Lection 3: Main Trends in the Phoneme Theory. Methods of Phonological Analysis

Lection 3: Main Trends in the Phoneme Theory.
Methods of Phonological Analysis.


The Main Trends in the Phoneme Theory

It is generally acknowledged that the phoneme is one of the basic language units. However, it is described by different scholars and representatives of different linguistic schools in different ways. Before we look at the most significant theories, let’s say a quick word on the history of phonological studies and mention the names of outstanding scholars who contributed to the understanding of this complicated language phenomenon.

The idea of distinguishing between the functional approach of the study of speech sounds and their material substance was first expressed by the Russian linguist Baudauin de Courtenay at the end of the 19^th century. But it was only at the end of the 20s and 30s of the 20^th century that a number of phonological conceptions appeared in different countries. We should mention the great Russian scholar Трубецкой who left Russia after the revolution and founded the famous linguistic circle in Prague. Якобсон also took an active part in the development of the Prague phonological conception. The theory of those two linguists formed the basis of functional linguistics and classical phonology. Similar theories appeared at the same time in the USA.

In Russia the ideas of phonology were later developed in different ways by the so-called Leningrad and Moscow Schools. In St. Petersburg the phonological theory was developed by Щерба and his followers: Зиндер and Бондарко. The most outstanding representatives of the Moscow School are: Аванесов, Кузнецов and Реформацкий. All these theories are called “traditional” and the description of the phonological system they give is generally called “static”, because its main concern is the description of all the phonemes and their allophones. In other words it has a classificatory character.

In the 1960s there appeared the so-called “new phonology” which was aimed at explaining how speech is actually produced and understood by the humans. Generative phonology represented by a well-known American linguist N.Chomsky viewed phonology in close connection with syntax and semantics. The ideas of generative phonology were represented in the book by Chomsky and M.Halle “The Sound Pattern of English”. Classical static phonological models were aimed at creating classifications of the sound system of a particular language. “Dynamic” models were aimed at establishing the sound pattern of an utterance on the basis of its semantic and grammar characteristics.

Now let’s try to group these schools into bigger categories and see what is the main criterion in the approach of linguists to the phoneme. In fact, the main criterion is three aspects of the phoneme. Some linguists exaggerate the abstract aspect of the phoneme and ignore the material aspect. Others, on the contrary, pay more attention to the material aspect and ignore the abstract one. We must admit that no theories ignore the functional aspect.