What is Linguistics?

I. Linguistics

An attempt to define language is to confine it to a specific scope of inquiry. Language, seen as a

system of communication, can be best studied from Sociolinguistics regards; once more
language is a system of underlying tacit knowledge leads us to consider the inner process that
anyone genetically is born with LAD (Language Acquisition Device); that
is Psycholinguistics. Moreover, language is part of a social construct and behaviour like other
rituals and means of survival, this time is seen by anthropolinguists. However, language can
be studied systematically as a set of signs and rules governing different human realizations that
encompass hierarchies, respectful to grammatical and acceptable structures, this time it
is linguistics. The insights resulting from linguistic research to practical uses, mainly in the area
of language teaching, i.e., applied Linguistics.

Linguistics is the study of language of each human, it’s a complex of knowledge and abilities, Phonetics,
Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics Pragmatics, Because language is such a central feature of
being a human, Linguistics  has intellectual connections and overlaps with many other disciplines  in the
humanities. including language pedagogy, speech pathology, speech synthesis,  natural language
interfaces, search engines, machine translation,  forensics, naming, and of course all forms of writing,
editing, and  publishing, and of course SCIENCE.

Every human knows at least one language, spoken or signed. Linguistics is the science of language,
including the sounds, words, and grammar rules. Words in languages are finite, but sentences are not. It
is this creative aspect of human language that sets it apart from animal languages, which are essentially
responses to stimuli.

The rules of a language, also called grammar, are learned as one acquires a language. These rules
include phonology, the sound system, morphology, the structure of words, syntax, the combination
of words into sentences, semantics, the ways in which sounds and meanings are related, and
the lexicon, or mental dictionary of words. When you know a language, you know words in that
language, i.e. sound units that are related to specific meanings. However, the sounds and meanings of
words are arbitrary. For the most part, there is no relationship between the way a word is pronounced
(or signed) and its meaning.

Knowing a language encompasses this entire system, but this knowledge (called  competence) is
different from behavior (called performance.) You may know a language, but you may also choose to
not speak it. Although you are not speaking the language, you still have the knowledge of it. However,
if you don't know a language, you cannot speak it at all.
There are two types of grammars: descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive grammars represent the
unconscious knowledge of a language. English speakers, for example, know that "me likes apples" is
incorrect and "I like apples" is correct, although the speaker may not be able to explain why. Descriptive
grammars do not teach the rules of a language, but rather describe rules that are already known. In
contrast, prescriptive grammars dictate what a speaker's grammar should be and they include
teaching grammars, which are written to help teach a foreign language.

There are about 7,000 languages in the world right now (a rough estimate), and linguists have
discovered that these languages are more alike than different from each other. There are universal
concepts and properties that are shared by all languages and these principles are contained in
the Universal Grammar, which forms the basis of all possible human languages.(Universal
grammar is the theoretical or hypothetical system of categories, operations, and principles shared by all
human Languages and considered to be innate.)

Special focus: Linguistics is that particular science that studies the origin, organization, nature
and development of language, descriptively, historically, comparatively, explicitly, and
formulates the general rules. Descriptively means analyzing the language objectively and
describing how language is actually used by a group of people in a speech community. It deals
with a particular language and in a specific community.

1.       Linguists
are interested in  studying particular languages to provide accurate and
complete description of them

2.      Linguists want to obtain information about the nature of language, and how language
works

3.      Linguistics is then a scientific study of Language

4.      Branches of linguistics:

          Phonetics and phonology ( sound)

         Morphology and syntax ( structure)
         Semantics and pragmatics.(meaning)
II.   Definition of Linguistics.

Saussure defines linguistics as the study of language, and as the study of the manifestations of
       

human speech. He says that linguistics is also concerned with the history of languages, and with
the social or cultural influences that shape the development of language.
2.        Linguistics is the scientific study of language whose goal is to describe and explain the
unconscious knowledge the speakers have of their language. NOAM CHOMSKY

3.       John Lyons [1968] contends that by scientific study of language is meant its investigations by
means of controlled and empirical verifiable observations and with reference to some general
theory of language structure. It is a field that deals with the scientific description and analysis of
language

4.       Linguistics according to one of the Nigeria’s applied linguist, Dr. A.A. Olaoye is the scientific
study of grammatical system of a language and their interrelationship with the rest of human
activities. Linguistics studies the form and their meaning in social context of any language. The
form in this sense indicates the grammatical functions—- the syntax and the meaning—- the
semantics

 
Is linguistics considered a science?  Is the scientific method regularly applied to the study of
language? It all depends on what you are considering the term and what you are looking for