Structure of language Although we have little or no awareness of how we form our communication, the process of using language is highly structured. To be considered a native speaker … an individual must learn … rules this is to say that he must learn to behave as if he knew the rules. Which means, from the point of view of the scientific observer, that it is possible to describe the behavior of the speaker in terms of rules. However, such a description should not be supposed to imply that the particular rules invented by scientists constitute actual entities existing within the individual, since it is a definite psychological and physiological sense.
Summary
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- 1 Metamodel for language
- 2 Transformational model
- 3 Alterations in the benchmark indices
- 4 Therapeutic use of language
- 5 Source
Metamodel for language
The “transformationalist” grammarians start from the simplifying assumption that the rules to form this set of expressions can be studied independently of the content. For example, people who speak Spanish distinguish between:
- From a very young age I have had a double life.
- Double life one had I have girl very since.
As we are showing that people have consistent intuitions about the language or language they speak. Furthermore, different people who speak the same language will make the same judgments about whether or not the same group of words is a sentence. Despite not being aware of “how”, we can behave consistently, we do it anyway. We call intuition to the perception or clear, intimate or instantaneous knowledge of an idea or truth without the aid of reason.
Transformational model
The transformational model of language attempts to represent the structural patterns of intuitions about our language. These insights are present in every native speaker of a language. The three categories of linguistic intuitions that we have selected as relevant to our objectives are: #Good training (antonym of malformation); #Constituent structure and #Logical – semantic relationships.
- Good training. It refers to the consistent judgments native speakers of a language make about whether or not a group of words constitute sentences.
Even the president has books. (Well formed) Even the president has green ideas (Semantically badly formed) Even the president has books (Syntactically badly formed)
- Constituent structure. The constituent judgments native speakers make about what elements go together or combined in a unit. The director of the radio station thought Rosa was present. The words he and director go together as a unit, while de and director do not form a unit.
When analyzing a sentence: The woman bought a truck. A native speaker will be able to group the words into constituents or higher-level units (the woman) and (bought) and (a truck). The linguist represents these intuitions in what he calls a tree structure. The surface structure is what the woman says, the deep structure is what is not said, but is implicit. It is obvious that if I bought the truck, they bought it from someone and had to pay for it, with money or by check, but they made an investment. What are transformations? Native speakers recognize that even though these surface structures are different, the communicated message, that is, the deep structure, is the same. The process in which these two sentences are derived from the same deep structure is called “derivation.” The woman bought a truck. The truck was bought by a woman. Each of these transformations specifies one of the ways in which the order of the words can differ and they constitute the so-called “permutation transformations”
- Logical – semantic relationships: Complexity: Before a verb, we are able to determine how many are connected or described by a verbal relationship.
The verb hitting implies a hitting person or house, a hitting person or target, and an instrument used in hitting. Ambiguity: Native speakers recognize that a single sentence of the type: Leasing the house to a criminal can be dangerous. It can be taken in the following senses: Leasing a house to a criminal can be dangerous or renting one’s house to a criminal can be dangerous. Synonymy: Native speakers recognize that the two sentences below have the same meaning: This can be done quickly. This can be done quickly. Assumptions: Native speakers can determine what the other’s experience is in listing a sentence. For example: The cat escaped me.
Alterations in the benchmark indices
Ability to determine if a word or sentence alludes to a particular objective of the experience. For example: my bike, or if you identify a class of goals: bicycles. Make judgments about whether two or more words refer to the same goal. For example Juan and by himself in the sentence: Juan changed by himself. Referential indices, as their name suggests, have to clearly specify what they are talking about, otherwise it creates great confusion that hinders communication. Transformations: The transformations are alterations of the referential index, the most frequent are: Elimination, nominalization and generalization. It is necessary to take into account these transformations in therapy, since, if they are used frequently in the family, they will originate from interaction disorders. For example, It is said: Juanita I talk a lot with someone. It is not known if it is good for her to speak, not much is specified in relation to what or with whom. Should you talk a lot? Can you talk a lot? Are there doubts as to whether you were talking to someone who shouldn’t or can’t? All the confusion is due to the lack of a referential index. If it is said “Peter laughed”, confusion is also possible: Did he laugh alone? Laughed at whom? Did you laugh why?
Therapeutic use of language
When a person comes in search of therapy, they usually arrive with some kind of suffering, feeling paralyzed, unable to experience alternatives. What we have discovered is not that the world is too limited or that there are no possible alternatives, but that these people block their ability to see possible alternatives, but that these people block their ability to see the alternatives and the possibilities that are open to them, why are they not present in your models of the world. While some people are able to go through these periods of change with ease, experiencing them as periods of intense energy and creativity, others experience them as part of terror and suffering. The problem is not that the individual chooses badly or wrongly, but that he does not have enough alternatives, it does not have a rich and complex picture of the world. The most common paradox of the human condition is that the processes that enable us to handle symbols (that is, to create models) and that allow us to survive, grow, change and enjoy are the same that maintain us an impoverished model of the world. Therapists get to know and understand their patients through speech.
We use language in two ways: To represent the world (think, fantasize, reason etc.); to communicate with each other our representation of the world (speaking, discussing, writing, telling, etc.) By using language as a representational system, we are creating a model of our experience, of our perceptions and these are also determined by the model or representation of the world. Our linguistic representations and those of patients are subject to the laws of human modeling: generation, elimination, and distortion. Generalization: It is the process by which elements of the model emerge and come to represent the total category, of which the experience is only a particular case. Our generalizing capacity is essential to face the world (especially if it is done on the analysis, synthesis and abstraction of the essential properties of the object or phenomenon). Inadequate generalization becomes evident when we use words like always, never, everything, nothing, as they are too absolute and can set wrong criteria.
Comparative words like a lot, very, little, etc., have to refer to something concrete and leave no room for doubt. Elimination: Process by which we selectively pay attention. An example is the ability we have to filter noise in a room full of people to listen to the exhibitor. We use the same process which are not important. Distortion: Process that allows us to make changes, in our experience, of the sensory data. Example: Fantasy or imagination. This kind of distortion has made artistic creations and great inventions possible. If a scientist had not imagined television, radio, etc., these wonders would not have been created. But if we fantasize or imagine negative feelings or messages from significant others, then communication is dysfunctional.
