Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay between sound and meaning.

Linguists focusing on structure attempt to understand the rules regarding language use that native speakers know (not always consciously). All linguistic structures can be broken down into component parts that are combined according to (sub)conscious rules, over multiple levels of analysis. Linguistics has many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure.

Sub-fields that focus on a grammatical study of language include the following:

• Phonetics - the study of the physical properties of speech sound production and perception.
• Phonology - the study of sounds as abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning (phonemes)
• Morphology - the study of morphemes, or the internal structures of words and how they can be modified
• Syntax - the study of how words combine to form grammatical phrases and sentences
• 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
• Pragmatics - the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by context and non-linguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning
• Discourse analysis - the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)
• Stylistics - the study of linguistic factors (rhetoric, diction, stress) that place a discourse in context
• Semiotics - the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication.