What is linguistics?
What is linguistics?
Non-linguists may have at least a vague sense that linguistics has to do with the study of language; the most common notion is that it involves learning lots of languages. In fact, when people introduce themselves as a linguist or linguistics student, often the first question they are asked is “How many languages do you speak?” While most linguists have some degree of familiarity with more than one language and many of them are indeed multilingual, linguistics itself is not the study of languages, but is rather the scientific study of the nature of human language.Language is a universal human characteristic (all humans acquire language), and it is uniquely human (animal communication systems seem fundamentally different than human language). The study of linguistics offers important insight into human cognitive abilities by seeking answers to such questions as:
- What exactly is language?
- What is it you know when you “know” a language?
- How do children acquire language? And how do they do it so quickly?
- How does the human language faculty compare to other cognitive abilities?
- What properties do all of the world’s languages share? In what ways do (or can) those languages differ?
- Phonetics – the physical characteristics of speech sounds (how sounds are produced and how they are perceived)
- Phonology – the patterning of speech sounds (how sounds function together as part of a linguistic system)
- Morphology – the structure of words (how words are formed and new words created)
- Syntax – the structure of sentences (how words and phrases are combined to form a potentially infinite number of sentences)
- Semantics – the meaning of words and sentences
Post a Comment