WHAT IS AN INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS?

Oke guys, now i am going to tell little about an introduction to linguistics. check it out.

LINGUISTICS is the scientific study of language.

When we say that linguistics aims to be scientific, we mean that he attempts to study language in much the same way asscientist studies physics or chemistry, that is systematically and as far as possible without prejudice. it means observing language use, forming hypotheses about it, testing these hyphotheses and then refining them on basis of the evidence collected.

Linguistics in the definition of language as sound, organized of form and function with meaning, contextualized in "reality" the key word pointed out are "sound" "form" "function" "meaning" and "reality".

linguists are interested in all languages of the word and in all the varieties that are found, the standart and the non-standart, the prestigous and stigmatised.they recognize that languages cannot exist in any full sense without people and they are fully aware that, as a descipline, linguistics is still in its infancy. we can ask a lot of the right question but we cannot always provide full or acceptable answers.

in linguistics, you must know about language.

A language is a set of signals by which we communicate. human beings are not the only species to have an elaborate communnication system.
there are a number of other general points that are worth making about language.
First, human language not only a vocal system of communication. it can be expressed writing, with the result that it is not limited in time or space.
Secondly each language is both arbitrary and systematic. that no two language behave in exactly the same way yet each language has its own set of rules.

There are brances of linguistics :
1. Pure Linguistics / micro linguistics :* adopts the narrower view *concerned solely with the structures of the language system in it self for it self.

2. Appllied Linguistics/ macro linguistics :* adopts the broader view * concerned with the way languages are acquaired stored in the brain and used for various function, interdependence of language and culture, physiological and psychologycal mechanisme involved in language behavior.

PURE LINGUISTICS
(MICRO LINGUISTICS)

1. Phonetics 

Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sound. it studies how speech sound are articulated,transmitted, and received.

production of speech : that is how speech sound are actually made: articulatory phonetics

transmission and receipts of speech : acoustic phonetics, and

perception of the transmitted sound by human brain : auditory phonetics 

words are linked together in apeech and are normally perceived by one who does not know the language as an uninterrupted.

we shall metaphorically, slow the process down as examine the organs of speech and the types of sound that result from using different organs.

2. Phonology 

Phonology is the study about "sound". the sudy of production, transmission and reception of speech sound, a descipline known as "phonemics".
phonetics, when we speak, there is continuous movement of such organs as tangue, the velum(soft palate) , the lips and the lungs.
     
 In phonology also learn about the organ of speech, vowel and consonants, ariculation, place of articulation, and the international phonetics alphabet (IPA) chart.

Suprasegmentals is as well as the sound that occur in speech, a number of other phenomena are of interest to the linguist. the most significant of these, pitch,stress,tone, intonation, and tempo,

phonemes: a phoneme is not one spesific sound but it is like the common denominators of all realisation of a specific sound.

Phonology has been describe as the study of speech sound and their patterns. It is a study based on the “phoneme” or smallest significant unit of speech

3. Morphology

Morphology is a  study of meaningful combination of sound and the study of morphomes, which are the smallest significant unit of grammar.

This definition becomes more comprehensible if you look at some example like this:

Cat         cats                        (plural)

Cook      cooked                    (past)

The morphomes “s” which is many English worda marks the difference between singular and plural.

Where the “ed” morpheme indicates the past tense for many English verbs.

Free and bound morphomes:

Some example:

Unmanly               un-man-ly

Meaningless          mean-ing-lest

Derivational morphology:

Morphology fulfills two main function in English. It can be used to form new words:

Beauty+ful> beautiful

Inflectional morphology:

It occours with nouns, pronouns, and verb

The dog                                the dog’s tail

The men                               the men’s book

The information of morphology can be summarized as follow:

Morphomes,there are two : free and bound.

Bound, there are two:

                    ·     derivational: 1. Prefixes : do not usually involve a change of word class   

                  2. suffixes : involve a change of word class

·  inflectional : suffixes : do not involve a change of word class.

4. Lexicology

it is the study of words and where as many readers will be new to the study of sounds or word segments, most of us feel that we are very familiar with word. Indeed, when we think of language we tend to think about words.

First of all, to say what a word is. Then, consider word formation and word classes.

A lexical word comprehend the various forms of items which are closely related by meaning. Thus, ‘chair’ and ‘chairs’ are two morphological words, but one lexical word. Similarly ‘take’, ‘takes’, ‘taking’, ‘taken’,  and ‘took’ are five morphological word but only one lexical word .

Often in linguistics , when capital letters are used for a word, for example take, it implies that we are dealing with a lexical word and so take comprehends all the various forms.

In lexicology we can learn about word-formation, word classes (how a word function in a particular example before assigning it to a word class).

Lexicology will guide the students in making decisions about word classes as long as it is remembered that each word classes as long as it is remembered that each word must be judged in a specific context.

Only context tell us that any is a determiner in the first sentence and a pronoun in the second:

Have you any wool?

Have you any?

That up is preposition in the first sentence below, an adverb in the second and a verb in the third:

It ran up the clock

I can’t get up

He has decided to up his prices.

5. Syntax

Syntax is a study of meaningful combination of word.

Now, we shall turn to word in combination. British linguists often use the term ‘grammar’ for the same level of language thet is referred to as ‘syntax’ by many americans.

We shall study only three of these units, that is the phrase, the clause, and the sentence and we shall provide straightforward, traditional definitions. Different linguists, however, often define terms differently. 

Structuralists, for example, would label ‘sheep’, that lovely sheep, and ‘that sheep are unpredictable’ as:

Sheep                                                   - word/free morpheme

That lovely sheep                                 - phrase

That sheep are unpredictable               - clause

In syntax , it worth remembering that complex structures are not necessarily a feature of good style and also that effective communication relies on a structure being grammatical, acceptable and interpretable.

Rules that govern the formation of sentence from word.

syntatic phrases include:
non phrases : a tall man, the bus

verb phrases : roam around, hit the ball

prepositional phrases : in the class, at the club.

the gramatical rules : the syntax of the language deals with gramatical structure of language.
grammar is structural foundation of our ability to exspress our selves.
descriptive grammar: structure actually used by speakers and writers
perspective grammar: structure that use be used.

6. Semantics

We examined the different connotation of ‘word’. Semantics refers to meaning and meaning is so intangible that one group linguists, the structuralists, preferred not to deal with it or rely on it at all.

To illustrate what we mean by the intangible quality of meaning, think of such word as ‘beauty’, ‘goodness’, ‘love’, it would be hard to find two people who agree absolutely on what each of these implies.

A person may seem good to one onlooker and a hypocrite to another.

Similarly we all think we know what we mean by ‘boy’ and ‘man’.  But at what age does a  boy cease to be a boy? At thirteen? Fifteen? Eighteen? Twenty one? Meaning is a variable and not to be taken for granted.

We can learn about:

Polysemy : Polysemy, meaning ‘many meanings’. Is the name given to the study of this particular phenomenon.

Synonym : synonym is always partial,never complete.

Antonymy :  this is the generalterm applied to the sense relation involving oppositeness of meaning.

Hyponymy : it is related to complementarity and incompatibility. Whereas the relationship of implicit denial is called incompatibility, the relationship of implicit inclusions is called hyponymy.

Idioms: an idioms is a group of word whose meaning cannot be explained in terms of the habitual meanings of the words that make up the piece of language.

7. Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.
How language used to communicate rather than how it is internally structured.
govern a number conversational interaction such as  sequential organization, repair of error,role and speech act.

APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Some example of Applied Linguistics:

1. Sociolinguistics

    This branch of linguistics concentrates on language in society, in the other words, it tries to examine how and why people use language as they interact with other members of their society.

sociolinguistics examines variety in language and has shown that language is not morely used to communicate ideas but also to communicate our opinion of others and ourselves.

2. Psycholinguistics

    This branch deals  with the ralationship between language and the mind, focusing mainly on how language is learnt, stored and occasionally lost.  the relationship between language and mind has two aspect, acquisition and performance, and the two are intimately linked.

3. Stylistics

    Stylistics thus exploits our knowladge of linguistics variety, our awareness of the appropriateness of certain combinations and provides us with the tools necessary to deepen our awareness of literature. it is not, however, an alternative to sensitive intuition, but a means of exploring and reinforcing such intuition.

REFERENCE

Todd, Loreto, An Introduction to Linguistics
http://www.slideshare.net/dapurv5/branches-of-linguistics-11652624?next_slideshow=1

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