MODULE ONE

INTRODUCTION TO THE APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Lesson one

LINGUISTICS

Contents
Linguistics definition
Linguistics subdisciplines
Linguistics branches or areas of research

Aims
Define linguistics
Explain each subdiscipline
Describe each linguistics branch

TASK ONE: With your own words or with the aid of an author define linguistics

Linguistics Definition
It is the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of
morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics. Specific branches of linguistics include
sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, historical-
comparative linguistics, and applied linguistics. (Lexico dictionary, 2019)
.
Linguistics is the study of language - how it is put together and how it functions.
Various building blocks of different types and sizes are combined to make up a language.
Sounds are brought together and sometimes when this happens; they change their form
and do interesting things. Words are arranged in a certain order, and sometimes the
beginnings and endings of the words are changed to adjust the meaning. Then the meaning
itself can be affected by the arrangement of words and by the knowledge of the speaker
about what the hearer will understand. Linguistics is the study of all of this. There are
various branches of linguistics. Linguists are people who study linguistics. (SIL, 2019)

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It involves analyzing language form,

language meaning, and language in context. Linguists traditionally analyze human language
by observing an interplay between sound and meaning. Linguistics also deals with the social,
cultural, historical and political factors that influence language, through which linguistic
and language-based context is often determined.
 The earliest activities in the documentation and description of language have been
attributed to the 6th-century-BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini who wrote a formal description
of the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāy (Wikipedia, 2019)

TASK TWO: Make a visual organizer for each subdiscipline

Linguistics Subdisciplines

Phonetics is the study of the sounds of speech. It includes understanding how sounds are
made using the mouth, nose, teeth and tongue, and also understanding how the ear hears
those sounds and can tell them apart. A study of phonetics involves  practicing producing
(sometimes exotic) sounds, and figuring out which sound you heard. The wave form of each
sound can be analyzed with the help of computer programs. In sign language, phonetics
refers to the possible shapes, movements and use of physical space.

Phonology makes use of the phonetics in order to see how sounds or signs are arranged in a
system for each language. In phonology, it matters whether sounds are contrastive or not,
that is, whether substituting one sound for another gives a different, or "contrastive,"
meaning. For example in English, [r] and [l] are two different sounds - and the words
"road" and "load" differ according to which of these sounds is used. But in some languages,
[r] and [l] are variations of the same sound. They could never make a meaning difference in
words that differ by only that sound. Phonologists describe the contrastive consonants
and vowels in a language, and how pronunciation is affected by the position of the sound in
the word and the sounds that are nearby. They are also interested in syllables, phrases,
rhythm, tone, and intonation.

Morphology looks at how individual words are formed from smaller chunks of meaningful
units called morphemes. For example, the English word 'untied' is really made up of three
parts, one refering to the process of reversing an action (un-), one indicating the action of
twisting stringlike things together so they stay (tie), and the last indicating that the
action happened in the past (-d). Many languages have a much more complex way of putting
words together. Morphology interacts in important ways with both phonology (bringing
sounds together can cause them to change) and syntax, which needs to pay attention to
the form of a word when it combines it with other words.

Syntax is the study of how phrases, clauses and sentences are constructed and combined
in particular languages. Writing a grammar requires defining the rules that govern the
structure of the sentences of the language. Such rules involve both the order of words,
and the form of words in their various possible positions. There are common patterns
among even unrelated languages, and many linguists believe this is the result of general
principles which apply to most, if not all, languages. For example, languages where the
direct object generally follows the verb have a lot of things in common, in contrast to the
things in common held by languages in which the direct object generally precedes the verb.

Discourse analysis looks at bigger chunks of language - texts, conversations, stories,

speeches, etc. Different types of these use language differently and there can even be
differences in how a language is used based on the genre. For example, "Once upon a time"
is an appropriate start to a fairy tale, but not to a news story on the evening news.
Discourse features can also show important principles of organization such as which
players in a story have key roles and which just have bit parts.

Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between words, phrases and
other bits of language and on how these words and phrases connect to the world.
Pragmatics is similar, but it involves the study of how speakers of a language use the
language to communicate and accomplish what they want. Pragmatics looks more at the
relationship between speaker and listener which allows assumptions to be made about the
intended message, considering, for example, the way context contributes to meaning. A
classic example is where someone is asked "Do you want some coffee?" Does the reply
"Coffee will keep me awake" mean yes or no? It depends whether the person wants to stay
awake - and the questioner will only understand the intended meaning if they know
whether the person wants to stay awake. 

Historical Linguistics is the study of how languages have changed over time. Some changes
happen because of slow (maybe incremental) changes within the language, such as in
pronunciation or in the meaning of a word. Other changes happen because of contact with
speakers of other languages. The most well know example of this is "borrowing," but
language contact can cause other types of change as well. It can be interesting to compare
phonology, syntax and word lists of similar or geographically close languages to see how
similar they are. Some linguists then use this information to figure out the past of the
languages, such as when two languages split from each other. Combined with other known
facts about the speakers of the language, it can lead to important discoveries about their
history.

Research on language through the sub-branches of historical and evolutionary

linguistics also focuses on how languages change and grow, particularly over an
extended period of time.
TASK THREE: What linguistic research or researches could be done in each area of
linguistics research?

Areas of Research or Branches

Eco linguistics
Eco linguistics explores the role of language in the life-sustaining interactions of humans,
other species and the physical environment. The first aim is to develop linguistic theories
which see humans not only as part of society, but also as part of the larger ecosystems
that life depends on. The second aim is to show how linguistics can be used to address key
ecological issues, from climate change and biodiversity loss to environmental justice.

Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the study of society and language. Sociolinguists may use surveys to
examine in which contexts a language is used (e.g. market, home, school, workplace) and
the attitudes to each language (particularly in multilingual contexts). They may look at
ways that variation in a particular language correlates with social factors such as speaker
age, ethnic identity, location, etc.

Sociolinguistics is the study of how language is shaped by social factors. This sub-
discipline focuses on the synchronic approach of linguistics, and looks at how a language in
general, or a set of languages, display variation and varieties at a given point in time. The
study of language variation and the different varieties of language through dialects,
registers, and idiolects can be tackled through a study of style, as well as through analysis
of discourse. Sociolinguists research both style and discourse in language, as well as the
theoretical factors that are at play between language and society.

Developmental linguistics
Developmental linguistics is the study of the development of linguistic ability in individuals,
particularly the acquisition of language in childhood. Some of the questions that
developmental linguistics looks into is how children acquire different languages, how adults
can acquire a second language, and what the process of language acquisition is.

Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and function of language in our
behavior, how Do Our Minds Understand and Produce Language?, language Disorders,
speech Production, speech Perception, lexical access, sentence Processing,
Experimental Methods in Psycholinguistics
Neurolinguistics
Neurolinguistics is the study of the structures in the human brain that underlie grammar
and communication. Researchers are drawn to the field from a variety of backgrounds,
bringing along a variety of experimental techniques as well as widely varying theoretical
perspectives. Much work in neurolinguistics is informed by models
in psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics, and is focused on investigating how the
brain can implement the processes that theoretical and psycholinguistics propose are
necessary in producing and comprehending language. Neurolinguists study the physiological
mechanisms by which the brain processes information related to language, and evaluate
linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, using aphasiology (study of language impairment
usually resulting from brain damage), brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer
modelling. Amongst the structures of the brain involved in the mechanisms of
neurolinguistics, the cerebellum which contains the highest numbers of neurons has a
major role in terms of predictions required to produce language

Applied linguistics
Linguists are largely concerned with finding and describing the generalities and varieties
both within particular languages and among all languages. Applied linguistics takes the
results of those findings and "applies" them to other areas. Linguistic research is
commonly applied to areas such as language education, lexicography, translation, language
planning, which involves governmental policy implementation related to language use,
and natural language processing.

Applied linguists actually focus on making sense of and engineering solutions for
real-world linguistic problems, and not literally "applying" existing technical knowledge
from linguistics. Moreover, they commonly apply technical knowledge from multiple
sources, such as sociology (e.g., conversation analysis) and anthropology. (Constructed
language fits under Applied linguistics.)

Today, computers are widely used in many areas of applied linguistics. Speech

synthesis and speech recognition use phonetic and phonemic knowledge to provide voice
interfaces to computers. Applications of computational linguistics in machine
translation, computer-assisted translation, and natural language processing are areas of
applied linguistics that have come to the forefront. Their influence has had an effect on
theories of syntax and semantics, as modelling syntactic and semantic theories on
computers constraints.

Linguistic analysis is a sub-discipline of applied linguistics used by many

governments to verify the claimed nationality of people seeking asylum who do not hold the
necessary documentation to prove their claim. This often takes the form of
an interview by personnel in an immigration department. Depending on the country, this
interview is conducted either in the asylum seeker's native language through
an interpreter or in an international lingua franca like English. Australia uses the former
method, while Germany employs the latter; the Netherlands uses either method depending
on the languages involved. Tape recordings of the interview then undergo language analysis,
which can be done either by private contractors or within a department of the
government. In this analysis, linguistic features of the asylum seeker are used by analysts
to make a determination about the speaker's nationality. The reported findings of the
linguistic analysis can play a critical role in the government's decision on the refugee
status of the asylum seeker.

Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication,
signs, and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems, including the study of
how meaning is constructed and understood. Semioticians often do not restrict themselves
to linguistic communication when studying the use of signs but extend the meaning of
"sign" to cover all kinds of cultural symbols. Nonetheless, semiotic disciplines closely
related to linguistics are literary studies, discourse analysis, text linguistics,
and philosophy of language. Semiotics, within the linguistics paradigm, is the study of the
relationship between language and culture.

Historically, Edward Sapir and Ferdinand De Saussure's structuralist theories

influenced the study of signs extensively until the late part of the 20th century, but later,
post-modern and post-structural thought, through language philosophers including Jacques
Derrida, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, and others, have also been a considerable
influence on the discipline in the late part of the 20th century and early 21st
century. These theories emphasize the role of language variation, and the idea of
subjective usage, depending on external elements like social and cultural factors, rather
than merely on the interplay of formal elements.

Language documentation
Language documentation combines anthropological inquiry (into the history and culture of
language) with linguistic inquiry, in order to describe languages and their
grammars. Lexicography involves the documentation of words that form a vocabulary. Such
a documentation of a linguistic vocabulary from a particular language is usually compiled in
a dictionary. Computational linguistics is concerned with the statistical or rule-based
modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. Specific knowledge of
language is applied by speakers during the act of translation and interpretation, as well as
in language education – the teaching of a second or foreign language. Policy makers work
with governments to implement new plans in education and teaching which are based on
linguistic research.

Since the inception of the discipline of linguistics, linguists have been concerned
with describing and analysing previously undocumented languages. Starting with Franz
Boas in the early 1900s, this became the main focus of American linguistics until the rise
of formal linguistics in the mid-20th century. This focus on language documentation was
partly motivated by a concern to document the rapidly disappearing languages of
indigenous peoples. The ethnographic dimension of the Boasian approach to language
description played a role in the development of disciplines such
as sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, and linguistic anthropology, which investigate
the relations between language, culture, and society.

The emphasis on linguistic description and documentation has also gained

prominence outside North America, with the documentation of rapidly dying indigenous
languages becoming a primary focus in many university programmes in linguistics. Language
description is a work-intensive endeavour, usually requiring years of field work in the
language concerned, so as to equip the linguist to write a sufficiently accurate reference
grammar. Further, the task of documentation requires the linguist to collect a substantial
corpus in the language in question, consisting of texts and recordings, both sound and
video, which can be stored in an accessible format within open repositories, and used for
further research.

Translation
The sub-field of translation includes the translation of written and spoken texts across
media, from digital to print and spoken. To translate literally means to transmute the
meaning from one language into another. Translators are often employed by organizations
such as travel agencies and governmental embassies to facilitate communication between
two speakers who do not know each other's language. Translators are also employed to
work within computational linguistics setups like Google Translate, which is an automated
program to translate words and phrases between any two or more given languages.
Translation is also conducted by publishing houses, which convert works of writing from
one language to another in order to reach varied audiences. Academic translators
specialize in or are familiar with various other disciplines such as technology, science, law,
economics, etc.

Clinical linguistics
Clinical linguistics is the application of linguistic theory to the field of speech-language
pathology. Speech language pathologists work on corrective measures to
treat communication and swallowing disorders.
Chaika (1990) showed that people with schizophrenia who display speech disorders like
rhyming inappropriately have attentional dysfunction, as when a patient was shown a color
chip and then asked to identify it, responded "looks like clay. Sounds like gray. Take you
for a roll in the hay. Heyday, May Day." The color chip was actually clay-colored, so his
first response was correct.'

However, most people suppress or ignore words which rhyme with what they've said
unless they are deliberately producing a pun, poem or rap. Even then, the speaker shows
connection between words chosen for rhyme and an overall meaning in discourse. People
with schizophrenia with speech dysfunction show no such relation between rhyme and
reason. Some even produce stretches of gibberish combined with recognizable words.

Computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is the study of linguistic issues in a way that is "computationally
responsible", i.e., taking careful note of computational consideration of algorithmic
specification and computational complexity, so that the linguistic theories devised can be
shown to exhibit certain desirable computational properties and their implementations.
Computational linguists also work on computer language and software development.

Evolutionary linguistics
Evolutionary linguistics is the study of the emergence of the language faculty
through human evolution, and also the application of evolutionary theory to the study of
cultural evolution among different languages. It is also a study of the dispersal of various
languages across the globe, through movements among ancient communities. [77] Evolutionary
linguistics is a highly interdisciplinary field, including linguists, biologists, neuroscientists,
psychologists, mathematicians, and others. By shifting the focus of investigation in
linguistics to a comprehensive scheme that embraces the natural sciences, it seeks to yield
a framework by which the fundamentals of language are understood.

Forensic linguistics
Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic analysis to forensics. Forensic analysis
investigates the style, language, lexical use, and other linguistic and grammatical features
used in the legal context to provide evidence in courts of law. Forensic linguists have also
used their expertise in the framework of criminal cases.

Biolinguistics, which studies the biology and evolution of language;

LINKOGRAPHY

Lexico dictionary (2019). Linguistics. Obtenido de

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/linguistics

SIL (2019). Linguistics. Obtenido de

https://www.sil.org/linguistics/what-linguistics

Wikipedia, (2019). Linguistics. Obtenido de

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics