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{{Short description|Scientific study of language}}
{{for|the journal|Linguistics (journal)}}
{{About|the field of study|publications}}
{{linguistics}}
{{Redirect|Linguist}}
{{Use Oxford spelling|date=August 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
{{Linguistics}}
'''Linguistics''' is the scientific study of ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trask |first=Robert Lawrence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PHt-gNzagikC&q=linguistics |title=Language and Linguistics: The Key Concepts |date=2007 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-415-41359-6 |page=156 |language=en |access-date=21 September 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Halliday |first1=Michael A. K. |author-link=Michael Halliday |title=On Language and Linguistics |last2=Jonathan Webster |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-8264-8824-4 |page=vii}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=What is Linguistics? {{!}} Linguistic Society of America |url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/what-linguistics |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220208131649/https://www.linguisticsociety.org/what-linguistics |archive-date=8 February 2022 |access-date=2022-02-08 |website=www.linguisticsociety.org}}</ref> The areas of linguistic analysis are ] (rules governing the structure of sentences), ] (meaning), ] (structure of words), ] (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in ]s), ] (the abstract sound system of a particular language), and ] (how the context of use contributes to meaning).<ref name="akmajian" /> Subdisciplines such as ] (the study of the biological variables and evolution of language) and ] (the study of psychological factors in human language) bridge many of these divisions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Linguistics Program – Linguistics Program &#124; University of South Carolina |url=https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/linguistics/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220606230152/https://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/linguistics/ |archive-date=6 June 2022 |access-date=3 June 2022}}</ref>


Linguistics encompasses ] that span both theoretical and practical applications.<ref name="linguisticsociety.org">{{Cite web |title=Studying Linguistics {{!}} Linguistic Society of America |url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/studying-linguistics |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220308052138/https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/studying-linguistics |archive-date=8 March 2022 |access-date=2022-04-01 |website=www.linguisticsociety.org}}</ref> ] (including traditional descriptive linguistics) is concerned with understanding the ] and ] of language and developing a general theoretical framework for describing it.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Theoretical Linguistics |url=https://www.globelanguage.org/theoretical-linguistics/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210114346/https://www.globelanguage.org/theoretical-linguistics/ |archive-date=10 February 2023 |access-date=3 June 2022 |website=globelanguage.org}}</ref> ] seeks to utilize the scientific findings of the study of language for practical purposes, such as developing methods of improving language education and literacy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Fields of Applied Linguistics |url=https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-applied-linguistics-1689126 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220521222448/https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-applied-linguistics-1689126 |archive-date=21 May 2022 |access-date=3 June 2022}}</ref>
'''Linguistics''' is the systematic study of language, encompassing a variety of scientific methods for its inquiry. Mainstream academics classify its study into a number of sub-fields: an important topical division being between the study of language structure (]) and the study of ] (]). Grammar encompasses ] (the formation and composition of ]s), ] (the rules that determine how words combine into ]s and ]) and ] (the study of sound systems and abstract sound units). ] is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (]s), non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and ]. Other approaches towards language have involved the study of discourse, semiotics, narrative, literature and the appreciation of texts, often termed as "post-structural".


Linguistic features may be studied through a variety of perspectives: ] (by describing the structure of a language at a specific point in time) or ] (through the historical development of a language over a period of time), in ] or in ], among children or among adults, in terms of how it is being learnt or how it was acquired, as abstract objects or as cognitive structures, through written texts or through oral elicitation, and finally through mechanical data collection or practical fieldwork.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Francis |first=Alexandre |title=Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia |date=27 September 2013 |publisher=SAGE Publishing |isbn=978-1412999632 |pages=184–187 |language=English}}</ref>
Over the twentieth century, following the work of ], the study of linguistics came to be dominated by the trend of ], which is chiefly concerned with explaining how human beings ] and the biological constraints on this acquisition. Generative theory is ] in character. While this remains the dominant paradigm,<ref>{{Citation |last=McMahon |first=A. M. S. |year=1994 |title=Understanding Language Change |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=32 |isbn=0-521-44665-1}}</ref> Chomsky's writings have also gathered much ], and other linguistic theories have increasingly gained popularity; ] is a prominent example. There are many sub-fields in linguistics, which may or may not be dominated by a particular theoretical approach: ] attempts to account for the origins of language; ] explores language change and ] looks at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures.


Linguistics emerged from the field of ], of which some branches are more qualitative and holistic in approach.<ref name="Crystal-1981">{{Cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |title=Clinical linguistics |date=1981 |publisher=Springer-Verlag |isbn=978-3-7091-4001-7 |location=Wien |page=3 |oclc=610496980 |quote=What are the implications of the term "science" encountered in the definition on p. 1? Four aims of the scientific approach to language, often cited in introductory works on the subject, are comprehensiveness, objectivity, systematicness and precision. The contrast is usually drawn with the essentially non-scientific approach of traditional language studies—by which is meant the whole history of ideas about language from Plato and Aristotle down to the nineteenth century study of language history (comparative philology).}}</ref> Today, philology and linguistics are variably described as related fields, subdisciplines, or separate fields of language study but, by and large, linguistics can be seen as an umbrella term.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |year=2022 |chapter=Philosophy of Linguistics |access-date=3 June 2022 |chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/linguistics/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221214225442/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/linguistics/ |archive-date=14 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> Linguistics is also related to the ], ], ], ], ], and ].
A variety of intellectual disciplines are relevant to the study of language. Linguistics — like other sciences — is highly interdisciplinary and draws on work from such fields as ], ]{{fact|date=February 2009}}, ]{{fact|date=February 2009}}, ]{{fact|date=February 2009}}, ]{{fact|date=February 2009}}, ]{{fact|date=February 2009}}, ], ]{{fact|date=February 2009}}, ]{{fact|date=February 2009}}, ], ], and ].


== Major subdisciplines ==
==Names for the discipline==
] is regarded as the creator of ]]]
Before the twentieth century, the term "]", first attested in 1716,<ref name="etymonline philology"></ref> was commonly used to refer to the science of language, which was then predominantly historical in focus.<ref>{{Citation |last=McMahon |first=A. M. S. |year=1994 |title=Understanding Language Change |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=19 |isbn=0-521-44665-1}}</ref> Since ]'s insistence on the importance of ], however, this focus has shifted<ref>{{Citation |last=McMahon |first=A. M. S. |year=1994 |title=Understanding Language Change |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=9 |isbn=0-521-44665-1}}</ref> 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,<ref>A. Morpurgo Davies Hist. Linguistics (1998) 4 I. 22.</ref> where it was never as popular as elsewhere in the sense of "science of language".<ref name="etymonline philology"/>


=== Historical linguistics ===
Although the term "linguist" in the sense of "a student of language" dates from 1641,<ref name="etymonline linguist"/> the term "linguistics" is first attested in 1847.<ref name="etymonline linguist"></ref> It is now the usual academic term in English for the scientific study of language.
{{main|Historical linguistics}}
Historical linguistics is the study of how language changes over history, particularly with regard to a specific language or a group of languages. ] in historical linguistics date back to roughly the late 18th century, when the discipline grew out of ], the study of ancient texts and oral traditions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Campbell |first=Lyle |title=Historical Linguistics: An Introduction |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-7486-4601-2 |location=Edinburgh |page=391}}</ref>


Historical linguistics emerged as one of the first few sub-disciplines in the field, and was most widely practised during the late 19th century.<ref>"The Idea System of the Early Comparative Grammarians." {{Cite book |last=Amsterdamska |first=Olga |title=Schools of Thought: The Development of Linguistics from Bopp to Saussure |publisher=Springer, Dordrecht |year=1987 |isbn=978-94-009-3759-8 |pages=32–62 |chapter=The Idea System of the Early Comparative Grammarians |doi=10.1007/978-94-009-3759-8_2 |access-date=12 December 2020 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-009-3759-8_2 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415012142/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-009-3759-8_2 |archive-date=15 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> Despite a shift in focus in the 20th century towards ] and ], which studies the ] properties of language, historical research today still remains a significant field of linguistic inquiry. Subfields of the discipline include ] and ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kosur |first=Heather Marie |date=27 April 2013 |title=Subfields of Linguistics Defined: Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics |url=https://parentingpatch.com/subfields-linguistics-defined-phonetics-phonology-morphology-syntax-semantics-pragmatics/ |website=LinguisticsGirl}}</ref>
==Fundamental concerns and divisions==
Linguistics concerns itself with describing and explaining the nature of human language. Relevant to this are the questions of what is universal to language, how language can vary, and how human beings come to know languages. All humans (setting aside extremely pathological cases) achieve competence in whatever language is spoken (or signed, in the case of ]) around them when growing up, with apparently little need for explicit conscious instruction. While non-humans acquire their own communication systems, they do not acquire human language in this way (although many non-human animals can learn to respond to language, or can even be trained to use it to a degree).<ref></ref> Therefore, linguists assume, the ability to acquire and use language is an innate, biologically-based potential of modern human beings, similar to the ability to walk. There is no consensus, however, as to the extent of this innate potential, or its domain-specificity (the degree to which such innate abilities are specific to language), with some theorists claiming that there is a very large set of highly abstract and specific binary settings coded into the human brain, while others claim that the ability to learn language is a product of general human cognition. It is, however, generally agreed that there are no strong ''genetic'' differences underlying the differences between languages: an individual will acquire whatever language(s) he or she is exposed to as a child, regardless of parentage or ethnic origin.<ref>Nevertheless, recent research suggests that even weak genetic biases in speakers may, over a number of generations, influence the evolution of particular languages, leading to a non-random distribution of certain linguistic features across the world. (; summary available )</ref>


Historical linguistics studies language change either diachronically (through a comparison of different time periods in the past and present) or in a ] manner (by observing developments between different variations that exist within the current linguistic stage of a language).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Saussure |first1=Ferdinand |title=Course in General Linguistics |pages=101 |edition=Third |url=https://simondlevy.academic.wlu.edu/files/courses/anth252f2006/saussure.pdf |access-date=23 October 2024}}</ref>
Linguistic structures are pairings of meaning and form; such pairings are known as ] ]. In this sense, form may consist of sound patterns, movements of the hands, written symbols, and so on. There are many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure, ranging from those focused primarily on form to those focused primarily on meaning:
* ''']''', the study of the physical properties of speech (or signed) production and perception
* ''']''', the study of sounds (or signs) as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning
* ''']''', the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified
* ''']''', the study of how words combine to form grammatical ]s
* ''']''', the study of the meaning of words (]) and fixed word combinations (]), and how these combine to form the ]s of sentences
* ''']''', the study of how ]s are used (literally, figuratively, or otherwise) in ]
* ''']''', the analysis of language use in ] (spoken, written, or signed)


At first, historical linguistics was the cornerstone of ], which involves a study of the relationship between different languages.<ref name="Routledge introduction">"Editors' Introduction: Foundations of the new historical linguistics." In: ''The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics'' Routledge p.&nbsp;25.</ref> At that time, scholars of historical linguistics were only concerned with creating different categories of ], and reconstructing ] proto-languages by using both the ] and the method of ]. Internal reconstruction is the method by which an element that contains a certain meaning is re-used in different contexts or environments where there is a variation in either sound or analogy.<ref name="Routledge introduction" />{{better source needed|date=December 2020}}
Many linguists would agree that these divisions overlap considerably, and the independent significance of each of these areas is not universally acknowledged. Regardless of any particular linguist's position, each area has core concepts that foster significant scholarly inquiry and research.


The reason for this had been to describe well-known ], many of which had detailed documentation and long written histories. Scholars of historical linguistics also studied ], another European language family for which very little written material existed back then. After that, there also followed significant work on the ] of other languages, such as the ] and the ].
Alongside these structurally-motivated domains of study are other fields of linguistics, distinguished by the kinds of non-linguistic factors that they consider:
* ], the study of language-related issues applied in everyday life, notably language policies, planning, and education. (] fits under Applied linguistics.)
* ], the study of natural as well as human-taught communication systems in animals, compared to human language.
* ], the application of linguistic theory to the field of ].
* ], the study of computational implementations of linguistic structures.
* ], the study of the development of linguistic ability in individuals, particularly ] in childhood.
* ], the study of the origin and subsequent development of language by the human species.
* ] or diachronic linguistics, the study of language change over time.
* ], the study of the geographical distribution of languages and linguistic features.
* ], the study of the common properties of diverse unrelated languages, properties that may, given sufficient attestation, be assumed to be innate to human language capacity.
* ], the study of the structures in the human brain that underlie grammar and communication.
* ], the study of the cognitive processes and representations underlying language use.
* ], the study of variation in language and its relationship with social factors.
* ], the study of linguistic factors that place a discourse in context.


In historical work, the ] is generally the underlying working hypothesis, occasionally also clearly expressed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Labov |first=William |title=Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 1: Internal Factors |publisher=Blackwell |year=1994 |location=Malden, MA |pages=21–23}}</ref> The principle was expressed early by ], who considered it imperative, a "must", of historical linguistics to "look to find the same principle operative also in the very outset of that history."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Whitney |first=William Dwight |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LOANAAAAYAAJ&q=Continuous |title=Language and the Study of Language |publisher=Scribener |year=1867 |pages=428}}</ref>
The related discipline of ] investigates the relationship between signs and what they signify. From the perspective of semiotics, language can be seen as a sign or symbol, with the world as its representation.{{Fact|date=June 2008}}


The above approach of comparativism in linguistics is now, however, only a small part of the much broader discipline called historical linguistics. The comparative study of specific Indo-European languages is considered a highly specialized field today, while comparative research is carried out over the subsequent internal developments in a language: in particular, over the development of modern standard varieties of languages, and over the development of a language from its standardized form to its varieties.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}
==Variation and universality==
Much modern linguistic research, particularly within the ] of ], has concerned itself with trying to account for differences between languages of the world. This has worked on the assumption that if human linguistic ability is narrowly constrained by human biology, then all languages must share certain fundamental properties.


For instance, some scholars also tried to establish ], linking, for example, Indo-European, Uralic, and other language families to a hypothetical ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Quiles |first=Carlos |date=29 December 2019 |title=Early Uralic – Indo-European contacts within Europe |url=https://indo-european.eu/2019/12/early-uralic-indo-european-contacts-within-europe/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220707073955/https://indo-european.eu/2019/12/early-uralic-indo-european-contacts-within-europe/ |archive-date=7 July 2022 |access-date=10 June 2022 |website=Indo-European.eu}}</ref> While these attempts are still not widely accepted as credible methods, they provide necessary information to establish relatedness in language change. This is generally hard to find for events long ago, due to the occurrence of chance word resemblances and variations between language groups. A limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed for the functional purpose of conducting research.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Baldi |first=Philip |author-link=Philip Baldi |year=2012 |title=Historical Linguistics and Cognitive Science |url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/ped10/Giuli_Dussias/Publications/External/Baldi_Dussias_Rhesis_2012_GD_09_13_2012.pdf |journal=Rheis, International Journal of Linguistics, Philology and Literature |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=5–27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220717020630/http://www.personal.psu.edu/ped10/Giuli_Dussias/Publications/External/Baldi_Dussias_Rhesis_2012_GD_09_13_2012.pdf |archive-date=Jul 17, 2022}} p.&nbsp;11.</ref> It is also hard to date various proto-languages. Even though several methods are available, these languages can be dated only approximately.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Benj |date=11 August 2019 |title=History of Historical Linguistics Essay on History, Linguistics |url=https://benjaminbarber.org/history-of-historical-linguistics |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002042131/https://benjaminbarber.org/history-of-historical-linguistics/ |archive-date=2 October 2022 |access-date=10 June 2022 |work=Essay Examples}}</ref>
In ], the collection of fundamental properties all languages share are referred to as ] (UG). The specific characteristics of this universal grammar are a much debated topic. ] and non-generativist linguists usually refer simply to ], or ''universals of language''.


In modern historical linguistics, we examine how languages change over time, focusing on the relationships between dialects within a specific period. This includes studying morphological, syntactical, and phonetic shifts. Connections between dialects in the past and present are also explored.<ref name="Acadmia Morphology">{{Cite journal |last=Fábregas |first=Antonio |date=January 2005 |title=The definition of the grammatical category in a syntactically oriented morphology |url=https://www.academia.edu/529248 |url-status=live |journal=Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210114350/https://www.academia.edu/529248 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>
Similarities between languages can have a number of different origins. In the simplest case, universal properties may be due to universal aspects of human experience. For example, all humans experience water, and all human languages have a word for water. Other similarities may be due to common descent: the ] spoken by the ] developed into Spanish in Spain and Italian in Italy; similarities between Spanish and Italian are thus in many cases due to both being descended from Latin. In other cases, ] &mdash; particularly where many speakers are bilingual &mdash; can lead to much borrowing of structures, as well as words. Similarity may also, of course, be due to coincidence. English ''much'' and Spanish {{lang|es|''mucho''}} are not descended from the same form or borrowed from one language to the other;<ref>''Much'' is from Middle English ''muchel'', which is from Proto-Germanic *''mekilaz'', while {{lang|es|''mucho''}} is from Latin {{lang|la|''multus''}}.</ref> nor is the similarity due to innate linguistic knowledge (see ]).


===Syntax===
Arguments in favor of language universals have also come from documented cases of ]s (such as ]) developing in communities of congenitally deaf people, independently of spoken language. The properties of these sign languages conform generally to many of the properties of spoken languages. Other known and suspected sign language ] include ], ], and ].
{{main|Syntax}}


Syntax is the study of how words and ]s combine to form larger units such as ]s and ]s. Central concerns of syntax include ], ], ],<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Syntax–Semantics Interface |encyclopedia=International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences |publisher=Elsevier |location=Amsterdam |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304194021 |last=Luuk |first=Erkki |date=2015 |editor-last=Wright |editor-first=James D. |edition=2nd |pages=900–905 |language=en |doi=10.1016/b978-0-08-097086-8.57035-4 |isbn=978-0-08-097087-5}}</ref> ], the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning. There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals.
==Structures==
]]]


=== Morphology ===
It has been perceived that languages tend to be organized around ] such as noun and verb, ] and ], or present and past, though, importantly, not exclusively so. The grammar of a language is organized around such fundamental categories, though many languages express the relationships between words and syntax in other discrete ways (cf. some ] for noun/verb relations, ] systems for case relations, several ] for tense/aspect relations).
{{main|Morphology (linguistics)}}


Morphology is the study of ]s, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Stephen R. |title=Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science |date=n.d. |publisher=Macmillan Reference, Ltd., Yale University |chapter=Morphology |access-date=30 July 2016 |chapter-url=http://cowgill.ling.yale.edu/sra/morphology_ecs.htm}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Aronoff |first1=Mark |title=What is Morphology? |last2=Fudeman |first2=Kirsten |date=n.d. |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |chapter=Morphology and Morphological Analysis |access-date=30 July 2016 |chapter-url=http://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/introling/Aronoffmorphology.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200227235159/https://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/introling/Aronoffmorphology.pdf |archive-date=27 February 2020 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of '']s'', which are the smallest units in a language with some independent ]. Morphemes include ]s that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as ]es that can only appear as part of a larger word. For example, in English the root ''catch'' and the suffix ''-ing'' are both morphemes; ''catch'' may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with ''-ing'' to form the new word ''catching''. Morphology also analyzes how words behave as ], and how they may be ] to express ] including ], ], and ]. Concepts such as ] are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts, which evolves over the history of a language.
In addition to making substantial use of discrete categories, language has the important property that it organizes elements into ] structures; this allows, for example, a noun phrase to contain another noun phrase (as in "the chimpanzee's lips") or a clause to contain a clause (as in "I think that it's raining"). Though recursion in grammar was implicitly recognized much earlier (for example by ]), the importance of this aspect of language became more popular after the 1957 publication of Noam Chomsky's book '']'',<ref>Chomsky, Noam. 1957. "Syntactic Structures". Mouton, The Hague</ref> which presented a formal grammar of a fragment of English. Prior to this, the most detailed descriptions of linguistic systems were of phonological or morphological systems.


The discipline that deals specifically with the sound changes occurring within morphemes is ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Emmanuel |first=Ortese |title=In linguistics |url=https://www.academia.edu/6502550 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210114350/https://www.academia.edu/6502550 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>
Chomsky used a ] augmented with ]. Since then, following the trend of Chomskyan linguistics, context-free grammars have been written for substantial fragments of various languages (for example ], for English). It has been demonstrated, however, that human languages include cross-serial dependencies, which cannot be handled adequately by context-free grammars.{{fact | date=January 2009}}


=== Semantics and pragmatics ===
==Some selected sub-fields==
{{main|Semantics|Pragmatics}}
===Diachronic linguistics===
Semantics and pragmatics are branches of linguistics concerned with meaning. These subfields have traditionally been divided according to aspects of meaning: "semantics" refers to grammatical and lexical meanings, while "pragmatics" is concerned with meaning in context. Within linguistics, the subfield of ] studies the ]s of sentences and how they are ] from the meanings of their constituent expressions. Formal semantics draws heavily on ] and uses formal tools from logic and ]. On the other hand, ] explains linguistic meaning via aspects of general cognition, drawing on ideas from cognitive science such as ].


Pragmatics focuses on phenomena such as ]s, ], and ].<ref name="Mey">Mey, Jacob L. (1993). ''Pragmatics: An Introduction''. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed. 2001).</ref> Unlike semantics, which examines meaning that is conventional or "coded" in a given language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the structural and linguistic knowledge (grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Meaning (Semantics and Pragmatics) {{!}} Linguistic Society of America |url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/meaning-semantics-and-pragmatics |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170924233822/https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/meaning-semantics-and-pragmatics |archive-date=24 September 2017 |access-date=25 August 2017 |website=www.linguisticsociety.org}}</ref> any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shaozhong |first=Liu |title=What is pragmatics? |url=http://www.gxnu.edu.cn/Personal/szliu/definition.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090307222541/http://www.gxnu.edu.cn/Personal/szliu/definition.html |archive-date=7 March 2009 |access-date=18 March 2009}}</ref>
Studying languages at a particular point in time (usually the present) is "synchronic", while diachronic linguistics examines how language changes through time, sometimes over centuries. It enjoys both a rich history and a strong theoretical foundation for the study of ].


=== Phonetics and phonology ===
In universities in the United States, the historic perspective is often out of fashion. The shift in focus to a non-historic perspective started with ] and became predominant with ].
{{main|Phonetics|Phonology}}
Phonetics and phonology are branches of linguistics concerned with sounds (or the equivalent aspects of sign languages). Phonetics is largely concerned with the physical aspects of sounds such as their ], acoustics, production, and perception. ] is concerned with the linguistic abstractions and categorizations of sounds, and it tells us what sounds are in a language, how they do and can combine into words, and explains why certain phonetic features are important to identifying a word.<ref>{{Citation |last=Szczegielniak |first=Adam |title=Introduction to Linguistic Theory – Phonology: The Sound Patterns of Language |url=https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/adam/files/phonology.ppt.pdf |access-date=11 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322153405/https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/adam/files/phonology.ppt.pdf |archive-date=22 March 2023 |url-status=live |publisher=Harvard University}}</ref>


=== Typology ===
Explicitly historical perspectives include ] and ].
{{excerpt|Linguistic typology|only=paragraph}}


== Structures ==
===Contextual linguistics===
{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2019}}
Contextual linguistics may include the study of linguistics in interaction with other academic disciplines. The interdisciplinary areas of linguistics consider how language interacts with the rest of the world.
Linguistic structures are pairings of meaning and form. Any particular pairing of meaning and form is a ] ]. 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 ]s), and written symbols (in written languages). Linguistic patterns have proven their importance for the ] field especially with the ever-increasing amount of available data.


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 analyze rules such as these, which govern how native speakers use language.
], ], and ] are seen as areas that bridge the gap between linguistics and society as a whole.


=== Grammar ===
] and ] relate linguistics to the ]s.
Grammar is a system of rules which governs the production and use of utterances in a given language. These rules apply to sound<ref>All references in this article to the study of sound should be taken to include the manual and non-manual signs used in sign languages.</ref> as well as meaning, and include componential subsets of rules, such as those pertaining to ] (the organization of phonetic sound systems), ] (the formation and composition of words), and ] (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences).<ref name="akmajian">{{Cite book |last1=Akmajian, Adrian |url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/examrequest.asp?ttype=2&tid=12240 |title=Linguistics |last2=Richard A. Demers |last3=Ann K. Farmer |last4=Robert M. Harnish |publisher=The MIT Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-262-51370-8 |edition=6th |access-date=25 July 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121214215844/http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/examrequest.asp?ttype=2&tid=12240 |archive-date=14 December 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Modern ] include ] and ], and ].<ref>''Syntax: A Generative Introduction'' (2nd ed.), 2013. Andrew Carnie. Blackwell Publishing.</ref>


Sub-fields that focus on a grammatical study of language include the following:
Other cross-disciplinary areas of linguistics include ], ] and ].
* ''']''', the study of the physical properties of speech sound production and perception, and delves into their acoustic and ] properties
* ''']''', the study of sounds as abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning (])
* ''']''', the study of morphemes, or the internal structures of words and how they can be modified
* ''']''', the study of how words combine to form grammatical phrases and ]
* ''']''', the study of lexical and grammatical aspects of meaning<ref name="Meaning and Grammar: An Introductio">{{Cite book |last1=Chierchia, Gennaro |title=Meaning and Grammar: An Introduction to Semantics |last2=Sally McConnell-Ginet |publisher=MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-262-53164-1 |name-list-style=amp}}</ref>
* ''']''', the study of how ]s are used in ], and the role played by situational context and non-linguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning<ref name="Meaning and Grammar: An Introductio" />
* ''']''', the analysis of language use in ] (spoken, written, or signed)
* ''']''', the study of linguistic factors (rhetoric, diction, stress) that place a discourse in context
* ''']''', the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication


===Applied linguistics=== === Discourse ===
Discourse is language as social practice (Baynham, 1995) and is a multilayered concept. As a social practice, discourse embodies different ideologies through written and spoken texts. Discourse analysis can examine or expose these ideologies. Discourse not only influences genre, which is selected based on specific contexts but also, at a micro level, shapes language as text (spoken or written) down to the phonological and lexico-grammatical levels. Grammar and discourse are linked as parts of a system.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ariel |first=Mira |year=2009 |title=Discourse, grammar, discourse |journal=Discourse Studies |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=5–36 |doi=10.1177/1461445608098496 |jstor=24049745 |s2cid=62686879}}</ref> A particular discourse becomes a language variety when it is used in this way for a particular purpose, and is referred to as a ].<ref>Leckie-Tarry, Helen (1995). ''Language and Context: a Functional Linguistic Theory of Register'', Continuum International Publishing Group, p.&nbsp;6. {{ISBN|1-85567-272-3}}</ref> 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. Thus, registers and discourses distinguish themselves not only through specialized vocabulary but also, in some cases, through distinct stylistic choices. 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.
Linguists are largely concerned with finding and ] the generalities and varieties both within particular languages and among all language. ] takes the result of those findings and "applies" them to other areas. The term "applied linguistics" is often used to refer to the use of linguistic research in language teaching only{{Fact|date=August 2008}}, but results of linguistic research are used in many other areas as well. "Applied linguistics" has been argued to be something of a misnomer{{Who|date=August 2008}}, since applied linguists focus on making sense of and engineering solutions for real-world linguistic problems, not simply "applying" existing technical knowledge from linguistics; moreover, they commonly apply technical knowledge from multiple sources, such as sociology (e.g. conversation analysis) and anthropology.


=== Lexicon ===
Today, computers are widely used in many areas of applied linguistics. ] and ] use phonetic and phonemic knowledge to provide voice interfaces to computers. Applications of ] in ], ], and ] are areas of applied linguistics which have come to the forefront. Their influence has had an effect on theories of syntax and semantics, as modeling syntactic and semantic theories on computers constraints.
The lexicon is a catalogue of words and terms that are stored in a speaker's mind. The lexicon consists of words and ], which are parts of words that can not stand alone, like ]. 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. ], 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 ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zuckermann |first=Ghil'ad |author-link=Ghil'ad Zuckermann |url=http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781403917232 |title=Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2003 |isbn=978-1-4039-1723-2 |pages=2ff |access-date=15 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160827112758/http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781403917232 |archive-date=27 August 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> and the new words are called ]s.


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 ], rather than with the growth of vocabulary. Even a very small lexicon is theoretically capable of producing an infinite number of sentences.
===Linguistic analysis===
Linguistic analysis is used by many governments to verify the claimed ] of people seeking asylum who do not hold the necessary documentation to prove their claim.<ref name="Linguistic Analysis">{{cite journal | title=Applied Linguistics and Language Analysis in Asylum Seeker Cases | last=Eades | first=Diana | journal=Applied Linguistics | year=2005 | volume=26 | issue=4 | pages=503–526 | doi=10.1093/applin/ami021 | url=http://songchau.googlepages.com/503.pdf}}</ref> This often takes the form of an ] by personnel in an immigration department. Depending on the country, this interview is conducted in either the asylum seeker's ] through an ], or in an international ] like English.<ref name="Linguistic Analysis"/> Australia uses the former method, while Germany employs the latter; the Netherlands uses either method depending on the languages involved.<ref name="Linguistic Analysis"/> Tape recordings of the interview then undergo language analysis, which can be done by either 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.<ref name="Linguistic Analysis"/>


=== Style ===
==Description and prescription==
] also involves the study of written, signed, or spoken discourse through varying speech communities, genres, and editorial or narrative formats in the mass media.<ref>{{Cite web |title="Stylistics" by Joybrato Mukherjee. Chapter 49. ''Encyclopedia of Linguistics''. |url=http://www.uni-giessen.de/anglistik/ling/Staff/mukherjee/pdfs/Stylistics.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004220434/http://www.uni-giessen.de/anglistik/ling/Staff/mukherjee/pdfs/Stylistics.pdf |archive-date=4 October 2013 |access-date=4 October 2013}}</ref> It involves the study and interpretation of texts for aspects of their linguistic and tonal style. Stylistic analysis entails the analysis of description of particular ] and ] used by speech communities. Stylistic features include ],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Richards, I. A. |title=The Philosophy of Rhetoric |publisher=Oxford University Press (New York) |year=1965}}</ref> diction, stress, satire, ], 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.
''Main articles: ], ]''


In the 1960s, ], for instance, further distinguished between speech and writing, by proposing that written language be studied as a linguistic medium of communication in itself.<ref>Derrida, Jacques (1967). '']'' and '']''.</ref> ] is therefore the discipline that studies the evolution of written scripts (as signs and symbols) in language.<ref>Chapter 1, section 1.1 in {{Cite book |last=Antonsen, Elmer H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gvSi3JVNRFQC |title=Trends in Linguistics: Runes and Germanic Linguistics |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |year=2002 |isbn=978-3-11-017462-5 |edition=6th}}</ref> The formal study of language also led to the growth of fields like ], which explores the representation and function of language in the mind; ], which studies language processing in the brain; ], which studies the biology and evolution of language; and ], which investigates how children and adults acquire the knowledge of one or more languages.
Linguistics is '''descriptive'''; linguists describe and explain features of language without making subjective judgments on whether a particular feature is "right" or "wrong". This is analogous to practice in other sciences: a ] studies the animal kingdom without making subjective judgments on whether a particular animal is better or worse than another.


== Approaches ==
'''Prescription''', on the other hand, is an attempt to promote particular linguistic usages over others, often favouring a particular dialect or "]". This may have the aim of establishing a ], 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 ]). An extreme version of prescriptivism can be found among ], who attempt to eradicate words and structures which they consider to be destructive to society.
{{See also|Theory of language}}


==Speech and writing== === Humanistic ===
The fundamental principle of humanistic linguistics, especially rational and ], is that language is an invention created by people. A semiotic tradition of linguistic research considers language a ] which arises from the interaction of meaning and form.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nöth |first=Winfried |author-link=Winfried Nöth |title=Handbook of Semiotics |date=1990 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-20959-7}}</ref> The organization of linguistic levels is considered computational.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hjelmslev |first=Louis |author-link=Louis Hjelmslev |title=Prolegomena to a Theory of Language |date=1969 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |isbn=0-299-02470-9 |orig-year=First published 1943}}</ref> Linguistics is essentially seen as relating to ] and ] because different languages are shaped in ] by the ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Saussure |first=Ferdinand |author-link=Ferdinand de Saussure |url=https://monoskop.org/images/0/0b/Saussure_Ferdinand_de_Course_in_General_Linguistics_1959.pdf |title=Course in General Linguistics |date=1959 |publisher=The Philosophical Library, Inc. |isbn=978-0-231-15727-8 |location=New York |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190808231716/https://monoskop.org/images/0/0b/Saussure_Ferdinand_de_Course_in_General_Linguistics_1959.pdf |archive-date=8 August 2019 |orig-year=First published 1916}}</ref> Frameworks representing the ] view of language include ], among others.<ref name="humanistic">{{Cite journal |last=Austin |first=Patrik |date=2021 |title=Theory of language: a taxonomy |journal=SN Social Sciences |volume=1 |issue=3 |doi=10.1007/s43545-021-00085-x |doi-access=free |hdl-access=free |hdl=10138/349772}}</ref>
Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that ] (or signed) language is more fundamental than ]. This is because:

* Speech appears to be universal to all human beings capable of producing and hearing it, while there have been many ]s and speech communities that lack written communication;
Structural analysis means dissecting each linguistic level: phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and discourse, to the smallest units. These are collected into inventories (e.g. phoneme, morpheme, lexical classes, phrase types) to study their interconnectedness within a hierarchy of structures and layers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schäfer |first=Roland |url=https://www.oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=620310 |title=Einführung in die grammatische Beschreibung des Deutschen (2nd ed.) |date=2016 |publisher=Language Science Press |isbn=978-1-537504-95-7 |location=Berlin |access-date=16 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170728232919/http://oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=620310 |archive-date=28 July 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> Functional analysis adds to structural analysis the assignment of semantic and other functional roles that each unit may have. For example, a noun phrase may function as the subject or object of the sentence; or the ] or ].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Halliday |first1=M. A. K. |author-link=M. A. K. Halliday |url=http://www.uel.br/projetos/ppcat/pages/arquivos/RESOURCES/2004_HALLIDAY_MATTHIESSEN_An_Introduction_to_Functional_Grammar.pdf |title=An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd ed.) |last2=Matthiessen |first2=Christian M. I. M. |date=2004 |publisher=Hodder |isbn=0-340-76167-9 |location=London |access-date=16 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210303145809/http://www.uel.br/projetos/ppcat/pages/arquivos/RESOURCES/2004_HALLIDAY_MATTHIESSEN_An_Introduction_to_Functional_Grammar.pdf |archive-date=3 March 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>

], or functional grammar, is a branch of structural linguistics. In the humanistic reference, the terms ] and ] are related to their meaning in other ]. The difference between formal and functional structuralism lies in the way that the two approaches explain why languages have the properties they have. Functional ] entails the idea that language is a tool for communication, or that communication is the primary function of language. Linguistic forms are consequently explained by an appeal to their functional value, or usefulness. Other structuralist approaches take the perspective that form follows from the inner mechanisms of the bilateral and multilayered language system.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Daneš |first=František |title=Functionalism in Linguistics |date=1987 |publisher=John Benjamins |isbn=978-90-272-1524-6 |editor-last=Dirven |editor-first=R. |pages=3–38 |chapter=On Prague school functionalism in linguistics |editor-last2=Fried |editor-first2=V.}}</ref>

=== Biological ===
{{further|Biolinguistics|Biosemiotics}}
Approaches such as ] and ] study linguistic ] with a view towards uncovering the ] underpinnings of language. In ], these underpinning are understood as including ] ] grammatical knowledge. Thus, one of the central concerns of the approach is to discover what aspects of linguistic knowledge are innate and which are not.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Everaert |first1=Martin |last2=Huybregts |first2=Marinus A. C. |last3=Chomsky |first3=Noam |last4=Berwick |first4=Robert C. |last5=Bolhuis |first5=Johan J. |year=2015 |title=Structures, not strings: linguistics as part of the cognitive sciences |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283666865 |url-status=live |journal=Trends in Cognitive Sciences |volume=19 |issue=12 |pages=729–743 |doi=10.1016/j.tics.2015.09.008 |pmid=26564247 |s2cid=3648651 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210426220054/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283666865 |archive-date=26 April 2021 |access-date=5 January 2020 |hdl-access=free |hdl=1874/329610}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Chomsky |first=Noam |author-link=Noam Chomsky |title=The Minimalist Program (2nd ed.) |date=2015 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-52734-7}}</ref>

], in contrast, rejects the notion of innate grammar, and studies how the human mind creates linguistic ] from event ]s,<ref name="Arbib_2015">{{Cite book |last=Arbib |first=Michael A. |title=Handbook of Language Emergence |date=2015 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-34613-6 |editor-last=MacWhinney and O'Grady |pages=81–109 |chapter=Language evolution – an emergentist perspective}}</ref> and the impact of cognitive constraints and ] on human language.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tobin |first=Vera |title=Language and the Creative Mind |date=2014 |publisher=Chicago University Press |isbn=978-90-272-8643-7 |editor-last=Borkent |pages=347–363 |chapter=Where do cognitive biases fit into cognitive linguistics? |chapter-url=http://www.academia.edu/download/37200544/WhereDoCognitiveBiases.pdf}}{{Dead link|date=March 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> In cognitive linguistics, language is approached via the ]s.<ref name="Ibarretxe-Antuñano_2002">{{Cite journal |last=Ibarretxe-Antuñano |first=Iraide |author-link=Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano |date=2002 |title=MIND-AS-BODY as a Cross-linguistic Conceptual Metaphor |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272507067 |url-status=live |journal=Miscelánea |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=93–119 |doi=10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.200210526 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427042118/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272507067_MIND-AS-BODY_as_a_Cross-linguistic_Conceptual_Metaphor |archive-date=27 April 2021 |access-date=2020-07-15}}</ref><ref name="Gibbs&Colston_1995">{{Cite journal |last1=Gibbs |first1=R. W. |last2=Colston |first2=H. |date=1995 |title=The cognitive psychological reality of image schemas and their transformations |journal=Cognitive Linguistics |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages=347–378 |doi=10.1515/cogl.1995.6.4.347 |s2cid=144424435}}</ref>

A closely related approach is ]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pleyer |first1=Michael |last2=Winters |first2=James |year=2014 |title=Integrating cognitive linguistics and language evolution research |url=https://apcz.umk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/THS/article/viewFile/ths-2014-002/4967 |url-status=live |journal=Theoria et Historia Scientiarum |volume=11 |pages=19–44 |doi=10.12775/ths-2014-002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309004449/https://apcz.umk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/THS/article/viewFile/ths-2014-002/4967 |archive-date=9 March 2021 |access-date=16 January 2020 |doi-access=free}}</ref> which includes the study of linguistic units as ].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Vyvyan |title=Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction |last2=Green |first2=Melanie |date=2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-7486-1831-7}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Croft |first=William |author-link=William Croft |year=2008 |title=Evolutionary linguistics |url=http://www.afhalifax.ca/magazine/wp-content/sciences/LaLoiDeGrimm/annurev.anthro.37.081407.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |volume=37 |pages=219–234 |doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085156 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225122332/http://www.afhalifax.ca/magazine/wp-content/sciences/LaLoiDeGrimm/annurev.anthro.37.081407.pdf |archive-date=25 February 2021 |access-date=16 January 2020}}</ref> It is possible to study how language ] and ] to the ] of the ] or the speech community.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Cornish |first1=Hanna |author-link=Simon Kirby |last2=Tamariz |first2=Monica |last3=Kirby |first3=Simon |year=2009 |title=Complex adaptive systems and the origins of adaptive structure: what experiments can tell us |url=https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/8777212/complex_adaptive_systems.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Language Learning |volume=59 |pages=187–205 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00540.x |s2cid=56199987 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112190847/https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/8777212/complex_adaptive_systems.pdf |archive-date=12 November 2020 |access-date=16 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sinnemäki |first1=Kaius |last2=Di Garbo |first2=Francesca |year=2018 |title=Language Structures May Adapt to the Sociolinguistic Environment, but It Matters What and How You Count: A Typological Study of Verbal and Nominal Complexity |journal=Frontiers in Psychology |volume=9 |pages=187–205 |doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01141 |pmc=6102949 |pmid=30154738 |doi-access=free}}</ref> ] is a framework which applies the ] concept to the study of syntax.<ref name="Dahl_2001">{{Cite journal |last=Dahl |first=Östen |date=2001 |title=Grammaticalization and the life cycles of constructions |journal=RASK – Internationalt Tidsskrift for Sprog og Kommunikation |volume=14 |pages=91–134}}</ref><ref name="Kirby_2013">{{Cite book |last=Kirby |first=Simon |url=http://www.labex-whoami.fr/images/documents/kirby_Labex_JC_paper.pdf |title=The Language Phenomenon |publisher=Springer |year=2013 |isbn=978-3-642-36085-5 |editor-last=Binder |series=The Frontiers Collection |pages=121–138 |chapter=Transitions: The Evolution of Linguistic Replicators |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-36086-2_6 |access-date=2020-03-04 |editor-last2=Smith |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210626142916/http://www.labex-whoami.fr/images/documents/kirby_Labex_JC_paper.pdf |archive-date=26 June 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Zehentner_2019">{{Cite book |last=Zehentner |first=Eva |title=Competition in Language Change: the Rise of the English Dative Alternation |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |year=2019 |isbn=978-3-11-063385-6}}</ref><ref name="MacWhinney_2015">{{Cite book |last=MacWhinney |first=Brian |title=Handbook of Language Emergence |date=2015 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-118-34613-6 |editor-last=MacWhinney |editor-first=Brian |pages=1–31 |chapter=Introduction – language emergence |editor-last2=O'Grady |editor-first2=William}}</ref>

The generative versus evolutionary approach are sometimes called ] and ], respectively.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nettle |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Nettle |title=Functionalism and Formalism in linguistics, 1 |date=1999 |publisher=John Benjamins |isbn=978-1-55619-927-1 |editor-last=Darnell |series=Studies in Language Companion Series |volume=41 |pages=445–468 |chapter=Functionalism and its difficulties in biology and linguistics |doi=10.1075/slcs.41.21net}}</ref> This reference is however different from the use of the terms in ].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2015 |title=Functional Approaches to Grammar |encyclopedia=International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences |publisher=Elsevier |last=Croft |first=William |author-link=William Croft |edition=2nd |volume=9 |pages=6323–6330 |doi=10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.53009-8 |isbn=978-0-08-097087-5}}</ref>

== Methodology ==
{{More citations needed section|date=February 2024}}
Modern linguistics is primarily ].<ref name="Martinet">{{Cite book |last=Martinet |first=André |author-link=André Martinet |title=Elements of General Linguistics |publisher=Faber |year=1960 |series=Studies in General Linguistics, vol. i. |location=London |page=15 |translator-last=Elisabeth Palmer Rubbert}}</ref> 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 ] studies the animal kingdom without making subjective judgments on whether a particular species is "better" or "worse" than another.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Linguistics &#124; PDF &#124; Lexicon &#124; Linguistics |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/276524030/Linguistics |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220610154643/https://www.scribd.com/document/276524030/Linguistics |archive-date=10 June 2022 |access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>

], on the other hand, is an attempt to promote particular linguistic usages over others, often favoring a particular dialect or "]". This may have the aim of establishing a ], 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 ]). An extreme version of prescriptivism can be found among ], who attempt to eradicate words and structures that they consider to be destructive to society. Prescription, however, may be practised appropriately in ], like in ], where certain fundamental grammatical rules and lexical items need to be introduced to a second-language speaker who is attempting to ] the language.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}

=== Sources ===
Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that ] and ] are more fundamental than ]. 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 are not always recorded in writing, including ]s, ]s, and ]s;
* All natural writing systems reflect a spoken language (or potentially a signed one), even with ] scripts like ] writing ] ]s 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; * Speech evolved before human beings invented writing;
* People learn to speak and process spoken languages more easily and much earlier than ]; * Individuals learn to speak and process spoken language more easily and earlier than they do with writing.


Linguists nonetheless agree that the study of written language can be worthwhile and valuable. For research that relies on ] and ], 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 ] and written. Additionally, linguists have turned to text-based discourse occurring in various formats of ] as a viable site for linguistic inquiry. Nonetheless, linguists agree that the study of written language can be worthwhile and valuable. For research that relies on ] and ], 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 ] and written. In addition, linguists have turned to text-based discourse occurring in various formats of ] as a viable site for linguistic inquiry.


The study of ] themselves is in any case considered a branch of linguistics. The study of writing systems themselves, graphemics, is, in any case, considered a branch of linguistics.


==History== === Analysis ===
Before the 20th century, linguists analysed language on a ] 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 the rise of Saussurean linguistics in the 20th century, the focus shifted to a more ] approach, where the study was geared towards analysis and comparison between different language variations, which existed at the same given point of time.
{{Main|History of linguistics}}


At another level, the ] 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 ] 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.
Some of the earliest linguistic activities can be recalled from ] with the analysis of ]. The ]s (from ca. the 8th century BC) constitute as it were a proto-linguistic ''ad hoc'' collection of observations about mutations to a given ] particular to a given ]. Systematic study of these texts gives rise to the ] discipline of ], the earliest surviving account of which is the work of {{IAST|]}} (c. 520 – 460 BC), who, however, looks back on what are probably several generations of grammarians, whose opinions he occasionally refers to. {{IAST|Pānini}} formulates close to 4,000 rules which together form a compact ] of Sanskrit. Inherent in his analytic approach are the concepts of the ], the ] and the ]. Due to its focus on brevity, his grammar has a highly unintuitive structure, reminiscent of contemporary "machine language" (as opposed to "human readable" programming languages).


== History ==
Indian linguistics maintained a high level for several centuries; ] in the 2nd century BC still actively criticizes Panini. In the later centuries BC, however, Panini's grammar came to be seen as prescriptive, and commentators came to be fully dependent on it. ] (c. 450 – 510) theorized the act of speech as being made up of four stages: first, conceptualization of an idea, second, its verbalization and sequencing (articulation) and third, delivery of speech into atmospheric air, the interpretation of speech by the listener, the interpreter.
{{main|History of linguistics}}
The earliest activities in the ] have been attributed to the ] Indian grammarian ]<ref>{{Cite book |last=] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KaOcAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 |title=A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-19-966521-1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Imperial Gazetteer of India |date=1908 |volume=2 |page=263 |chapter=Chapter VI: Sanskrit Literature |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/imperialgazette02hunt}}</ref> who wrote a ] of the ] in his ''{{IAST|Aṣṭādhyāyī}}''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Aṣṭādhyāyī 2.0 |url=http://panini.phil.hhu.de/panini/panini/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415005527/http://panini.phil.hhu.de/panini/panini/ |archive-date=15 April 2021 |access-date=2021-02-27 |website=panini.phil.hhu.de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=S.C. Vasu (Tr.) |url=http://www.vedicbooks.net/ashtadhyayi-panini-vols-p-2313.html |title=The Ashtadhyayi of Panini (2 Vols.) |publisher=Vedic Books |year=1996 |isbn=978-81-208-0409-8 |access-date=17 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140327172935/http://www.vedicbooks.net/ashtadhyayi-panini-vols-p-2313.html |archive-date=27 March 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> Today, modern-day theories on ] employ many of the principles that were laid down then.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Penn |first1=Gerald |last2=Kiparski |first2=Paul |title=On Panini and the Generative Capacity of Contextualised Replacement Systems |url=https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C12-2092.pdf |journal=Proceedings of COLING 2012 |pages=943–950 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415005455/https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C12-2092.pdf |archive-date=15 April 2021}}</ref>


=== Nomenclature ===
] linguistics begins in ] with grammatical speculation such as ]'s '']''. The first important advancement of the ] was the creation of the ]. As a result of the introduction of writing, poetry such as the ] became written and several editions were created and commented, forming the basis of ] and ]. The ] and ] introduced dialectics as a new text genre. ] defined the logic of speech and the argument. Furthermore Aristotle works on ] and ] were of utmost importance for the understating of tragedy, poetry, public discussions etc. as text genres.
Before the 20th century, the term '']'', first attested in 1716,<ref name="Etymonline Definition of Philology">{{OEtymD|philology|accessdate=5 March 2018}}</ref> was commonly used to refer to the study of language, which was then predominantly historical in focus.<ref name="Introduction: Philology in a Manuscript Culture by Stephen G. Nichols (Vol. 65, No. 1) (Jan 1990), pp. 1–10. Published by Medieval Academy of America.">{{Cite journal |last=Nichols |first=Stephen G. |year=1990 |title=Introduction: Philology in a Manuscript Culture |journal=Speculum |volume=65 |pages=1–10 |doi=10.2307/2864468 |jstor=2864468 |s2cid=154631850 |number=1}}</ref><ref name="Understanding">{{Cite book |last=McMahon |first=A.M.S. |title=Understanding Language Change |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-521-44665-5 |pages=9, 19}}</ref> Since ]'s insistence on the importance of ], however, this focus has shifted<ref name="Understanding" /> 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<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morpurgo Davies |first=A. |title=Nineteenth-Century Linguistics |date=1998 |series=History of Linguistics |volume=4}}</ref> (where philology has never been very popularly considered as the "science of language").<ref name="Etymonline Definition of Philology" />


Although the term ''linguist'' in the sense of "a student of language" dates from 1641,<ref name="etymonline linguist" /> the term ''linguistics'' is first attested in 1847.<ref name="etymonline linguist">{{OEtymD|linguist|accessdate=5 March 2018}}</ref> It is now the usual term in English for the scientific study of language,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shahhoseiny |first=Hajar |year=2013 |title=Differences between Language and Linguistic in the ELT Classroom |url=https://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/tpls/vol03/12/12.pdf |access-date=December 10, 2023 |publisher=Theory and Practice in Language Studies}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=What is Linguistics? |url=https://www.bcu.ac.uk/english/news/blog/what-is-linguistics |access-date=December 10, 2023 |website=Birmingham City University}}</ref> though ''linguistic science'' is sometimes used.
One of the greatest of the ] ]s was ].<ref></ref> Apollonius wrote more than thirty treatises on questions of syntax, semantics, morphology, prosody, orthography, dialectology, and more. In the 4th c., ] compiled the Latin grammar ''Ars Grammatica'' that was to be the defining school text through the Middle Ages.<ref></ref> In ] ("On the Eloquence of Vernacular"), ] expanded the scope of linguistic enquiry from the traditional languages of antiquity to include the language of the day.{{Fact|date=November 2008}}


Linguistics is a ] field of research that combines tools from natural sciences, social sciences, ]s, and the humanities.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Spolsky |first1=Bernard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8nc6nRRbMSQC&pg=PA13 |title=The Handbook of Educational Linguistics |last2=Hult |first2=Francis M. |date=February 2010 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4443-3104-2 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Berns |first=Margie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EUMqGSbeEXAC&pg=PA23 |title=Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics |date=20 March 2010 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-08-096503-1 |pages=23–25 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Science of Linguistics |url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/science-linguistics |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180417192211/https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/science-linguistics |archive-date=17 April 2018 |access-date=17 April 2018 |website=Linguistic Society of America |quote=Modern linguists approach their work with a scientific perspective, although they use methods that used to be thought of as solely an academic discipline of the humanities. Contrary to previous belief, linguistics is multidisciplinary. It overlaps each of the human sciences including psychology, neurology, anthropology, and sociology. Linguists conduct formal studies of sound structure, grammar and meaning, but they also investigate the history of language families, and research language acquisition.}}</ref><ref>Behme, Christina; Neef, Martin. '''' (2018). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 7–20</ref> Many linguists, such as David Crystal, conceptualize the field as being primarily scientific.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |author-link=David Crystal |title=Linguistics |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-14-013531-2}}</ref> 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.<ref name="American Heritage 2000">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2000 |title=Linguist |encyclopedia=The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |url=https://archive.org/details/americanheritage0000unse_a1o7 |isbn=978-0-395-82517-4}}</ref>
In the ], the ] linguist ] made a detailed and professional description of ] in 760, in his monumental work, ''Al-kitab fi al-nahw'' (الكتاب في النحو, ''The Book on Grammar''), bringing many linguistic aspects of language to light. In his book he distinguished ] from ].{{Fact|date=February 2007}}


=== Early grammarians ===
] noted that ] shared many common features with classical ] and ], notably verb roots and grammatical structures, such as the ]. This led to the theory that all languages sprung from a common source and to the discovery of the ] ]. He began the study of ], which would uncover more language families and branches.
{{further|Philology|Grammarian (Greco-Roman)}}
An early formal study of language was in India with ], the 6th century BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit ]. Pāṇini's systematic classification of the sounds of ] into consonants and vowels, and word classes, such as nouns and verbs, was the first known instance of its kind. In the Middle East, ], a Persian, made a detailed description of Arabic in AD 760 in his monumental work, ''Al-kitab fii an-naħw'' ({{lang|ar|الكتاب في النحو}}, ''The Book on Grammar''), the first known author to distinguish between ] and ]. Western interest in the study of languages began somewhat later than in the East,<ref>{{harvnb|Bloomfield|1983|p=307}}.</ref> 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 ] in his ], 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 ]'s successors founded a university (see ]) in ], where a school of philologists studied the ancient texts in Greek, 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 "]" ({{script|Greek|Τέχνη Γραμματική}}), the "art of writing", which is also the title of one of the most important works of the Alexandrine school by ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Seuren, Pieter A. M. |title=Western linguistics: An historical introduction |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-631-20891-4 |pages=2–24}}</ref> Throughout the ], the study of language was subsumed under the topic of philology, the study of ancient languages and texts, practised by such educators as ], ], and ].<ref>{{harvnb|Bloomfield|1983|p=308}}.</ref>


===Comparative philology===
Some early-19th-century linguists were ], who devised a principle of consonantal shifts in pronunciation &ndash; known as ] &ndash; in 1822; ], who formulated ]; ], who created the "Stammbaumtheorie" ("family tree"); and ], who developed the "Wellentheorie" ("wave model") in 1872.
In the 18th century, the first use of the ] by ] sparked the rise of ].<ref>{{harvnb|Bloomfield|1983|p=310}}.</ref> Bloomfield attributes "the first great scientific linguistic work of the world" to ], who wrote ''Deutsche Grammatik''.<ref name="Bloomfield 1914 311">{{harvnb|Bloomfield|1983|p=311}}.</ref> It was soon followed by other authors writing similar comparative studies on other language groups of Europe. The study of language was broadened from ] to language in general by ], of whom Bloomfield asserts:<ref name="Bloomfield 1914 311" />


{{blockquote|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 ''{{lang|de|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'').}}
] was the founder of modern structural linguistics. ], a leader in American structural linguistics, was one of the first who explored the relations between language studies and anthropology. His methodology had strong influence on all his successors. ]'s formal model of language, ], developed under the influence of his teacher ], who was in turn strongly influenced by ], has been the dominant model since the 1960s.


=== 20th-century developments ===
] remains a pop-linguistic figure. Linguists working in frameworks such as ] (HPSG) or ] (LFG) are increasingly seen to stress the importance of formalization and formal rigor in linguistic description, and may distance themselves somewhat from Chomsky's more recent work (the "Minimalist" program for ]), connecting more closely to his earlier works.
There was a shift of focus from historical and comparative linguistics to synchronic analysis in early 20th century. Structural analysis was improved by ], ]; and ] who also developed methods of ]. Functional analysis was developed by the ] and ]. As sound recording devices became commonplace in the 1960s, dialectal recordings were made and archived, and the ] provided a technological solution to foreign language learning. The 1960s also saw a new rise of comparative linguistics: the study of ] in ]. Towards the end of the century the field of linguistics became divided into further areas of interest with the advent of ] and digitalized ].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jensen |first=Kim Ebensgaard |date=December 19, 2014 |title=Linguistics in the digital humanities: (computational) corpus linguistics |url=https://tidsskrift.dk/mediekultur/article/view/15968 |journal=Mediekultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research |volume=30 |issue=57 |doi=10.7146/mediekultur.v30i57.15968 |access-date=December 10, 2023 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=McEnery |first=Tony |year=2019 |title=Corpus Linguistics, Learner Corpora, and SLA: Employing Technology to Analyze Language Use |journal=Annual Review of Applied Linguistics |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=39 |pages=74–92 |doi=10.1017/S0267190519000096 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Hunston |first=S. |title=Corpus Linguistics |date=2006-01-01 |pages=234–248 |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=Keith |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0080448542009445 |access-date=2023-10-31 |place=Oxford |publisher=Elsevier |doi=10.1016/b0-08-044854-2/00944-5 |isbn=978-0-08-044854-1 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second Edition)}}</ref>


== Areas of research ==
Other linguists working in ] state generalizations in terms of violable constraints that interact with each other, and abandon the traditional rule-based formalism first pioneered by early work in generativist linguistics. Functionalist linguists working in ] and ] tend to stress the non-autonomy of linguistic knowledge and the non-universality of linguistic structures, thus differing significantly from the Chomskyan school. They reject Chomskyan intuitive introspection as a scientific method, relying instead on typological evidence.
{{more citations needed|section|date=August 2021}}


=== Sociolinguistics ===
==References==
{{main|Sociolinguistics}}
{{Reflist|2}}
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 idiolects can be tackled through a study of style, as well as through analysis of discourse. Sociolinguists research both style and discourse in language, as well as the theoretical factors that are at play between language and society.


=== Developmental linguistics ===
==See also==
{{main|Developmental linguistics}}
* ]
Developmental linguistics is the study of the development of linguistic ability in individuals, particularly ] in childhood. Some of the questions that developmental linguistics looks into are how children acquire different languages, how adults can acquire a second language, and what the process of language acquisition is.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bailey |first=Charles-James N. |date=1981-01-01 |title=Developmental Linguistics |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/flin.1981.15.1-2.29/html |journal=Folia Linguistica |language=en |volume=15 |issue=1–2 |pages=29–38 |doi=10.1515/flin.1981.15.1-2.29 |issn=1614-7308}}</ref>
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]


=== Neurolinguistics ===
'''Branches and fields'''
{{main|Neurolinguistics}}
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 ] and ], 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 ], ], electrophysiology, and computer modelling. Amongst the structures of the brain involved in the mechanisms of neurolinguistics, the cerebellum which contains the highest numbers of neurons has a major role in terms of predictions required to produce language.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Mariën |first1=Peter |last2=Manto |first2=Mario |date=25 October 2017 |title=Cerebellum as a Master-Piece for Linguistic Predictability |journal=Cerebellum (London, England) |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=101–03 |doi=10.1007/s12311-017-0894-1 |issn=1473-4230 |pmid=29071518 |doi-access=free}}</ref>


=== Applied linguistics ===
], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ].
{{Main|Applied linguistics}}
Linguists are largely concerned with finding and ] the generalities and varieties both within particular languages and among all languages. ] takes the results of those findings and "applies" them to other areas. Linguistic research is commonly applied to areas such as ], ], translation, ], which involves governmental policy implementation related to language use, and ]. "Applied linguistics" has been argued to be something of a misnomer.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barbara Seidlhofer |title=Controversies in Applied Linguistics (pp. 288) |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-19-437444-6}}</ref> 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. (] fits under Applied linguistics.)


Today, computers are widely used in many areas of applied linguistics. ] and ] use phonetic and phonemic knowledge to provide ]s to computers. Applications of ] in ], ], and ] 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.<ref name="Linguistic Analysis">{{Cite journal |last=Eades |first=Diana |year=2005 |title=Applied Linguistics and Language Analysis in Asylum Seeker Cases |url=http://songchau.googlepages.com/503.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Applied Linguistics |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=503–26 |doi=10.1093/applin/ami021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327083553/http://songchau.googlepages.com/503.pdf |archive-date=27 March 2009 |access-date=31 January 2009}}</ref> 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 ] through an ] or in an international '']'' like English.<ref name="Linguistic Analysis" /> Australia uses the former method, while Germany employs the latter; the Netherlands uses either method depending on the languages involved.<ref name="Linguistic Analysis" /> 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.<ref name="Linguistic Analysis" />
], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] (authentication), ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], Grammar Writing.


=== Language documentation ===
], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ]s, ].
] combines anthropological inquiry (into the history and culture of language) with linguistic inquiry, in order to describe languages and their grammars. ] involves the documentation of words that form a vocabulary. Such a documentation of a linguistic vocabulary from a particular language is usually compiled in a ]. ] is concerned with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. Specific knowledge of language is applied by speakers during the act of translation and ], as well as in ] – the teaching of a second or ]. Policy makers work with governments to implement new plans in education and teaching which are based on linguistic research.


Since the inception of the discipline of linguistics, linguists have been concerned with describing and analysing previously ]. Starting with ] in the early 1900s, this became the main focus of American linguistics until the rise of ] in the mid-20th century. This focus on language documentation was partly motivated by a concern to document the rapidly ] languages of indigenous peoples. The ethnographic dimension of the Boasian approach to language description played a role in the development of disciplines such as ], ], and ], which investigate the relations between language, culture, and society.
'''Popular works and texts'''
* Aronoff, Mark & Janie Rees-Miller (Eds.) (2003) ''The Handbook of Linguistics''. Blackwell Publishers. (ISBN 1-4051-0252-7)
* Asher, R. (Ed.) (1993) ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics''. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 10 vols.
* ] (1933,1984), ''Language'', University of Chicago Press (ISBN 0-226-06067-5)
* Bright, William (Ed) (1992) ''International Encyclopedia of Linguistics''. Oxford University Press. 4 Vols.
* Brown, Keith R. (Ed.) (2005) ''Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'' (2nd ed.). Elsevier. 14 vols.
* ] - ''] (1964); ''] (1992)
* Bussmann, H. (1996) ''Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics''. Routledge (translated from German).
* ](India, 1923–1981), ], ], comparative linguistics
* ], (1965), ''Aspects of the Theory of Syntax''; ''Syntactic Structures''; ''On Language''
* ] - ''On Language''
* Comrie, Bernard. (1989). ''Language Universals and Linguistic Typology'' University of Chicago Press. (ISBN 9780226114330)
* ] - ''Linguistics''; '']''; ''The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language'' (1987). Cambridge University Press. ; ''A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics'' (1991) Blackwell (ISBN 0-631-17871-6); ''An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Language and Languages'' (1992) Oxford: Blackwell.
* Deacon, Terrence (1998), ''The Symbolic Species'', WW Norton & Co. (ISBN 0-393-31754-4)
* Deutscher, Guy (2005), ''The Unfolding of Language'', Metropolitan Books (ISBN 0-8050-7907-6) (ISBN 978-0-8050-7907-4)
* ] - ''Mental Spaces'' (1995), 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 0-521-44949-9); ''Mappings in Thought and Language'' (1997), Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 0-521-59953-9); & ] ''The Way We Think'' (2003), Basic Books (ISBN 0-465-08786-8); Rymer, p. 48, quoted in Fauconnier and Turner, p. 353
* Frawley, William (Ed.) (2003) ''International Encyclopedia of Linguistics'' (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press
* Graffi, G. 2001 - Two years of syntax (A Critical Survey), Amsterdam, Benjamins, 2001.
* Harrison, K. David. (2007) ''When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge.'' New York and London: Oxford University Press. (ISBN 0-195-18192-1)
* Hayakawa, Alan R & S. I. (1990), ''Language in Thought and Action'', Harvest. (ISBN 0-15-648240-1)
* Hudson, G. (2000) ''Essential Introductory Linguistics''. Oxford: Blackwell.
* Jackson, Howard. (2007), ''Key Terms in Linguistics'', Continuum. (ISBN 0-82-648742-4)
* ] in his ''Diaries''
* Lyons, John (1995), ''Linguistic Semantics'', Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 0-521-43877-2)
* Malmkjaer, Kirsten (1991) ''The Linguistics Encyclopaedia''. Routledge (ISBN 0-415-22210-9)
* Napoli, Donna J. (2003) ''Language Matters. A Guide to Everyday Questions about Language''. Oxford University Press.
* O'Grady, William D., Michael Dobrovolsky & Francis Katamba (2001), ''Contemporary Linguistics'', Longman. (ISBN 0-582-24691-1) - Lower Level
* Ohio State University Department of Linguistics. (2007) ''Language Files'' (10th ed.)''. Ohio State University Press.
* ] - '']'' (2000), repr ed., Perennial. (ISBN 0-06-095833-2); ''Words and Rules'' (2000), Perennial. (ISBN 0-06-095840-5)
* Rymer, Russ (1992), ''Annals of Science'' in "", 13 April
* Sampson, Geoffrey (2006), ''The Language Instinct Debate,'' Continuum International, (ISBN 0-8264-7385-7) - challenges the fundamental assumptions of Pinker's ''The Language Instinct'', the two together illustrate one of the most significant debates within the field of theoretical linguistics in the early 21st century.
* ] (1982), ''Schools of Linguistics'', Stanford University Press. (ISBN 0-8047-1125-9)
* ] (1921), "", New York: Harcourt, Brace and company.
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* ] - ''A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics'' (1993). Routledge. (ISBN 0-415-08628-0); ''Dictionary of Phonetics and Phonology'' (1996). Routledge.; ''A student's dictionary of language and linguistics''. (1997); 'Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics'' (1999). London: Routledge.
* Ungerer, Friedrich & Hans-Jorg Schmid (1996), ''An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics'', Longman. (ISBN 0-582-23966-4)
* Van Orman Quine, Willard (1960), ''Word and Object'', MIT Press. (ISBN 0-262-67001-1)
* Watts, Richard J. (2003).''Politeness''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 978-0-521-79406-0).
* White, Lydia (1992), ''Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition''. Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 0-521-79647-4)
* {{cite book |last=Aitchison |first=Jean |title=Linguistics: An Introduction |origyear=1995 |edition=2nd |year=1999 |publisher=Hodder & Stoughton |location=London}}
* {{cite book |last=Akmajian |first=Adrian |others=et al |title=Linguistics |year=2001 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=0-262-51123-1}}
* {{cite book |last=Griniewicz |first=Sergiusz |coauthors=Elwira M. Dubieniec |title=Introduction To Linguistics |edition=2nd |year=2004 |publisher=Białystok, WSFiZ |pages=91}}
* - Chapter 1 of I-language: An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science.


The emphasis on linguistic description and documentation has also gained prominence outside North America, with the documentation of rapidly dying indigenous languages becoming a focus in some university programs 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.<ref>Himmelman, Nikolaus "Language documentation: What is it and what is it good for?" in P. Gippert, Jost, Nikolaus P Himmelmann & Ulrike Mosel. (2006) ''Essentials of Language documentation''. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin & New York.</ref>
'''Literature and art exploring linguistic themes'''
* '']'' - ]
* '']'' (1979) - ]
* ''The Sea of Poppies'' - ]
* ''] - ]
* '']'' - ]


=== Translation ===
==External links==
{{main|Translation|Translation studies}}
{{sisterlinks|wikt=linguistics|v=School:Linguistics|commons=Category:Linguistics}}
The sub-field of translation includes the translation of written and spoken texts across media, 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 and governmental embassies to facilitate communication between two speakers who do not know each other's language. Translators are also employed to work within ] setups like ], which is an automated program 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. Cross-national and cross-cultural ] studies employ translation to collect comparable data among multilingual populations.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Behr |first1=Dorothée |last2=Sha |first2=Mandy |date=2018-07-25 |title=Introduction: Translation of questionnaires in cross-national and cross-cultural research |url=https://www.trans-int.org/index.php/transint/article/view/937 |journal=Translation & Interpreting |language=en |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=1–4 |doi=10.12807/ti.110202.2018.a01 |issn=1836-9324 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Pan |first1=Yuling |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429294914/sociolinguistics-survey-translation-yuling-pan-mandy-sha-hyunjoo-park |title=The Sociolinguistics of Survey Translation |last2=Sha |first2=Mandy |date=2019-07-09 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-29491-4 |location=London |doi=10.4324/9780429294914 |s2cid=198632812}}</ref> Academic translators specialize in or are familiar with various other disciplines such as technology, science, law, economics, etc.
* An Academic Forum

*
=== Clinical linguistics ===
{{main|Clinical linguistics}}
Clinical linguistics is the application of linguistic theory to the field of ]. Speech language pathologists work on corrective measures to treat ] and swallowing disorders.

=== Computational linguistics ===
{{main|Computational linguistics}}
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.

=== Evolutionary linguistics ===
{{Main|Evolutionary linguistics}}
Evolutionary linguistics is a ] approach to analyzing 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Croft |first=William |date=October 2008 |title=Evolutionary Linguistics |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |volume=37 |pages=219–34 |doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085156}}</ref>

=== Forensic linguistics ===
{{main|Forensic linguistics}}
Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic analysis to forensics. Forensic analysis investigates 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 used their expertise in the framework of criminal cases.<ref>Olsson, John. "" (PDF). ''Forensic Linguistics Intelligence''.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=what is forensic linguistics? |url=http://www.forensiclinguistics.net/cfl_fl.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100927010829/http://www.forensiclinguistics.net/cfl_fl.html |archive-date=2010-09-27 |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=CFL at Aston University}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{portal|Linguistics|Language}}
{{div col}}
* {{Anli|Articulatory phonetics}}
* {{Annotated link |Articulatory synthesis}}
* {{Annotated link |Axiom of categoricity}}
* {{Annotated link |Critical discourse analysis}}
* {{Annotated link |Cryptanalysis}}
* {{Annotated link |Decipherment}}
* {{Annotated link |Global language system}}
* {{Annotated link |Hermeneutics}}
* {{Annotated link |Integrational linguistics}}
* {{Annotated link |Integrationism}}
* {{Annotated link |Interlinguistics}}
* {{Annotated link |Language engineering}}
* {{Annotated link |Language geography}}
* {{Annotated link |Linguistic rights}}
* {{Annotated link |Metalinguistics}}
* {{Annotated link |Metacommunicative competence}}
* {{Annotated link |Microlinguistics}}
* {{Annotated link |Onomastics}}
* {{Annotated link |Reading}}
* {{Annotated link |Speech processing}}
* {{Annotated link |Stratificational linguistics}}
* ] and lists
** {{Annotated link |Index of linguistics articles}}
** {{Annotated link |List of departments of linguistics}}
** {{Annotated link |List of summer schools of linguistics}}
** {{Annotated link |List of schools of linguistics}}
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

== Bibliography ==
{{refbegin|30}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Akmajian, Adrian |title=Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication |last2=Demers, Richard |last3=Farmer, Ann |last4=Harnish, Robert |publisher=The MIT Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-262-51370-8 |location=Cambridge, MA}}
* {{Cite book |title=The handbook of linguistics |publisher=Blackwell |year=2000 |editor-last=Aronoff, Mark |location=Oxford |editor-last2=Rees-Miller, Janie}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bloomfield |first=Leonard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-MN3YkwOgNYC&pg=PA307 |title=An Introduction to the Study of Language |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |year=1983 |isbn=978-90-272-8047-3 |edition=New |location=Amsterdam |orig-year=1914}}
* {{Cite book |last=Chomsky |first=Noam |url=https://archive.org/details/onlanguagechomsk00chom |title=On Language |publisher=The New Press, New York |year=1998 |isbn=978-1-56584-475-9}}
* {{Cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |title=Linguistics |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-14-013531-2}}
* {{Cite book |last=Derrida |first=Jacques |url=https://archive.org/details/ofgrammatology00derr |title=Of Grammatology |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |year=1967 |isbn=978-0-8018-5830-7}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hall |first=Christopher |title=An Introduction to Language and Linguistics: Breaking the Language Spell |publisher=Routledge |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-8264-8734-6}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Isac |first1=Daniela |url=http://linguistics.concordia.ca/i-language/ |title=I-language: An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science |last2=Charles Reiss |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-19-966017-9 |edition=2nd |access-date=17 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706173454/http://linguistics.concordia.ca/i-language/ |archive-date=6 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}
* {{Cite book |last=Pinker |first=Steven |title=The Language Instinct |publisher=William Morrow and Company |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-14-017529-5}}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{Library resources box|by=no|onlinebooks=no|wikititle=linguistics}}
* , a global online linguistics community with news and information updated daily
* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130210081627/http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/index.htm |date=10 February 2013 }} by ] (last updated 2004)
* , MediaWiki-based encyclopedia of linguistics, under construction * , MediaWiki-based encyclopedia of linguistics, under construction
* - according to the Linguistic Society of America * according to the Linguistic Society of America
* Linguistics and language-related ] articles on and * Linguistics and language-related ] articles on and
* - A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology, ed. J. A. García Landa (University of Zaragoza, Spain) * A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology, ed. J.A. García Landa (University of Zaragoza, Spain)
* {{Cite book |last1=Isac |first1=Daniela |url=https://archive.org/details/ilanguageintrodu00dani |title=I-language: An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science |last2=Charles Reiss |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-19-953420-3 |edition=2nd}}
* , a global online linguistics community with news and information updated daily.
*


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Latest revision as of 11:09, 26 December 2024

Scientific study of language This article is about the field of study. For publications, see Linguistics (disambiguation). "Linguist" redirects here. For other uses, see Linguist (disambiguation).

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Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages), phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language), and pragmatics (how the context of use contributes to meaning). Subdisciplines such as biolinguistics (the study of the biological variables and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) bridge many of these divisions.

Linguistics encompasses many branches and subfields that span both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretical linguistics (including traditional descriptive linguistics) is concerned with understanding the universal and fundamental nature of language and developing a general theoretical framework for describing it. Applied linguistics seeks to utilize the scientific findings of the study of language for practical purposes, such as developing methods of improving language education and literacy.

Linguistic features may be studied through a variety of perspectives: synchronically (by describing the structure of a language at a specific point in time) or diachronically (through the historical development of a language over a period of time), in monolinguals or in multilinguals, among children or among adults, in terms of how it is being learnt or how it was acquired, as abstract objects or as cognitive structures, through written texts or through oral elicitation, and finally through mechanical data collection or practical fieldwork.

Linguistics emerged from the field of philology, of which some branches are more qualitative and holistic in approach. Today, philology and linguistics are variably described as related fields, subdisciplines, or separate fields of language study but, by and large, linguistics can be seen as an umbrella term. Linguistics is also related to the philosophy of language, stylistics, rhetoric, semiotics, lexicography, and translation.

Major subdisciplines

Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure is regarded as the creator of semiotics

Historical linguistics

Main article: Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of how language changes over history, particularly with regard to a specific language or a group of languages. Western trends in historical linguistics date back to roughly the late 18th century, when the discipline grew out of philology, the study of ancient texts and oral traditions.

Historical linguistics emerged as one of the first few sub-disciplines in the field, and was most widely practised during the late 19th century. Despite a shift in focus in the 20th century towards formalism and generative grammar, which studies the universal properties of language, historical research today still remains a significant field of linguistic inquiry. Subfields of the discipline include language change and grammaticalization.

Historical linguistics studies language change either diachronically (through a comparison of different time periods in the past and present) or in a synchronic manner (by observing developments between different variations that exist within the current linguistic stage of a language).

At first, historical linguistics was the cornerstone of comparative linguistics, which involves a study of the relationship between different languages. At that time, scholars of historical linguistics were only concerned with creating different categories of language families, and reconstructing prehistoric proto-languages by using both the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction. Internal reconstruction is the method by which an element that contains a certain meaning is re-used in different contexts or environments where there is a variation in either sound or analogy.

The reason for this had been to describe well-known Indo-European languages, many of which had detailed documentation and long written histories. Scholars of historical linguistics also studied Uralic languages, another European language family for which very little written material existed back then. After that, there also followed significant work on the corpora of other languages, such as the Austronesian languages and the Native American language families.

In historical work, the uniformitarian principle is generally the underlying working hypothesis, occasionally also clearly expressed. The principle was expressed early by William Dwight Whitney, who considered it imperative, a "must", of historical linguistics to "look to find the same principle operative also in the very outset of that history."

The above approach of comparativism in linguistics is now, however, only a small part of the much broader discipline called historical linguistics. The comparative study of specific Indo-European languages is considered a highly specialized field today, while comparative research is carried out over the subsequent internal developments in a language: in particular, over the development of modern standard varieties of languages, and over the development of a language from its standardized form to its varieties.

For instance, some scholars also tried to establish super-families, linking, for example, Indo-European, Uralic, and other language families to a hypothetical Nostratic language group. While these attempts are still not widely accepted as credible methods, they provide necessary information to establish relatedness in language change. This is generally hard to find for events long ago, due to the occurrence of chance word resemblances and variations between language groups. A limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed for the functional purpose of conducting research. It is also hard to date various proto-languages. Even though several methods are available, these languages can be dated only approximately.

In modern historical linguistics, we examine how languages change over time, focusing on the relationships between dialects within a specific period. This includes studying morphological, syntactical, and phonetic shifts. Connections between dialects in the past and present are also explored.

Syntax

Main article: Syntax

Syntax is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, constituency, agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning. There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals.

Morphology

Main article: Morphology (linguistics)

Morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning. Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word. For example, in English the root catch and the suffix -ing are both morphemes; catch may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with -ing to form the new word catching. Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech, and how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number, tense, and aspect. Concepts such as productivity are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts, which evolves over the history of a language.

The discipline that deals specifically with the sound changes occurring within morphemes is morphophonology.

Semantics and pragmatics

Main articles: Semantics and Pragmatics

Semantics and pragmatics are branches of linguistics concerned with meaning. These subfields have traditionally been divided according to aspects of meaning: "semantics" refers to grammatical and lexical meanings, while "pragmatics" is concerned with meaning in context. Within linguistics, the subfield of formal semantics studies the denotations of sentences and how they are composed from the meanings of their constituent expressions. Formal semantics draws heavily on philosophy of language and uses formal tools from logic and computer science. On the other hand, cognitive semantics explains linguistic meaning via aspects of general cognition, drawing on ideas from cognitive science such as prototype theory.

Pragmatics focuses on phenomena such as speech acts, implicature, and talk in interaction. Unlike semantics, which examines meaning that is conventional or "coded" in a given language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the structural and linguistic knowledge (grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors.

Phonetics and phonology

Main articles: Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics and phonology are branches of linguistics concerned with sounds (or the equivalent aspects of sign languages). Phonetics is largely concerned with the physical aspects of sounds such as their articulation, acoustics, production, and perception. Phonology is concerned with the linguistic abstractions and categorizations of sounds, and it tells us what sounds are in a language, how they do and can combine into words, and explains why certain phonetic features are important to identifying a word.

Typology

This paragraph is an excerpt from Linguistic typology. Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the common properties of the world's languages. Its subdisciplines include, but are not limited to phonological typology, which deals with sound features; syntactic typology, which deals with word order and form; lexical typology, which deals with language vocabulary; and theoretical typology, which aims to explain the universal tendencies.

Structures

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Linguistic structures are pairings of meaning and form. Any particular pairing of meaning and form is a Saussurean linguistic 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). Linguistic patterns have proven their importance for the knowledge engineering field especially with the ever-increasing amount of available data.

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 analyze rules such as these, which govern how native speakers use language.

Grammar

Grammar is a system of rules which governs the production and use of utterances in a given language. These rules apply to sound as well as meaning, and include componential subsets of rules, such as those pertaining to phonology (the organization of phonetic sound systems), morphology (the formation and composition of words), and syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences). Modern frameworks that deal with the principles of grammar include structural and functional linguistics, and generative linguistics.

Sub-fields that focus on a grammatical study of language include the following:

  • Phonetics, the study of the physical properties of speech sound production and perception, and delves into their acoustic and articulatory properties
  • 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 lexical and grammatical aspects of meaning
  • Pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by situational 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

Discourse

Discourse is language as social practice (Baynham, 1995) and is a multilayered concept. As a social practice, discourse embodies different ideologies through written and spoken texts. Discourse analysis can examine or expose these ideologies. Discourse not only influences genre, which is selected based on specific contexts but also, at a micro level, shapes language as text (spoken or written) down to the phonological and lexico-grammatical levels. Grammar and discourse are linked as parts of a system. 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. 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. Thus, registers and discourses distinguish themselves not only through specialized vocabulary but also, in some cases, through distinct stylistic choices. 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.

Lexicon

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 not 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, 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.

Style

Stylistics also involves the study of written, signed, or spoken discourse through varying speech communities, genres, and editorial or narrative formats in the mass media. It involves 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, 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.

In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida, for instance, further distinguished between speech and writing, by proposing that written language be studied as a linguistic medium of communication in itself. Palaeography is therefore the discipline that studies the evolution of written scripts (as signs and symbols) in language. The formal study of language 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; biolinguistics, which studies the biology and evolution of language; and language acquisition, which investigates how children and adults acquire the knowledge of one or more languages.

Approaches

See also: Theory of language

Humanistic

The fundamental principle of humanistic linguistics, especially rational and logical grammar, is that language is an invention created by people. A semiotic tradition of linguistic research considers language a sign system which arises from the interaction of meaning and form. The organization of linguistic levels is considered computational. Linguistics is essentially seen as relating to social and cultural studies because different languages are shaped in social interaction by the speech community. Frameworks representing the humanistic view of language include structural linguistics, among others.

Structural analysis means dissecting each linguistic level: phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and discourse, to the smallest units. These are collected into inventories (e.g. phoneme, morpheme, lexical classes, phrase types) to study their interconnectedness within a hierarchy of structures and layers. Functional analysis adds to structural analysis the assignment of semantic and other functional roles that each unit may have. For example, a noun phrase may function as the subject or object of the sentence; or the agent or patient.

Functional linguistics, or functional grammar, is a branch of structural linguistics. In the humanistic reference, the terms structuralism and functionalism are related to their meaning in other human sciences. The difference between formal and functional structuralism lies in the way that the two approaches explain why languages have the properties they have. Functional explanation entails the idea that language is a tool for communication, or that communication is the primary function of language. Linguistic forms are consequently explained by an appeal to their functional value, or usefulness. Other structuralist approaches take the perspective that form follows from the inner mechanisms of the bilateral and multilayered language system.

Biological

Further information: Biolinguistics and Biosemiotics

Approaches such as cognitive linguistics and generative grammar study linguistic cognition with a view towards uncovering the biological underpinnings of language. In Generative Grammar, these underpinning are understood as including innate domain-specific grammatical knowledge. Thus, one of the central concerns of the approach is to discover what aspects of linguistic knowledge are innate and which are not.

Cognitive linguistics, in contrast, rejects the notion of innate grammar, and studies how the human mind creates linguistic constructions from event schemas, and the impact of cognitive constraints and biases on human language. In cognitive linguistics, language is approached via the senses.

A closely related approach is evolutionary linguistics which includes the study of linguistic units as cultural replicators. It is possible to study how language replicates and adapts to the mind of the individual or the speech community. Construction grammar is a framework which applies the meme concept to the study of syntax.

The generative versus evolutionary approach are sometimes called formalism and functionalism, respectively. This reference is however different from the use of the terms in human sciences.

Methodology

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Modern 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 favoring 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, may be practised appropriately in language instruction, like in ELT, where certain fundamental grammatical rules and lexical items need to be introduced to a second-language speaker who is attempting to acquire the language.

Sources

Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken data and signed data are 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 are not 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), even with 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;
  • Individuals learn to speak and process spoken language more easily and earlier than they do 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.

Analysis

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 the rise of Saussurean linguistics in the 20th century, the focus shifted to a more synchronic approach, where the study was 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.

History

Main article: History of linguistics

The earliest activities in the description of language have been attributed to the 6th-century-BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini who wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī. Today, modern-day theories on grammar employ many of the principles that were laid down then.

Nomenclature

Before the 20th century, the term philology, first attested in 1716, was commonly used to refer to the study of language, which was then predominantly historical in focus. Since Ferdinand de Saussure's insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis, however, this focus has shifted 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 (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, the term linguistics is first attested in 1847. It is now the usual term in English for the scientific study of language, though linguistic science is sometimes used.

Linguistics is a multi-disciplinary field of research that combines tools from natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, and the humanities. Many linguists, such as David Crystal, conceptualize the field as being primarily scientific. 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.

Early grammarians

Further information: Philology and Grammarian (Greco-Roman)

An early formal study of language was in India with Pāṇini, the 6th 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 Persian, made a detailed description of Arabic in AD 760 in his monumental work, Al-kitab fii an-naħw (الكتاب في النحو, The 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, 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 Greek, 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. 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.

Comparative philology

In the 18th century, the first use of the comparative method by William Jones sparked the rise of comparative linguistics. Bloomfield attributes "the first great scientific linguistic work of the world" to Jacob Grimm, who wrote Deutsche Grammatik. It was soon followed by other authors writing similar comparative studies on other language groups of Europe. The study of language was broadened from Indo-European to language in general by Wilhelm von Humboldt, of whom Bloomfield asserts:

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).

20th-century developments

There was a shift of focus from historical and comparative linguistics to synchronic analysis in early 20th century. Structural analysis was improved by Leonard Bloomfield, Louis Hjelmslev; and Zellig Harris who also developed methods of discourse analysis. Functional analysis was developed by the Prague linguistic circle and André Martinet. As sound recording devices became commonplace in the 1960s, dialectal recordings were made and archived, and the audio-lingual method provided a technological solution to foreign language learning. The 1960s also saw a new rise of comparative linguistics: the study of language universals in linguistic typology. Towards the end of the century the field of linguistics became divided into further areas of interest with the advent of language technology and digitalized corpora.

Areas of research

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Sociolinguistics

Main article: Sociolinguistics

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 idiolects can be tackled through a study of style, as well as through analysis of discourse. Sociolinguists research both style and discourse in language, as well as the theoretical factors that are at play between language and society.

Developmental linguistics

Main article: Developmental linguistics

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 are how children acquire different languages, how adults can acquire a second language, and what the process of language acquisition is.

Neurolinguistics

Main article: Neurolinguistics

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. Amongst the structures of the brain involved in the mechanisms of neurolinguistics, the cerebellum which contains the highest numbers of neurons has a major role in terms of predictions required to produce language.

Applied linguistics

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. 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. 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. Australia uses the former method, while Germany employs the latter; the Netherlands uses either method depending on the languages involved. 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.

Language documentation

Language documentation combines anthropological inquiry (into the history and culture of language) with linguistic inquiry, in order to describe languages and their grammars. Lexicography involves the documentation of words that form a vocabulary. Such a documentation of a linguistic vocabulary from a particular language is usually compiled in a dictionary. Computational linguistics is concerned with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. Specific knowledge of language is applied by speakers during the act of translation and interpretation, 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.

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 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 focus in some university programs 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.

Translation

Main articles: Translation and Translation studies

The sub-field of translation includes the translation of written and spoken texts across media, 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 and 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, which is an automated program 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. Cross-national and cross-cultural survey research studies employ translation to collect comparable data among multilingual populations. Academic translators specialize in or are familiar with various other disciplines such as technology, science, law, economics, etc.

Clinical linguistics

Main article: Clinical linguistics

Clinical linguistics is the application of linguistic theory to the field of speech-language pathology. Speech language pathologists work on corrective measures to treat communication and swallowing disorders.

Computational linguistics

Main article: Computational linguistics

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.

Evolutionary linguistics

Main article: Evolutionary linguistics

Evolutionary linguistics is a sociobiological approach to analyzing 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.

Forensic linguistics

Main article: Forensic linguistics

Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic analysis to forensics. Forensic analysis investigates 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 used their expertise in the framework of criminal cases.

See also

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