What is Linguistics?
Language is one of the defining characteristics
of human beings and
its use lies at the center of most human activities and interactions.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language in all of its
complexity. Much of linguistic study is centered around three broad
questions:
- What is language?
- How is language physically embodied and
cognitively processed?
- How is language use socially embedded?
What is Language? When linguists study
language as a structured, formal system, they investigate many
distinct subsystems:
the physical characteristics of speech sounds
(phonetics);
how sounds function together as part of a linguistic
system (phonology);
how words are formed and new words created
(morphology);
how words and phrases are combined to form a potentially
infinite number of sentences (syntax);
and meaning (semantics).
Some linguists who focus on these aspects of language spend years in the
field investigating previously unstudied languages, many of which are
now on the verge of extinction. By studying the properties of
languages from around the world, linguists hope to better understand
properties shared by all human languages and the ways in which
languages can differ. That is, their goal is to understand the nature
of human language - how language "works."
Language and the mind/brain. Because language
is a universal human characteristic, and a component unique to the
human mind/brain, studying the nature of human language provides
important insight into human cognitive abilities. Linguists who focus
on language as a cognitive process are interested in such questions
as:
What do you know when you "know" a language?
(And what do you know
that enables you to translate the symbols you are now reading into
meanings?)
How do children acquire language and why is learning a
second language often difficult?
Why is it so challenging to program
computers to understand language?
How might language have evolved in
humans?
How do our language abilities compare to other cognitive
abilities?
Many linguists who explore language as a cognitive process
conduct experiments in such areas as speech perception and production,
language processing, and child language acquisition to better answer
these questions.
Language in society. Language use is an
inherently social phenomenon. How you speak depends on such factors
as where you grew up, your racial and ethnic identity, whether you are
a woman or man, and your education. That is, you use the variation in
language as a creative means of expressing who you are (and who you
are not).
By studying this variation, researchers
enhance their
understanding of language as well as their understanding of social
processes,
and discover the social factors that influence our
linguistic choices and how these choices are perceived by others.
Linguists who study the social aspects of language also investigate
such topics as
how and why languages change over time,
how new
languages are created when speakers of divergent languages come into
contact,
how language attitudes are used to maintain forms of
discrimination,
how conversations are social transactions,
the
relation between language and power,
and the use of language in the media.
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