General Linguistics – Key Contents

Like other scientific disciplines, linguistics has a branch that studies the most general issues, providing the theoretical basis and research methods for other linguistic branches to describe and explain linguistic events: General Linguistics or Theoretical Linguistics.

 

The history of linguistics shows that, although studies of language have existed since ancient Greece and Rome and developed over thousands of years, it was only in the early 20th century that...General Linguistics TextbookFerdinand de Saussure's work, presented at the University of Geneva (1906-1911) and subsequently published (1916), had a significant influence in Europe and North America. This led to the birth of General Linguistics, and linguistics was officially recognized as a science of language. Since then, General Linguistics has become an indispensable subject in the linguistics curricula of universities worldwide.

General linguistics was introduced to Vietnam around the early 1970s, beginning with F. de Saussure's General Linguistics textbook (translated, first printed in 1973) and later with works by Ju. Stepanov (Fundamentals of General Linguistics, 1984), V. Rozdextvenski (Lectures on General Linguistics, 1997), J. Lyons (Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics, 1997), VB Kasevich (Essential Elements of General Linguistics, 1998), etc. Several lectures and textbooks on General Linguistics compiled by Vietnamese linguists have also been published, notably the General Linguistics textbook (volumes 1 and 2) by Do Huu Chau and Bui Minh Toan (1991) and Lectures on General Linguistics by Nguyen Lai (2002). These works have provided readers with a general theoretical understanding of linguistics from various perspectives. However, the need to understand, re-understand, and update theoretical and methodological knowledge in linguistics still requires a comprehensive work on General Linguistics that systematically and scientifically presents the fundamental issues of modern linguistics, and especially connects the achievements of world linguistics with Eastern linguistics and Vietnamese linguistics.General Linguistics Course – Key ContentsProfessor Dr. Dinh Van Duc's recently published book (Vietnam Education Publishing House 2012) reflects the author's research and teaching experience in this subject over more than 30 years, meeting that urgent need.

The book has 595 pages (including the bibliography), is 16x24 cm in size, and is divided into 12 chapters, presenting the most important contents of General Linguistics, selected by the author according to three basic priority principles: practicality and pedagogy (p. 9). It is noteworthy that the book's structure does not follow the traditional deductive approach often seen in General Linguistics works, which is from general theory to linguistic levels, but rather follows a logic reflecting the cognitive process: moving from concepts (of General Linguistics) to the object of study (nature, function, system, and structure of language) and research methods (linguistic theories). In our opinion, this way of organizing the book's content is novel compared to previous works.

The work begins with Chapter 1, which presents an overview of the author's conception of General Linguistics. According to the author, "the entire content of General Linguistics, theoretically speaking, aims to answer four questions: (1) What is language?, (2) How does language exist?, (3) How does language function?, (4) How do people approach language?" (p. 14). And the goal of General Linguistics is "to help us understand at least four key issues..., which are also the four theoretical contents below:

• The nature and function of language
• The system and structure of language
• The mechanism of how language works
• Linguistics and methods of language research.” (p. 15)

And those are the four central themes that encompass the author's book.

The first part of the book – issues related to the nature and function of language – is presented in Chapters 2 (Language and its communicative function), 3 (The symbolic nature of language), and 4 (Language in relation to thought). These are fundamental issues of linguistic philosophy that have been discussed extensively in general linguistics works with various theoretical viewpoints, but the author summarizes and clarifies them further, both theoretically and based on linguistic data. Inheriting the notion that "the social nature of language is a fundamental issue for all linguistic theory," the author argues that "the communicative function, the function as a tool of thought, and the symbolic nature of language... are closely intertwined on the common foundation of the social nature of language" (p. 25). Therefore, to understand the social nature of language, it is first necessary to analyze the functions of language, just as to understand the symbolic nature of language, it must be considered in relation to its communicative function and its function as a tool of thought. Based on that theory, the author has presented and discussed in depth the issues of the communicative function of language (why language has a communicative function, the nature of communicative activity, human information and communication, elements of communicative activity, etc.), the symbolic nature of language (signs as a means of communication, types of signs, the nature of signs and methods of analysis), and especially the issue of the relationship between language and thought (the reflective function of thought, language as a tool of reflection, manifestations of the relationship between language and thought in language, etc.). The author has devoted more than 100 pages of Chapter 4 to presenting and discussing this important but also quite complex issue. Stating that “the relationship between language and thought is very close but not identical,” in which “thought is the goal and language is the means,” the author asserts that “the relationship between language and thought is the most essential relationship because it encompasses and affects all linguistic phenomena” (p. 85), “therefore, all linguistic events can only be explained from the relationship between language and thought” (p. 93). All other specific issues related to the relationship between language and thought expressed through language (structure, function, politeness and communication strategies, modality, figurative thinking and artistic creation) are viewed and explained from these important theoretical premises.

The second and third parts of the book – issues concerning the system, structure, and mechanisms of language – are concisely presented in Chapter 5. Here, in addition to re-examining general concepts related to the system and structure of language (such as language system, language structure, linguistic relations, language levels, and relevant units), the author focuses on further clarifying the "mechanism of language" as the "mode of operation of the language system" (p. 219), expressed through the mechanisms of language and speech, the mechanisms of combination and selection (F. de Saussure), the mechanisms of linguistic function and poetics (N. Chomsky), and the mechanisms of speech acts (JL Austin, JR Searle, and other authors), thereby connecting research achievements on the system and structure of language with studies on the function and operation of language in modern linguistics. At first glance, the length of Chapter 5 (only about 50 pages) seems to suggest that the issues concerning the system – structure and mechanisms of language – attract little attention from the author. However, after careful reading, it becomes clear why the author chose this approach. Firstly, the general theoretical content related to the systemic characteristics – structure and mechanisms of language – has already been presented quite thoroughly in many works on General Linguistics, Introduction to Linguistics, and even thematic monographs, leading the author to believe it was "unnecessary to rewrite…the issues might not be explained better than those of colleagues" (p. 12). However, the second, more important reason, in our opinion, is that presenting these issues in a general way is only suitable for an introduction to linguistics, not for a theoretical work on general linguistics. In fact, all theoretical issues concerning the system – structure and mechanisms of language – are closely linked to schools of linguistics and therefore cannot be presented separately from the concepts of these schools. This is also the reason why the author dedicates the remaining chapters to content 4 – presenting and discussing in detail the approaches and research methodologies of linguistics, thereby once again clarifying the issues of the system – structure and mechanisms of language.

In this fourth section of the book, to provide readers with immediate access to the methodology and theoretical premises of modern linguistics, the author begins by introducing the fundamental theses on language and linguistics of F. de Saussure, the founder of the structural-systemic theory of language (Chapter 6), and the basic linguistic theories of N. Chomsky, the father of generative linguistics (Chapter 7), before reviewing the characteristics of traditional linguistics (Chapter 8). Following this, the author also devotes considerable space to presenting the basic concepts and methodological issues of structural linguistics (Chapter 9), functional linguistics (Chapter 10), functional grammar (Chapter 11), and applied linguistics (Chapter 12). What is particularly noteworthy here is that although most chapters are named and arranged in the order of linguistic schools or theories, the author, in terms of content, has "avoided the style of historical linguistic writing, and instead deliberately selected the most crucial issues of theory and research methodology as the focus of the introduction," as the author himself stated in the preface (p. 8). For example, in introducing N. Chomsky and Generative Grammar, the author focuses on N. Chomsky's conception of language (with focal points being language acquisition, the distinction between universal and specific grammar, between linguistic function and linguistic performance) and Chomsky's early theoretical models of language (Reformed Grammar 1, Standard Theory, Extended Standard Theory) which the author calls linguistic forms. In presenting Structural Linguistics, the author focuses on clarifying the context of its emergence, the ideas, and the main representatives of the two schools of structural linguistics: European (Prague School) and American (American Descriptive Linguistics), as well as the main methodological issues (distribution method and direct component analysis method). For Functional Linguistics, the author chooses to present the topic both according to research trends (the functional trend of the Prague School, relational grammar, case grammar) and according to the system of research problems (speech acts, sentences and sentence meanings, categories of expressive meaning, etc.). This combined approach of presenting the topic from both a historical (research trend) and system-of-problem perspective provides the reader with a fairly comprehensive picture of the relevant issues, although it is not always easy to follow.

Another advantage of the book is that, in addition to providing readers with a comprehensive and specific theoretical system of general linguistics, the author applies general theory to many issues to help readers understand the problems of Vietnamese linguistics and the practical aspects of the Vietnamese language. This is clearly evident in the author's vivid writings on the relationship between language and thought with the structure and function of language in general and Vietnamese in particular (Chapter 4), and on the influence of linguistic theories on Vietnamese linguistics, from traditional linguistics and structuralism to different tendencies of functionalism and functional grammar (Chapters 8 to 11).

The book has a fairly tight structure, with the content of the chapters linked together logically and coherently. The writing style is academic and scientific, yet easy to understand and highly pedagogical, always combining theoretical presentations with the author's analysis and evaluation, along with specific examples drawn from the practical use of Vietnamese and other languages. Of course, here and there in the book, readers may find other, more logical arrangements, or wish the author presented the information more thoroughly, clearly, or even more up-to-date. Considering that this work, over 500 pages long, covers most of the important content in general linguistic theory from traditional to modern times, even though the author considers it only a preliminary draft, such shortcomings, if any, are unavoidable.

We rateGeneral Linguistics – Key ContentsProfessor Dinh Van Duc's work is a valuable scientific study and a highly pedagogical general linguistics textbook. It can be affirmed that this book is truly essential for scientists, doctoral candidates, graduate students, and linguistics students, as well as for anyone who loves linguistics and wants to gain a deeper understanding of language and linguistics. We respectfully introduce it to our readers.

Canberra, August 2013