ENG502 Grand Quiz Preparation

10. Intra-disciplinary Branches of Linguistics

•  Language is a complex phenomenon and most important activity of human life.
•  Linguistics deals with complex nature, origin, evolution, history and all other elements of it. So, it has become wide subject of serious contemplation.
•  The rapid development of linguistics has given birth to many branches.
•  An ordinary student of linguistics finds himself/herself into the troubled water as to how to deal with so many branches and ups and downs of the subject.
•  Theoretical linguistics: deals with concrete theories presented by scholars of language about various aspects concerning to linguistics.
•  Applied linguist: highlights the various processes of evolution and gradual development of linguistics, which have been taken from year to year.
•  Historical linguistics: is concerned with constructing theories of language or languages, or with developing linguistic theory.
•  Descriptive Linguistics: deals with description and elaboration of the theories presented by language scholars.
•  Applied Linguistics: Applied linguistics deals with application of some fundamental issues relating language. In this branch of linguistics, linguists after pain taking research apply some set formulas and these formulas pave the way for new researches, inquiries and discoveries in the subject.
•  General linguistics is the branch of linguistics that is devoted to the study of the theoretical bases for describing language and methods of investigating linguistic phenomena.
•  General linguistics also studies the connection between linguistics, and other fields of learning, including dialectical materialism, logic, and psychology.
•  In addition, it studies the connection between linguistics and historical materialism, inasmuch as the development of language is conditioned by the structure of society and social processes.
•  General linguistics also studies the relationship between linguistics and semiotics, as well as the connection among linguistics, physiology, and acoustics.
•  Descriptive Linguistics is concerned with the description and analysis of the ways in which a language operates and is used by a given set of speakers at a given time.
•  This time may be the present or the past at a given time.
•  The language is described what may precede it or follow it.
•  Descriptive linguistics emphasizes in modern linguistics as it is the fundamental aspect of the study of language.
•  It is contrasted with prescriptive linguistics of earlier times because it deals with the description of how language actually works rather than how it should be used. In descriptive linguistics we describe the language systematically at all levels. We analyze and describe the structure of the language.
•  Modern linguistics is based on a structural approach to language, as exemplified in the work of Bloomfield and others.
•  The terms synchronic and diachronic given by Saussure are used to distinguish between the descriptions of a language at a given time.
•  ‘A synchronic description is non-historic; a diachronic description traces the historical development if a language’ (Lyons 1981).
•  If we study the changes that have taken place in English from Old English to Middle English, it is a diachronic or historical study. If we study the structure of English as it exists today and describe it without reference to how it was used in the past, it is synchronic study.
•  Descriptivism is the belief that description is more significant or important to teach, study, and practice than prescription.
•  Comparative linguistics is the study of similarities and differences between languages, in particular the comparison of related languages with a view to reconstructing forms in their lost parent languages.
•  Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.
•  Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative linguistics aims to construct language families, to reconstruct proto-languages, and specify the changes that have resulted
•  Proto-Indo-European is one out of many language families.
•  The proto-languages were reconstructed by the comparative method which is hypothetical.
•  A reconstruction may have predictive power.
•  Saussure's proposal was that the Indo-European consonant system contained laryngeals, a type of consonant attested in no Indo-European language known at the time.
•  We can find certain Cognate in sister languages of Proto-Indo-European group.
•  Common ancestor in the Italic branch of Indo-European:  Spanish: madre, padre, amigo
•  Italian: madre, padre, amico Common ancestor in English and German  English: mother, father and friend  German: mutter, vater and freund
•  Comparative linguistics like historical linguistics studies law operating in language change and in the formation and development of languages; hence this type of study is related to descriptive linguistics.
•  Historical linguistics, also called diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include to:  describe and account for observed changes in particular languages  reconstruct the pre-history of languages and to determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families develop general theories about how and why language changes  describe the history of speech communities  study the history of words i.e., etymology  describe and account for observed changes in particular languages  develop general theories about how and why language changes

11. Inter-disciplinary Branches of Linguistics

•  ‘Sociolinguistics’ is generally used for the study of the relationship between language and society.
•  This is a broad area of investigation that developed through the interaction of linguistics with a number of other academic disciplines.
•  It has strong connections with anthropology through the study of language and culture, and with sociology through the investigation of the role language plays in the organization of social groups and institutions.
•  It is also tied to social psychology, particularly with regard to how attitudes and perceptions are expressed and how in-group and out-group behaviours are identified.
•  We use all these connections when we try to analyze language from a social perspective.
•  Psycholinguistics is the study of the mental aspects of language and speech.
•  It is primarily concerned with the ways in which language is represented and processed in the brain.
•  A branch of linguistics and psychology, psycholinguistics is part of the field of cognitive science.
•  American psychologist Jacob Robert Kantor in his book An Objective Psychology of Grammar (1936) introduced the term psycholinguistics.
•  ‘Psycholinguistics is the study of the mental mechanisms that make it possible for people to use language. It is a scientific discipline whose goal is a coherent theory of the way in which language is produced and understood.’
•  However, there are two key questions to answer.
•  The first theory states that all language must be learned by the child.
•  The second view states that the abstract system of language cannot be learned, but that humans possess an innate language faculty, or an access to what has been called universal grammar.
•  The view that language must be learned was especially popular before 1960 and is well represented by the mentalistic theories of Jean Piaget and the empiricist Rudolf Carnap.
•  behaviourism (B.F. Skinner,1957) puts forth the point of view that language is a behaviour shaped by conditioned response, hence it is learned.
•  Definition of linguistic geography: Local or regional variations of a language or dialect studied as a field of knowledge — also called dialect geography.
•  Language geography is the branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language(s) or its constituent elements.
•  There are two principal fields of study within the geography of language: ‘geography of languages’, which deals with the distribution through history and space of languages, and