Linguistics is the scientific[1] study of language,[2] specifically language

form, language meaning, and language in context.[3] The earliest

activities in the description of language have been attributed to the 4th
century BCE Indian grammarian Pāṇini, who was an early student of
linguistics[4][5] and wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language
in his Aṣṭādhyāyī.[6]
Linguistics analyses human language as a system for relating sounds (or
signs in signed languages) and meaning.[7] Phonetics studies acoustic
and articulatory properties of the production and perception of speech
sounds and non-speech sounds. The study of language meaning, on the
other hand, deals with how languages encode relations between entities,
properties, and other aspects of the world to convey, process, and assign
meaning, as well as to manage and resolve ambiguity. While the study
of semantics typically concerns itself with truth conditions, pragmatics
deals with how context influences meanings.[8]
Grammar is a system of rules which govern the form of the utterances in
a given language. It encompasses both sound[9] and meaning, and
includes phonology (how sounds or gestures function together),
morphology (the formation and composition of words), and syntax (the
formation and composition of phrases and sentences from words).[10]
In the early 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure distinguished between
the notions of langue and parole in his formulation of structural
linguistics. According to him, parole is the specific utterance of speech,
whereas langue refers to an abstract phenomenon that theoretically
defines the principles and system of rules that govern a language.[11]
This distinction resembles the one made by Noam Chomsky between
competence and performance, where competence is individual's ideal
knowledge of a language, while performance is the specific way in
which it is used.[12]
The formal study of language has also led to the growth of fields like
psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and function of
language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which studies language
processing in the brain; and language acquisition, which investigates
how children and adults acquire a particular language.
Linguistics also includes non-formal approaches to the study of other
aspects of human language, such as social, cultural, historical and
political factors.[13] The study of cultural discourses and dialects is the
domain of sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic
variation and social structures, as well as that of discourse analysis,
which examines the structure of texts and conversations.[14] Research on
language through historical and evolutionary linguistics focuses on how
languages change, and on the origin and growth of languages,
particularly over an extended period of time.
Corpus linguistics takes naturally occurring texts and studies the
variation of grammatical and other features based on such corpora.
Stylistics involves the study of patterns of style: within written, signed,
or spoken discourse.[15] Language documentation combines
anthropological inquiry with linguistic inquiry to describe languages and
their grammars. Lexicography covers the study and construction of
dictionaries. Computational linguistics applies computer technology to
address questions in theoretical linguistics, as well as to create
applications for use in parsing, data retrieval, machine translation, and
other areas. People can apply actual knowledge of a language in
translation and interpreting, as well as in language education – the
teaching of a second or foreign language. Policy makers work with
governments to implement new plans in education and teaching which
are based on linguistic research.
Areas of study related to linguistics include semiotics (the study of signs
and symbols both within language and without), literary criticism,
translation, and speech-language pathology.

E
d
Nomenclature i
t
Before the 20th century, the term philology, first attested in 1716,[16]
was commonly used to refer to the science of language, which was then
predominantly historical in focus.[17][18] Since Ferdinand de Saussure's
insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis, however, this focus
has shifted[19] and the term "philology" is now generally used for the
"study of a language's grammar, history, and literary tradition",
especially in the United States[20] (where philology has never been very
popularly considered as the "science of language").Although the term
"linguist" in the sense of "a student of language" dates from 1641,[22] the
term "linguistics" is first attested in 1847.[22] It is now the common
academic term in English for the scientific study of language.
Today, the term linguist applies to someone who studies language or is a
researcher within the field, or to someone who uses the tools of the
discipline to describe and analyse specific languages.[23]
E
Variation and d
universality i
t
While some theories on linguistics focus on the different varieties that
language produces, among different sections of society, others focus on
the universal properties that are common to all human languages. The
theory of variation therefore would elaborate on the different usages of
popular languages like French and English across the globe, as well as
its smaller dialects and regional permutations within their national
boundaries. The theory of variation looks at the cultural stages that a
particular language undergoes, and these include the following.
 E
d
Lexicon i
t
The lexicon is a catalogue of words and terms that are stored in a
speaker's mind. The lexicon consists of words and bound morphemes,
which are parts of words that can't stand alone, like affixes. In some
analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions
and other collocations are also considered to be part of the lexicon.
Dictionaries represent attempts at listing, in alphabetical order, the
lexicon of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are
not included. Lexicography, closely linked with the domain of
semantics, is the science of mapping the words into an encyclopedia or a
dictionary. The creation and addition of new words (into the lexicon) is
called coining or ,[24] and the new words are called neologisms.
It is often believed that a speaker's capacity for language lies in the
quantity of words stored in the lexicon. However, this is often
considered a myth by linguists. The capacity for the use of language is
considered by many linguists to lie primarily in the domain of grammar,
and to be linked with competence, rather than with the growth of
vocabulary. Even a very small lexicon is theoretically capable of
producing an infinite number of sentences.
E
d
Discourse i
t
A discourse is a way of speaking that emerges within a certain social
setting and is based on a certain subject matter. A particular discourse
becomes a language variety when it is used in this way for a particular
purpose, and is referred to as a register.[25] There may be certain lexical
additions (new words) that are brought into play because of the expertise
of the community of people within a certain domain of specialization.
Registers and discourses therefore differentiate themselves through the
use of vocabulary, and at times through the use of style too. People in
the medical fraternity, for example, may use some medical terminology
in their communication that is specialized to the field of medicine. This
is often referred to as being part of the "medical discourse", and so on.

E
ct d
 i
t
A dialect is a variety of language that is characteristic of a particular
group among the language speakers.[26] The group of people who are the
speakers of a dialect are usually bound to each other by social identity.
This is what differentiates a dialect from a register or a discourse, where
in the latter case, cultural identity does not always play a role. Dialects
are speech varieties that have their own grammatical and phonological
rules, linguistic features, and stylistic aspects, but have not been given
an official status as a language. Dialects often move on to gain the status
of a language due to political and social reasons. Differentiation amongst
dialects (and subsequently, languages too) is based upon the use of
grammatical rules, syntactic rules, and stylistic features, though not
always on lexical use or vocabulary. The popular saying that "a language
is a dialect with an army and navy" is attributed as a definition
formulated by Max Weinreich.
Universal grammar takes into account general formal structures and
features that are common to all dialects and languages, and the template
of which pre-exists in the mind of an infant child. This idea is based on
the theory of generative grammar and the formal school of linguistics,
whose proponents include Noam Chomsky and those who follow his
theory and work.
"We may as individuals be rather fond of our own dialect.
This should not make us think, though, that it is actually any
better than any other dialect. Dialects are not good or bad,
nice or nasty, right or wrong – they are just different from
one another, and it is the mark of a civilised society that it
tolerates different dialects just as it tolerates different races,
religions and sexes." [27]
E
d
Structures i
t
Linguistic structures are pairings of meaning and form. Any particular
pairing of meaning and form is a Saussurean sign. For instance, the
meaning "cat" is represented worldwide with a wide variety of different
sound patterns (in oral languages), movements of the hands and face (in
sign languages), and written symbols (in written languages).
Linguists focusing on structure attempt to understand the rules regarding
language use that native speakers know (not always consciously). All
linguistic structures can be broken down into component parts that are
combined according to (sub)conscious rules, over multiple levels of
analysis. For instance, consider the structure of the word "tenth" on two
different levels of analysis. On the level of internal word structure
(known as morphology), the word "tenth" is made up of one linguistic
form indicating a number and another form indicating ordinality. The
rule governing the combination of these forms ensures that the ordinality
marker "th" follows the number "ten." On the level of sound structure
(known as phonology), structural analysis shows that the "n" sound in
"tenth" is made differently from the "n" sound in "ten" spoken alone.
Although most speakers of English are consciously aware of the rules
governing internal structure of the word pieces of "tenth", they are less
often aware of the rule governing its sound structure. Linguists focused
on structure find and analyse rules such as these, which govern how
native speakers use language.
Linguistics has many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of
linguistic structure. The theory that elucidates on these, as propounded
by Noam Chomsky, is known as generative theory or universal
grammar. These sub-fields range from those focused primarily on form
to those focused primarily on meaning. They also run the gamut of level
of analysis of language, from individual sounds, to words, to phrases, up
to cultural discourse.
Sub-fields that focus on a structure-focused study of language:
▪ Phonetics, the study of the physical properties of speech sound
production and perception
▪ Phonology, the study of sounds as abstract elements in the speaker's
mind that distinguish meaning (phonemes)
▪ Morphology, the study of morphemes, or the internal structures of
words and how they can be modified
▪ Syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical phrases
and sentences
▪ Semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and
fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to
form the meanings of sentences
▪ Pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used in communicative
acts, and the role played by context and non-linguistic knowledge
in the transmission of meaning
▪ Discourse analysis, the analysis of language use in texts (spoken,
written, or signed)
▪ Stylistics, the study of linguistic factors (rhetoric, diction, stress) that
place a discourse in context
▪ Semiotics, the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication,
designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification,
and communication.
E
d
Relativity i
t
As constructed popularly through the "Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis",
relativists believe that the structure of a particular language is capable of
influencing the cognitive patterns through which a person shapes his or
her world view. Universalists believe that there are commonalities
between human perception as there is in the human capacity for
language, while relativists believe that this varies from language to
language and person to person. While the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is an
elaboration of this idea expressed through the writings of American
linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, it was Sapir's student
Harry Hoijer who termed it thus. The 20th century German linguist Leo
Weisgerber also wrote extensively about the theory of relativity.
Relativists argue for the case of differentiation at the level of cognition
and in semantic domains. The emergence of cognitive linguistics in the
1980s also revived an interest in linguistic relativity. Thinkers like
George Lakoff have argued that language reflects different cultural
metaphors, while the French philosopher of language Jacques Derrida's
writings have been seen to be closely associated with the relativist
movement in linguistics, especially through deconstruction[28] and was
even heavily criticized in the media at the time of his death for his
theory of relativism.[29]
E
d
Style i
t
Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts for aspects of their
linguistic and tonal style. Stylistic analysis entails the analysis of
description of particular dialects and registers used by speech
communities. Stylistic features include rhetoric,[30] diction, stress, satire,
irony, dialogue, and other forms of phonetic variations. Stylistic analysis
can also include the study of language in canonical works of literature,
popular fiction, news, advertisements, and other forms of
communication in popular culture as well. It is usually seen as a
variation in communication that changes from speaker to speaker and
community to community. In short, Stylistics is the interpretation of text.
Ed
Approach it
E
Generative vs. functional theories d
of language i
t
One major debate in linguistics concerns how language should be
defined and understood. Some linguists use the term "language"
primarily to refer to a hypothesized, innate module in the human brain
that allows people to undertake linguistic behaviour, which is part of the
formalist approach. This "universal grammar" is considered to guide
children when they learn languages and to constrain what sentences are
considered grammatical in any language. Proponents of this view, which
is predominant in those schools of linguistics that are based on the
generative theory of Noam Chomsky, do not necessarily consider that
language evolved for communication in particular. They consider
instead that it has more to do with the process of structuring human
thought (see also formal grammar).
Another group of linguists, by contrast, use the term "language" to refer
to a communication system that developed to support cooperative
activity and extend cooperative networks. Such theories of grammar,
called "functional", view language as a tool that emerged and is adapted
to the communicative needs of its users, and the role of cultural
evolutionary processes are often emphasized over that of biological
evolution.[31]
E
d
Methodology i
t
Linguistics is primarily descriptive. Linguists describe and explain
features of language without making subjective judgments on whether a
particular feature or usage is "good" or "bad". This is analogous to
practice in other sciences: a zoologist studies the animal kingdom
without making subjective judgments on whether a particular species is
"better" or "worse" than another.
Prescription, on the other hand, is an attempt to promote particular
linguistic usages over others, often favouring a particular dialect or
"acrolect". This may have the aim of establishing a linguistic standard,
which can aid communication over large geographical areas. It may also,
however, be an attempt by speakers of one language or dialect to exert
influence over speakers of other languages or dialects (see Linguistic
imperialism). An extreme version of prescriptivism can be found among
censors, who attempt to eradicate words and structures that they consider
to be destructive to society. Prescription, however, is practised in the
teaching of language, where certain fundamental grammatical rules and
lexical terms need to be introduced to a second-language speaker who is
attempting to acquire the language.
E
d
Analysis i
t
Before the 20th century, linguists analysed language on a diachronic
plane, which was historical in focus. This meant that they would
compare linguistic features and try to analyse language from the point of
view of how it had changed between then and later. However, with
Saussurean linguistics in the 20th century, the focus shifted to a more
synchronic approach, where the study was more geared towards analysis
and comparison between different language variations, which existed at
the same given point of time.
At another level, the syntagmatic plane of linguistic analysis entails the
comparison between the way words are sequenced, within the syntax of
a sentence. For example, the article "the" is followed by a noun, because
of the syntagmatic relation between the words. The paradigmatic plane
on the other hand, focuses on an analysis that is based on the paradigms
or concepts that are embedded in a given text. In this case, words of the
same type or class may be replaced in the text with each other to achieve
the same conceptual understanding.
E
d
Anthropology i
t
The objective of describing languages is often to uncover cultural
knowledge about communities. The use of anthropological methods of
investigation on linguistic sources leads to the discovery of certain
cultural traits among a speech community through its linguistic features.
It is also widely used as a tool in language documentation, with an
endeavour to curate endangered languages. However, now, linguistic
inquiry uses the anthropological method to understand cognitive,
historical, sociolinguistic and historical processes that languages
undergo as they change and evolve, as well as general anthropological
inquiry uses the linguistic method to excavate into culture. In all aspects,
anthropological inquiry usually uncovers the different variations and
relativities that underlie the usage of language.
E
d
Sources i
t
Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken
data and signed data is more fundamental than written data. This is
because:
▪ Speech appears to be universal to all human beings capable of
producing and perceiving it, while there have been many cultures
and speech communities that lack written communication;
▪ Features appear in speech which aren't always recorded in writing,
including phonological rules, sound changes, and speech errors;
▪ All natural writing systems reflect a spoken language (or potentially a
signed one) they are being used to write, with even pictographic
scripts like Dongba writing Naxi homophones with the same
pictogram, and text in writing systems used for two languages
changing to fit the spoken language being recorded;
▪ Speech evolved before human beings invented writing;
▪ People learnt to speak and process spoken language more easily and
earlier than they did with writing.
Nonetheless, linguists agree that the study of written language can be
worthwhile and valuable. For research that relies on corpus linguistics
and computational linguistics, written language is often much more
convenient for processing large amounts of linguistic data. Large
corpora of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find, and
are typically transcribed and written. In addition, linguists have turned to
text-based discourse occurring in various formats of computer-mediated
communication as a viable site for linguistic inquiry.
The study of writing systems themselves, graphemics, is, in any case,
considered a branch of linguistics.
E
History of linguistic d
thought i
t
Main article: History of linguistics
E
d
Early grammarians i
t
Main articles: Philology and History of English grammars
<img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Ancient_
Tamil_Script.jpg/220px-Ancient_Tamil_Script.jpg" width="220"
height="165" class="thumbimage" data-file-width="1024" data-file-
height="768">

Ancient Tamil inscription at Thanjavur

The formal study of language began in India with Pāṇini, the 5th century
BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology.
Pāṇini's systematic classification of the sounds of Sanskrit into
consonants and vowels, and word classes, such as nouns and verbs, was
the first known instance of its kind. In the Middle East, Sibawayh, a
non-Arab, made a detailed description of Arabic in 760 AD in his
monumental work, Al-kitab fi al-nahw ( ,‫الكتاب في النحو‬The Book on Grammar),
the first known author to distinguish between sounds and phonemes
(sounds as units of a linguistic system). Western interest in the study of
languages began somewhat later than in the East,[32] but the
grammarians of the classical languages did not use the same methods or
reach the same conclusions as their contemporaries in the Indic world.
Early interest in language in the West was a part of philosophy, not of
grammatical description. The first insights into semantic theory were
made by Plato in his Cratylus dialogue, where he argues that words
denote concepts that are eternal and exist in the world of ideas. This
work is the first to use the word etymology to describe the history of a
word's meaning. Around 280 BC, one of Alexander the Great's
successors founded a university (see Musaeum) in Alexandria, where a
school of philologists studied the ancient texts in and taught Greek to
speakers of other languages. While this school was the first to use the
word "grammar" in its modern sense, Plato had used the word in its
original meaning as "téchnē grammatikḗ" (Τέχνη Γραμματική), the "art
of writing", which is also the title of one of the most important works of
the Alexandrine school by Dionysius Thrax.[33] Throughout the Middle
Ages, the study of language was subsumed under the topic of philology,
the study of ancient languages and texts, practised by such educators as
Roger Ascham, Wolfgang Ratke, and John Amos Comenius.[34]
E
d
Comparative philology i
t
In the 18th century, the first use of the comparative method by William
Jones sparked the rise of comparative linguistics.[35] Bloomfield
attributes "the first great scientific linguistic work of the world" to Jacob
Grimm, who wrote Deutsche Grammatik.[36] It was soon followed by
other authors writing similar comparative studies on other language
groups of Europe. The scientific study of language was broadened from
Indo-European to language in general by Wilhelm von Humboldt, of
whom Bloomfield asserts:[36]
This study received its foundation at the hands of the Prussian
statesman and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835),
especially in the first volume of his work on Kavi, the literary
language of Java, entitled Über die Verschiedenheit des
menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die
geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts (On the
Variety of the Structure of Human Language and its
Influence upon the Mental Development of the Human
Race).
E
d
Structuralism i
t

E
d
Structuralism i
t
Main article: Structuralism (linguistics)
Early in the 20th century, Saussure introduced the idea of language as a
static system of interconnected units, defined through the oppositions
between them. By introducing a distinction between diachronic to
synchronic analyses of language, he laid the foundation of the modern
discipline of linguistics. Saussure also introduced several basic
dimensions of linguistic analysis that are still foundational in many
contemporary linguistic theories, such as the distinctions between
syntagm and paradigm, and the langue- parole distinction, distinguishing
language as an abstract system (langue) from language as a concrete
manifestation of this system (parole).[37] Substantial additional
contributions following Saussure's definition of a structural approach to
language came from The Prague school, Leonard Bloomfield, Charles F.
Hockett, Louis Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste and Roman
Jakobson.[38][39]

E
d
Generativism i
t
Main article: Generative linguistics
During the last half of the 20th century, following the work of Noam
Chomsky, linguistics was dominated by the generativist school. While
formulated by Chomsky in part as a way to explain how human beings
acquire language and the biological constraints on this acquisition, in
practice it has largely been concerned with giving formal accounts of
specific phenomena in natural languages. Generative theory is
modularist and formalist in character. Chomsky built on earlier work of
Zellig Harris to formulate the generative theory of language. According
to this theory the most basic form of language is a set of syntactic rules
universal for all humans and underlying the grammars of all human
languages. This set of rules is called Universal Grammar, and for
Chomsky describing it is the primary objective of the discipline of
linguistics. For this reason the grammars of individual languages are of
importance to linguistics only in so far as they allow us to discern the
universal underlying rules from which the observable linguistic
variability is generated.

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Linguistics
This article is about the field of study. For the journal, see Linguistics (journal).
"Linguist" redirects here. For other uses, see Linguist (disambiguation).
Linguistics is the scientific[1] study of language,[2] specifically language
form, language meaning, and language in context.[3] The earliest
activities in the description of language have been attributed to the 4th
century BCE Indian grammarian Pāṇini, who was an early student of
linguistics[4][5] and wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language
in his Aṣṭādhyāyī.[6]
Linguistics analyses human language as a system for relating sounds (or
signs in signed languages) and meaning.[7] Phonetics studies acoustic
and articulatory properties of the production and perception of speech
sounds and non-speech sounds. The study of language meaning, on the
other hand, deals with how languages encode relations between entities,
properties, and other aspects of the world to convey, process, and assign
meaning, as well as to manage and resolve ambiguity. While the study
of semantics typically concerns itself with truth conditions, pragmatics
deals with how context influences meanings.[8]
Grammar is a system of rules which govern the form of the utterances in
a given language. It encompasses both sound[9] and meaning, and
includes phonology (how sounds or gestures function together),
morphology (the formation and composition of words), and syntax (the
formation and composition of phrases and sentences from words).[10]
In the early 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure distinguished between
the notions of langue and parole in his formulation of structural
linguistics. According to him, parole is the specific utterance of speech,
whereas langue refers to an abstract phenomenon that theoretically
defines the principles and system of rules that govern a language.[11]
This distinction resembles the one made by Noam Chomsky between
competence and performance, where competence is individual's ideal
knowledge of a language, while performance is the specific way in
which it is used.[12]
The formal study of language has also led to the growth of fields like
psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and function of
language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which studies language
processing in the brain; and language acquisition, which investigates
how children and adults acquire a particular language.
Linguistics also includes non-formal approaches to the study of other
aspects of human language, such as social, cultural, historical and
political factors.[13] The study of cultural discourses and dialects is the
domain of sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic
variation and social structures, as well as that of discourse analysis,
which examines the structure of texts and conversations.[14] Research on
language through historical and evolutionary linguistics focuses on how
languages change, and on the origin and growth of languages,
particularly over an extended period of time.
Corpus linguistics takes naturally occurring texts and studies the
variation of grammatical and other features based on such corpora.
Stylistics involves the study of patterns of style: within written, signed,
or spoken discourse.[15] Language documentation combines
anthropological inquiry with linguistic inquiry to describe languages and
their grammars. Lexicography covers the study and construction of
dictionaries. Computational linguistics applies computer technology to
address questions in theoretical linguistics, as well as to create
applications for use in parsing, data retrieval, machine translation, and
other areas. People can apply actual knowledge of a language in
translation and interpreting, as well as in language education – the
teaching of a second or foreign language. Policy makers work with
governments to implement new plans in education and teaching which
are based on linguistic research.
Areas of study related to linguistics include semiotics (the study of signs
and symbols both within language and without), literary criticism,
translation, and speech-language pathology.

E
d
Nomenclature i
t
Before the 20th century, the term philology, first attested in 1716,[16]
was commonly used to refer to the science of language, which was then
predominantly historical in focus.[17][18] Since Ferdinand de Saussure's
insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis, however, this focus
has shifted[19] and the term "philology" is now generally used for the
"study of a language's grammar, history, and literary tradition",
especially in the United States[20] (where philology has never been very
popularly considered as the "science of language").[21]
Although the term "linguist" in the sense of "a student of language"
dates from 1641,[22] the term "linguistics" is first attested in 1847.[22] It
is now the common academic term in English for the scientific study of
language.
Today, the term linguist applies to someone who studies language or is a
researcher within the field, or to someone who uses the tools of the
discipline to describe and analyse specific languages.[23]
E
Variation and d
universality i
t
While some theories on linguistics focus on the different varieties that
language produces, among different sections of society, others focus on
the universal properties that are common to all human languages. The
theory of variation therefore would elaborate on the different usages of
popular languages like French and English across the globe, as well as
its smaller dialects and regional permutations within their national
boundaries. The theory of variation looks at the cultural stages that a
particular language undergoes, and these include the following.
E
Lexicon d
i
 t
The lexicon is a catalogue of words and terms that are stored in a
speaker's mind. The lexicon consists of words and bound morphemes,
which are parts of words that can't stand alone, like affixes. In some
analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions
and other collocations are also considered to be part of the lexicon.
Dictionaries represent attempts at listing, in alphabetical order, the
lexicon of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are
not included. Lexicography, closely linked with the domain of
semantics, is the science of mapping the words into an encyclopedia or a
dictionary. The creation and addition of new words (into the lexicon) is
called coining or neologization,[24] and the new words are called
neologisms.
It is often believed that a speaker's capacity for language lies in the
quantity of words stored in the lexicon. However, this is often
considered a myth by linguists. The capacity for the use of language is
considered by many linguists to lie primarily in the domain of grammar,
and to be linked with competence, rather than with the growth of
vocabulary. Even a very small lexicon is theoretically capable of
producing an infinite number of sentences.
E
d
Discourse i
t
A discourse is a way of speaking that emerges within a certain social
setting and is based on a certain subject matter. A particular discourse
becomes a language variety when it is used in this way for a particular
purpose, and is referred to as a register.[25] There may be certain lexical
additions (new words) that are brought into play because of the expertise
of the community of people within a certain domain of specialization.
Registers and discourses therefore differentiate themselves through the
use of vocabulary, and at times through the use of style too. People in
the medical fraternity, for example, may use some medical terminology
in their communication that is specialized to the field of medicine. This
is often referred to as being part of the "medical discourse", and so on.
E
d
Dialect i
t
A dialect is a variety of language that is characteristic of a particular
group among the language speakers.[26] The group of people who are the
speakers of a dialect are usually bound to each other by social identity.
This is what differentiates a dialect from a register or a discourse, where
in the latter case, cultural identity does not always play a role. Dialects
are speech varieties that have their own grammatical and phonological
rules, linguistic features, and stylistic aspects, but have not been given
an official status as a language. Dialects often move on to gain the status
of a language due to political and social reasons. Differentiation amongst
dialects (and subsequently, languages too) is based upon the use of
grammatical rules, syntactic rules, and stylistic features, though not
always on lexical use or vocabulary. The popular saying that "a language
is a dialect with an army and navy" is attributed as a definition
formulated by Max Weinreich.
Universal grammar takes into account general formal structures and
features that are common to all dialects and languages, and the template
of which pre-exists in the mind of an infant child. This idea is based on
the theory of generative grammar and the formal school of linguistics,
whose proponents include Noam Chomsky and those who follow his
theory and work.
"We may as individuals be rather fond of our own dialect.
This should not make us think, though, that it is actually any
better than any other dialect. Dialects are not good or bad,
nice or nasty, right or wrong – they are just different from
one another, and it is the mark of a civilised society that it
tolerates different dialects just as it tolerates different races,
religions and sexes." [27]
E
d
Structures i
t
Linguistic structures are pairings of meaning and form. Any particular
pairing of meaning and form is a Saussurean sign. For instance, the
meaning "cat" is represented worldwide with a wide variety of different
sound patterns (in oral languages), movements of the hands and face (in
sign languages), and written symbols (in written languages).
Linguists focusing on structure attempt to understand the rules regarding
language use that native speakers know (not always consciously). All
linguistic structures can be broken down into component parts that are
combined according to (sub)conscious rules, over multiple levels of
analysis. For instance, consider the structure of the word "tenth" on two
different levels of analysis. On the level of internal word structure
(known as morphology), the word "tenth" is made up of one linguistic
form indicating a number and another form indicating ordinality. The
rule governing the combination of these forms ensures that the ordinality
marker "th" follows the number "ten." On the level of sound structure
(known as phonology), structural analysis shows that the "n" sound in
"tenth" is made differently from the "n" sound in "ten" spoken alone.
Although most speakers of English are consciously aware of the rules
governing internal structure of the word pieces of "tenth", they are less
often aware of the rule governing its sound structure. Linguists focused
on structure find and analyse rules such as these, which govern how
native speakers use language.
Linguistics has many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of
linguistic structure. The theory that elucidates on these, as propounded
by Noam Chomsky, is known as generative theory or universal
grammar. These sub-fields range from those focused primarily on form
to those focused primarily on meaning. They also run the gamut of level
of analysis of language, from individual sounds, to words, to phrases, up
to cultural discourse.
Sub-fields that focus on a structure-focused study of language:
▪ Phonetics, the study of the physical properties of speech sound
production and perception
▪ Phonology, the study of sounds as abstract elements in the speaker's
mind that distinguish meaning (phonemes)
▪ Morphology, the study of morphemes, or the internal structures of
words and how they can be modified
▪ Syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical phrases
and sentences
▪ Semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and
fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to
form the meanings of sentences
▪ Pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used in communicative
acts, and the role played by context and non-linguistic knowledge
in the transmission of meaning
▪ Discourse analysis, the analysis of language use in texts (spoken,
written, or signed)
▪ Stylistics, the study of linguistic factors (rhetoric, diction, stress) that
place a discourse in context
▪ Semiotics, the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication,
designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification,
and communication.
E
d
Relativity i
t
As constructed popularly through the "Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis",
relativists believe that the structure of a particular language is capable of
influencing the cognitive patterns through which a person shapes his or
her world view. Universalists believe that there are commonalities
between human perception as there is in the human capacity for
language, while relativists believe that this varies from language to
language and person to person. While the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is an
elaboration of this idea expressed through the writings of American
linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, it was Sapir's student
Harry Hoijer who termed it thus. The 20th century German linguist Leo
Weisgerber also wrote extensively about the theory of relativity.
Relativists argue for the case of differentiation at the level of cognition
and in semantic domains. The emergence of cognitive linguistics in the
1980s also revived an interest in linguistic relativity. Thinkers like
George Lakoff have argued that language reflects different cultural
metaphors, while the French philosopher of language Jacques Derrida's
writings have been seen to be closely associated with the relativist
movement in linguistics, especially through deconstruction[28] and was
even heavily criticized in the media at the time of his death for his
theory of relativism.[29]
E
d
Style i
t
Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts for aspects of their
linguistic and tonal style. Stylistic analysis entails the analysis of
description of particular dialects and registers used by speech
communities. Stylistic features include rhetoric,[30] diction, stress, satire,
irony, dialogue, and other forms of phonetic variations. Stylistic analysis
can also include the study of language in canonical works of literature,
popular fiction, news, advertisements, and other forms of
communication in popular culture as well. It is usually seen as a
variation in communication that changes from speaker to speaker and
community to community. In short, Stylistics is the interpretation of text.
Ed
Approach it
E
Generative vs. functional theories d
of language i
t
One major debate in linguistics concerns how language should be
defined and understood. Some linguists use the term "language"
primarily to refer to a hypothesized, innate module in the human brain
that allows people to undertake linguistic behaviour, which is part of the
formalist approach. This "universal grammar" is considered to guide
children when they learn languages and to constrain what sentences are
considered grammatical in any language. Proponents of this view, which
is predominant in those schools of linguistics that are based on the
generative theory of Noam Chomsky, do not necessarily consider that
language evolved for communication in particular. They consider
instead that it has more to do with the process of structuring human
thought (see also formal grammar).
Another group of linguists, by contrast, use the term "language" to refer
to a communication system that developed to support cooperative
activity and extend cooperative networks. Such theories of grammar,
called "functional", view language as a tool that emerged and is adapted
to the communicative needs of its users, and the role of cultural
evolutionary processes are often emphasized over that of biological
evolution.[31]
 E
d
Methodology i
t
Linguistics is primarily descriptive. Linguists describe and explain
features of language without making subjective judgments on whether a
particular feature or usage is "good" or "bad". This is analogous to
practice in other sciences: a zoologist studies the animal kingdom
without making subjective judgments on whether a particular species is
"better" or "worse" than another.
Prescription, on the other hand, is an attempt to promote particular
linguistic usages over others, often favouring a particular dialect or
"acrolect". This may have the aim of establishing a linguistic standard,
which can aid communication over large geographical areas. It may also,
however, be an attempt by speakers of one language or dialect to exert
influence over speakers of other languages or dialects (see Linguistic
imperialism). An extreme version of prescriptivism can be found among
censors, who attempt to eradicate words and structures that they consider
to be destructive to society. Prescription, however, is practised in the
teaching of language, where certain fundamental grammatical rules and
lexical terms need to be introduced to a second-language speaker who is
attempting to acquire the language.
E
d
Analysis i
t
Before the 20th century, linguists analysed language on a diachronic
plane, which was historical in focus. This meant that they would
compare linguistic features and try to analyse language from the point of
view of how it had changed between then and later. However, with
Saussurean linguistics in the 20th century, the focus shifted to a more
synchronic approach, where the study was more geared towards analysis
and comparison between different language variations, which existed at
the same given point of time.
At another level, the syntagmatic plane of linguistic analysis entails the
comparison between the way words are sequenced, within the syntax of
a sentence. For example, the article "the" is followed by a noun, because
of the syntagmatic relation between the words. The paradigmatic plane
on the other hand, focuses on an analysis that is based on the paradigms
or concepts that are embedded in a given text. In this case, words of the
same type or class may be replaced in the text with each other to achieve
the same conceptual understanding.
E
d
Anthropology i
t
The objective of describing languages is often to uncover cultural
knowledge about communities. The use of anthropological methods of
investigation on linguistic sources leads to the discovery of certain
cultural traits among a speech community through its linguistic features.
It is also widely used as a tool in language documentation, with an
endeavour to curate endangered languages. However, now, linguistic
inquiry uses the anthropological method to understand cognitive,
historical, sociolinguistic and historical processes that languages
undergo as they change and evolve, as well as general anthropological
inquiry uses the linguistic method to excavate into culture. In all aspects,
anthropological inquiry usually uncovers the different variations and
relativities that underlie the usage of language.
E
d
Sources i
t
Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken
data and signed data is more fundamental than written data. This is
because:
▪ Speech appears to be universal to all human beings capable of
producing and perceiving it, while there have been many cultures
and speech communities that lack written communication;
▪ Features appear in speech which aren't always recorded in writing,
including phonological rules, sound changes, and speech errors;
▪ All natural writing systems reflect a spoken language (or potentially a
signed one) they are being used to write, with even pictographic
scripts like Dongba writing Naxi homophones with the same
pictogram, and text in writing systems used for two languages
changing to fit the spoken language being recorded;
▪ Speech evolved before human beings invented writing;
▪ People learnt to speak and process spoken language more easily and
earlier than they did with writing.
Nonetheless, linguists agree that the study of written language can be
worthwhile and valuable. For research that relies on corpus linguistics
and computational linguistics, written language is often much more
convenient for processing large amounts of linguistic data. Large
corpora of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find, and
are typically transcribed and written. In addition, linguists have turned to
text-based discourse occurring in various formats of computer-mediated
communication as a viable site for linguistic inquiry.
The study of writing systems themselves, graphemics, is, in any case,
considered a branch of linguistics.
E
History of linguistic d
thought i
t
Main article: History of linguistics
E
d
Early grammarians i
t
Main articles: Philology and History of English grammars
<img alt=""
src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Ancient_
Tamil_Script.jpg/220px-Ancient_Tamil_Script.jpg" width="220"
height="165" class="thumbimage" data-file-width="1024" data-file-
height="768">

Ancient Tamil inscription at Thanjavur

The formal study of language began in India with Pāṇini, the 5th century
BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology.
Pāṇini's systematic classification of the sounds of Sanskrit into
consonants and vowels, and word classes, such as nouns and verbs, was
the first known instance of its kind. In the Middle East, Sibawayh, a
non-Arab, made a detailed description of Arabic in 760 AD in his
monumental work, Al-kitab fi al-nahw ( ,‫الكتاب في النحو‬The Book on Grammar),
the first known author to distinguish between sounds and phonemes
(sounds as units of a linguistic system). Western interest in the study of
languages began somewhat later than in the East,[32] but the
grammarians of the classical languages did not use the same methods or
reach the same conclusions as their contemporaries in the Indic world.
Early interest in language in the West was a part of philosophy, not of
grammatical description. The first insights into semantic theory were
made by Plato in his Cratylus dialogue, where he argues that words
denote concepts that are eternal and exist in the world of ideas. This
work is the first to use the word etymology to describe the history of a
word's meaning. Around 280 BC, one of Alexander the Great's
successors founded a university (see Musaeum) in Alexandria, where a
school of philologists studied the ancient texts in and taught Greek to
speakers of other languages. While this school was the first to use the
word "grammar" in its modern sense, Plato had used the word in its
original meaning as "téchnē grammatikḗ" (Τέχνη Γραμματική), the "art
of writing", which is also the title of one of the most important works of
the Alexandrine school by Dionysius Thrax.[33] Throughout the Middle
Ages, the study of language was subsumed under the topic of philology,
the study of ancient languages and texts, practised by such educators as
Roger Ascham, Wolfgang Ratke, and John Amos Comenius.[34]
E
d
Comparative philology i
t
In the 18th century, the first use of the comparative method by William
Jones sparked the rise of comparative linguistics.[35] Bloomfield
attributes "the first great scientific linguistic work of the world" to Jacob
Grimm, who wrote Deutsche Grammatik.[36] It was soon followed by
other authors writing similar comparative studies on other language
groups of Europe. The scientific study of language was broadened from
Indo-European to language in general by Wilhelm von Humboldt, of
whom Bloomfield asserts:[36]
This study received its foundation at the hands of the Prussian
statesman and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835),
especially in the first volume of his work on Kavi, the literary
language of Java, entitled Über die Verschiedenheit des
menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die
geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts (On the
Variety of the Structure of Human Language and its
Influence upon the Mental Development of the Human
Race).
E
d
Structuralism i
t
Main article: Structuralism (linguistics)
Early in the 20th century, Saussure introduced the idea of language as a
static system of interconnected units, defined through the oppositions
between them. By introducing a distinction between diachronic to
synchronic analyses of language, he laid the foundation of the modern
discipline of linguistics. Saussure also introduced several basic
dimensions of linguistic analysis that are still foundational in many
contemporary linguistic theories, such as the distinctions between
syntagm and paradigm, and the langue- parole distinction, distinguishing
language as an abstract system (langue) from language as a concrete
manifestation of this system (parole).[37] Substantial additional
contributions following Saussure's definition of a structural approach to
language came from The Prague school, Leonard Bloomfield, Charles F.
Hockett, Louis Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste and Roman
Jakobson.[38][39]
E
d
Generativism i
t
Main article: Generative linguistics
During the last half of the 20th century, following the work of Noam
Chomsky, linguistics was dominated by the generativist school. While
formulated by Chomsky in part as a way to explain how human beings
acquire language and the biological constraints on this acquisition, in
practice it has largely been concerned with giving formal accounts of
specific phenomena in natural languages. Generative theory is
modularist and formalist in character. Chomsky built on earlier work of
Zellig Harris to formulate the generative theory of language. According
to this theory the most basic form of language is a set of syntactic rules
universal for all humans and underlying the grammars of all human
languages. This set of rules is called Universal Grammar, and for
Chomsky describing it is the primary objective of the discipline of
linguistics. For this reason the grammars of individual languages are of
importance to linguistics only in so far as they allow us to discern the
universal underlying rules from which the observable linguistic
variability is generated.
In the classic formalization of generative grammars first proposed by
Noam Chomsky in the 1950s,[40][41] a grammar G consists of the
following components:
▪ A finite set N of nonterminal symbols, none of which appear in strings
formed from G.
▪ Σ




<img
src="https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/9e1f
558f53cda207614abdf90162266c70bc5c1e" class="mwe-math-
fallback-image-inline" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -
0.338ex; width:1.689ex; height:2.176ex;" alt="\Sigma "> of
terminal symbols that is disjoint from N.
▪ A finite set P of production rules, that map from one string of symbols
to another.
A formal description of language attempts to replicate a speaker's
knowledge of the rules of their language, and the aim is to produce a set
of rules that is minimally sufficient to successfully model valid linguistic
forms.
E
d
Functionalism i
t
Main article: Functional theories of grammar
Functional theories of language propose that since language is
fundamentally a tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are
best analysed and understood with reference to the functions they carry
out. Functional theories of grammar differ from formal theories of
grammar, in that the latter seek to define the different elements of
language and describe the way they relate to each other as systems of
formal rules or operations, whereas the former defines the functions
performed by language and then relates these functions to the linguistic
elements that carry them out. This means that functional theories of
grammar tend to pay attention to the way language is actually used, and
not just to the formal relations between linguistic elements.[42]
Functional theories describe language in term of the functions existing at
all levels of language.
▪ Phonological function: the function of the phoneme is to distinguish
between different lexical material.
▪ Semantic function: (Agent, Patient, Recipient, etc.), describing the role
of participants in states of affairs or actions expressed.
▪ Syntactic functions: (e.g. subject and Object), defining different
perspectives in the presentation of a linguistic expression
▪ Pragmatic functions: (Theme and Rheme, Topic and Focus, Predicate),
defining the informational status of constituents, determined by the
pragmatic context of the verbal interaction. Functional descriptions
of grammar strive to explain how linguistic functions are
performed in communication through the use of linguistic forms.
E
d
Cognitive linguistics i
t
Main article: Cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics emerged as a reaction to generativist theory in the
1970s and 1980s. Led by theorists like Ronald Langacker and George
Lakoff, cognitive linguists propose that language is an emergent
property of basic, general-purpose cognitive processes. In contrast to the
generativist school of linguistics, cognitive linguistics is non-modularist
and functionalist in character. Important developments in cognitive
linguistics include cognitive grammar, frame semantics, and conceptual
metaphor, all of which are based on the idea that form–function
correspondences based on representations derived from embodied
experience constitute the basic units of language.
Cognitive linguistics interprets language in terms of concepts
(sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue) that
underlie its form. It is thus closely associated with semantics but is
distinct from psycholinguistics, which draws upon empirical findings
from cognitive psychology in order to explain the mental processes that
underlie the acquisition, storage, production and understanding of
speech and writing. Unlike generative theory, cognitive linguistics
denies that there is an autonomous linguistic faculty in the mind; it
understands grammar in terms of conceptualization; and claims that
knowledge of language arises out of language use.[43] Because of its
conviction that knowledge of language is learned through use, cognitive
linguistics is sometimes considered to be a functional approach, but it
differs from other functional approaches in that it is primarily concerned
with how the mind creates meaning through language, and not with the
use of language as a tool of communication.
Ed
Areas of research it
E
d
Historical linguistics i
t
Historical linguists study the history of specific languages as well as
general characteristics of language change. The study of language
change is also referred to as "diachronic linguistics" (the study of how
one particular language has changed over time), which can be
distinguished from "synchronic linguistics" (the comparative study of
more than one language at a given moment in time without regard to
previous stages). Historical linguistics was among the first sub-
disciplines to emerge in linguistics, and was the most widely practised
form of linguistics in the late 19th century. However, there was a shift to
the synchronic approach in the early twentieth century with Saussure,
and became more predominant in western linguistics with the work of
Noam Chomsky.
E
d
Sociolinguistics i
t
Sociolinguistics is the study of how language is shaped by social factors.
This sub-discipline focuses on the synchronic approach of linguistics,
and looks at how a language in general, or a set of languages, display
variation and varieties at a given point in time. The study of language
variation and the different varieties of language through dialects,
registers, and ideolects can be tackled through a study of style, as well as
through analysis of discourse. Sociolinguists research on both style and
discourse in language, and also study the theoretical factors that are at
play between language and society.
E
d
Developmental linguistics i
t
Developmental linguistics is the study of the development of linguistic
ability in individuals, particularly the acquisition of language in
childhood. Some of the questions that developmental linguistics looks
into is how children acquire language, how adults can acquire a second
language, and what the process of language acquisition is.
E
d
Neurolinguistics i
t
Neurolinguistics is the study of the structures in the human brain that
underlie grammar and communication. Researchers are drawn to the
field from a variety of backgrounds, bringing along a variety of
experimental techniques as well as widely varying theoretical
perspectives. Much work in neurolinguistics is informed by models in
psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics, and is focused on
investigating how the brain can implement the processes that theoretical
and psycholinguistics propose are necessary in producing and
comprehending language. Neurolinguists study the physiological
mechanisms by which the brain processes information related to
language, and evaluate linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, using
aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modelling.
E
d
Applied linguistics i
t
Main article: Applied linguistics
Linguists are largely concerned with finding and describing the
generalities and varieties both within particular languages and among all
languages. Applied linguistics takes the results of those findings and
"applies" them to other areas. Linguistic research is commonly applied
to areas such as language education, lexicography, translation, language
planning, which involves governmental policy implementation related to
language use, and natural language processing. "Applied linguistics" has
been argued to be something of a misnomer.[44] Applied linguists
actually focus on making sense of and engineering solutions for real-
world linguistic problems, and not literally "applying" existing technical
knowledge from linguistics. Moreover, they commonly apply technical
knowledge from multiple sources, such as sociology (e.g., conversation
analysis) and anthropology. (Constructed language fits under Applied
linguistics.)
Today, computers are widely used in many areas of applied linguistics.
Speech synthesis and speech recognition use phonetic and phonemic
knowledge to provide voice interfaces to computers. Applications of
computational linguistics in machine translation, computer-assisted
translation, and natural language processing are areas of applied
linguistics that have come to the forefront. Their influence has had an
effect on theories of syntax and semantics, as modelling syntactic and
semantic theories on computers constraints.
Linguistic analysis is a sub-discipline of applied linguistics used by
many governments to verify the claimed nationality of people seeking
asylum who do not hold the necessary documentation to prove their
claim.[45] This often takes the form of an interview by personnel in an
immigration department. Depending on the country, this interview is
conducted either in the asylum seeker's native language through an
interpreter or in an international lingua franca like English.[45] Australia
uses the former method, while Germany employs the latter; the
Netherlands uses either method depending on the languages involved.[45]
Tape recordings of the interview then undergo language analysis, which
can be done either by private contractors or within a department of the
government. In this analysis, linguistic features of the asylum seeker are
used by analysts to make a determination about the speaker's nationality.
The reported findings of the linguistic analysis can play a critical role in
the government's decision on the refugee status of the asylum seeker.[45]
 E
d
Interdisciplinary fields i
t
Within the broad discipline of linguistics, various emerging sub-
disciplines focus on a more detailed description and analysis of
language, and are often organized on the basis of the school of thought
and theoretical approach that they pre-suppose, or the external factors
that influence them.
E
d
Semiotics i
t
Semiotics is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and
communication, signs, and symbols, both individually and grouped into
sign systems, including the study of how meaning is constructed and
understood. Semioticians often do not restrict themselves to linguistic
communication when studying the use of signs but extend the meaning
of "sign" to cover all kinds of cultural symbols. Nonetheless, semiotic
disciplines closely related to linguistics are literary studies, discourse
analysis, text linguistics, and philosophy of language. Semiotics, within
the linguistics paradigm, is the study of the relationship between
language and culture. Historically, Edward Sapir and Ferdinand De
Saussure's structuralist theories influenced the study of signs extensively
until the late part of the 20th century, but later, post-modern and post-
structural thought, through language philosophers including Jacques
Derrida, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, and others, have also been a
considerable influence on the discipline in the late part of the 20th
century and early 21st century.[46] These theories emphasize the role of
language variation, and the idea of subjective usage, depending on
external elements like social and cultural factors, rather than merely on
the interplay of formal elements.
E
d
Language documentation i
t
Since the inception of the discipline of linguistics, linguists have been
concerned with describing and analysing previously undocumented
languages. Starting with Franz Boas in the early 1900s, this became the
main focus of American linguistics until the rise of formal structural
linguistics in the mid-20th century. This focus on language
documentation was partly motivated by a concern to document the
rapidly disappearing languages of indigenous peoples. The ethnographic
dimension of the Boasian approach to language description played a role
in the development of disciplines such as sociolinguistics,
anthropological linguistics, and linguistic anthropology, which
investigate the relations between language, culture, and society.
The emphasis on linguistic description and documentation has also
gained prominence outside North America, with the documentation of
rapidly dying indigenous languages becoming a primary focus in many
university programmes in linguistics. Language description is a work-
intensive endeavour, usually requiring years of field work in the
language concerned, so as to equip the linguist to write a sufficiently
accurate reference grammar. Further, the task of documentation requires
the linguist to collect a substantial corpus in the language in question,
consisting of texts and recordings, both sound and video, which can be
stored in an accessible format within open repositories, and used for
further research.[47]
E
d
Translation i
t
The sub-field of translation includes the translation of written and
spoken texts across mediums, from digital to print and spoken. To
translate literally means to transmute the meaning from one language
into another. Translators are often employed by organizations, such as
travel agencies as well as governmental embassies to facilitate
communication between two speakers who do not know each other's
language. Translators are also employed to work within computational
linguistics setups like Google Translate for example, which is an
automated, programmed facility to translate words and phrases between
any two or more given languages. Translation is also conducted by
publishing houses, which convert works of writing from one language to
another in order to reach varied audiences. Academic Translators,
specialize and semi specialize on various other disciplines such as;
Technology, Science, Law, Economics etc.
E
d
Biolinguistics i
t
Biolinguistics is the study of the biology and evolution of language. It is
a highly interdisciplinary field, including linguists, biologists,
neuroscientists, psychologists, mathematicians, and others. By shifting
the focus of investigation in linguistics to a comprehensive scheme that
embraces natural sciences, it seeks to yield a framework by which we
can understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language.
E
d
Clinical linguistics i
t
Clinical linguistics is the application of linguistic theory to the fields of
Speech-Language Pathology. Speech language pathologists work on
corrective measures to cure communication disorders and swallowing
disorders
Chaika (1990) showed that schizophrenics with speech disorders, like
rhyming inappropriately have attentional dysfunction, as when a patient,
shown a colour chip and, then asked to identify it, responded "Looks like
clay. Sounds like gray. Take you for a roll in the hay. Heyday, May
Day." The color chip was actually clay-colored, so his first response was
correct.'
However, normals suppress or ignore words which rhyme with what
they've said unless they are deliberately producing a pun, poem or rap.
Even then, the speaker shows connection between words chosen for
rhyme and an overall meaning in discourse. schizophrenics with speech
dysfunction show no such relation between rhyme and reason. Some
even produce stretches of gibberish combined with recognizable words.
[48] copyright Elaine Ostrach Chaika>
E
d
Computational linguistics i
t
Computational linguistics is the study of linguistic issues in a way that is
'computationally responsible', i.e., taking careful note of computational
consideration of algorithmic specification and computational
complexity, so that the linguistic theories devised can be shown to
exhibit certain desirable computational properties and their
implementations. Computational linguists also work on computer
language and software development.
E
d
Evolutionary linguistics i
t
Evolutionary linguistics is the interdisciplinary study of the emergence
of the language faculty through human evolution, and also the
application of evolutionary theory to the study of cultural evolution
among different languages. It is also a study of the dispersal of various
languages across the globe, through movements among ancient
communities.[49]
E
d
Forensic linguistics i
t
Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic analysis to forensics.
Forensic analysis investigates on the style, language, lexical use, and
other linguistic and grammatical features used in the legal context to
provide evidence in courts of law. Forensic linguists have also
contributed expertise in criminal cases.
Each human language is a complex of knowledge and abilities enabling
speakers of the language to communicate with each other, to express
ideas, hypotheses, emotions, desires, and all the other things that need
expressing. Linguistics is the study of these knowledge systems in all
their aspects: how is such a knowledge system structured, how is it
acquired, how is it used in the production and comprehension of
messages, how does it change over time? Linguists consequently are
concerned with a number of particular questions about the nature of
language. What properties do all human languages have in common?
How do languages differ, and to what extent are the differences
systematic, i.e. can we find patterns in the differences? How do children
acquire such complete knowledge of a language in such a short time?
What are the ways in which languages can change over time, and are
there limitations to how languages change? What is the nature of the
cognitive processes that come into play when we produce and
understand language?
The part of linguistics that is concerned with the structure of language is
divided into a number of subfields:
▪ Phonetics - the study of speech sounds in their physical aspects
▪ Phonology - the study of speech sounds in their cognitive aspects
▪ Morphology - the study of the formation of words
▪ Syntax - the study of the formation of sentences
▪ Semantics - the study of meaning
▪ Pragmatics - the study of language use
Aside from language structure, other perspectives on language are
represented in specialized or interdisciplinary branches:
▪ Historical Linguistics
▪ Sociolinguistics
▪ Psycholinguistics
▪ Ethnolinguistics (or Anthropological Linguistics)
▪ Dialectology
▪ Computational Linguistics
▪ Psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics
Because language is such a central feature of being a human, Linguistics
has intellectual connections and overlaps with many other disciplines in
the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. Some of the
closest connections are with Philosophy, Literature, Language
Pedagogy, Psychology, Sociology, Physics (acoustics), Biology
(anatomy, neuroscience), Computer Science, Computer Engineering,
Health Sciences (Aphasia, Speech Therapy).
The main purpose of the study of Linguistics in an academic
environment is the advancement of knowledge. However, because of the
centrality of language in human interaction and behavior, the knowledge
gained through the study of linguistics has many practical consequences
and uses. Graduates of undergraduate and graduate programs in
Linguistics apply their training in many diverse areas, including
language pedagogy, speech pathology, speech synthesis, natural
language interfaces, search engines, machine translation, forensics,
naming, and of course all forms of writing, editing, and publishing.
Perhaps the most widely appreciated application was contributed by
UCSC Linguistics alumnus Marc Okrand, who invented the Klingon
language for Star Trek.