UNIVERSIDAD LATINA DE PANAMA

CENTRO REGIONAL DE DAVID

Marcia Janeth Valdés Linguistics

What is linguistics?
Linguistics refers to the scientific study of language. The word ‘linguistics’ is derived from the
Latin words ‘lingua’ meaning ‘tongue’ and ‘istics’ meaning ‘knowledge’. The study of linguistics
comes from the natural curiosity of man about the particulars of the language he speaks,
evaluated through different perspectives. According to Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the most
famous linguists, “A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series
of differences of ideas.”

The discipline of linguistics focuses on theories of language structure, variation and use, the
description and documentation of contemporary languages, and the implications of theories of
language for an understanding of the mind and brain, human culture, social behavior, and
language learning and teaching.

Branches of Linguistics
Phonetics: Phonetics refers to the study of the sounds of speech. It deals with the way sounds
are produced, transmitted and perceived.

Phonology: a study of how sounds/sound patterns/signs are arranged in each language, as

organized units of speech. It also looks into the specifications in the distribution of sounds in
each language.

Morphology: studies the forms of words in different uses and constructions. It is concerned
with the evolution of small words from meaningful units called ‘morphemes’. It is studied under
two fields, namely, inflectional morphology and derivational morphology.

Syntax: studies the construction of phrases, clauses and sentences in a language. It analyses the
basic word order followed in languages.

Semantics: it is a study of meaning. It focuses on studying the structure of meaning in a

language and in giving an account of word and sentence meaning.

Pragmatics: it is an extension of semantic and deals with the study on how meaning changes
with different contexts.

Types of Linguistics
Theoretical linguistics: studies the nature of language as it is and analyses the properties it
possesses. It is aimed at learning behaviour and features of language.

Descriptive linguistics: a study of particular languages and language families, from both
historical and synchronic points of view.
 UNIVERSIDAD LATINA DE PANAMA
CENTRO REGIONAL DE DAVID

Marcia Janeth Valdés Linguistics

Historical Linguistics: a study of the pattern of change of languages over time.

Sociolinguistics: the branch of linguistics that studies the relation between society and
language.

Dialectology: study of the division of one language into many.

Applied linguistics: a study of practical applications of language studies, such as translation and
speech therapy.

Fields of linguistics

Computational Linguistics: studies natural language from a computational aspect

Neurolinguistics: studies the biological basis of language and its development.

Mathematical linguistics: studies the mathematical aspects of language

Psycholinguistics: a study of biological and psychological factors that enable humans to acquire,
use and understand language.

Ontogeny linguistics: studies child language acquisition.