The London School

The London School

·         Practical Linguistics

Orthoepy: it is the codification and teaching the correct pronunciation.

Lexicography: it is the invention of shorthand systems, spelling reform, and the creation of artificial ‘philosophical languages.’

·         Phonetics





Henry Sweet based his historical studies on a detailed understanding of the working of the vocal organs.

  

Daniel Jones invented the system of cardinal reference-points which made precise and consistent transcription possible in the case of vowels.

·         Linguistics

Firth said that the phonology of a language consist of a number of system of alternative possibilities which come into play at different points in phonological unit such a syllable, and there is no reason to identify the alternates in one system with those in another.

Trubetzkoy assumes that the range of sounds found in the special neutralizing environment will be related in a regular way to the range found in other environments.

 

A Firthian phonologycal analysis recognizes a number of ‘systems’ of prosodies operating at various points in structure which determine the pronunciation of a given form in interaction with segment-sized phonematic units.

In Firthian terms the syllable plays an essential role as the domain of a large number of prosodies

For Firth, a phonology was a structure of system of choices were systems of meaning.

For Malinowski, to think of language as a ‘means of transfusing ideas from the head of the speaker to that of the listener’ was a myth: to speak, particulary in a primitive culture, is not to tell but to do.

“Word are tools, and the ‘meaning’ of a tool is its use”.

Firthian phonology, it is primarily concerned with the nature and import of the various choices which one makes in deciding to utter one particular sentence out of the infinitely numerous sentencesthat one’s language makes available.

A Chomskyan grammar defines the class of well-formed senteces in a language by providing a set of rules for rewriting symbols as other symbols.

ACTIVITY:    

Find Firth!