What is linguistics?

Language Variation

Describes the relationship between the use of linguistic forms and factors such as Geography, social class...

Language and Social Interaction.

It is the province of language and its function in the real world.

Subfields

Pragmatics

Looks at how context affects meaning.

Discourse Analysis

Examines the way in whichsentences relate in larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written text.

Ethnography of Communication.

Uses the tools of anthropology to study verbal interaction in its social setting.

It is the study of the relationship between linguistic and psychological behavio

draw from theories of language acquisition to develop first and second language teaching methodologies and to implement successful literacy programs.

Phonetics

Study of the sounds of language

Phonology

analyzing how sounds function in a given language or dialect.

Morphology

Study of the structure of words

Syntax

Study of the structure of sentences.

Semantics

Study of meaning in language.

The Traditional

What we are usually taught in school.

Structural

An independent network of formal systems.

The generative/transformationa

the constructions of a language by linguistic transformations and phrase structures

The study of how humans acquire language begins with the study of child language acquisition.

Involves speaking, understanding, reading, and writing, and therefore includes both the production of verbal output and reception of the output of others.