What is linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study

What is linguistics?

• Linguistics is the scientific study of language. • The word ‘language’ here means language in general, not a particular language.

According to Robins (1985), linguistics is concerned with human language as a universal and recognizable part of the human behaviour and of the human faculties perhaps one of the most essential to human life as we know it, and one of the most farreaching of human capabilities in relation to the whole span of mankind’s achievements.

Why scientific? Because 1. Linguists study language systematically. 2. They apply the scientific method by: A. making observations, B. testing hypotheses, and C. developing theories.

Linguistics involves • an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context.

The science of language encompasses more than sounds, grammar, and meaning. When you study linguistics, you are at the crossroads of every discipline.

Linguistics as a science Scientific approaches in the study of linguistics

1. Objectivity: • Objectivity means judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices. • Objective study of language is hindered by various cultural, social and historical misconceptions about certain languages.

2. Consistency: • allows no contradictory remarks or statements, requires that all parts of analysis be consistent with the whole

A linguist tries to answer: • How did languages begin and what were the very earliest languages like? • How have languages changed over time? What makes languages change? • How is it that we learn our own language as children without anybody teaching us?

• How do we speak, and how do we understand what people mean? • How are languages organized and what is the best way to describe their organization?

Scope of linguistics • What does linguistics study? • The scope of Linguistics is huge. • It covers a wide range of fields and topics.

Phonetics • Phonetics studies the production, transmission and reception of speech sounds; • Phonology with the way sounds are used in individual languages.

Morphology: the study of the formation of words • Morphology is the study of the structure of words. • Morphologists study minimal units of meaning, called morphemes, and investigate the possible combinations of these units in a language to form words.

• For example, the word "imperfections" is composed of four morphemes: im perfect ion s • The root, perfect, is transformed from an adjective into a noun by the addition of -ion, made negative with im, and pluralized by s.

Syntax: the study sentences formation • Syntax is the level at which we study how words combine to form phrases, phrases combine to form clauses, and clauses join to make sentences.

• Syntax studies the rules for placing the elements in the sentence such as the nouns/noun phrases, verbs/verb phrases, and adverbial phrases.

• Syntax also attempts to describe how these elements function in the sentence, i. e. what is their role in the sentence.

• The word ‘boy’ is a noun. However, in each of the following sentences, it functions in different roles: (a) The boy likes cricket. (b) The old man loved the boy. In sentence (a), it functions as the subject of the sentence. In sentence (b), it functions as the object.

A sentence should be both grammatical and meaningful. • ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ is grammatically correct but it is not meaningful.

Semantics • Semantics is a sub-discipline of Linguistics which focuses on the study of meaning.

Semantics • deals with the level of meaning in language. It attempts to analyse the structure of meaning in a language, e. g. how words similar or different are related; • tries to give an account of both word and sentence meaning,

• It may be easy to define the meanings of words such as ‘tree’ but not so easy to define the meanings of words such as ‘love’ or similar abstract things.

Pragmatics • is simply defined as the branch of linguistics dealing with language in use and the contexts in which it is used.

David Crystal • "Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others. "

Semantics vs. Pragmatics Language Internal Language external (society) Linguistic Meaning Communication What expressions mean What speakers mean What is said What is implied Language itself The use of language

Branches of linguistics Theoretical Linguistics Computational Linguistics Socio-linguistics Linguistics Phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics Neurolinguistics Applied Linguistics Anthropological Linguistics Psycholinguistics Historical linguistics

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