THE LINGUISTIC SUB-SCIENCES
PHONETICS
PHONOLOGY
GRAPHOLOGY
MORPHOLOGY
SYNTAX
The branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech and their
production, combination, description, and representation by written symbols.
Phonetics studies the concrete characteristics (articulatory, acoustic, auditory) of
the sounds used in languages.
Phonology studies the organization and distribution of speech sounds of a
language. It concerns itself with those sounds that can convey different
meanings as well as how sounds combine with other sounds. The phoneme is
the smallest unit of phonological analysis.
Studies the writing system of a language, the letters used in its writing system.
A grapheme is the smallest unit used in describing the writing system of a
language. A grapheme may or may not carry meaning by itself, and may or may
not correspond to a single phoneme. Graphemes include alphabetic
letters, typographic
ligatures, Chinese
characters, numerical
digits, punctuation marks, and other individual symbols of any of the
world's writing systems..
Morphology studies the structure of words, in particular how words are formed
and their inflections. Words are said to be made up of morphemes, the smallest
units of meaning in written language.
Syntax covers how words--along with their endings, prefixes, and internal
changes--combine into phrases and sentences. That is to say, the system of
rules governing the structure of phrases, clauses and sentences in terms of
order and constituency.
GRAMMAR
Grammar is a term that often includes only the studies of morphology and
syntax. This is usually what is meant by "traditional Latin grammar" or "traditional
English grammar." Some people use the word grammar to include phonology
and semantics as well.
SEMANTICS
Semantics is concerned with the meanings of words, word particles, and
sentences. The way such meanings are combined to give the meanings of
sentences.
LEXICON
Formally, in linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes, essentially
a catalogue of a language's words (ts wordstock);. Dictionaries represent attempts
at listing, in alphabetical order, the lexicon of a given language .
PRAGMATICS
Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics that studies the ways in which context
contributes to meaning., but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing
knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other
factors. Pragmatics is concerned with the study of language as it is used in a
social context and affects the interlocutors and their behaviour.
STYLISTICS
Concerns the variations involved in different situations and different styles of
speech (formal, informal, standard, substandard, colloquial, familiar, etc)
SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Socio-linguistics studies the interaction between language and society
(variations across classes, sexes, etc)
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Studies the relationship between the mind and language, the behaviour of
human beings in their production and perception of language.
LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
Language Acquisition, a branch of applied linguistics, is concerned with
children’s learning of their first language.
APPLIED
LINGUISTICS
NEUROLINGUISTICS
LANGUAGE
TEACHING AND
LEARNING
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of linguistics. Major branches of
applied linguistics include bilingualism and multilingualism, computer-mediated
communication (CMC), conversation
analysis, contrastive
linguistics, sign
linguistics, language
assessment, literacies, discourse
analysis, language
pedagogy, second
language
acquisition,
lexicography, language
planning and policy, interlinguistics, stylistics, pragmatics, forensic
linguistics and translation.
A branch of linguistics that studies the relationship between human brain and
language, the neurological basis of language development and use.
Language education is the teaching and learning of a foreign or second
language. Language education is a branch of applied linguistics. language
learning studies the process of internalizing a language – either a mothertongue or a foreign language. The factors which affect this process (such as the
individual’s intelligence, memory and motivation to learn) are seen as separate
from those involved in the task of language teaching.