Introduction to linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and its focus is the systematic
investigation of the properties of particular languages as well as the characteristics
of language in general. It encompasses not only the study of sound, grammar and
meaning, but also the history of language families, how languages are acquired by
children and adults, and how language use is processed in the mind and how it is
connected to race and gender. With close connections to the humanities, social
sciences and the natural sciences, linguistics complements a diverse range of other
disciplines such as anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology,
computer science, health sciences, education and literature. The subfield of
Applied Linguistics emphasizes the use of linguistic concepts in the classroom to
help students improve their ability to communicate in their native language or a
second language.

Important subfields of linguistics include:

 Phonetics - the study of how speech sounds are produced and perceived
 Phonology - the study of sound patterns and changes 
 Morphology - the study of word structure
 Syntax - the study of sentence structure
 Semantics - the study of linguistic meaning
 Pragmatics - the study of how language is used in context

Types of linguistics:
 Historical Linguistics - the study of language change
Diachronic linguistics and synchronic linguistics (what do they mean (
 Sociolinguistics - the study of the relation between language and society
 Computational Linguistics - the study of how computers can process human
language
 Psycholinguistics - the study of how humans acquire and use language
 Linguistics encompasses many branches and subfields that span
both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretical linguistics (including
traditional descriptive linguistics) is concerned with understanding the fundamental
nature of language and developing a general theoretical framework for describing
it. Applied linguistics seeks to utilize the scientific findings of the study of
language for practical purposes, such as developing methods of
improving language education and literacy.
Linguistic phenomena may be studied through a variety of
perspectives: synchronically (describing a language at a specific point of time)
or diachronically (through historical development);
in monolinguals or multilinguals; children or adults; as they are learned or already
acquired; as abstract objects or cognitive structures; through texts or oral
elicitation; and through mechanical data collection versus fieldwork.
Linguistics is related to philosophy of
language, stylistics and rhetorics, semiotics, lexicography,
and translation; philology, from which linguistics emerged, is variably described as
a related field, a subdiscipline, or to have been superseded altogether.