Indrie: ASSUMPTION AND HYPOTHESIS

Indrie: ASSUMPTION AND HYPOTHESIS: ASSUMPTIONS AND HYPOTHESES 1.       The Definition of Assumptions People do things always based on their belief. For example, whe...

LINGUISTICS

LINGUISTICS

There are some definitions of linguistic. Varga argued that linguistics is the scientific study of language, including the sounds, words, and grammar rules. Another definition of linguistics is scientific in the sense that the study of language must be subjected to the scientific processes of observation, data collection, formulation of hypothesis, analysis of data and    formulation of theory based on the structure of the language. Nasr (1984) in Hadi argued that linguistics is concerned with human language as a universal and recognizable part of human behavior and of the human abilities. From some statements above, it can be conclude that linguistics is a study of language. While language is a system by which sounds, signs and gestures are used to communicate meaning. For humans, a system of speech sounds or signs which constitute linguistic knowledge of both speaker and addressee convey and receive information.

The branches of Linguistic are:

A.           General linguistic generally describes the concepts and categories of a particular language or among all language. It also provides analyzed theory of the language. On the other hand, descriptive linguistic describes or gives the data to confirm or refute the theory of particular language explained generally.

B.            Micro linguistic is narrower view. It is concerned internal view of language itself (structure of language systems) without related to other sciences and without related how to apply it in daily life. Micro linguistics covers the basic components or constituents of a language. This is also referred to as theoretical linguistics. Theoretical linguists study the structural aspects of language under the broad label of grammar. Some fields of micro linguistic:

Ø  Phonetics. It is the study of the production, physical properties and perception of the actual sounds realizing the phonemes and of the  suprasegmental  elements  of  speech. Phonetics is divided into three sub-branches : 1) articulatory phonetics, which is the study of made or articulated, 2) acoustic phonetics, which is the study of the sound waves made by the human vocal organs for communication, and 3) auditory phonetics, which is the study of how speech sounds are perceived by the ear, auditory nerve, and brain.

Ø  Phonology. It is the study of sound patterns of language, how speech sounds are grouped by speaker to effect communication. There are several different kinds of phonology processes: 1) Assimilations, which are process that make two adjacent sound more alike with respect to some feature, 2) Deletions, which are processes that eliminate a sound, 3) Dissimilations, which are processes that make two adjacent sounds less alike with respect to some feature, and 4) Insertions, which are processes that add a sound.

Ø  Morphology. It the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified. Morphology accounts for word formation in languages. The basic unit of analysis in morphology is called the ‘morpheme’. A morpheme is defined as the minimal meaningful unit of grammatical analysis.

Ø  Syntax. It is the study of the structure of sentences and of underlying principles for generating and processing them. It links together sound patterns and the meaning.

Ø  Semantics. It is the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences

Ø  Pragmatics. It is the study of how utterances are used (literally, figuratively, or otherwise) in communicative acts.

C.            Macro-linguistics refers to aspects of linguistic study which involve the application of the findings of theoretical linguistics to the analysis of language in use. It is also called Applied Linguistics, because it involves the application of linguistics in relation to other disciplines. It is concerned external view of language itself with related to other sciences and how to apply it in daily life. Some fields of micro linguistic:

Ø  Evolutionary linguistics, the study of the origin and subsequent development of language.

Ø   Psycholinguistics, the study of language and mind. Psycholinguistics is concerned with the psychological mechanism underlying speech production and reception. It also studies how children acquire their first language, speech perception, and loss of the ability to use and understand language. It covers the cognitive processes that make it possible to generate a grammatical and meaningful sentence out of vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as the processes that make it possible to understand the utterance, word, text, etc.

Ø  Sociolinguistics, the study of society on the way language is used. The main aim of sociolinguistics is to study language in its social and cultural context. This includes the study of language in a society or speech community; language varieties; and language functions. Sociolinguistics relates the differences observed in language use to the problems that arise from those societal aspects.

Ø  Clinical linguistics, the application of linguistic theory to the area of Speech-Language Pathology. The central focus of Clinical Linguistics is the application of the principles and methods of linguistics and phonetics to communication impairment in children and adults. Clinical linguistics plays a key role in the description, analysis and remediation of communication impairment. 

Ø  Neurolinguistics, the study of the brain networks that underlie grammar and communication.

Ø   Biolinguistics, the study of natural as well as human-taught communication systems in animals compared to human language.

Ø  Stylistics, the study of language and literature .It studies the features of situationally distinctive uses (varieties) of language, and tries to establish principles capable of accounting for the particular choices made by individual and social grousing the use of language.

Ø  Computational linguistics, an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical    and/or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. This modeling is not limited to any particular field of linguistics. Traditionally, computational linguistics was usually performed by computer scientists who had specialized in the application of computers to the processing of a natural language.

Ø  Historical linguistics or Diachronic linguistics, the study of language change and evolution (historical study). The aim of such investigations was to arrive at general hypotheses about how languages change over time.

Ø  Ethnolinguistics, a field of linguistic anthropology which studies the language of a particular ethnic group. It is often associated with regions where ethnicity plays a major role in language description and status. Ethnolinguists study  the way perception and conceptualization influences language, and show how this is linked to different cultures and societies

References:

Ahmadin, Dimjati. 2012. Levels of Meaning in Semantic Course.Unpublished book. Malang: FKIP Universitas Islam Malang.

Alkhazali, Ali. 2012. What are Some the Branches of Linguistics? (online),  (http://www.arts.kufauniv.com/teaching/e/alialkhazali/files/Lecture%20N2.pdf. Accessed in October 14, 2013).

Ofulue, Christine I. 2009. Introduction to Linguistics. Nigeria: National Open University of Nigeria

Varga, Laszlo. 2010. Introduction to English Linguistics a Companion to the Seminar. Budapest: Eὄtvὄs Lorάnd University.

Yule, George. 2010. The Study of Language. Fourth edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.