LINGUISTICS

LINGUISTICS The systematic study of LANGUAGE. Its aim is to look at language objectively, as a human phenomenon, in order to uncover general principles and provide reliable descriptions.

History

Although the formal study of language dates from at least the middle of the first millennium BC in India and ancient Greece, the era of scientific language study is commonly dated from the end of the 18c, when English was discovered to have the same ancestor as a number of European and Asian languages. This discovery initiated at least a century of intense interest in COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY, which involved uncovering links between languages, writing comparative grammars of related languages, and reconstructing their common ‘ancestors’. These activities stimulated a search for the mechanisms underlying LANGUAGE CHANGE. In the 20c, a change of emphasis occurred, largely through the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, sometimes regarded as ‘the father of modern linguistics’. He advocated separating DIACHRONIC (historical) from synchronic (contemporary or co-occurring) aspects of language study. He argued that language at any point in time is an interlocking structure, in which all items are interdependent, an insight which is now taken for granted in linguistics and forms the basis of 20c STRUCTURALISM. In the 1930s and 1940s, descriptive linguistics was developed largely in the US, as linguists sought to describe the fast-disappearing American-Indian languages, with Edward Sapir and Leonard BLOOMFIELD being regarded jointly as the ‘fathers of American linguistics’. Midway through the 20c, Noam CHOMSKY triggered another change of direction, when he instigated work in generative linguistics, a concern for the principles in the minds of speakers which could generate language (account for their knowledge of language in an explicit way).

Branches

Linguistics comprises a large number of branches, several of them hybrids with other disciplines. Although PHONETICS, the scientific study of speech sounds, is usually regarded as an intrinsic part of linguistics, it is often taken to be a discipline in its own right, especially by phoneticians, who point to its 19c origins. Linguistics and phonetics together are therefore often referred to as the linguistic sciences. At its core, linguistics can be said to have three classic subdivisions: (1) PHONOLOGY the study of sound patterns; (2) MORPHOLOGY and SYNTAX the composition of words and sentences; (3) SEMANTICS the study of meaning. Some linguists consider that morphology and syntax can be subsumed under the traditional term GRAMMAR; others argue that phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics all constitute the grammar of a language. Each can be studied synchronically or diachronically (or both together) and the order in which they have been dealt with within a grammar has fluctuated over the years. In the last quartercentury, some previously fringe areas have become increasingly important, notably: PRAGMATICS the study of language usage; SOCIOLINGUISTICS the study of the relationship between language and society; PSYCHOLINGUISTICS language and the mind; LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY the analysis of languages into types; computational linguistics the use of computers to simulate language processes; stylistics linguistic analysis applied to literature and style; APPLIED LINGUISTICS linguistics in relation to such practical activities as language teaching, LEXICOGRAPHY, and speech therapy. See CORPUS.