Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It encompasses the de-

scription of languages, the study of their origin, and the analysis of how
children acquire language and how people learn languages other than
their own. Linguistics is also concerned with relationships between lan-
guages and with the ways languages change over time. Linguists may
study language as a thought process and seek a theory that accounts
for the universal human capacity to produce and understand language.
Some linguists examine language within a cultural context. By observing
talk, they try to determine what a person needs to know in order to
speak appropriately in different settings, such as the workplace, among
friends, or among family. Other linguists focus on what happens when
speakers from different language and cultural backgrounds interact.
Linguists may also concentrate on how to help people learn another
language, using what they know about the learner's first language and
about the language being acquired.
SCOPE OF LINGUISTICS
Linguistics covers a wide range of topics and its boundaries are difficult
to define. The famous Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, in his book
The course in General Linguistics (Cours de Linguistique Generale) pub-
lished in 1916, gave a rough impression of the range covered by Linguis-
tics in the shape of a wheel. The description of the wheel is as below.
Phonetics
“The study speech sounds is called Phonetics”. Strictly speaking, phonet-
ics is not the part of linguistics, though of course there are close connec-
tions between the two disciplines. Phoneticians investigate such topics
as the anatomical, physiological and neurological basis of speech (phys-
iological phonetics), the actions of the speech organs in producing
speech sounds (articulatory phonetics), the acoustic nature of the sound
waves which transmit speech (acoustics phonetics), and the manners in
which the ears and brain interpret speech (auditory and perceptual
phonetics). Linguists, on the other hand are more interested in the way
in which language is patterned. They analyse the shape or form of these
patterns rather than the physical substance out of which the units of
language are made. Phonetics is not as central to general linguistics as
the study of language patterning.
Phonology
According to Loreto Todd “Phonology is the study of sounds and sound
combinations in a particular language”. Whereas phonetics is chiefly
concerned with the physical nature of speech sounds, and hence is not
strictly a part of linguistics, phonology deals with the ways in which
sounds behave in language, and it is a central part of linguistics. The
central concept in the phonological approach is the phoneme principle
which allows linguists to understand the sounds of a language as consti-
tuting an orderly system, instead of being a mere collection of individual
sounds.
Syntax
According to Loreto Todd “The form and arrangement of words into
larger units such as phrases, clauses, sentences etc is called syntax”.
R.L.Trask defines it as the sentence structure. It is that part of language
which links together the sound patterns and the meanings Knowledge
of syntactic system allows the speaker to generate an almost endless
number of sentences and to recognize those that are not grammatically
acceptable.
Semantics
“Semantics refers to the study of meaning in language”. Word mean-
ings are complicated to learn; words are related to one another in com-
plex networks, and awareness of words comes later than does word
use. Under the subject of semantics the such areas of interest are dealt,
as the fact that a word can have more than one meaning, different
words appear to have the same meaning, some words seem to have
opposites, the meaning of some words are included in the meaning of
others and the certain combinations of words have meanings which are
very different from the combination of their separate meanings etc.
Phonology, syntax and semantics are the bread and butter of linguistics,
and together they constitute the grammar of a language.
GRAMMAR
Syntax
Semantics
Phonology

Pragmatics
According to Jean Berko Gleason “Pragmatics refers to the use of lan-
guage to express one’s intentions and getting done in the world”.
Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics, which studies how utterances
communicate meaning in context. It includes the study of how the in-
terpretation and the use of utterances depend on the knowledge of the
real word, how speakers use and understand speech acts, and how the
structure of the sentences is influenced by the relationship of the speak-
er and the hearer.
Socio Linguistics
“Socio linguistics concentrates on language in society”. In other words,
it tries to examine how and why people use language as they interact
with other members of their society. It examines variety in language
and shows that language is not merely used to communicate ideas but
also to communicate our opinions of others and of ourselves. In consid-
ering any spoken communication, we notice that a speaker's language
reveals information on his sex, approximate age, regional and perhaps
ethnic origins, education and attitude to his listeners. Socio-linguists
thus set themselves the tasks of examining language use, its variation,
its development, change and standardization, its regional and class dia-
lects, its lingua francas, its specialized codes.
Anthropological Linguistics
“Anthropological linguistics, also known as linguistic anthropology, uses
linguistic approaches to analyze culture”. Anthropological linguists ex-
amine the relationship between a culture and its language, the way cul-
tures and languages have changed over time, and how different cul-
tures and languages are related to one another.
Philosophical Linguistics
“Philosophical linguistics examines the philosophy of language that is
the link between language and logical thought”. Philosophers of lan-
guage search for the grammatical principles and tendencies that all
human languages share. Among the concerns of linguistic philosophers
is the range of possible word order combinations throughout the world.
One finding is that 95 percent of the world's languages use a subject-
verb-object (SVO) order as English does ("She pushed the bush."). Only 5
percent use a subject-object-verb (SOV) order or verb-subject-object
(VSO) order.
Stylistics
“The study of the aesthetic uses of languages, particularly the use of
language in literature is called stylistics”. Stylistics exploits our
knowledge of linguistics variety, our awareness of the appropriateness
of certain combinations and provides us with the tools necessary to
deepen our awareness of literature. It is not, however, an alternative to
sensitive intuition, but a means of exploring and reinforcing such intui-
tion.
Computational Linguistics
“Computational linguistics involves the use of computers to compile lin-
guistic data, analyze languages, translate from one language to anoth-
er, and develop and test models of language processing”. Linguists use
computers and large samples of actual language to analyze the relat-
edness and the structure of languages and to look for patterns and simi-
larities. Computers also aid in stylistic studies, information retrieval, var-
ious forms of textual analysis, and the construction of dictionaries and
concordances. Applying computers to language studies has resulted in
machine translation systems and machines that recognize and produce
speech and text.
Applied Linguistics
“The application of the concepts and methods of linguistics to any of
various problems involving language is known an applied linguistics”.
Applied linguistics is the collective term for the various applications such
as foreign language teaching, lexicography, translation, speech pathol-
ogy and therapy, error analysis, etc.
Psycho Linguistics
“The study of the relationship between language and the mind focusing
mainly on how language is learnt, stored and occasionally lost is known
as psycho linguistics”. Psycholinguists also attempt to understand dys-
phasia (literally 'bad speech'), dyslexia (word blindness) and aphasia
(the sudden or gradual loss of language due to age, an accident or a
stroke).
Various branches of linguistics overlap to some extent so are hard to de-
fine clearly. Psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics have expanded fastest
in recent years. Finally two aspects of linguistics have been omitted
from the diagram. The first is historical linguistics, the study of language
change. This omission was inevitable in a two dimensional diagram. But
if the wheel diagram is regarded as three dimensional, like that of the
cross-section of a tree, the topic can be included. We can either look at
a grammar at one particular point in time (a single cut across the tree)
or we can study its developments over a number of years, by comparing
a number of different cuts made across the tree trunk at different plac-
es, shown in the figure. Because it is necessary to know how a system
works at any one time before one can hope to under stand changes, the
analysis of language at a single point in time, or synchronic linguistics, is
usually dealt with before historical or diachronic linguistics.
The second omission is linguistic typology, the study of different lan-
guage types. This could not be fitted in because it spreads over several
layers of the diagram, covering phonology, syntax, and semantics.