TABLE

(1857 - 1913)[|Sassures book] Leonard Bloomfield (1887 - 1949) Noam Chomsky (1928- ) || Franz Boas Edward Sapir Malinowski [|Malinowski's book 'Coral Gardens and Their Magic'] Firth //Labov// Halliday || //Bell// //Coates// || (the ultimate aim of language) is viewed as a system of signs. mechanical and mathematical. || * Evolved from Anthropolgical linguistics, where functions of language socially and within context are of interest.
 * Model || 1: Structuralism (author describes this as being the dominant model in the W. world for centuries) || 2: the Social Model (arose in the middle of the 20th century) || 3: The Postmodern Model (also known as Poststructuralism) ||
 * brief definition || focuses on the material substance of language || linguistic structure alone cannot determine meaning: an account of scial contenta scoai theoryis also required || an attempt to understand the fragmentary flux of language not be idealizing simple underlying mechanisms but by attempting to tease apart and understand the nature of fragmentation. ||
 * Period || c. 1880 - c. 1960* || late 19th century onwards || c. 1990's - now; //early stages of development?// ||
 * Key Scholars || Ferdinand de Saussure
 * Background || * Evolved from semiotic theories, in which communication
 * Before the 19th century, language was seen as a branch of the sciences,

ideology of language || Speakers of a language have a responsibility to reach and maintain a common ground, to ensure that meaning remains standard. || The 'standard language' is only one of many, all varients warrent study. Diversity should be celebrated. || Language cannot be confined to single meanings; it depends on the individual's personal experience, state of mind and the activities that take place in a social context.
 * Before this shift, language was studied in terms of form, independent of context in which it was used. || * //Evolves from an attempt to understand the fragmentary nature of linguistic experience: human identity is seen as diverse, inconsistent and unstable, and language both reflects and is the cause of this fractured personal identity.//
 * //Takes a broader semiotic view of what language consists of. "Signs" like architecture, music, pictures, etc are seen as processes of human communication which are language-like, so the boundary between language and non-language is blurred.// ||
 * Model as an

//Scholars cannot discover **what** texts mean, they can only build theories of **how** texts mean.// Postmodern theory takes a broad semiotic view of language. It concerns itself with all signs not just words. Signs can be music, pictures, clothing, brand choices etc. This type of communication is prevalent in consumerist society where every purchase has a meaning, every product chosen has been doen so to communicate a message. || does not successfully decode the message there must either be some aural interference or the system of rules used by the listener is different from that used by the speaker. || For meaning to be conveyed there is a need for interaction between language and social context. Text is central to study with Field, Tenor and Mode identifiable as aspects of social context. Appropriate choices must be made by the speaker.
 * Theory of communication || Ideas are transferred from the speaker's mind to the listener's; if the listener

The same linguistic structure can be decoded in different ways depending on the social context in which it is used allowing for multiple meanings to be attached.

An individual's identity can be displayed clearly through lingustic choices made. Each choice aligns the individual with a social group, the more 'specialised' the langauge the stronger the affiliation with that social group. || Meaning mainfests transiently and insecurely via close interaction with the context and the social activities of the participants. Discourse has no one single meaning mutually percieved in the same way (listener/speaker's ideological states, experience and negotiation between communicants, affect interpretation).

//Even acts of cognition are seen as social and jointly constructed//.

Language users are, in postmodern theory, not authors of their own meaning. They use the words, ideas and utterances of others and thus can never guarantee the way their text will be received and interpreted. || form since before the seventeenth century, from when Graddol chose "arbitrarily" to begin his history.
 * This begins from Saussure's period of influence; however, structuralist ideology had existed in some