇini, the 5th century BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology. Pāṇini's systematic classification of the sounds of Sanskrit into consonants and vowels, and word classes, such as nouns and verbs, was the first known instance of its kind.

Western interest in the study of languages began somewhat later than in the East, but the grammarians of the classical languages did not use the same methods or reach the same conclusions as their contemporaries in the Indic world. Early interest in language in the West was a part of philosophy, not of grammatical description. The first insights into semantic theory were made by Plato in his Cratylus dialogue, where he argues that words denote concepts that are eternal and exist in the world of ideas. Throughout the Middle Ages, the study of language was subsumed under the topic of philology, the study of ancient languages and texts, practised by such educators as Roger Ascham, Wolfgang Ratke, and John Amos Comenius.

    Comparative Philology

In the 18th century, the first use of the comparative method by William Jones sparked the rise of comparative linguistics. Bloomfield attributes "the first great scientific linguistic work of the world" to Jacob Grimm, who wrote Deutsche Grammatik. It was soon followed by other authors writing similar comparative studies on other language groups of Europe. The scientific study of language was broadened from Indo-European to language in general by Wilhelm von Humboldt, of whom Bloomfield asserts:

    Structuralism

Early in the 20th century, Saussure introduced the idea of language as a static system of interconnected units, defined through the oppositions between them. By introducing a distinction between diachronic to synchronic analyses of language, he laid the foundation of the modern discipline of linguistics. Saussure also introduced several basic dimensions of linguistic analysis that are still foundational in many contemporary linguistic theories, such as the distinctions between syntagm and paradigm, and the langue- parole distinction, distinguishing language as an abstract system (langue) from language as a concrete manifestation of this system (parole). Substantial additional contributions following Saussure's definition of a structural approach to language came from The Prague school, Leonard Bloomfield, Charles F. Hockett, Louis Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste and Roman Jakobson.

    Generativism

During the last half of the 20th century, following the work of Noam Chomsky, linguistics was dominated by the generativist school. While formulated by Chomsky in part as a way to explain how human beings acquire language and the biological constraints on this acquisition, in practice it has largely been concerned with giving formal accounts of specific phenomena in natural languages. Generative theory is modularist and formalist in character. Chomsky built on earlier work of Zellig Harris to formulate the generative theory of language. According to this theory the most basic form of language is a set of syntactic rules universal for all humans and underlying the grammars of all human languages. This set of rules is called Universal Grammar, and for Chomsky describing it is the primary objective of the discipline of linguistics. For this reason the grammars of individual languages are of importance to linguistics only in so far as they allow us to discern the universal underlying rules from which the observable linguistic variability is generated.

    Functionalism

Functional theories of language propose that since language is fundamentally a tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analysed and understood with reference to the functions they carry out. Functional theories of grammar differ from formal theories of grammar, in that the latter seek to define the different elements of language and describe the way they relate to each other as systems of formal rules or operations, whereas the former defines the functions performed by language and then relates these functions to the linguistic elements that carry them out. This means that functional theories of grammar tend to pay attention to the way language is actually used, and not just to the formal relations between linguistic elements.

    The Areas of Linguistics

While some theories on linguistics focus on the different varieties that language produces, among different sections of society, others focus on the universal properties that are common to all human languages. The theory of variation therefore would elaborate on the different usages of popular languages like French and English across the globe, as well as its smaller dialects and regional permutations within their national boundaries. The theory of variation looks at the cultural stages that a particular language undergoes, and these include the following.

    Lexicon

The lexicon is a catalogue of words and terms that are stored in a speaker's mind. The lexicon consists of words and bound morphemes, which are parts of words that can't stand alone, like affixes. In some analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions and other collocations are also considered to be part of the lexicon. Dictionaries represent attempts at listing, in alphabetical order, the lexicon of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are not included. Lexicography, closely linked with the domain of semantics, is the science of mapping the words into an encyclopedia or a dictionary. The creation and addition of new words is called coining, and the new words are called neologisms.

    Discourse

A discourse is a way of speaking that emerges within a certain social setting and is based on a certain subject matter. A particular discourse becomes a language variety when it is used in this way for a particular purpose, and is referred to as a register. There may be certain lexical additions (new words) that are brought into play because of the expertise of the community of people within a certain domain of specialization. Registers and discourses therefore differentiate themselves through the use of vocabulary, and at times through the use of style too.

    Dialect

A dialect is a variety of language that is characteristic of a particular group among the language speakers. The groups of people who are the speakers of a dialect are usually bound to each other by social identity. This is what differentiates a dialect from a register or a discourse, where in the latter case; cultural identity does not always play a role. Dialects are speech varieties that have their own grammatical and phonological rules, linguistic features, and stylistic aspects, but have not been given an official status as a language. Dialects often move on to gain the status of a language due to political and social reasons.

    Structure

Linguists focusing on structure attempt to understand the rules regarding language use those native speakers know (not always consciously). All linguistic structures can be broken down into component parts that are combined according to sub-conscious rules, over multiple levels of analysis. For instance, consider the structure of the word "tenth" on two different levels of analysis. On the level of internal word structure (known as morphology), the word "tenth" is made up of one linguistic form indicating a number and another form indicating ordinality.

Linguistics has many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure. The theory that elucidates on these, as propounded by Noam Chomsky, is known as generative theory or universal grammar. These sub-fields range from those focused primarily on form to those focused primarily on meaning. They also run the gamut of level of analysis of language, from individual sounds, to words, to phrases, up to cultural discourse.

Sub-fields that focus on a structure-focused study of language can vary in some fields, including Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Synta, Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis, Stylistics, and Semiotics. And, its sub-fields also concern of Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics.

    Phonetics,

It is the study of the physical properties of speech sound production and perception.

    Phonology,

It is the study of sounds as abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning (phonemes).

    Morphology

It is the study of morphemes, or the internal structures of words and how they can be modified

    Syntax

It is the study of how words combine to form grammatical phrases and sentences

    Semantics

It is the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences

    Pragmatics

It is the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by context and non-linguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning

    Discourse analysis

It is the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)

    Stylistics

It is the study of linguistic factors (rhetoric, diction, stress) that place a discourse in context

    Semiotics

It is the study of signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication.

    Linguistics vs Education

    Language vs Man

A language, especially English is produced by human’s speech organs. In every day, huge amount of speech is conducted by human. Language is an expression and a mode of communication. Among all the other languages in the world, English language is one of the most popular languages in the world. The demand of learning this language is increasing rapidly day by day, so that many teachers are specializing in English language every day to meet the needs of such a huge population. Philosopher Franz Fanon once said, “To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture. The hundreds and thousands of teachers are graduating everyday with experience and great amount of knowledge to take over the world of English Language students and make them “language-perfect.” However, in order to make them “language-perfect,” teachers really need a deep understanding of linguistics so that they can come up with a more refined teaching material for the language students.

    Linguistics vs Educator

Linguistics is to be instilled completely in English teachers because when they are on duty, they work like correspondents, education specialists and assessors. They also work as educated human beings and are also the forerunners of developing sense of negotiators of socialization to their students.

Today’s teachers need access to a wide range of information to function well in the classroom. The competencies required by the various state certification standards add up to a very long list indeed. The challenge of providing excellent teacher preparation and ongoing professional development for teachers is enormous at any time. At a time like this, when the nation teaching force is encountering an increasing number of children from immigrant families children who speak little or no English on arrival at school, children whose families may be unfamiliar with the demands of American schooling the challenge is even greater.

    Teachers Need to Know about Linguistics

English education student, whether or not, is going to be an English teacher. An English teacher can be broadly defined as a teacher who teaches a language, that is, English. It is the broadly significant main reasons of all. Furthermore, there are other reasons on what do teachers need to know about linguistics.

    Teacher as Communicator

Clearly, communication with students is essential in effective teaching. To communicate successfully, teachers must know how to structure their own language output for maximum clarity and have strategies for understanding what students are saying since understanding student talk is key to analysis of what students know, how they understand, and what teaching moves would be useful. In a society that is creating increasingly diverse classrooms, teachers are more and more likely to encounter students with whom they do not share a first language or dialect and a native culture.

An understanding of linguistics can help teachers see that the discourse patterns they value are aspects of their own cultures and backgrounds; they are neither universal nor inherently more valid than other possible patterns. Without such an understanding, teachers sometimes assume that there is something wrong with students whose ways of using language are not what they expect.

In as diverse a society as ours, teachers must be prepared to work with children from many different cultural, social, and linguistic backgrounds. Many students in the average school are learning English as a second language, and understanding the course of second language acquisition (including such matters as what sorts of mistakes they are likely to make and how much progress can be expected in a unit of time) helps teachers communicate with them more effectively. Even advanced speakers of English as a second language may use conversational patterns or narrative organization that differs from those of the mainstream. Understanding how their language use might differ from that of the native European-American English speaker is crucial for effective teaching. In their function as interlocutor, teachers need to know something about educational linguistics.

    Teacher as Educator

Teachers are responsible for selecting educational materials and activities at the right level and of the right type for all of the children in their classes. This requires a reasonable basis for assessment of student accomplishments and the capacity to distinguish between imperfect knowledge of English and cognitive obstacles to learning. In order to teach effectively, teachers need to know which language problems will resolve themselves with time and which need attention and intervention. In other words, they need to know a great deal about language development. Language is a vital developmental domain throughout the years of schooling, whatever the child’s linguistic, cultural, or social background. Textbooks on child development often claim that by age five or six children have already mastered the grammar of their native language, and that although they expand their vocabularies in school and add literacy skills, for the most part children have acquired language before they go to school. Such a characterization of language development is far from accurate.

All students have a long way to go developmentally before they can function as mature members of their speech communities (Hoyle & Adger, 1998). As they progress through the grades, children will acquire the grammatical structures and strategies for the more sophisticated and precise ways of using language that are associated with maturity, with formal language use, and with discussing challenging topics. Teachers play a critical role in supporting language development. Beyond teaching students to read and write in school, they need to help students to learn and use aspects of language associated with the academic discourse of the various school subjects. They need to help them become more aware of how language functions in various modes of communication across the curriculum. They need to understand how language works well enough to select materials that will help expand their students’ linguistic horizons and to plan instructional activities that give students opportunities to use the new forms and modes of expression to which they are being exposed. Teachers need to understand how to design the classroom language environment so as to optimize language and literacy learning and to avoid linguistic obstacles to content area learning. A basic knowledge of educational linguistics is prerequisite to promoting language development with the full array of students in today’s classrooms.

    Teacher as Evaluator

Teachers’ judgments can have enormous consequences for student’s lives from the daily judgments and responses that affect students’ sense of themselves as learners to the more weighty decisions about reading group placement, promotion, or referral for evaluation. American school culture, as an example, is greatly concerned with individual differences in learning ability, and judgments about ability are often based on teacher evaluations of student’s language behaviors. American educators take seriously the idea that people differ in abilities and aptitudes, and they believe that such differences require different treatment in school.

To make valid judgments about students’ abilities, teachers also need to understand the different sources of variation in language use whether a particular pattern signals membership in a language community that speaks a vernacular variety of English, normal progress for a second language learner of English, normal deviations from the adult standard that are associated with earlier stages of development, or developmental delay or disorder. Considering the potential harm of misconstruing student’s language use, investing in educational linguistics seems a wise use of teacher preparation resources.

    Teacher as Agent of Socialization

Teachers play a unique role as agents of socialization, the process by which individuals learn the everyday practices, the system of values and beliefs, and the means and manners of communication of their cultural communities. Socialization begins in the home and continues at school. When the cultures of home and school match, the process is generally continuous: Building on what they acquired at home from family members, students become socialized into the ways of thinking and behaving that characterize educated individuals. They learn to think critically about ideas, phenomena, and experiences; and they add the modes and structures of academic discourse to their language skills. But when there is a mismatch between the cultures of home and school, the process can be disrupted.

For many students, teachers are the first contact with the culture of the social world outside of the home. From associations with family members, children have acquired a sense of who they are, what they can do, what they should value, how they should relate to the world around them, and how they should communicate. These understandings are cultural they differ from group to group and even within groups.

    Conclusion

We have sketched here the reasons that English education students who’ll be English educators, need to know about language, the kinds of knowledge about language that they need, and an inventory of courses or course topics that would cover this crucial core of knowledge. This proposal may strike some readers as utopian. I acknowledge that I have formulated it without thinking about the structures and constraints of traditional teacher education programs. Nonetheless, I am energized by the current political situation surrounding debates about bilingual education and the rather frantic search for better methods of teaching reading.

In brief, English education students has to enlarge their spirits to be more motivated in learning such courses dealing with linguistics, so that, they can comprehend in appropriate and good comprehensions of language to be taught to their students.