Linguistic

• Linguistics


  The science of language, its objective is to systematically observe and explain language structure and use
• Linguist


  Seeks to build a model of the implicit knowledge that speakers possess about the structure and use of their language
• Linguistics


  • Its object of investigation is language as a universal human phenomenon
  • Its method is empirical - conclusions are based on observation and experience rather than intuition or pure reasoning
  • Its purpose is to explain the nature of language
• Interdisciplinary areas of linguistic research

  • Anthropology: language and culture; ethno-linguistics
  • Child studies: language acquisition and development
  • Computer science: programming languages; machine translation; "thinking" machines; computational linguistics
  • Education: language teaching
  • Dentistry: orthodontics and speech
  • History: language change over time; historical linguistics
  • Law: forensic linguistics
  • Mathematics: formal systems of communication
  • Medicine: language, mind and brain; neurolinguistics; language pathology
  • Music: the singing voice
  • Philosophy: language and reasoning
  • Physics: voice acoustics; speech synthesis; voice recognition
  • Psychology: language and cognition; psycholinguistics
  • Rhetoric: language and persuasion
  • Sociology: language, ideology, and power; sociolinguistics; critical discourse analysis
• Language faculty


  One notion of language considered by linguistics
• Prescriptive grammar


  A set of prescriptions about how to speak, based on idiosyncratic value judgments
• Prescriptive grammar rules


  • Never start a sentence with and or but
  • Never end a sentence with a preposition
  • Never use a double negative
  • Always say I am not, never I ain't
• Descriptive grammar


  Rules that state the patterns or regularities observed in the behaviour of entities
• Sign


  An indicator of something else, can be arbitrary or non-arbitrary
• Arbitrary sign


  The association between a linguistic form and the meaning it expresses is not inherent but established by convention
• Non-arbitrary sign


  Has an inherent, usually causal, relationship to the things they indicate
• There are two levels of arbitrariness in language: 1) arbitrary association between form and meaning, 2) arbitrary association between sign and referent
• Discreteness


  Speakers can identify distinct elements in their languages, such as words and sounds
• Compositionality


  Larger units of language are perceived as being composed of smaller units
• Creativity in language


  1. Language itself is creative in enabling the expression of new meanings, 2) Speakers can produce novel utterances
• Infinite use of finite means


  Languages have a finite repertoire of sounds, yet can build a vast range of words and sentences
• Rule-governed nature of language


  Language use involves combining a finite set of resources in new ways to create new meanings
• Linear order


  Constraints in the sequencing of language elements
• There are accidental lexical gaps in all languages - sound sequences that are possible but not actual words