Lec. Tuncer Can,
Linguistics studies the language, it is the “scientific” study of human language.
What is language?
Deals with the structure of language
Linguists describe and explain/ don’t prescribe
Try to discover universals, put the elements into theoretical framework
Phonetics (production of sounds), Phonlogy( the use of sounds), Morphology(word formation),Syntax(sentence and phrase formation),Semantics(meaning),Pragmatics (effect of situation),Theoretical linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Psychological Linguistics, Applied Linguistics(teaching, translation),computational Linguistics), Neurolinguistics, Anthropological Linguistics.
Scientific Method includes 3 characteristics:
a) explicitness- being clear,being consistent, terminology: metalanguage,end and means of research
b) systmaticity- highly organized way of research :
1) selection of aspects to be studied first,
2) standardised, specific procedures to study,
3) strict testing of hypothesis, beliefs, guesses.
c) objectivity- a critical approach, open-mindedness, using valid, acceptable standardised rocedures, deals with language of every period, speaker and community.
3 Approaches to study language
Language as a Human Phenomenon : psychology describes language as a human behaviour, phisical movements and acts, how we acquire the language, cognitive system, comprehension and production of speech.
Language as a Social Phenomenon : what happens in conversation, language is posssession of social group, relates, interacts, cooperates, personalities, beliefs, attitudes, knowledge of the world, social status; where, why, when, what happened before and after.
Language as a Formal System: language as system, aims to explain the structure, classifies
Does it belong to social or natural sciences ?
Lingustics is theoretical, empirical, descriptive
Micro-linguistics : until utterance
Macro-linguistics: beyond utterance, context, discourse.
Synchronic study : today of languages
Diachronic study : historical development of languages
The Linguist
Makes no value judgements about languages, language varieties- sociolects, pidgin&creole, baby & foreigner talk; acknowledges the existance of written&spoken form; contrasts&compares system
Dichotomy of language : syntagmatic(re-load)¶digmatic((he,she,it,am,is,are);
langue&parole;system&use;form&function;code&message;competence&performance; theoretical&applied; Micro&Macro; Diachronic&Synchronic
The future of Linguistics research- 1) branches of specialization ; 2)study language as a whole ”system of systems”
Language is speech, not writing; language is what native speakers say,languages are different, “Teach the language not about the language”
Consider social and situational context, intention and percdeptions, no isolation from user and context;
Provide satisfactory conceptual representation of language to be applied to describe different languages.
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