computer scientists, logicians and others to address these questions and study the
language using different approaches. Hence there exist numerous definitions of the
term
‗
language‘. One of them is given by Webster‘s New World Dictionary:
language
< L [
lingua,
tongue] 1. human speech or the written symbols for
speech; 2. a) any means of communicating; b) a special set of symbols used in a
computer; 3. the speech of a particular nation; 4. the particular style of verbal
expression characteristic of a person, group, profession, etc.
As we see from the given definition the word
‗
language‘ can be understood
differently, so it is no wonder that there are so many arguments concerning the
problem of defining it.
Linguistics also endeavors to answer the question – what is language and how is
it represented in the mind? Linguists focus on describing and explaining language
and are not concerned with the prescriptive rules of the language. Linguists are not
required to know many languages and linguists are not interpreters. The main goal of
the linguist is to try to discover the universals concerning language. That is, what
elements are common for all languages. The linguist then tries to place these
elements in a theoretical framework that will describe all languages and also predict
what can not occur in a language.
Linguistics is a social science that shares common ground with other social
sciences such as psychology, anthropology, sociology and archaeology. It also may
influence other disciplines such as communication studies and computer science.
Linguistics for the most part though can be considered a cognitive science.
Linguistics includes a number of branches and sub-branches. The fields of
phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and language acquisition are
considered the core fields of study. Below there are described several linguistic
branches.
5
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