Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language.[1] It encompasses the analysis of every aspect of language, as well as the methods for studying and modelling them.

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Linguistics
Outline History Index
General linguistics Diachronic Lexicography Morphology Phonology Pragmatics Semantics Syntax Syntax–semantics interface Typology‎
Applied linguistics Acquisition Anthropological Applied Computational Discourse analysis Documentation Forensic History of linguistics Neurolinguistics Philosophy of language Phonetics Psycholinguistics Sociolinguistics Text and corpus linguistics Translating and interpreting Writing systems
Theoretical frameworks Formalist Glossematics Constituency Dependency Distributionalism Generative Functional Prague school Functional discourse grammar Cognitive Usage-based Structuralism
Topics Autonomy of syntax Compositionality Conservative/innovative forms Descriptivism Etymology Iconicity Internet linguistics LGBT linguistics Origin of language Orthography Prescriptivism Second-language acquisition Theory of language
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The traditional areas of linguistic analysis include phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.[2] Each of these areas roughly corresponds to phenomena found in human linguistic systems: sounds (and gesture, in the case of signed languages), minimal units (words, morphemes), phrases and sentences, and meaning and use.

Linguistics studies these phenomena in diverse ways and from various perspectives. Theoretical linguistics (including traditional descriptive linguistics) is concerned with building models of these systems, their parts (ontologies), and their combinatorics. Psycholinguistics builds theories of the processing and production of all these phenomena. These phenomena may be studied synchronically or diachronically (through history), in monolinguals or polyglots, in children or adults, as they are acquired or statically, as abstract objects or as embodied cognitive structures, using texts (corpora) or through experimental elicitation, by gathering data mechanically, through fieldwork, or through introspective judgment tasks. Computational linguistics implements theoretical constructs to parse or produce natural language or homologues. Neurolinguistics investigates linguistic phenomena by experiments on actual brain responses involving linguistic stimuli.

Linguistics is related to philosophy of language, stylistics and rhetoric, semiotics, lexicography, and translation.