Why Study Linguistics

Kristin Denham, Anne Lobeck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429815638
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Why Study Linguistics is designed to help anyone with an interest in studying language understand what linguistics is, and what linguists do. Exploring how the scientific study of language differs from other ways of investigating this uniquely human behavior, Why Study Linguistics:

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• explores the various topics that students of linguistics study, including sound systems of language, the structure of words and sentences and their meanings, and the wider social context of language change and language variation;

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• explains what you might do with a degree in linguistics and the kinds of jobs and careers that studying linguistics prepares you for;

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• is supported by a list of links to additional resources available online.

This book is the first of its kind and will be essential reading for anyone considering a course of study in this fascinating subject, as well as teachers, advisors, student mentors, and anyone who wants to know more about the scientific study of language.

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Why read this book?

Introduction to the book

We assume that if you have picked up this book, you are interested in studying language, and you are probably wondering what exactly linguistics is, and what it is that linguists do. You also might be wondering what kinds of topics students of linguistics explore and learn about. You might also be wondering: What might you do with a degree in linguistics? What kinds of jobs and careers does studying linguistics prepare you for? Although we will not be able to tell you (even if we could) everything there is to know about studying linguistics in this short book, we will provide you with an overview of possible answers to these questions, and direct you to where you might find more information if you wish.

Who this book is for

This book is for students who have—or think they might have—an interest in linguistics. It’s also designed to be used by Linguistics program/department faculty and advisors, career center coordinators, librarians, and others to help guide undergraduates with an interest in linguistics. The information presented here can help students decide if they want to major in or study linguistics but it can also be useful for those just wanting to know a little more about the study of language.

How to use this book

This book is organized to provide readers with general information, but also with more detail should readers want to explore the topics covered in more depth. The book has ten chapters, and each of the remaining nine is outlined below. Readers can either read the book cover to cover, or pick and choose the area(s) of most interest to them. Each chapter addresses current topics of research in each area, and also provides some ideas of what we learn from such research about not only language structure, but about language change, variation, and acquisition. Each chapter concludes with a set of key concepts that guide research in these fields, and highlights the knowledge and skills gained by studying each area. We also highlight some of the ways in which the study of each component of grammar can be applied beyond the classroom.

Throughout the book we discuss language change, variation, and acquisition, and we also devote one chapter to each of these areas of study in linguistics.

In Chapter 2, Questions linguists ask, we provide an overview of the basic questions that linguists seek to answer, and of the fundamental concepts and terminology central to linguistic inquiry. We begin with how linguist Noam Chomsky’s ideas have revolutionized the study of language, in particular by considering language as an object of scientific inquiry. We discuss how human language differs from the communication systems of other species, and how language varies over time and space. We discuss what it means to know a language, and how we study and describe our intuitive knowledge of language. We clarify what linguists mean when they talk about ‘grammar,’ and how an approach to grammar through inquiry differs from other possibly more familiar ways to study language. In this chapter we touch on the study of language variation, language change, and language acquisition, and we also introduce the study of language and the brain. The information we provide in this chapter is introductory, and we elaborate on the topics introduced here in more depth in later chapters.

In Chapters 3–6 we explore in some depth the study of the components of grammar, providing examples of the phenomena that linguists study, and what such study reveals about the way languages work. Each chapter stands by itself, and readers may read them sequentially or out of order, and may choose to read one or another but not all. In Chapter 3, The study of sound: Phonetics and phonology, we introduce different ways that linguists study the sounds of language (articulatory and auditory phonetics), and some of the concepts central to the study of phonology (allophones and phonemes, syllable structure, stress, tone and intonation). In Chapter 4, The study of words: Morphology, we introduce basic word structure (morphemes, affixation, lexical and functional categories of words, word formation rules), and show how words have a structure that can be graphically represented with word tree diagrams. We discuss how languages can be divided into different morphological typologies (analytic, synthetic, polysynthetic), which show us that the definition of ‘word’ is actually much more complex than it might appear. In Chapter 5, The study of sentence structure: Syntax, we investigate the fundamentals of sentence structure (phrase structure), including how it can be represented with tree diagrams. We show how we can account for different word orders among languages, and how, even though languages may seem to be syntactically very different, they actually share certain basic syntactic structures. In Chapter 6, The study of meaning: Semantics and pragmatics, we turn to the study of semantics—word meaning (antonymy, synonymy, polysemy, and other relationships) and sentence meaning (ambiguity, paraphrase, entailment). We discuss how semantics overlaps with syntax (thematic roles, selectional restrictions). In the section on pragmatics we discuss how we derive meaning from context in conversations (maxims of conversation, speech acts) and what it means to threaten, apologize, promise, and regret.

In Chapter 7, Studying language change, we discuss ways in which linguists study how and why languages change over time, with a focus on the history of English, from Old English to Present Day English. We provide examples of the different aspects of language change (phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic), and explore some of the factors that trigger language change. In Chapter 8, Studying language variation: Language in society, we discuss language variation across different regions (dialect variation), and provide examples of different kinds of language variation (phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic) and the linguistic, social, and cultural factors that can lead to variation. We explore how language shapes our identities and our attitudes about ourselves and others. In Chapter 9, Studying psycholinguistics: Language in the brain, we discuss what research on child language acquisition, studies of language and the brain, studies on how we process language and more tell us about our biological capacity for language.

In Chapter 10, After studying linguistics, we discuss a number of different ways that you can continue to study and use linguistics after college and/or graduate school, should you wish to. We give a overview of a number of different careers in which you can apply the skills and knowledge you acquire from studying linguistics, and how you can continue to learn more about language beyond the classroom.

Interspersed throughout the book you will find boxed quotes from actual undergraduate students about what they think studying linguistics has helped them with or why they are glad they have studied linguistics. Enjoy!

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Questions linguists ask

What is linguistics?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguists study language just like other scientists study other natural phenomena, such as photosynthesis, the solar system, DNA, or climate change. Though language has been an object of study since ancient times, from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome to India, China, and beyond, language scholars have had somewhat different aims, exploring different questions. Linguistics as we know it today is a relatively new field of study, based on the ideas of American linguist Noam Chomsky’s 1955 The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory, and subsequent works (see especially Chomsky, 1957 and 1965). The goal of what has come to be called generative linguistics is to understand the nature of human knowledge of language; that is, to understand that grammar is a system of rules that ‘generates’ all and only the grammatical sentences in a language. Linguists seek to discover what we, as speakers/signers, must know in order to produce and understand a language.

Note: When we talk about language here and throughout the book we mean both spoken and signed languages, and when we refer to a ‘speaker’ of a language generally, we mean any user of a spoken or signed language. We also discuss aspects of sign language specifically in several sections.

There are many ways to pursue the scientific study of language, and as in any scientific discipline, researchers have different goals, different questions to pose, and different directions of research. Some linguists study the grammar, or rule system, of a language, and others are more interested in the social factors, such as gender, age, ethnicity, and other variables, that influence how we use language. Still others study how languages change over time, how children acquire language, or how our brains process and produce language. These are just a few of the diverse ways that we can study language scientifically, and we will explore them in more detail as we progress through this book.

“Studying linguistics has helped me to be more aware of all the amazing, intricate, and subconscious systems that allow communication to happen.”

We start with the basic but important question at the heart of linguistics: What is language?

What is language?

A typical answer to the question What is language? is that language is a mode of communication. This is true, of course, but species other than humans certainly communicate as well. So do bees have language? Do whales and dolphins, wolves and chimpanzees? By exploring how some animal communication systems are similar to and different from human language, we gain some insights into the nature of human language.

Human language versus other animal communication systems

When discussing different species’ communication systems it is important to first clarify the question we are asking. Here are two questions that approach the issue of animal versus human communication from different perspectives.

How are animal communication systems similar to or different from the human communication system (language)?

Can animals understand/learn/produce human language?

It is one thing to examine ways in which communication systems are similar and different (the first question), and quite another to investigate whether one species can be taught to produce and understand the communication system of another species (the second question). There are many examples of researchers who have tried to teach human language to animals (in particular to primates such as Nim Chimpsky, Washoe, Kanzi, and Koko the gorilla, with different levels of success, as in Terrace, 1979, Fouts, Fouts, & Schoenfeld, 1984, Savage-Rumbaugh & Lewin, 1994, Patterson 1978, 1981). In no known case, however, has a primate fully mastered language in the way that a human child does by age 4–5. (See, for example, Brown, 1973; Crain & Lillo-Martin, 1999.) We will explore the first question, as it provides insights into the features of human language, and helps us understand the la...