Principles Of Modern Linguistics

Structuralism

It is the analysis of language that describes linguistic elements in terms of structures. Ferdinand de Saussure is considered the father of structuralism, who formulated the main ideas of structuralism and principles of linguistic analysis. These principles are:

1. Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive: It is descriptive because it focuses on describing the language as it is used, not saying how it should be used.
2. Priority of the spoken language: The spoken language is more basic since it has great differences between the written language, such as grammar and vocabulary.
3. Synchronic and diachronic description of language: They are important because they both study language. Diachronic from its historical development, while Synchronic, in a single point of time.
4. All languages are equal: Each existing natural language is a highly developed system and its structure does not correlate with the stage of social development.
5. Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic relations of linguistic units: It says that Paradigmatic is when all other elements of the same level (semantic groups) can be used in the same context; while Syntagmatic is when elements of different semantic groups are used in a situation and can change the sense of context.

Functionalism

This refers to the main function of language, which is communication and this, in turn, helps the speaker to convey their feelings and attitudes. Besides, phonological, grammatical and semantic structures have their own functions and thus be carried out correctly.

Generativism

Generativism refers to the theory of language developed by Noam Chomsky, where he exposes the difference between linguistic competence and performance. Linguistic competence is the part that a speaker uses to make infinite sentences by knowing their native language system. While, performance is the linguistic competence and the non-linguistic factors of the speaker, that is, social conventions, emotional attitudes, etc.