Branches of Linguistics

What is linguistics?

    

   Before defining linguistics and its branches, we firstly should acquaint ourselves with the definition of language. If you wonder and search it directly on Google, you can see that it is defined as either spoken or a written way of communication between humans in which the words are used in structured and conventional forms. As can be understood from the definition of language, there is a system behind it: structure. Linguistics, in a general sense, is the study of language structures such as phonetics, morphology, syntax, and grammar.

Branches of linguistics

1. Sociolinguistics
2. Dialectology
3. Psycholinguistics
4. Computational Linguistics
5. Structural Linguistics   

Sociolinguistics

  

    As you can infer from the name itself, this perspective of linguistics focuses on how language is shaped in society. The field, sociolinguistics, tries to understand language by considering people, their culture and expectations, and where and for what purposes the language is used. In short, sociolinguistics observes the relationship between society and language.

Dialectology

   

   

 Dialectology is considered a sub-discipline of sociolinguistics. It is also directly related to people and the context where the language is spoken. In this linguistics field, linguists try to observe what kind of changes that language goes through based on the geographic differences. Thanks to dialectology, the variety within a specific language are revealed.

Psycholinguistics

   

    Psycholinguistics is the study of processes that language undergoes in the brain. Linguists studying in this field dwell on the mental aspects of language. Also, psycholinguistics is a part of cognitive science.

Computational Linguistics

   

   

    Computational linguistics focuses on how humans compute the language and stimulus-response reaction in language. How they interpret and create new utterances as a response... It is the field where mathematics and logic are deeply involved in the studies of the language.

Structural Linguistics

  

    Lastly, structural linguistics, as can be understood, considers the language as a system composed of different but interrelated components; thus, structures. These structures are morphology, syntax, phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics.

Morphology: 

  

    Morphology is a sub-discipline of structural linguistics that deals with how words are combined, their form and structure.

Syntax:

   

    The syntax is a sub-discipline of structural linguistics that focuses on the sentences. It deals with the language at the phrase level.

Phonetics:

  Phonetics is the study of sounds. It tries to analyze how people produce sounds and how they do perceive these sounds.

Phonology:

  

    Phonology deals with patterns of sounds. How different patterns affect the sound... It tries to see what changes arise in the sound patterns in different languages.

Semantics:

  

    Semantics is the study of meaning in the language. Understanding the relationship between the form and the meaning is a problem that causes interest in this field.

Pragmatics:

   Pragmatics is a field of linguistics that investigates the relationship between the context and the language.

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