linguistics

What is linguistics?

Linguistics IS USUALLY DEFINED as ‘the scientific study of language‘. Such a statement, however, raises two further questions: what do we mean by ‘scientific’? and what do we mean by ‘language’? The first one can be answered relatively easily but the second needs to be examined more fully. When we say that a linguist aims to be scientific, we mean that he attempts to study language in much the same way as a scientist studies physics or chemistry, that is systematically, and as far as possible without prejudice. lt means observing language use, forming hypotheses about it, testing these hypotheses and then refining them on the basis of the evidence collected.

Pure Linguistics

The branches of pure linguistic are phonology, phonetics, morphology, syntax, lexicology.

 

Phonology

PHONOLOGY involves two studies: the study of the production, trans- mission and reception of speech sounds, a discipline known as ‘phonetics‘, and the study of the sounds and sound patterns of a specific language, a discipline known as ‘phonemics’.

 

Phonetics

Human beings are capable of producing an infmitc number of sounds but no language uses more than a small proportion of this infinite set and no two human languages make use of exactly the same set of sounds. When we speak, there is continuous movement of such organs as the tongue, the velum (soft palate), the lips and the lungs. We put spaces between individual words in the written medium but there are no similar spaces in speech. Words are linked together in speech and are normally perceived by one who does not know the language (or by a machine) as an uninterrupted stream of sound.

 

Syntax

The linguistic field,associated with this field is known as syntax

-concerned with the arrangement and ordering of words according to the rules of that language. From words, there is the progression to phrases, clauses and sentences. There are many aspects to the syntax of any language, all of which will be dealt with in the chapter on syntax

Morphology

Phonology HAS BEEN DESCRWBED as the study of speech sounds and their patterns. It is a study based on the ‘phoneme’ or smallest significant unit of speech. Morphology is the study of morphemes, which are the smallest significant units of grammar.

Lexicology

LEXICOLOGY is THE STUDY of words and, whereas many readers will be new to the study of sounds or word segments, most of us feel that we are very familiar with words. Indeed, when we think of language we tend to think about words. We often ask: ‘What's the word for a stam_p-collector? ‘ or say: ‘I just can’t think of the right word. ’ As we have already seen, words are only one of the strands in language, a strand that has, in the past, been given too much attention and a strand that, because of our familiarity with it, we have often failed to study as rigorously and as objectively as other aspects of language. ln this chapter, we shall try, first of all, to say what a word is.

References:

-YORK HANDBOOKS ’ GENERAL ED| TOR 2 Profcssor A. N. Jefiares (University afsmrling)

-A Linguistics Primer For Malaysia (Loga Mahesan Baskaran)