What is Language and Linguistics?

Human Language

1. What is Language? Lecture # 1 Instructor: Bibi Halima [email protected]

2. Language: WHAT & WHY

3. DEFINITIONS BY LINGUISTS

4. “Language is the dress of our thoughts”

5. “The possession of language perhaps more than any other attribute, distinguishes humans from rest of the animal world”

6. BUT wait, I have a bird that talks…..

7. Sorry, talking birds and talking dogs do not really represent a language because they are stimulus-bound responses and do not represent the creative aspect that is unique to humans alone.

8. WHAT IS LINGUISTICS? Scientific Study of Language

9. Branches of Linguistics Microlinguistics Phonetics The study of speech sounds; how they are produced in the vocal tract (articulatory phonetics), how they are transmitted through the air (acoustic phonetics), and how they are perceived by the listener (auditory phonetics). Phonology The study of the sound system of language; how the particular sounds used in each language form an integrated system for encoding information and how such systems differ from one language to another.

10. Morphology The study of the way in which words are constructed out of smaller units which have a meaning or grammatical function, for example the word friendly is constructed from friend and the adjective-forming – ly . Lexicography The compiling of dictionaries. Lexicography could be seen as a branch of applied linguistics

11. Syntax The study of how words combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the formation of sentences. Semantics The study of meaning; how words and sentences are related to the real or imaginary objects they refer to and the situations they describe.

12. Pragmatics The study of the use of language in communication, particularly the relationships between sentences and the contexts and situations in which they are used such as time, place, social relationship between speaker and hearer, and speaker’s assumptions about the hearer’s belief.

13. Discourse Analysis The study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews etc.

14. MACROLIGUISTICS Sociolinguistics Psycholinguistics Stylistics Applied Linguistics Computational Linguistics

15. QUESTIONS