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Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. The study of linguistics can be thought of along three major axes, the endpoints of which are described below:
- Synchronic and diachronic -- Synchronic study of a language is concerned with its form at a given moment; diachronic study covers the history of a language (group) and its structural changes over time.
- Theoretical and applied -- Theoretical linguistics is concerned with frameworks for describing individual languages and theories about universal aspects of language; applied linguistics applies these theories to other fields.
- Contextual and independent -- Contextual linguistics is concerned with how language fits into the world: its social function, how it is acquired, how it is produced and perceived. Independent linguistics considers languages for their own sake, aside from the externalities related to a language. Terms for this dichotomy are not yet well established--the Encyclopædia Britannica uses macrolinguistics and microlinguistics instead.
Given these dichotomies, scholars who call themselves simply linguists or theoretical linguists, with no further qualification, tend to be concerned with independent, theoretical synchronic linguistics, which is acknowledged as the core of the discipline.
Linguistic inquiry is pursued by a wide variety of specialists, who may not all be in harmonious agreement; as Russ Rymer flamboyantly puts it:
"Linguistics is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic realm. It is soaked with the blood of poets, theologians, philosophers, philologists, psychologists, biologists, and neurologists, along with whatever blood can be got out of grammarians." 1
1 Areas of theoretical linguistics
Theoretical linguistics is often divided into a number of separate areas, to be studied more or less independently. The following divisions are currently widely acknowledged:
- Phonetics, the study of the different sounds that are employed across all human languages
- Phonology, the study of patterns of a language's basic sounds
- MorphologyMorphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. Words are at the interface between phonology, syntax and semantics (Spencer / Zwicky). There are many current approaches to morphology. For expository purposes, this article will de, the study of the internal structure of words
- SyntaxThe first meaning of the term syntax originating from the Greek words (sun, meaning ‘together’) and (taxis, meaning sequence/order), can be described as the study of the rules, or "patterned relations" that govern the way the words in a sentence come toge, the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences
- SemanticsIn general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos or "significant meaning," derived from sema sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. Semantics is often opposed to syntax, in which case the former pertains to what something means while t, the study of the meaning of words ( lexical semanticsLexical semantics is a field in Computer science and Linguistics which deals mainly with word meaning. It covers various theories of the structure of words, the differences and similarities in lexical semantic structure between different languages, and th), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences;
- StylisticsStylistics is the study of style used in literary, and verbal language and the effect the writer/speaker wishes to communicate to the reader/hearer. It attempts to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by individuals and s, the study of style in languages
- PragmaticsPragmatics is generally the study of natural language understanding, and specifically the study of how context influences the interpretation of meanings. It is a subfield of linguistics. Context here must be interpreted as situation as it may include any, the study of how utterances are used (literally, figuratively, or otherwise) in communicative acts
- Linguistic Typology, the study of the grammatical features that are employed across all human languages
- Historical linguisticsHistorical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics is primarily the study of languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax. Historical linguistics aims to classify, the study of languages whose historical relations are recognizable through similarities in vocabulary, word formation, and syntax.
The independent significance of each of these areas is not universally acknowledged, however, and nearly all linguists would agree that the divisions overlap considerably. Nevertheless, each subarea has core concepts that foster significant scholarly inquiry and research.
