Pptx bloomfieldian theory report

1. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR ( Development History: Bloomfield to Chomsky ) Lecturer: OFELIA M. SISON Master of Arts in Education, Major in English Language Teaching Panpacific University North Philippines Urdaneta City, Pangasinan Professor: MARIA MARTHA MANETTE A. MADRID, Ph. D.

2. DEVELOPMENT HISTORY   Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) is, together with Edward Sapir, one of the two most prominent American linguists of the first half of the twentieth century. His book Language (Bloomfield, 1933) was the standard introduction to linguistics for thirty years following its publication. Together with his students, particularly Bernard Bloch, Zellig Harris, and Charles Hockett , Bloomfield established the school of thought that has come to be known as American structural linguistics, which dominated the field until the rise of GENERATIVE GRAMMAR in the 1960s.

3. SUMMARY Throughout his career, Bloomfield was concerned with developing a general and comprehensive theory of language. His first formulation (Bloomfield, 1914) embedded that theory within the conceptualist framework of Wilhelm Wundt which was the psychology of language. Wundtian theory had connection with the notion like association and apperception as foundation of language.

4. In the early 1920s, however, Bloomfield abandoned that framework in favor of BEHAVIORISM theory of language. In repudiating the existence of all mentalist constructs, Bloomfield also repudiated the classical view that the structure of language reflects the structure of thought. For Bloomfield, the structure of language was the central object of linguistic study, and hence of cognitive science..

5. Bloomfield maintained that all linguistic structure could be determined by the application of analytic procedures starting with the smallest units which combine sound (or ‘vocal features’) and meaning (or ‘stimulus-reaction features’), called morphemes (Bloomfield, 1926: 130).

6. Bloomfield went on to show how to identify both smaller units (i.e., phonemes, defined as minimum units of ‘distinctive’ vocal features) and larger ones (words, phrases, and sentences). Bloomfield developed rich theories of both MORPHOLOGY and SYNTAX, much of which was carried over more or less intact into generative grammar.

7. In morphology, Bloomfield paid careful attention to phonological alternations of various sorts, which led to the development of the modern theory of morphophonemics (see especially Bloomfield, 1939). In syntax, he laid the foundations of the theory of constituent structure, including the rudiments of xbar - 2 theory. (Bloomfield, 1933: 194-195)

8. Bloomfield generated so much enthusiasm for syntactic analysis that his students felt that they were doing syntax for the first time in the history of linguistics. ( Hockett , 1968: 31) Bloomfield did not develop his theory of SEMANTICS to the same extent as he did his theories of PHONOLOGY, MORPHOLOGY, and SYNTAX, contenting himself primarily with naming the semantic contributions of various types of linguistic units.

9. Ultimately, American structural linguistics failed not for its inadequacies in phonology, morphology, and syntax, but because behaviorism does not provide an adequate basis for the development of a semantic theory for natural languages.

10. BEHAVIORISM PRINCIPLE The theory of behaviorism is derived from a psychological theory founded by J.B. Watson. The followers of this theory are Bloomfield, Skinner and several others. The main principle of the theory was mainly on analyzing human behaviors in observable stimulus - respond within interaction.

11. Behaviorists belief, in language learning, children obtain the language through varied babblings and mutterings which they try to imitate the words which they heard from the adults. And as the babbling and any kind of efforts done by the children are rewarded, this reward will reinforce further articulation of babblings and mutterings .

12. As the children grow, and reach the age of 4-6, the babblings and mutterings will develop into appropriate language to be applied in social context. And this language will internalize and develop into implicit speech.  According to Bloomfield (1933), language learning is perceived as a formation of habits.

13. The process of learning is the same as learning other skills. The theory was derived from the notion of stimulus and response. The behaviorist sees that learners are exposed to numerous stimuli in the environment and the contexts they are in. They will respond to the stimuli. Through repeated reinforcement, the habits will form.  

14. STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS According to Ellis (1984), behaviorist development was developing in America and Western Europe around 1960s in which accepted that the language development was a product of stimulus-response. The stimulus-response then develops in the process of imitation, repetition and reinforcement (Harmer, 2001; Lightbown and Spada , 1999; Richards and Rogers, 2001 ).

15. So, the second language development at that time played around this acceptance. But the truth is, there were hardly any empirical studies of these in the language development in the classroom. Behaviorist was generally extrapolating the general language learning theory base on the experiment done onto human in the science laboratory. This lack of proves was actually one of a factor which led to the next idea in language learning led by Chomsky in 1959; as one of the pioneer in developing the Innatism .

16. CONCLUSION As conclusion in connection with Behaviorism, language learning is: 1. A habit formation resembling the formation of other habits – language is learned in the way in which other habits are learned 2. Nothing more than the acquisition of new behavior or knowledge – takes place when experience or practice causes a change in a person’s knowledge or behavior

17. 3.An external event involving an observable change in behavior brought about by the stimuli coming from the environment – does not involve any unobservable change in mental knowledge since behavior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness 4. Addressed to only human beings – acquire a language as discrete units of habits, independently trained

18. STRUCTURALISM THEORY Structuralism is the idea that many phenomena do not occur in isolation, but instead occur in relation to each other, and that all related phenomena are part of a whole with a definite, but not necessarily defined, structure. This theory can further be explained through phonology, morphology and syntax.

19. Phonology – the study of sounds in language Morphology – the study of the structure of words that will eventually form/give the meaning Syntax – the study of the interrelations of words in the sentence

20. A. Phonetic Elements of Morphologic Processes 1. Variation of pitch, stress, vowels and consonants 2. Affixation Example: fire – singular (object) fire + s - plural geese – not plural morpheme duck+s – plural morpheme

21. 3. Reduplication - repetition Example: bill – as payment bill – as word 4. Homomorphy - homonym Example: project (noun) project (verb)

22. 5. Suppletion – conjugation Example: dance, dances, danced, dancing 6. Associational identification- relationship lies within the meaning of words Example: flash, flicker, flare, flame

23. 7. Initial and final root-forming morpheme – resemblance in sound Example: gl ow & gl are, b ump & l ump 8. Derivational – root word Example: eat = eater, eatable

24. B. Means of Expressing Syntactic Relation 1. By modulations of pitch and of stress (intonation) Example: He ‘failed com’pletely to make his meaning clear. * completely is the attribute of failed 2. By crossreferring constructions (agreement of subject and predicate) Example: Many fires break out. *both fires and break are plural

25. 3. By congruence ( agreement in gender, number and case) Example: He takes with him his laptop. *he, him, his – masculine, singular 4. By government or rection (possessive case) Example: her hair, hers is long 5. By word order ( subject followed by predicate) Example: Many fires / break out . subject predicate

26. IMPLICATION/CONCLUSION Bloomfieldian theory of language is analyzed in terms of hierarchy of smaller elements: phrases, words and morphemes. The elements called “forms”, are all said to have “meanings”. The most basic meanings of a language are those associated with morphemes but these can be analyzed into smaller phonological units, called “phonemes”.

27. Thus: phonemes combined to form morphemes. Associated with each morpheme is a unit of meaning. Morphemes combine phonologically and semantically to form words; words combine phonologically and semantically to form phrases. Phrases in turn combine to make larger forms; the maximal phrases or a language are called sentences.

28. REACTION Certainly, if Bloomfieldian structuralism is, as Chomsky wrote in 1964, “a kind of pre-Darwinian taxonomy concerned solely with the collection and classification of countless specimens”, it has little to recommend it. But this characterization of the work of the period is not accurate.

29. Indeed it has some features that make it as attractive theory of linguistic form as generative grammar conceived. What is required is not a disparaging dismissal of Bloomfieldian structuralism, but a reconstruction of it using the more sophisticated formal apparatus of logico -mathematical linguistics that has recently been developed as an adjunct to work in generative grammar.

30. REFERENCES Bloomfield, L., 1914, An Introduction to the Study of Language. New York: Henry Holt. Bloomfield, L., 1926, ‘A set of postulates for the science of language.’ Language2: 153-164.Reprinted in Hockett , 1970, pp. 128-138. Bloomfield, L., 1933, Language. New York: Henry Holt. Bloomfield, L., 1935, ‘Linguistic aspects of science.’

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