INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS Flashcards
the scientific study of language
LINGUISTICS
The etymology of ‘Linguistics’
Latin words: Lingua (Language) and Istics (Knowledge/Science).
The branches related to the internal structure of
language
Micro Linguistics
The smallest unit of sound that makes a meaningful
difference in a language
Phoneme
The study of individual speech sounds
Phonetics
The study of sounds and speech; the study of phonemes
Phonology
A string of one or more phonemes that makes up the
smallest units of meaning in a language.
Morpheme
The study of words and other meaningful units of language like suffixes and prefixes
Morphology
The set of rules of a language by which we construct sentences; the study of sentences and phrases, or how people put words into the right order so that they can communicate meaningfully
Syntax
The meaning of words and phrases; the meaning of sentences.
Semantics
The study of the use of language(s); studies how the context of a sentence contributes to meaning.
Pragmatics
The major branch of linguistics which further divides into various branches
Macro Linguistics
A branch of linguistics that is involved in the identification, investigation, and providing solutions for real-life issues relating to language.
Applied Linguistics
The branch of linguistics that deals with the effect
of society or social factors on language
Sociolinguistics
An interdisciplinary branch of linguistics which is concerned with the study and perception of spoken and written language from a computational perspective.
Computational Linguistics
Deals with the psychological aspects of language.
This is one of the branches of linguistics that is involved in the study of the different psychological factors that control the processes of acquiring, understanding and use of language by human beings.
Psycholinguistics
One of the sought-after branches of linguistics that is involved in the study of identifying similar and dissimilar properties between different languages of a common origin.
Comparative Linguistics
Studies the evolution and changes in languages through periods of time.
Historical Linguistics
Sometimes defined as the analysis of language
‘beyond the sentence’. This contrasts with types of analysis more typical of modern linguistics, which is chiefly concerned with the study of grammar
Discourse Analysis
The study of language at a given time. It studies a
language at one point in time. It is also called descriptive linguistics.
Synchronic Linguistics
Studies the language with the historical perspective to look over a language over a period of time along with
changes that occurred in it.
Diachronic Linguistics
The French word for language that contains all the rules and conventions regarding the arrangement of sounds, words, phrases, and
sentences.
Langue
The actual use of language by people in speech or writing
Parole
A person’s intuitive knowledge. It is a set of principles.
Competence
A person’s intuitive knowledge. It is a set of principles.
Competence
What a speaker has done.
Performance
The relation of the units within the sentences.
Syntagmatic
a philosophical and historical framework of
a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and organizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated.
Paradigmatic
