Module One: Foundations of Linguistics and The Study of Language EDU 601-Principles of Language Acquisition Point Loma Nazarene University Summer Quad II Dr. Micki Abercrombie-Donahue

What is “Linguistics”? Linguistics: The study of language not just particular languages, but the system of human communication.

What is “Linguistics”? Linguistics: Is the study of language Language: Is a complex thing that consists of many different parts Language: Is a complex of knowledge and abilities enabling speakers of the language to communicate with each other, to express ideas, hypotheses, emotions, desires, and all the other things that need expressing.

What are the Different Functions of Language? Informative Hello, do you know …? I heard that … With language people can express themselves and communicate with others. Inter-personal Dear sir, Dear professor, John, yours, your obedient servant By language people establish and maintain their social status in a society. Performative Marriage ceremonies, the sentence of a criminal, sui sui ping an (to break a bowl on Spring Festival) People use language to change social status or control the reality on some special occasions Emotive Oh, my God! What a sight. And hurrah! Language can be used to get rid of the nervous energy when we are under stress Phatic Good morning! Thank you. God bless you. language is used to maintain a comfortable relationship between people without involving any factual content Recreational Tip tongue, poetry writing gives people the pleasure of using language. People use language for the sheer of joy. Meta-lingual book---- number of printed or written sheets of paper bound together in a cover. People use language to talk about language itself. ;

What is Linguistics? Linguistics: Is the scientific or systematic study of language. It is a science in the sense that it scientifically studies the rules, systems and principles of human languages.

What are the Major Purposes of Linguistics? Linguists study the nature of language and try to establish a theory of language. Linguists describe languages in the light of the theory they have established. Linguists examine all the forms of language in general and seek a scientific understanding of the ways in which it is organized, the needs it serves, and the functions it performs in human life.

What is Linguistics? Linguistics – It is the study of language in general or of some particular language or languages. Linguistics: It is the science of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Linguistics: It is the study of the structure, development, changes, etc, of a particular language and its relationship to other languages.

Main Branches of Linguistics Main branches of linguistics Phonetics Phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics Macro-linguistics Psycholinguistics Sociolinguistics Anthropological Computational

What is a Linguist? A scholar who studies lots of different languages. A scholar who studies how children learn language. A scholar who studies conversations. A scholar who studies speech sounds and written symbolic systems. A scholar who studies language structure.

What is the Scope of Linguistics? Micro-linguistics: Includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Macro-linguistics: Includes sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, stylistics, discourse analysis, computational linguistics, cognitive linguistics, applied linguistics, etc.

Linguistics Subfields Anthropological linguistics Applied linguistics Cognitive science Computational linguistics Corpus linguistics Discourse Analysis Ecolinguistics Forensic Linguistics Historical linguistics Lexicography Linguistics and Literature Morphology Neurolinguistics Philosophy of Language Phonetics Pragmatics Psycholinguistics Semantics Semiotics Sociolinguistics Syntax Typology Writing Systems Xenolinguistics

Main Branches of Linguistics

What are the Core Branches of Linguistics? Language Sounds Words Sentences Meaning Phonetics/phonology Morphology Syntax Semantics/Pragmatics

What is Micro-linguistics? Phonetics: Phonetics studies speech sounds, including the production of speech, that is how speech sounds are articulated, transmitted and received. Phonology: Phonology is the study of how speech sounds function in a language, it studies the ways speech sounds are organized. It can be seen as the functional phonetics of a particular language. Morphology: is the study of the formation of words. It is a branch of linguistics which breaks words into morphemes. It can be considered as the grammar of words as syntax is the grammar of sentences.

What is Phonology? Phonology: Is the study of the sound system of languages. Studies the distinctive sounds within a language, Explores the nature of sound systems across the languages. Phoneme (from the Greek: φώνημα, phōnēma, "a sound uttered") is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances.

What is Morphology? Morphology: Studies the formation of words from smaller units called morphemes. Morpheme: minimal meaningful language unit. Phoneme(s): smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound) in spoken language. Grapheme(s): written symbol to represent speech

What is the Study of Syntax? Syntax: Syntax includes rules that govern the formation of sentences from words. Syntactic phrases include: Noun Phrase: a tall man, the bus Verb Phrase: roam around, hit the ball Prepositional Phrase: in the class, at the club Adjective Phrase: Very good, nice girl

What is the Study of Grammar? Grammar: Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves. Descriptive grammar: structure actually used by speakers and writers. Prescriptive grammar: structure that should be used

What is Semantics? Semantics: Is the study of language meaning. Semantics is concerned with not only the meaning of words, but also that of morphemes and of sentences. Lexical semantics study how and what the words of a language denote

What is Pragmatics? Pragmatics: Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. Pragmatics is how language is used to communicate rather than how it is internally structured. Pragmatics governs a number of conversational interactions, such as sequential organization, repair of errors, role and speech acts.

What is Macro-linguistics? Socio-linguistics: Is the study of the relations between language and society: how social factors influence the structure and use of language. Psycho-linguistics: Is the study of language and mind: the mental structures and processes which are involved in the acquisition, comprehension and production of language. Neuro-linguistics: Is the study of language processing and language representation in the brain. It typically studies the disturbances of language comprehension and production caused by the damage of certain areas of the brain.

What is Macro-linguistics? Cognitive linguistics: is an approach to the analysis of natural language that focuses on language as an instrument for organizing, processing, and conveying information. Applied linguistics: is primarily concerned with the application of linguistic theories, methods and findings to the elucidation of language problems which have arisen in other areas of experience.