Scope of Linguistics

Scope of Linguistics

The scope of Linguistics is vast and huge. And its covers a wide range of fields and topics. Thus, Phonetics is concerned with the sounds of languages, phonology with the way sounds are used in individual languages, morphology with the structure of words, syntax with the structure of phrases and sentences, and semantics with the study of meaning. A number of linguistic fields study the relations between language and the subject matter of related academic disciplines, such as sociolinguistics (sociology and language) and psycholinguistics (psychology and language). In principle, applied linguistics is any application of linguistic methods or results to solve problems related to language, but in practice it tends to be restricted to second-language instruction. However, the scope of Linguistics is given below:




Phonetics (from the Greek: φωνή, phōnē, "sound, voice") is the subfield of linguistics that comprises the study of the physical sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones), and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception.


Phonetics was studied as early as 2,500 years ago in ancient India, with Pālini's account of the place and manner of articulation of consonants in his 5th century BC treatise on Sanskrit. The major Indic alphabets today order their consonants according to Pālini's classification.


It is the scientific study of the production, transmission and reception of speech sounds. It studies the medium of spoken language, touching upon physiology and physici, phonetics is now a pure science that studies speech processes including the anatomy, neurology and pathology of speech, as well as the articulation, description, production and perception of speech sounds. The study of phonetics can divides hoto three main branches - Articulatory Phonetici studies the speech organs, which produce sounds of language ; Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds such as frequency and amplitude in their transmission, and Auditory Phonetics studies the way in which human beings perceive sounds through the medium of the ear.Phonetics studies the defining characteristics of all human vocal noise, and concentrates its attention on these sounds which occur in the languages of the world. In other words, Phonetics try to study how the various organs of speech the lungs, the larynx, the soft palate, the tongue and the lip function in the production of speech.


Semantics (derived from Greek semantikos, "significant"), the study of the meaning of linguistic signs— that is, words, expressions, and sentences. Scholars of semantics try to answer such questions as "What is the meaning of (the word) X?" They do this by studying what signs are, as well as how signs possess significance—that is, how they are intended by speakers, how they designate (make reference to things and ideas), and how they are interpreted by hearers. The goal of semantics is to match the meanings of signs—what they stand for—with the process of assigning those meanings.




The shorter Oxford Dictionary glosses the term Semantics as "relating to signification or meaning". Broadly speaking, semantics is the aspect of linguistics which deals with the relations between referents (names) and referends (things) that is linguistic levels (words, expressions, phrases) and the objects or concepts or ideas to which they refer - and with the history and changes in the meaning of words. A semanticist would like to find how a man is able to paraphrase, transform, and detect ambiguities and why the surrounding words sometimes force him to choose one interpretation rather than another. A semantic analysis, for example, of English must also explain antonyms, Synonyms, Hononyms and transformations of the language.


Phonology: Phonology (Greek 'phone' means voice , sound and 'logos' means word, speech) is essentially the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds in a language. It is, in effect, based on a theory of what every speaker of a language unconsciously knows about the sound patterns of that language. Because of this theoretical status, phonology is concerned with the abstract or mental of the sounds in language rather than with the actual physical articulation of speech sounds. Phonology is about the underlying design, the blueprint of the sound type, which serves as the constant basis of all the variations in different physical articulations of that sound type in different contexts.




Thus, when we think of the (t) sound in the words star, writer, and eighth as being the same, we actually mean that in the Phonology of English, they would be represented in the same way. In actual speech, these (t) sounds are all very important.


Considered from this point of view, we can see that Phonology is concerned with the abstract set of sounds in a language which allows us to distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we say and hear.


Grammar: Etymologically, the term grammar goes back to a Greek word grammatika or grammatika techne which may be translated as 'the art of writing'. But for a long time this term has been used very loosely to incorporate the whole study of language. The Greeks considered grammar to be a branch philosophy concerned with the art of writing. By the Middle Ages grammar had come to be regarded as a set of rules, usually in the form of a text-book, dictating 'correct' usage. So in the widest and the traditional sense, grammar came to mean a set of normative and prescriptive rules in order to set us a standard of 'correct usage'. And grammar was both the art and the science of language. The grammarian until the nineteenth century was the law-give. Though it is still a valid interpretation for a law man, no contemporary or modern linguist will accept this definition of grammar in our age.


Around the central core of the Linguistics, are various branches of linguistics: such as Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Neurolinguistics, anthropological Linguistic, Cognitive linguistics, Generative linguistics.


Psycholinguistics: Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language. Modern research makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and information theory to study how the brain processes language. Psycholinguistics covers the cognitive processes that make it possible to generate a grammatical and meaningful sentence out of vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as the processes that make it possible to understand utterances, words, text, etc. Developmental psycholinguistics studies children's ability to learn language.
Sociolinguistics: is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. Sociolinguistics overlaps to a considerable degree with pragmatics.


It also studies how dialects differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social class or socio-economic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place (dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies.

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