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Discipline of Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure, including sound, meaning, and grammar. It has two main purposes: to study the nature of language and establish linguistic theory, and to examine language forms and seek a scientific understanding of how language is organized and functions in human life. The document outlines the main subfields of linguistics. Microlinguistics includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics - the study of small units of language like sounds, words, and meaning. Macrolinguistics includes sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, stylistics, discourse analysis, computational linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and

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Allene Salili Honcada
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140 views2 pages

Discipline of Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure, including sound, meaning, and grammar. It has two main purposes: to study the nature of language and establish linguistic theory, and to examine language forms and seek a scientific understanding of how language is organized and functions in human life. The document outlines the main subfields of linguistics. Microlinguistics includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics - the study of small units of language like sounds, words, and meaning. Macrolinguistics includes sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, stylistics, discourse analysis, computational linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and

Uploaded by

Allene Salili Honcada
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Lesson The Discipline of

2 Linguistics

Objectives

At the end of the lesson, you can:


1. present linguistics as a science;
2. create an outline of the history of linguistics;
3. unlock the fundamental concepts of modern linguistics;
4. enumerate the subfields of linguistics.

Introduction

Linguistics has two main purposes. One is that it studies the nature of language
and tries to establish a theory of language and describes languages in the light of the
theory established. The other is that it examines all the forms of language in general
and seeks a scientific understanding of the ways in which it is organized to fulfill the
needs it serves and the functions it performs in human life.

Subfields of Linguistics

Microlinguistics

1. Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds. It studies


how speech sounds are articulated, transmitted, and
received.
2. Phonology is the study of how speech sounds function in a
language, it studies the ways speech sounds are organized.
It is the functional phonetics of a particular language.
3. Morphology is the study of the formation of words. It is a branch of linguistics which
breaks words into morphemes. It can be considered as the grammar of words as
syntax is the grammar of sentences.
4. Syntax deals with the combination of words into phrases, clauses and sentences. It
is the grammar of sentence construction.
5. Semantics is a branch of linguistics which is concerned with the study of meaning in
all its formal aspects. Words have several types of meaning.
6. Pragmatics can be defined as the study of language in use. It deals with how
speakers use language in ways which cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge
alone, and how hearers arrive at the intended meaning of speakers.
Macrolinguistics

1. Sociolinguistics studies the relations between language and society: how social
factors influence the structure and use of language.
2. Psycholinguistics is the study of language and mind: the mental structures and
processes which are involved in the acquisition, comprehension and production of
language.
3. Neurolinguistics is the study of language processing and language representation in
the brain. It typically studies the disturbances of language comprehension and
production caused by the damage of certain areas of the brain.
4. Stylistics is the study of how literary effects can be related to linguistic features. It
usually refers to the study of written language, including literary text, but it also
investigates spoken language sometimes.
5. Discourse analysis, or text linguistics is the study of the relationship between
language and the contexts in which language is used. It deals with how sentences in
spoken and written language form larger meaningful units.
6. Computational linguistics is an approach to linguistics which employs mathematical
techniques, often with the help of a computer.
7. Cognitive linguistics is an approach to the analysis of natural language that focuses
on language as an instrument for organizing, processing, and conveying information.
8. Applied linguistics is primarily concerned with the application of linguistic theories,
methods and findings to the elucidation.

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