Unit 1.

The Study of Language

1.1   The nature of Language

1.2   The Discipline of Linguistics

1.2.1          Definitions and Concepts

1.2.2          Subfields

Objectives

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1.       Define Language;

2.       Explain the importance of language and identify the branches of Linguistics; and

3.       Enumerate the genres.

Points to Remember

LANGUAGE is an expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into
sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts (Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language
scholar)

                There are ten (10) branches of linguistics:

1.       General or theoretical linguistics

2.       Contrastive linguistics -  It concentrates upon the differences between languages. Its findings are often
applied in the context of language teaching.

3.       Comparative linguistics - It studies different languages looking for similar characteristics. These
languages may have common historical origin though the main emphasis of the analysis is usually placed
on the structural correspondences between languages under investigation.

4.       Historical linguistics - It analyses the development of language in time, registering the changes that
have taken place in it.

5.       Applied linguistics -It is concerned with the application of linguistic theories and their findings in
solving various language problem, mostly in the teaching of foreign languages, studying language
disorders, in translations, lexicography, stylistics.

6.       Sociolinguistics - It studies the relationship between language and society, taking into consideration
standard and non-standard forms of language, regional and social varieties with reference to such
concepts as ethnicity, social status, sex, age, etc.

7.       Psycholinguistics - It is a branch of linguistics which studies the relationship between linguistic

behaviour and the mental processes. It is interested in how mental processes influence the production
and perception of speech.

8.       Computational linguistics

9.       Developmental linguistics
Unit 1. The Study of Language
10.   Anthropological linguistics

Feature Common to all Languages (Charles Hockett)

a)       all languages have vowels and consonants;

b)      all languages have words;

c)       all languages can create new words when required and modify their meanings;

d)      all languages are open-ended in the sense that they can produce totally new utterances which are understood by
the users of the language;

e)       all languages can form questions;

f)       in all languages it is possible to talk about things and situations that are removed from the immediate situation of
the speaker (this is called displacement);

g)      in all languages we can use hypothetical, unreal, and fictional utterances.

Language is systematic.

Language is not prescriptive but descriptive.

Language is stagnant.

Language is comprehensive.

Language is certain.

Language is universal.

Language is irrational.

Language is not limited.

Language is influential.

Language is dynamic.

Structuralism - It is a term used in linguistics referring to a theoretical approach to the analysis of language
that describes linguistics items in terms of structure.

Linguistics -  It is the scientific study of language.

Ferdinand de Saussure - He is known to the father of Structuralism in Modern Linguistics.