CPMT (Content and Pedagogy for Mother Tongue) Santa Monica Institute of Technology

MODULE WEEK NO.2

Andrada Building,Cabili Avenue,Poblacion Iligan City
Tel.No.:221-2678
santamonica@ymail.com

Bachelor of Elementary Education

COURSE CODE: CPMT(Content and Pedagogy for Mother Tongue)
1st Semester of A.Y. 2020-2021

Introduction
In this lesson,you will be introduced to general concepts about language,its composition
and features.It is a step that will guide you to a better view of a language used to communicate
so that you can function well in a speech community.

As human beings,we live in a world where we commune and interact with others.We
need to communicate through a language that is common to all.Meaning is negotiated on a day
to day basis.
Rationale

Having a language is perhaps one major attribute that makes human beings far
different from animals.To understand our humanity,we need to understand that nature our
language for this makes us human.Knowing a language and using it to communicate one’s
thoughts,sentiments,desires,fears,among others is a necessary tool to survive in our society.

This lesson is designed to make you understand what language is and components that
comprise it.You will be introduced to the rich linguistic culture of the Philippines as well
through a guided reflection of you own mother tongue in the light of its phonemic and syntactic
structures,its orthography,and its peculiarities.This would lead you to strengthen your
appreciation of your own mother tongue.

Let us get to know more about language.

Intended Learning Outcomes
At the end of this module the students should be able to:
•Defined what language is and described its components.
•Compared the phonemic and syntactic structures of languages
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Lesson 2.1 Structures of a Language

Activity
Can you speak in more than one language?What languages do you know?
Write the languages that you believe you can use in communicating and rank them according to
your level of competence.

Discussion
What exactly is language?Language is a system of human communication which consists
of the structured arrangement of strings of sounds(or their written representation) that are put
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together to form a code.This labels a concept or an object and which can be put into larger
units such as words and utterances(Richards,1993).It can be any particular system of
communication such as the English language,the Filipino language,the Hiligaynon language,or
the Kapampangan.

In recent years,teachers like you,who may not be majors in linguistics,make an effort in

understanding the technical terms of linguists when studying language.It will be very helpful to
adopt these terms to describe the elements or components of a linguistic system.

A language as a linguistic system has components:Phonology,Morphology,and Syntax.

Whatever language one speaks,it is basically spoken first and precedes the written
form anywhere in the world.Any linguistic system is initially studied and learned according to
how the sounds are produced.Let us look at each term and its definition.

Phonetics ► looks into how the actual sounds of a language are produced.It looks into the raw
materials out of which language is made.

Phonology► on the other,is sound patterning.It refers to how each sound is put together to
form a string of sounds in order to produce the word.
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Lesson 2.1 Structures of a Language

Syntax ► how these strings of sounds are put together,in a broad term.This is the
arrangement and form of the words.It is that part of language which links together the sound
patterns and the meaning.

Semantics ► refers to the meaning of words or how these words are used in a speech
community.

Pragmatics ►deals with how members of a speech community use language to communicate in
ways that cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone.This is the area that supports
the fact that more is expressed that what words could carry.

Let us look into the specific components of a language.

The Phonological System

► The phonological system of a language is composed of speech sounds known as

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phonemes.They are subdivided into segmental phonemes and suprasegmental phonemes.The
segmental phonemes are the vowel sounds,the consonant sounds,diphthongs,and triphtongs.On
the other hand,the suprasegmental phonemes include the stress,the intonation,pauses,and
junctures.There are rules that combine phonemes to form words and to express something
based on the “tune” of the utterance,all of which can affect the meaning intended by the
speaker.
A word of reminder:For the common understanding of the phonemes in any language that
will be analyzed and studied.We will be using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
symbols as a common code.Brackets [ ] will be used for phonetic transcription using the IPA.

International Phonetic Alphabet

The IPA is a universally established and standardized set of codes or system that can be
used to represent the sounds of human speech.It can be employed in transcribing the speech
sounds of any language.

There are varied phonemes in a language:vowels,consonants,diphthongs,triphtongs,pauses or

junctures,stress,and intonations.

1. Vowel Phonemes ►are the sounds produced by the articulation of the mouth without any
oral impediment.

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Lesson 2.1 Structures of a Language

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2. Diphthongs and Triphthongs

Diphthongs are two vowel phonemes combined to produce the correct sound of a
syllable while a triphthong is a monosyllable that contains three vowel phonemes.Diphthongs
are present in some of the local languages;however,triphthongs are apparently not part of
Philippine languages.

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Lesson 2.1 Structures of a Language
The consonant phonemes are basic speech sounds that are produced through the
articulations of the mouth but with certain oral impediments. A consonnt phoneme can be
combined with a vowel to form a syllable.

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The Morphological System

The second component of language is the morpheme.The morphological system studies

the smallest unit of meaning called morphemes.There are free morpheme which functions
independently and is considered as the root word, e.g. pencil,rain,study.Another kind is the
bound morpheme which must be used with
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Lesson 2.1 Structures of a Language

other morphemes such as affixes or inflections.

Examples are -s in pencils, -ing in raining, -ied in studied.

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The Syntactic System

The third component of a language is the systematic system.It is the grammatical

structure or the word order in a language.This expresses an idea or content as captured by
what the words mean.It includes the governing rules of word formations as well as the rules of
word formations as well as the explaining the relationship of words within a sentence or
between and among sentence structures.

The Content

The content is the meaning intended by the speaker.The word meaning of an item or
concept may vary across cultures because members of a speech community capture their view
of reality using the morphemes or words as labels of their experiences.How they perceive things
and their practices vary;hence,language is a rich representation of their world and or reality.

The Use of the Language

Knowing that message is carried by the form and the content of language,one can use the
medium to communicate.Language is therefore used to negotiate meaning and achieve the
intention that primarily drives the speaker to talk.The study of how speakers use language to
accomplish is called pragmatics.

Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics which studies those aspects of meaning which

cannot be captured and predicted from linguistic alone.It deals with how the listeners arrive at
the intended meaning of the speakers.It tries to explain how interlocutors(speaker-
listener)observe the principles of communicating by applying various language devices to reach
a common understanding.

Every utterance or speech act has an intended function.Halliday identified the seven
language functions of young language learners.These functions tend to show the
personal,social,and academic aspects of human development.

1. Instrumental
Children use language to express his needs or to get things done.
Example: I want my toy.

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Lesson 2.1 Structures of a Language
2.Regulatory
Children use language to influence the behavior of others such as
persuading/commanding/ordering others to do things.
Example:Please give me the ball.

2. Interactional
Children can use language to develop social relationship and facilitate the process of
interaction.
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Example:Will you play with me?

3. Personal
Children use language to express personal preferences and individual identity.
Example:I am going to be a marine biologist when I grow up.

4. Representational
Children use language to convey information.They are concerned with relaying or
requesting facts and information.
Example:I saw a green turtle in the pond.

5. Heuristic
Children use language to learn and explore the environment to be able to
understand it.This may be questions and answers.
Example:What is the most dangerous shark?

6. Imaginative
Children use language to tell stories,express fantasies,and to create an imaginary
environment.These may accompany imaginary worlds or storytelling.
Example:In a faraway place,there lived a hermit.

When communicating using a language,much more is sometimes meant that what is

actually uttered.For example,an utterance spoken can be identified as a question answerable by
a yes or a no.Yet,the listener actually can understand the real intention of the speaker which
may not necessarily require a positive or negative response but something else.Pragmatics is the
discipline that tries to explain the understones and real intentions behind the linguistics
structure.

Exercise

A. Provide examples in your mother tongue.Identify the morphemes and the affixes.

B. Study the given sentence structure.

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Lesson 2.1 Structures of a Language
Comparing the sentence structures including your own newly crafted structures.What have you
notice?What comes first?Point similarities and differences of the sentence structures in
English,words in Filipino,and your mother tongue.

Assessment

Answer the following items by writing TRUE if the statement presents a correct idea and
FALSE if the statement presents a wrong idea.

Reflection

What role can language have in improving education?

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Resources and Additional Resources

DepEd K to 12 Curriculum Guide in Mathematics

DepEd K to 12 Curriculum Guide in Science
MOther Tongue:for Teching and Learning,F.F.L.,Lorimar Publisher

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