What is «Linguistics»?
Linguistics –the study of the structure of language (phonemes, morphemes, syntax,
context, grammar, semantics, and pragmatics) is important for effective
communication.
Linguists (people who are specialists in linguistics) do work on specific languages, but
their primary goal is to understand the nature of language in general by asking
questions such as: …What distinguishes human language from other animal
communication systems? …What features are common to all human languages?
…How are the modes of linguistic communication (speech, writing, sign language)
related to each other? …How is language related to other types of human behavior?
Key points
The four main components of
language are phonemes,
morphemes, syntax, and context. In
addition to grammar, semantics, and
pragmatics, these components all
work together to create meaningful
communication among individuals.
Grammar is the set of rules that
governs the way people compose
and use language. Semantics is the
study of the meaning of words,
while pragmatics is the study of how
context contributes to word
meaning.
Levels of linguistics
1. Phonetics
The study of speech sounds themselves. Phoneticians study both the
production of speech sounds by the human speech organs (articulatory
phonetics) and the properties of the sounds themselves (acoustic phonetics).
Phoneticians are concerned with such questions as: …What are the sounds,
from among all those that humans could make, that actually exist in the
world’s languages? …What specially defines different “accents”? …Can
speakers be identified by “voiceprints”? ...What are the properties of sounds
that would apply in computerized speech synthesis?
Phoneme (is the smallest unit of sound that may cause a change of
meaning within a language, but doesn't have meaning by itself)
However, the word 'shape,' despite having 5 letters, has only 3
phonemes: /sh/, /long-a/, and /p/. The English language has approximately
45 different phonemes which correspond to letters or combinations of
letters.
2. Phonology - the study of the organization of language sounds
Phonologists are concerned with questions such as: …What
sounds contrast in one language but not another (answers to
such questions explain why Spanish speakers have trouble with
the difference between English sh and ch, or why English
speakers have trouble with the different “u” sounds in French
words like rue ‘street’ and roue ‘wheel’.)?
…What sounds of a language can or cannot occur one after the
other (for example, why can words begin in st- in English but not
in Spanish)? ...How do poets or writers or song lyrics intuitively
know how to match the rhythm of speech to the abstract
rhythmic pattern of a poetic or musical meter?
3. Morphology - the study of word structure.
Morphology studies the various types of morphemes* of which there are
two main types - free and bound.
 Free morphemes have the ability to function as individual words; for
example, cat or water. These can also be used in conjunction with other
lexemes to create new words (for example, catnip or waterfall).
Bound morphemes, on the other hand, must be used with a root word or
another bound morpheme. Examples of bound morphemes include suffixes
and prefixes.
 Morpheme* - the smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a
meaning, such as "un-", "break", and "-able" in the word "unbreakable".
Within the category of bound morphemes, there are two additional subtypes:
Derivational and inflectional.
Derivational morphemes change the meaning or part of speech of a
word when they are used together. For example, the word 'sad'
changes from an adjective to a noun when -ness (sadness) is added to
it. 'Action' changes in meaning when the morpheme re- is added to it,
creating the word 'reaction. '
Inflectional morphemes modify either the tense of a verb of the number
value of a noun; for example, when you add an -s to cat, the number of
cats changes from one to more than one
4. Syntax - the study of how linguistic units larger than the
word are constructed.
In English, the shortest common core of syntax is a noun with a verb. Adjectives
and adverbs can be added to the sentence to provide further meaning. The order of
the words within the English language matters, although in some cultures, order is
of less importance.
For example, the English sentences "The baby ate the carrot" and "The carrot ate
the baby" do not mean the same thing, even though they contain the exact same
words.
A diagram is one way to
delineate and make sense of
complicated syntax.
5. Semantics - the study of meaning
Semanticists answer such questions as: …How do speakers know what words
mean (e.g. How does one know where red stops and orange starts)?
...What is the basis of metaphors (e.g. Why is my car is a lemon a “good”
metaphor but my car is a cabbage is not)?
…What makes sentences like «I’m looking for a tall student or the student I
am looking for» must be tall have more than one meaning? …In a sentence
like «I regret that he lied», how do we know that, in fact, he did lie?
…How many meanings can be found in a sentence like «three students read
three books» and why do just those meanings exist?
7. Pragmatics
Linguistics is the study of language . Within linguistics, grammar is the
set of rules that governs the way people compose and use language.
Semantics is the study of the meaning of words - specifically, what a
word stands for in a certain context - and pragmatics studies the way
the context of words contributes to their meaning. Working together,
these various rules help people make sense of words and effectively
communicate with one another. For example, incorrect grammar can
alter the semantic meaning of a sentence.
Context - is how everything within language works together to convey
a particular meaning.
Includes:
• tone of voice
• body language and the words being used.
For example, the phrase "Awesome," when said with a big smile, means
the person is excited about a situation. "Awesome," said with crossed
arms, rolled eyes, and a sarcastic tone means the person is not thrilled
with the situation.
Applied linguistics
Besides to theoretical part with a lot of branches, we have Applied
Linguistics which contains own peculiar properties.
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of linguistics that identifies,
investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems.
• education
• psychology
• computer science
• communication research
• anthropology
• sociology
The differences in applied
linguistics
In the West, the term used primarily to describe the theory and
practice of teaching foreign languages.
• methodology
• features of the grammar for educational purposes
The differences in applied
linguistics
In the USSR, the term "applied linguistics" was widespread in the
1950s with the advent of the first computer systems, automatic text
processing.
• computational linguistics
• automatic linguistics
• engineering linguistics