THE DEFINITION AND BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICs

The Definition of Linguistics.

Linguistics is study of language.

Linguistics is concerned with human language as a universal and recognizable part of human behavior
and of the human abilities. Raja T. Nasr (1984).

Linguistics is competence as being a persons potential to speak a language, and his or her linguistics
performance as the realization of that potential. Monica Crabtree & Joyce Powers (1994).

The Branches of linguistics

1. General linguistic generally describes the concepts and categories of a particular language or among
all language. It also provides analyzed theory of the language.

Descriptive linguistic describes or gives the data to confirm or refute the theory of particular language
explained generally.

2. Micro linguistic is narrower view. It is concerned internal view of language itself (structure of language
systems) without related to other sciences and without related how to apply it in daily life. Some fields
of micro linguistic:

a. Phonetics, the study of the physical properties of sounds of human language

b. Phonology, the study of sounds as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish
meaning

c. Morphology, the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified

d. Syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences

e. Semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations
(phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences

f. Pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used (literally, figuratively, or otherwise) in
communicative acts

g. Discourse analysis, the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)

h. Applied linguistic is the branch of linguistic that is most concerned with application of the concepts in
everyday life, including language-teaching.
3. Macro linguistic is broadest view of language. It is concerned external view of language itself with
related to other sciences and how to apply it in daily life. Some fields of micro linguistic:

a. Stylistics, the study of linguistic factors that place a discourse in context.

b. Developmental linguistics, the study of the development of linguistic ability in an individual,

particularly the acquisition of language in childhood.

c. Historical linguistics or Diachronic linguistics, the study of language change.

d. Language geography, the study of the spatial patterns of languages.

e. Evolutionary linguistics, the study of the origin and subsequent development of language.

f. Psycholinguistics, the study of the cognitive processes and representations underlying language use.

g. Sociolinguistics, the study of social patterns and norms of linguistic variability.

h. Clinical linguistics, the application of linguistic theory to the area of Speech-Language Pathology.

i. Neurolinguistics, the study of the brain networks that underlie grammar and communication.

j. Biolinguistics, the study of natural as well as human-taught communication systems in animals

compared to human language.

Computational linguistics, the study of computational implementations of linguistic structures.

Branches of Linguistics (with Definitions, Explanations and Examples)

Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics, one of the branches of linguistics, as a branch of cognitive science, investigates how
we acquire language, how we produce language and how we acquire language. In other words,
Psycholinguistics examines language acquisition, language production and language comprehension. It is
the study mental aspects of language and speech. It looks critically into how we represent and process
language in the brain.

Alan Garnham, in his book Psycholinguistics: Central Topics, defines Psycholinguistics as “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.”
Psycholinguistics is a branch of both linguistics and psychology. The American psychologist, Jacob Robert
Kantor introduced the term ‘Psycholinguistics’ in his book, An Objective Psychology of Grammar,
published in 1936.

The two key questions that Psycholinguistics seeks to answer are:

What knowledge of language do we need to use language?

What are the cognitive processes (perception, memory, and thinking) involved in the ordinary use of
language? (See Psychology of Language by David Carroll)

Semantics

Semantics, one of the major branches of linguistics, is the study of meaning. This branch of linguistics
has a lot of definitions as many scholars have advanced; but basically, Semantics has to do with the
functions of signs in language. Semantics differentiates between two major concepts on which meaning
rests. These are Sense and Reference. According to linguists, sense has to do with the how a word
relates to other words in a language while reference deals with how a word relates to real word
concepts. In other words, the sense of a word has to do with its linguistic boundaries in a particular
language and the reference of a word has to do with which concepts it refers to in the real world.
Sometimes, it is problematic to distinguish between sense and reference because of the biases in
languages and the varying linguistic boundaries between conceptual features of language. One of the
interests of Semantics is the study of meaning in terms of words and sentence relationships. We refer to
this as lexical relations. Some semantic relationship between words include the following:

Synonym

(See Linguistic and Stylistic Concepts You Should Know)

Paronym

This is a type of synonym. It has to do with words associated with meanings which also have great
similarities in form. For example:
Affect/effect

Aural/oral

Ingenuous/ingenious

Access/assess

Academic/academia

Believe/belief

Imminent/Immanent

Antonyms

Antonyms are words that have the opposite meaning. They are words that mean the opposite of
another word. When we talk of oppositeness, we are talking about logical category. Antonyms have 3
types:

Complementary pairs

These are antonyms in which when one quality is present, it means the other quality is absent. The two
qualities involved are mutually exclusive. There can be no middle ground or an intermediate state. For
example:

male/female

single/ married

not pregnant/pregnant

off/on

Gradable pairs

These are antonyms that give room for gradual transition between two poles. In this case, there is a
possibility of making a comparison such as:
a little/a lot

good/bad

hot/ cold

wet/dry

Relational opposites

For these antonyms, they share the same semantic features but the focus or direction are in reversion.
For example:

tie/untie

buy/sell

give/receive

teacher/pupil

father/son

mother/daughter

dependent/independent

Homonyms

A homonym is a word that has the same spelling and the same pronunciation as another word but which
has a meaning different from it. In other words, a way to identify a homonym is to look out for words
with the same spellings and same pronunciation but which usually have different meanings. (Read more
on homonyms)

Homophones
A homophone is a word that has the same pronunciation with another word but which has a different
spelling and meaning. (See Homophones in English)

Homographs

A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another word but which has a different meaning
and a different pronunciation. (See Homographs in English)

Other lexical relations include: polysemy, hyponymy, taxonyms, holonyms, meronyms, figures of speech
or tropes, etc. it is important to note that we can describe all semantic relationships in all languages
based on similarity or contiguity.