Linguistics and the Related

Disciplines
Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

There are broadly four aspects to the study, which

include:

- language form

- language meaning

- language in context

- language acquisition.
Scientific approach subsumes:

- observation,

- objectivity,

- critical enquiry,

- formulation and testing of hypotheses,

- generalizations and,

- descriptive rather than prescriptive mode

The Related Disciplines

Philosophy/Logic – the mother discipline

History

Sociology/Anthropology

Psychology

Education/Pedagogy

Communications

Some Minor Disciplines

History

History is a continuous, systematic

narrative of past events as relating to a
particular people, country, period,
person, - a past notable for its
important, unusual, or interesting
events.
Areas of study
•
• Periods
• Geographical locations
• Military history
• History of religion
• Social history
• Cultural history
• Diplomatic history
• Economic history
• Environmental history
• World history
• People's history
• Gender history
• Public history
Philosophy: Searching Conceptual Base,

such as sense, reference

Logic: Principles of Reasoning

such as relational, propositional, figurative
Defining Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental
problems, such as those connected with reality, existence,
knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy
is distinguished from other ways of addressing such
problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and
its reliance on rational argument. In more casual speech, by
extension, "philosophy" can refer to "the most basic beliefs,
concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group".
The word "philosophy" comes from the Ancient Greek
φιλοσοφία (philosophia), which literally means "love of
wisdom".The introduction of the terms "philosopher" and
"philosophy" has been ascribed to the Greek thinker
Pythagoras.
Areas of inquiry

- Epistemology
- Logic
- Metaphysics
- Moral and political philosophy
- Aesthetics
- Specialized branches
Defining Logic

- Logic is the science that investigates the

principles governing correct or reliable
inference.

- The system or principles of reasoning

applicable to any branch of knowledge or
study.
Topics in Logic

• Propositional logic (sentential logic)

• Predicate logic
• Modal logic
• Informal reasoning
• Mathematical logic
• Philosophical logic
• Computational logic
Sociology

Sociology is the science or study of the

origin, development, organization, and
functioning of human society; the science of
the fundamental laws of social relations,
institutions, etc. In 1830, from Fr. sociologie,
a hybrid coined by Fr. philosopher Isidore
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), from L. socius
"associate" + Gk.-derived suffix -logie "-logy."
• Scope and topics
• Culture
• Criminality, deviance, law and punishment
• Economic sociology
• Environment
• Education
• Family, gender, and sexuality
• Health and illness
• Internet
• Knowledge and science
• Language
• Literature
• Media
• Military
• Political sociology
• Race and ethnic relations
• Religion
• Social networks
• Social psychology
• Stratification
• Urban and rural sociology
• Work and industry
Psychology
Defining Psychology

Psychology is the science of human and

animal behavior. It is the sum or
characteristics of the mental states and
processes of a person or class of persons, or
of the mental states and processes involved
in a field of activity: the psychology of a
soldier; the psychology of politics.
Fields of Enquiry
•Structuralism
• Functionalism
• Psychoanalysis
• Behaviorism
• Humanism
• Gestalt Theory
• Existentialism
• Cognitivism
Subfields
• Biological
• Clinical
• Cognitive
• Comparative
• Developmental
• Educational and school
• Evolutionary
• Industrial–organizational
• Personality
• Social
• Positive
Historical Linguistics:

This discipline is occupied with the

examination of the historical development of
languages. But apart from this diachronic
analysis, it also deals with the synchronic
analysis of certain states of language.

Areas of study include:

- Etymology
- Philology
- Ethnolinguistics
Psycholinguistics

How do we learn our language? How do the

processes of language comprehension and
production work? This discipline gives answers to
these questions. Also, it takes a look at the role of
memory in language and how it is used once we are
able to talk. Strictly speaking, it is a branch of
psycholinguistics, a discipline that emerged from
the interdisciplinary collaboration of linguistics and
psychology in the 1950's. Research in language
acquisition has meanwhile become a strong domain
of its own.
Fundamentals of Psycholinguistics
Topics covered include:

- the biological foundations of language

- acquisition of first and second languages in children and adults

- the mental lexicon

- speech production, perception, and processing

- reading comprehension

-leaning strategies

- learner variables
- language aptitude

- perception and thinking

- fossilization

- cognitivism

- generativism

- behaviourism

- group dynamics

- language learning issues

Sociolinguistics:

This is the study of the interaction of

language and social organization. There
are several models that determine the
variation of language in social contexts
both on an individual as well as on a
social-group scale. Sociolinguistics is
also concerned with national language
policies.
Fundamental concepts in sociolinguistics

• Speech community
• High prestige and low prestige varieties
• Social network
• Internal vs. external language
• Differences according to class
• Class aspiration
• Social language codes
- Restricted code
- Elaborated code
• Deviation from standard language varieties
• Covert prestige
•Sociolinguistic variables: dialect, language & gender
Education – special reference to pedagogy

The areas of studies include:

curriculum, instruction, assessment,

teacher development, monitoring, program
development and management, tools
development.
Communications

The areas of study include:

All types of human/non-human

communications in print, electronic,
iconic, symbolic modes.
Phonetics:

The subjects of phonetics are the articulation,

transmission , and reception and perceptions of speech
sounds. Thus, there are three corresponding branches
of phonetics.
Articulatory phonetics is the study of the
production of speech sounds by the articulatory
and vocal tract by the speaker
Acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical
transmission of speech sounds from the speaker to
the listener
Auditory phonetics is the study of the reception and
perception of speech sounds by the listener
Phonology

Phonology is concerned with the

abstract, grammatical characterization
of systems of sounds or sign. Phonology
concerns itself with systems of
phonemes, abstract cognitive units of
speech sound or sign which distinguish
the words of a language.
Morphology
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful elements of a
language. Morphology is the study of these meaning units.
Not all words or even all syllables are necessarily meaning
units. Morphology employs discovery procedures to find
out what words or syllables are morphemes.

Topics in Morphology
Lexemes and word forms
Inflection vs. word formation
Types of word formation
Paradigms and morphosyntax
Allomorphy
Lexical morphology
Syntax:

Syntax is the study of sentence structure; it is a

part of grammar in the broad sense. There are
several ways of defining and examining
sentences

Lexicography:

The compiling of dictionaries. Lexicography

could be seen as a branch of applied linguistics.
• Semiotics:

Semiotics is the study of signs in communication

processes in general. It concerns itself with the
analysis of both linguistic and non-linguistic signs as
communicative devices and with their systems.

• Semantics:
Linguistic semantics examines the meaning of
linguistic signs and strings of signs. The study of
meaning; how words and sentences are related to
the real or imaginary objects they refer to and the
situations they describe.
Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of the use of signs

and the relationship between signs and their
users. It is the study of the use of language in
communication, particularly the relationships
between sentences and the contexts and
situations in which they are used such as
time, place, social relationship between
speaker and hearer, and speaker’s
assumptions about the hearer’s belief.
Discourse Analysis:
What is discourse?

- language above the sentence or above the clause

- a continuous stretch of spoken language larger than

a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit

- a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful

unified, and purposive; language in use

- (viewed) as social practice determined by social

structures
Stylistics:
Stylistics is the study of that variation in
language which is dependent on the situation
in which the language is used and also on the
effect the writer/speaker wishes to create on
the reader/hearer. Stylistics tries to establish
principles capable of explaining the particular
choices made by individuals and social groups
in their use of language.
Literary Stylistics

The analysis of literary texts applying

linguistic methods and theories (phonetics,
morphology, syntax, discourse analysis,
pragmatics, etc.) with the aim of providing
retrievable interpretations which allow
comparisons of different texts, genres
(fiction, drama and poetry) etc.
Computational linguistics

This domain is an interdisciplinary area of research

between linguistics and information science. There
are two main branches. First, computer linguists
simulate grammars by implementing language
structures into computer programs. In this context,
the term computer metaphor became famous. It
refers to the notion that the human brain can be
simulated by a computer. Second, computer linguists
use the computer as a tool for the analysis of
language. For instance, large corpuses of text are
processed with the aid of especially designed software.
Applied Linguistics

The application of the methods and

results of linguistics to such areas as
language teaching; national language
policies; translation; language in politics,
advertising, classrooms and courts
(forensic linguistics).