Linguistic movements and theories

Эссе-рассуждение на тему лингвистических теорий, с кратким описанием нескольких из них и заключением о самой "интересной" и "важной" теории по мнению автора. ...

Эссе-рассуждение на тему лингвистических теорий, с кратким описанием нескольких из них и заключением о самой "интересной" и "важной" теории по мнению автора.

Linguistics is a science about language, its nature and functions, its inner structure, about laws of its functioning and its historical development. Linguistics is one of the most ancient sciences. Through the example of linguistics one can retrace how the science appears, how it specifies and deepens its subject and perfects the methods. Interest to a language is reflected in the folklore of all the nations.

The main objective of generative grammar theory is to explain the structure of man’s language capacity. Cognitive linguistics – movement, in the spotlight of which there is a language as a general cognitive device. At the foreground of the theory there are description and explanation of the mechanisms of acquirement of language and principles of structuring of these mechanisms. Cooperative principle – was formulated by P.Grice. He distinguishes what is said and what is implicated. There are 4 Gricean maxims: maxim of quality (be truthful), maxim of quantity (quantity of information), maxim of manner (be clear), maxim of relation (relevance). Prototype theory – it considered that categories are blurred, do not possess some strict bounds. The word is not an absolute denomination of a thing, but to a certain degree. People form concrete or abstract mental image of things, which belong to some category. This image is called prototype. With the course of time prototypes can change.Categorical grammar – studies methods of description of artificial and natural language, connected with language type designs. Each element of the vocabulary is referred to one or more categories, and each category is either basic, or one that is defined combinatorially through other, more simple. As a result we have endless hierarchy of well-ordered categories. Functionalism -  it is a heritage of structuralism. It embodies the idea of importance in terms “roles”. People or parts of the speech act as the performers of these roles. Functional approach simplifies grammar. There exist only principles of perception and interpersonal interaction.