Linguistics

In the broad sense, the linguistic (one pronounces - GUI as in ai' - GUI lle) is the study of the human languages. A linguist is thus a Nobody which studies the mechanisms of the language. In a more restricted direction, linguistics is opposed to the Grammaire known as traditional, in the sense that this one is Normative (or prescriptive) while that one is descriptive. Whereas grammar judges the statements in terms of adequacy to a given standard, linguistics is satisfied to describe. Descriptive work can be done according to three main axes:

  • studies in Synchrony and diachrony: the synchronic study of a language is interested only in this language at a given time of its history, with only one of its states. By opposition, to study a language - or a Family of languages - in diachrony amounts being interested in its history and the structural changes which it underwent;
  • studies theoretical and applied: theoretical linguistics studies the creation of structures allowing the individual description of languages as well as the theories trying to determine their universal constants;
  • contextual and independent studies: although the terms indicating this dichotomy are not clearly fixed, one can describe it as follows: the contextual study is interested in the interactions between the language and the world, while the independent study considers the language for itself, independently of its external conditions.

Fields of theoretical linguistics

The theoretical Linguistique is often divided into separate and more or less independent fields:
  • Phonetic: study of the various phons or its S produced by the human vocal apparatus;
  • Phonology: study of the joints of second level, or Phoneme S , of a given language;
  • morphology: study of the structure interns Mot S;
  • Syntax: study of the relationship between lexemes whose combination forms Phrase S;
  • Semantic: study of the direction of the words and the statements;
  • Stylistic: study of the style of a literary statement or not; does the style constitute a variation compared to a standard?
  • Pragmatic: study of the use (literal, appeared or other) of the statements in the acts of stating.

Synchronic linguistics and diachronic linguistics

Whereas synchronic linguistics attempts to describe the languages at a given time of their history (generally present), the diachronic linguistics examines how the languages evolve/move during time - that these changes relate to the pronunciation (one speaks then about Phonétique history), the direction and history of the words (it is the etymology there which is concerned), even several aspects (and one touches there with linguistics) - sometimes through several centuries. The Linguistique history enjoys long and rich history. It is besides of this branch of linguistics that were born the other approaches. It rests on theoretical postulates considered to be solid (like the sound laws).

A discipline as the compared Linguistique rests mainly on a historical optics.

Linguistics applied

Contrary to the theoretical linguistics, which seeks to describe, in a general way, a given language or the human language, the Linguistique applied makes use of this research to apply them to other fields like the Didactique of the languages second, the dictionnairic , the synthesis or the voice recognition, these two last approaches being then used in Informatique to provide vocal Interface S, for example.

Contextual linguistics

The contextual Linguistique is a field in which linguistics interacts with other disciplines. She studies for example how the language interacts with the rest of the world.

The Sociolinguistique, the anthropological Linguistic and the linguistic Anthropologie are fields arising with the contextual linguistics in which one studies the bonds between the language and the company.

In the same way, the critical analysis of the speech is a point of meeting between the Rhétorique, the Philosophie and linguistics. It is thus possible to speak about a Philosophie of the language.

In addition, the medical study of the language led to approaches Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistique.

Lastly, also belong to the contextual linguistics of the fields of research like the Acquisition of the language, the Linguistique evolutionist, the stratificationnelle Linguistique as well as the cognitive sciences.

Individual speaker, speech communities and universal characteristics of the language

Several linguistic approaches are possible according to the extent of the object of study: some analyze the language of a speaker given, others of the general developments on the language. One can also study the language of a quite precise community, like the slang of the suburbs or seek the universal characteristics of the language divided by all the men. It is this last approach, the general Linguistique, whose pioneer was Ferdinand de Saussure, which was elected by Noam Chomsky and which finds echoes in Psycholinguistique and in cognitive sciences. One can think that these universal characteristics are likely to reveal important components concerning the human thought in general. See for example the Functions of the language.

Descriptive step, prescriptive step

The majority of the research achieved in linguistics is purely descriptive: the linguists seek to clarify the nature of the language without carrying value judgments. However, there exists a great number of professionals and amateurs who are not detached from a normative point of view, nearer of that of the Grammaire. Whereas those will judge a statement according to whether it respects or not the good use or of the rules, those which follow a descriptive step especially will seek the origins of these uses, the rules or the errors that they will be able simply to describe like particular uses, to even understand that behind a fault hides a need for rationalization of the language.

The anglophone site Language Log is a good illustration of this opposition: it is about a blog held by linguists according to a descriptive step, and explaining their standpoint clearly.

Word and writing

The majority of work in linguistics, at present, leave the principle which the spoken language is first, and which
  • whereas the word is universal, the writing it is not, far from there;
  • the training of the spoken language is much easier and rapid that of the written language;
  • number de*ques of cognitive sciences thinks that there exists in the brain a module of the language which it is possible to know only through the spoken language.
ammatology]], arose fully with linguistics. Lastly, the languages equipped with an old written tradition are not impermeable with retroactive effects of the writing on the oral examination: the French word legacy , for example, in which the G is not etymological, is generally marked /l εg/, by influence of the C-W communication, whereas at the origin one said /le/.

Fields of research of linguistics

Phonetic, Phonology, Diglossie, Syntax, Semantic, Pragmatic, etymology, Lexicology, Lexicography, Linguistic theoretical, Linguistic compared, Dialectology, Linguistic descriptive, Typology of the languages, Linguistic computational, Semiotic, writing, etc, are among the most current fields.

Interdisciplinary research

Linguistic applied, Linguistic cognitive, Linguistic history, Orthography, Grammatologie, Cryptanalyse, Deciphering, Sociolinguistique, linguistic Anthropology, Linguistic anthropological, critical Analysis of the speech, Psycholinguistics, Acquisition of the language, automatic Treatment of the languages, Voice recognition, Recognition of the speaker, Voice synthesis and, more generally, Speech processing, are such disciplines. It is visible that linguistics includes/understands various building sites of research. The créolistique one which gave each other the spot to study the languages resulting from colonialism (examples: papiamentu of curazao, the language of cabo verde) becomes increasingly important.

Important linguists and schools of thought

Among the first linguists of importance, it is advisable to count Jacob Grimm, which, in 1822, included/understood and described the nature of the phonetic Modifications concerning the Consonne S in the Germanic languages (modifications described in the Loi of Grimm). With its continuation, Karl Verner, inventor of the law bearing his name, August Schleicher, creator of the Stammbaumtheorie and Johannes Schmidt, which developed the Wellentheorie (model by waves) in 1872.

Ferdinand de Saussure can be regarded the founder of the structuralist linguistic (this term being posterior to him) and, for a long time, as the father of modern linguistics. He was opposed to the Behaviorisme.

In the Twenties, Jakobson was one of the leaders of the Russian Formalisme and the linguistic Cercle of Prague (invention of the Phonologie).

Gustave Guillaume, being opposed to Saussure, studies the language from a point of view more phenomenologic ( Temps and verb , 1929). Many followers perpetuate or redécouvrent today his theory.

The formal model of the language developed by Noam Chomsky, or Generative grammar and transformationnelle, developed under the influence of its Master distributionnalist, Zellig Harris, which already strongly followed the precepts distributionalists of Leonard Bloomfield. This model was essential since the Années 1960 in the field of cognitive linguistics (Compétence).

In France, work of the linguist Andre Martinet, leader of functionalism, are notable, like those of Lucien Tesnière.

Linguistics does not exclude the general public inevitably: witnesses popularizing works of Henriette Walter.

On the applications in Communication, it is necessary to note very interesting work of Roman Jakobson, which established a linguistic model of communication, composed of six functions associated with Agents with communication.

Written representation of the word

There exist many methods used for to transcribe in writing the word, like the International Phonetic Alphabet of the international phonetic Association, or API , the most common method currently. Those can tend to an extreme precision (one speaks about fine transcription ) and try to represent the phonetic characteristics of a precise speaker, or to describe only very generally the fundamental oppositions between phonemes of a language; it is phonological transcription (or phonetic broad ).

In France, other systems exist, like the notation of Bourciez, suitable for the Phonétique history of the French and, more generally, of the Romance languages. Each country equipped with a linguistic tradition could develop its systems of transcription. It is however the API one which, today, prevails in research.

When it is not possible to use the API one for technical reasons, there exist several methods making it possible to transcribe the API one in a system using only characters present in all the character sets, like SAMPA.

To also consult this list of methods of transcription.

Towards a narrower design of linguistics

The terms of linguistic and linguist are not always applied in a way as broad as considering higher. In certain contexts, mainly university, better definitions could be, respectively, “discipline which one studies in the departments concerned with section 07 of the National council of Universities (CNU)” and “teacher-researcher of such a department”. Linguistics thus considered does not return to the training of the foreign languages (unless this training does not make it possible to create formal models of description of the languages). It does not include either the literary study.

In general, it is advisable to become aware that a linguist is not inevitably a polyglot. Indeed, the complete control of a language is not a requirement (nor even sufficient) to study and describe certain aspects of sound operation (it is, for example, the case in phonetics, where the product engineering of the sounds of a language does not imply the knowledge of its syntax). When a linguist is interested in a language of which it is not particularly familiar, it generally consults native speakers, whom one calls of the advisers .

Related articles

photographs

Bibliography (in French)

  • Bernard Normier, the contribution of linguistic technologies to the treatment and the valorization of textual information , Editions ADBS, 2007 (ISBN 9782843650925);
  • Colette Feuillard, " the functionalism of Andre Martinet" in " The linguistique" , Paris PUF, flight 37-1, 2001
  • Nathalie Garric, Introduction with Linguistics , Hatchet, 2001 (ISBN 2011454603);
  • Jacques Moeschler, Antoine Auchlin, Introduction to contemporary linguistics , 2nd edition, Armand Colin, 2000 (ISBN 2200251246);
  • Gilles Siouffi, daN van Raemdonck, 100 cards to include/understand linguistics , Breal, 1999 (ISBN 2842914538);
  • Olivier Soutet, Linguistic , University Presses of France, 1997 (ISBN 2130471862);
  • Sylvie Durrer (1998), Introduction to the linguistics of Charles Bally , Delachaux & Niestlé, 1998, (ISBN 2603010883);
  • Andre Martinet, Elements of general linguistics , 4th edition, Armand Colin, 1996 (ISBN 2200265735);
  • Jean Métellus, Voyage through the language , Isbergues Ortho-Edition, 1996 (AISN 2906896497)
  • Dominique Maingueneau, To approach linguistics , Threshold, 1996 (ISBN 2020230313);
  • Ferdinand de Saussure ( and Al ) (1995), Course of general linguistics , Payot, 1995 (ISBN 2228889423);
  • Jean Perrot, Linguistic , University Presses of France, 1993 (ISBN 2130427723);
  • Jacques Lerot, Precise of general linguistics , Midnight, 1993 (ISBN 2707314587);
  • Catherine Fuchs, Pierre Goffic, contemporary linguistics , Hatchet, 1992 (ISBN 2-01-016909-3);
  • Joseph Vendryes, the language , Albin Michel, 1985 (ISBN 2226047441).
  • Mortéza Mahmoudian, linguistics , Seghers, 1981 (ISBN 2221008367); university
  • Vera Carvalho, Linguistic , Presses France, 1980 (ISBN 2130363547);
  • Marina Yaguello, " Alice with the country of the langage" Threshold, (ISBN 2.02.005795.6)
  • Yves Cortez " French does not come from Latin " Paris 2007 Editions Harmattan

External bonds

Assistance with research
  • Guide on the search for information in sciences of the language
  • Bibliography on linguistics

Manual

  • Beatrice Santorini and Anthony Kroch, The syntax off natural language: Year online introduction using the Trees program, 2007.

Course and conferences

  • Course, with the MIT, audio format.
  • Conferences, with ENS Ulm audio format.
  • Course, of Christian Touratier to the University of Provence.
  • Course with the University Lyon 2.
Other resources
  • AppliedLinguistics.Org
  • re-examined texto, files conferences, files reviews.
  • re-examined Wing, " acquisition and interaction in language étrangère".
  • re-examined Semen, re-examined transdisciplinaire of sciences of the language

Forum

  • Linguistics Forum

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