Lecture 1: Definition of Language and Linguistics PDF

1-Definition of Language A language is set of sounds, words, signs, body movements, gestures , facial expressions and interjections used by a specific group for the sake of communication. 2-Definition of Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can...

1-Definition of Language A language is set of sounds, words, signs, body movements, gestures , facial expressions and interjections used by a specific group for the sake of communication. 2-Definition of Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context. The earliest known descriptive linguistics activities are said to have been Panini's Ashtadhyayi around 500 BCE with the analysis of Sanskrit. The study of language meaning is concerned with how languages employ logical structures and real-world references to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as to manage and resolve ambiguity. This subfield encompasses semantics (how meaning is inferred from words and concepts) and pragmatics (how meaning is inferred from context). Linguistics encompasses the description of languages, the study of their origin, and the analysis of how children acquire language and how people learn languages other than their own. Linguistics is also concerned with relationships between languages and with the ways languages change over time. Linguists may study language as a thought process and seek a theory that accounts for the universal human capacity to produce and understand language. Some linguists examine language within a cultural context. By observing talk, they try to determine what a person needs to know in order to 1 speak appropriately in different settings, such as the workplace, among friends, or among family. Other linguists focus on what happens when speakers from different language and cultural backgrounds interact. Linguists may also concentrate on how to help people learn another language, using what they know about the learner’s first language and about the language being acquired. The first subfield of linguistics is the study of language structure, or grammar. This focuses on the system of rules followed by the speakers (or hearers) of a language. It encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these words), and phonology (sound systems). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds and nonspeech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived. Linguistics in its broader context includes evolutionary linguistics, which considers the origins of language; historical linguistics, which explores language change; sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and function of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which looks at language processing in the brain; language acquisition, how children or adults acquire language; and discourse analysis, which involves the structure of texts and conversations. Although linguistics is the scientific study of language, a number of other intellectual disciplines are relevant to language and intersect with it. Semiotics, for example, is the general study of signs and symbols both within 2 language and without. Literary theorists study the use of language in literature. Linguistics additionally draws on and informs work from such diverse fields as acoustics, anthropology, biology, computer science, human anatomy, informatics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and speech- language pathology. 3