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What is Linguistics?

Linguistics: The Scientific Study of Human Language

"The scientific study of human language is called linguistics. A linguist then is not someone who speaks many languages (although many linguists do); such individuals are polyglots. A linguist is a scientist who investigates human language in all its facets, its structure, its use, its history, its place in society."

Fromkin, V. (2000). Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory. Blackwell. p3

Linguistics has a large number of sub-fields:

  • Theoretical Linguistics is concerned with the form and structure of the kinds of linguistic knowledge which speakers possess.
  • Descriptive Linguistics provides analyses of the grammars of various languages such as Chocktaw, Arabic, Zulu, etc.
  • Computational Linguistics is concerned with natural language computer applications, e.g. automatic parsing, machine processing and understanding, computer simulation of grammatical models for the generation and parsing of sentences.
  • Pragmatics studies language in context and the influence of situation on meaning.
  • Psycholinguistics is the branch of linguistics concerned with linguistic performance - the production and comprehension of speech or sign. An area of psychlinguistics, which in some ways is a field of its own, is child language acquisition.

from Fromkin, V. (2000). Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory. Blackwell. pp4-5)

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