Linguistics, Language, and Branches of Linguistics

What is Linguistics?
Linguistics is a study about language, including language form, language meaning, and language sounds.

Another definition about linguistics:

• Linguistics is the study of language and of the way languages work. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/linguistics)
• Linguistics is the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/linguistics)
• The study of the nature, structure, and variation of language. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/linguistics)

What is Language?

Before we learn about the branches of linguistics, we must know what is language. Language is a set of ways or tools used by humans and animals to communicate each other. In term of linguistics, language is the usage of words and other elements according to specific rules used by people to communicate.

Another definition about language:

• Language is the system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and feelings to each other. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/language)
• Language is a human system of communication that uses arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, and/or written symbols. (http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/languageterm.htm)
• Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols. (Edward Sapir, Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921)

Branches of Linguistics

Emphasizes of language (according to Wikipedia about Linguistics):

• Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sound production and perception.
• Phonology is the study of sounds as abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning.
• Morphology is the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified.
• Syntax is the study of how words combine to form grammatical phrases and sentences.
• Semantics is the the study of the meaning of words and fixed word combinations, and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences.
• Pragmatics is the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts.

Other perspectives of language (according to Wikipedia about the outline of linguistics):

• Historical Linguistics is the study of language change over time.
• Sociolinguistics is the study of variation in language and its relationship with social factors.
• Psycholinguistics is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language.
• Ethnolinguistics is the study about relationship between language and culture, and the way different ethnic groups perceive the world.
• Dialectology is the study about the variations of language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features.
• Computational Linguistics is the study of language from a computational perspective which performed by computer scientists who had specialized in the application of computers to the processing of a natural language.
• Neurolinguistics is the study of the structures of language in the human brain that underlie grammar and communication.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_linguistics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_linguistics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectology
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnolinguistics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_linguistics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonology

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Tulisan ini dibuat pada tanggal 9 Oktober 2016, dan direvisi pada tanggal 10 November 2016.