What is Linguistics?
Each human language is a complex of knowledge and abilities enabling speakers of the language to communicate with each other, to express ideas, hypotheses, emotions, desires, and all the other things that need expressing. Linguistics is the study of these knowledge systems in all their aspects: how is such a knowledge system structured, how is it acquired, how is it used in the production and comprehension of messages, how does it change over time?
The part of linguistics that is concerned with the structure of language is divided into a number of subfields:
§ Phonetics - the study of speech sounds in their physical aspects
§ Phonology - the study of speech sounds in their cognitive aspects
§ Morphology - the study of the formation of words
§ Syntax - the study of the formation of sentences
§ Semantics - the study of meaning
§ Pragmatics - the study of language use
Aside from language structure, other perspectives on language are represented in specialized or interdisciplinary branches:
§ Historical Linguistics
§ Sociolinguistics
§ Psycholinguistics
§ Ethnolinguistics (or Anthropological Linguistics)
§ Dialectology
§ Computational Linguistics
§ Neurolinguistics
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