linguistics - the science of language, study it, and in the complex (as a system), and some of its properties and characteristics: the origins and the historical past, the quality and functional features, as well as the general laws of structure and dynamic development of all languages in the world.
Linguistics as science of language
main object of study of this science - natural language of mankind, its nature and essence, and the subject - the laws of the structure, functioning, change languages and methods of their study.
Although linguistics is now based on the significant theoretical and empirical basis, it should be remembered that the linguistics - is a relatively young science (in Russia - from XVIII - nach.XIX century).Nevertheless, it is an interesting look predecessors - addicted to the study of language, many philosophers and grammarians, so their works present an interesting observation and reasoning (eg, the philosophers of ancient Greece, Voltaire and Diderot).
terminological digression
word "linguistics" has not always been the undisputed naming national linguistic science.Synonymous number of terms "linguistics - linguistics - linguistics" has its own semantic and historical features.
Initially, before the revolution of 1917, in the scientific revolution was common term linguistics.In Soviet times, was dominated linguistics (eg, college courses and textbooks to it began to be called "Introduction to Linguistics"), and its "non-canonical" options found new semantics.So, linguistics refers to the pre-revolutionary scientific tradition and linguistics point to Western ideas and techniques, such as structuralism.According to TVShmelev in the article "Memory term: Linguistics, Language, Linguistics" is a semantic contradiction of Russian linguistics are not decided so far, as there are strict grading, the laws of compatibility and derivation (linguistics → linguistic → linguistically) and a tendency to expand the meaning of Linguistics (learning a foreign language).Thus, the researcher compares the name of linguistic disciplines in the current high school standard, names departments, publications, "stand out" sections of linguistics in the curriculum "Introduction to Linguistics" and "General Linguistics";Division of RAS 'Institute of Linguistics "journal" Linguistics "book" Essays in Linguistics ";Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, "Computational Linguistics", the magazine "New in linguistics» ...
Main sections of Linguistics: general characteristics
science of language "breaks" into many disciplines, the most important of which are the following main areas of Linguistics likegeneral and particular, theoretical and applied, descriptive and historical.
In addition, linguistic disciplines are grouped based on the tasks assigned to them and on the basis of the research object.So, traditionally divided into the following major sections of linguistics:
- sections devoted to the study of the internal structure of the language system, its levels of organization (eg, morphology and syntax);
- sections describe the dynamics of the historical development of language in general and the formation of its separate levels (historical phonetics, historical grammar);
- areas considering the functional quality of the language and its role in society (sociolinguistics, dialectology);
- Forums studying complex problems on the border of different sciences and disciplines (psycholinguistics, computational linguistics);
- applied disciplines to solve practical problems that confronts the scientific community linguistics (lexicography, paleography).
General Linguistics and private
Division of the science of language on general and specialized field shows how the global goal of scientific interests of researchers.
important scientific issues to consider general linguistics are:
- essence of language, the mystery of its origin and the laws of historical development;
- basic laws of devices and functions of the language in the world as a community of people;
- ratio categories "language" and "thinking", "language", "objective reality";
- emergence and improvement of the letters;
- typology of languages, the structure of their language levels, functioning and historical development of grammatical classes and categories;
- classification of all languages in the world, and many others.
One of the important international issues, which is trying to solve general linguistics - is the creation and use of new means of communication between people (artificial international languages).The development of this direction - a priority for interlinguistics.
run by private Linguistics is the study of the structure, functioning and historical development of a particular language (Russian, Czech, Chinese), a number of separate languages or whole families of related languages at once (for example, only the Latin - French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and more.dr.).Private linguistics uses a synchronous method (otherwise - descriptive) and diachronic (historical) research.
General Linguistics in relation to the private is a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of any scientific problems associated with the study of the state of facts and processes in a particular language.In turn, private linguistics - a discipline that provides general linguistics empirical data, based on an analysis which can make the theoretical conclusions.
External and internal linguistics
device of modern science of language represent the two-part structure - these are the main areas of linguistics, mikrolingvistika (or internal linguistics) and ekstralingvistika (external linguistics).
Mikrolingvistika focuses on the inner side of the language - the sound, morphology, vocabulary and syntax tiers.
Ekstralingvistika draws attention to the enormous diversity of the interaction language: a society of human thought, communicative, emotional, aesthetic and other aspects of life.At its base are born contrastive analysis techniques and Interdisciplinary Studies (psychological, ethnolinguistics, paralinguistics, cultural linguistics, etc.).
Synchronic (descriptive) and diachronic (historical) linguistics
The sphere of research of descriptive linguistics is the state language or its individual levels, the facts and phenomena in their state at a given point in time, a certain stage of development.Most often pay attention to the current state, more rarely - on the state of the previous time (for example, the language of the Russian chronicles of the XIII century).
Historical Linguistics deals with the study of various linguistic facts and phenomena in terms of their dynamics and evolution.The researchers have the goal to capture the changes that occur in the studied languages (for example, a comparison of the dynamics of the literary norms of the Russian language in XVII, XIX and XX centuries).
linguistic description of language levels
Linguistics studies phenomena related to the various tiers of the overall language system.Accepted provide the following language levels: phonemic, lexical-semantic, morphological, syntactic.According to these levels the following main areas of linguistics.
On phonemic level of the language of science are connected following:
- phonetics (describes the variety of speech sounds in language, their articulation and acoustic characteristics);
- phonology (studying the phoneme as the smallest unit of speech, its phonological characteristics and functioning);
- morphophonology (considering the phonemic structure of morphemes, qualitative and quantitative changes of phonemes in the morphemes identical, their variability, lays down rules on the compatibility of morpheme boundaries).
lexical level of language explore the following topics:
- lexicology (studying the word as a basic unit of the language and the whole word as a linguistic richness, explores the structural features of the language, its expansion and development, sources of vocabulary of language);
- semasiology (examines the lexical meaning of the word, semantic matching words and concepts expressed by them or said they object, phenomenon of objective reality);
- onomasiology (considering issues related to the problem of the nomination in the language, with the structuring of the objects of the world in the process of learning).
morphological level language study the following subjects:
- morphology (word describes the structural units, the total morphemic structure of words and forms of inflection, parts of speech, their characteristics, the spirit and principles of the separation);
- derivation (studying the construction of words, the method of reproduction, the laws of the structure and formation of words, and especially its performance in language and speech).
Syntax describes the syntax level (studying the cognitive structures and processes recheporozhdeniya: mechanisms of compounds in complex structures of words phrases and sentences, types of structural relationships of words and sentences, linguistic processes by which there is a formation of speech).
Comparative and typological linguistics
Comparative linguistics deals with the systematic approach to comparing the device for at least two or more languages, regardless of their genetic relationship.There can be compared and certain milestones in the development of one and the same language - for example, the system of case endings of our contemporary Russian language and the language of the times of Ancient Rus.
typological linguistics examines the structure and function of language in raznostrukturnyh "timeless" dimension (panhronichesky aspect).This allows you to identify common (universal) features inherent in human language at all.
language universals
General Linguistics in their research captures universal language - the language patterns common to all languages in the world (the absolute universals) or a significant part of the languages (statistical universals).
as absolute universals identified the following features:
- for all languages of the world is characterized by the presence of vowels and consonants of stops.
- speech stream is divided into syllables, which are necessarily members for a complex sound "vowel + consonant."
- proper names and pronouns is available in any language.
- to the grammatical system of language characterized by nouns and verbs.
- Each language has a set of words to convey human feelings, emotions or commands.
- If a language has the category of case or kind, it is always present and the category number.
- If a noun in the language opposed by the nature, the same can be observed in the category of pronouns.
- All people in the world make out his thoughts for the purpose of communication in the proposal.
- coordinative bond and unions are present in all languages of the world.
- Any language in the world has a comparative designs, phraseological expressions, metaphors.
- Universal taboo and symbols of the sun and moon.
to statistical universals include the following observation:
- In most languages of the world there are at least two different vowels (the exception - the Australian Arunta language).
- In most languages of the world pronouns vary in number which is not less than two (an exception - the language of the inhabitants of the island of Java).
- Almost all languages have nasal consonants (exception - some languages of West Africa).
Applied Linguistics
This section deals with the science of language development the immediate solution of problems related to language practice:
- improving methodological tools in teaching the language as a mother tongue and as a foreign language;
- creation of teach-yourself books, manuals, training, and specialized dictionaries, applied at different levels and stages of teaching;
- training techniques to speak and write beautifully, accurately, clearly and convincingly (rhetoric);
- ability to navigate the language rules, the mastery of spelling (of speech, orthoepy, spelling and punctuation);
- improvement in spelling, alphabet, writing for the development of unwritten languages (for example, for individual languages of the USSR in 1930-1940-ies.), The creation of letters and books for the blind;
- training in the shorthand and transliteration;
- creation of terminology standards (GOST);
- development of translation skills, creating bi- and multilingual dictionaries of various types;
- development practices automated machine translation;
- establishment of computerized voice recognition systems, converting spoken words into typed text (engineering or computational linguistics);
- forming housings text, hypertext, electronic databases and dictionaries, and development of methods of analysis and processing (British National Corpus, BNC, Russian National Corpus);
- development techniques, copywriting, advertising and PR, etc.
