General Linguistics Introduction summary

Linguistics is the systematic study of language. Linguistics tries to analyze what a language is, what
languages have in common, social differences in language usage, how languages change over time, how
languages work, how languages vary, how children acquire language, and how language reflects the
mind.

Jean Aitchison depicts linguistics like a tree with many branches. The "trunk", or the core of linguistics,
are phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The "branches", or the
studies that uses linguistics, are sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, anthropological
linguistics, stylistics, computational linguistics, and neurolinguistics.

In history, there were two schools of linguistics; prescriptive and descriptive. Prescriptive schools try to
prescribe rules of "correctness" that are often based on Latin grammar and 'logic' based on the written
language, with the misconception that the written language is somehow the basis of spoken language.
Descriptivists try to describe a language; the language in use today (synchronic perspective) is of main
interest. Spoken language is primary to the descriptivist. All variants of language, standard or 'vulgar',
are of equal interest.

Human language is characterized by a system of sound signals, arbitrary, duality, structure dependent,
creative, and displacement.

The Saussurean linguistics is Ferdinand Saussure's approach on the general nature of language. The
claims of the nature are language is a matter of sociology and language is systematic. The two sides to
language are langue; the social component and parole; the individual component.

An Introduction to English Linguistics summary

Linguistics is the science of language.

Language is uniquely human. Every human society uses language for communication. Human language
differs from animal communication.

Language is a system of rules. Every language has a system of rules for constructing syllables, words, and
sentences; the "grammar" of that language. "Knowing" a language means knowing these rules. This
knowledge is subconscious. Linguists try to figure out what these rules are.

Language is creative. With a finite set of rules and elements, an infinite number of new expressions can
be created. Language enables saying and thinking things that have never been heard before.

Language is social. Every language varies according to region, speaker, identity, and situation. The same
person speaks differently in different situations. Language defines communities, shapes identity, and
carries prestige or stigma.

Language always changes. Languages are changing all the time. Languages evolve in systematic ways.
Languages are related. English and German have a common ancestor; West-Germanic, which goes back
to Proto-Germanic. Languages can die. Vandalic, an East Germanic language spoken in Northern
Portugal and Spain, died out in the 6th century. New languages can be born. Nicaraguan sign language
was developed by deaf children in western Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s.

There are no primitive languages. Language must have evolved somehow out of a simpler system of
communication; from gestures to sounds accompanying gestures to sounds. Linguists have studied
languages all around the globe, but have not found a language that is not fully yet developed. Languages
of indigenous populations are just as complex as the languages we are familiar with. Simplicity in one
area of grammar tends to be back balanced by complexity in another.

What is Linguistics? summary

Linguists is the scientific study of language, specifically language form, meaning, and in context.

Linguistics is that particular science which studies the origin, organization, nature, and development of
language descriptively, historically, comparatively, explicitly and formulates the general rules related to
language.

General linguistics is a study of the phenomena, historical changes, and functions of language without
restrictions to a particular language or to a particular aspect of language.

Descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used
(or how it was used in the past) by a group of people in a speech community. It deals with a particular
language in a specific time and in a specific community.

Diachronic linguistics is also called historical linguistics. It is the scientific study of language change over
time. It studies language change, history of words, history of speech communities and develops general
theories about your how and why language changes.

Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that compares languages to establish their
historical relatedness. This comparison is generally done between the languages which are related to
each other.

Theoretical linguistics studies language to construct theories of their structure and functions. It is not
concerned with practical applications.

Applied linguistics studies language to apply the concepts and findings of linguistics to practical tasks
including English language teaching. It covers both general and descriptive linguistics.

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is
concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs, their physiological production,
acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status.

Phonology is concerned with the abstract and grammatical characterization of systems of sounds or
signs. It has traditionally focused largely on the study of systems of a phonemes in particular languages.

Morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationships to other words in the
same language. It analyzes the structure of words.