Page 24 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes 2.2.5 Linguistics and Literature
The relationship between linguistics and literature is like that of the hammer and the anvil. If a
linguist wants to study a language like Sanskrit, he has no other source of his data but the
literature of the Sanskrit language. Literary criticism and literary scholarship, together with
philosophical studies, constituted a part of linguistics of Western Europe. Grammatical rules and
systems of grammar were drawn up on the basis of literary works and the types of sentence
structures and word forms found therein. The linguist has taken over the concepts of metres,
rhymes, rhythms, stresses and intonations from literature.
As linguistics progresses in the analysis of features like stress and length, and many concomitant
characteristics of utterances as yet not fully investigated or understood, in the comparison from
different points of the syllable structure of language and of their words structures, and in the
statement of their grammatical and colloquial patterns, linguists may expect to be able to penetrate
more deeply and more delicately in making explicit the many components of language that great
authors and generations of composers of oral literature have unconsciously seized on and moulded
into works of literary art.
Linguists are concerned with literature because it is their business to discover wherein literary
discourse differs from everyday non-literary discourse, and to investigate the role of the functors
in determining the effect of literary style. A language like Sanskrit, which does not have any
system of articles, is of course incapable of the particular literary effects made possible in English
by the presence of the article: on the other hand, its special structural characteristics make possible
its own peculiar literary effects which, say, English cannot attain. The recurrence and frequency of
nasal and glottal sounds in the end positions of words in Sanskrit gives it a musical effect which
is different from that of English.
The nature of language is of vital concern to the students of literature, because language is the
medium in which literature is written. A creative writer is never wholly free from linguistic and
cultural considerations or limitations howsoever unconscious of these he may be literally. He has
to choose his structures and sounds according to the kind of aesthetic effect he wants to create. His
creation is determined by the structure of the language. The structure determines what can and
cannot be said in the language, just as his cultural background determines the semantic content of
his work. All linguistic levels exert an influence on his creativity and on what he creates. All these
factors influence his style. Word-formation can often be used as a source of particular literary
effects. The Elizabethan writers were especially fond of transferring words from one form class to
another, and used happy, malice or foot as verbs. It is linguistics which can scientifically explain
the difficulties of translating a literary text, especially a poem. In return, it is the literary artist who
enriches a language enormously, and refines it. It is he who also sets the direction of language-
change by his distinct use and coinages and word-formations. Applying linguistics to the study of
poetry and other forms of literature under the name of “Stylistics” is another testimony of the
closeness between linguistics and literature. Among other fine arts, music is much closer to
linguistics than any other branch of fine arts.

2.2.6 Linguistics and the Natural Sciences
Linguistics touches the natural sciences such as physics, physiology and zoology. Acoustics brings
linguistics near physics, the structure of the human vocal organs near physiology, and the
communicative systems of living beings and their comparison near zoology. A fairly detailed
knowledge offered by these sciences about how soundwaves are framed, transmitted and received,
what are the organs and articulatory processes involved in the production of speech, are of immense
help to the linguist. On the basis of such information he classifies sounds, and determines their
characteristics. Physiology provides him knowledge about brain and the central nervous system.
A general connection between biology and zoology and linguistics lies in the relation of human
language to the communicative systems of animals. Such comparative studies have helped linguists

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