Linguistics

Linguistics

1. What is Linguistics?

   • Scientific study of Language

2. What is Language?

   • Characteristics of language
     • Creativity
       • Ability to produce new messages on any topic at any time.
       • Never heard of before - a sentence.
       • Novel utterances.
     • Arbitrariness
       • No natural or intrinsic relationship between the pronunciation and meaning of a word.
     • Discreteness
       • Letters and words can be rearranged to form new words and sentences.
     • Displacement
       • Ability to talk or sign about entities that are not related to the present - but can relate the past, and express the future.
   • A system of symbols (spoken or signed) created and used by humans.

3. Linguistic knowledge

   • Linguistic competence
     • Grammar
       • Phonetics
       • Phonology
       • Morphology
         • The study of structure and content of word forms.
       • Syntax
       • Semantics
       • The mental representation of a speaker's linguistic competence.
   • Linguistic performance
     • The use of linguistic competence, how you use what you have learned.

4. Interdisciplinary field of linguistics

   • Neurolinguistics
     • The study of the brain mechanisms that underlie the acquisition.
     • The study of the biological and neural foundations of language.
     • Anatomy of human brain
       • Cerebrum
         • Largest part of the brain.
         • Associated with higher brain functions.
       • Cortex
         • Decision-making
         • Receives messages from sensory organs.
         • Initiates voluntary actions
         • Stores memories
       • Lateralisation
         • Left hemisphere
           • Analytic thought
           • Reasoning
           • Logic
           • Science
           • Language
           • Mathematics
         • Right hemisphere
           • Intuition
           • Creativity
           • Facial recognition
           • Art
           • Music
           • Emotions