Language is a system of communication, a medium of thought and social interaction.

Speech is the representation of the experience of the mind. Language stands for speech that humans
produce for exchanging their experience resulting in ideas and emotions. (Aristotle)

Language is an arbitrary system of signs constituted of signifier and signified. In other words, language is
first a system based on no logic or reason; secondly, the system covers both objects and expressions used
for objects; thirdly, objects and expressions are arbitrarily linked; and finally, expressions include sounds
and graphemes used by humans for generating speech and writing respectively for the purpose of
communication. (Saussure, 1916)

Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires
by means of a system of voluntarily produced sounds. (Sapir, 1921)

This definition reveals that language is concerned with only human beings.

The totality of the utterances that can be made in a speech community is the language of that speech
community. (Bloomfield, 1933)

Bloomfield’s definition of language focuses on the utterances produced by all the people of a
community, and hence overlooks writing. Besides, he stresses form, not meaning, as the basis of
language.

A language is a system of arbitrary vocal sounds used for human communication. (Wardaugh, 1972)

Characteristics of Langugae

 Language is arbitrary.
 Language is systematic.
 Language is symbolic.
 Language is specific to human being.
 Language is non-instinctive.
 Language is vocal.
 Language is articulatory.
 Language is conventional.
 Language is a social phenomenon.
 Language is culture-related.
 Language is open-ended and changing.
 Language is a means of communication.
 Language is structurally complex.
 Language is natural.
 Language is creative.
 Language is a shared phenomenon.
  Language is both oral and auditory.
 Language is habitual.

Psychological Aspects of Language

 Child language development

 The Behaviorist Theory
 Mentalist Theory
 Biological Theory
 Cognitive Theory

Social Aspects of Language

 Language
 Standard Language
 Dialects
 Register
 Bilingualism
 Diglossia
 Code-switching and code-mixing
 Borrowing

Linguistics is the scientific study of language which involves the analysis of language form,

language meaning and language in context. The word ‘language’ here means language in general, not a
particular language.

Linguistics is concerned with human language as a universal and recognizable part of human behavior
and of the human abilities. (Nasr, 1984)

Linguistics is concerned with human language as a universal and recognizable part of the human
behavior and of the human faculties perhaps one of the most essential to human life as we know it, and
one of the most far-reaching of human capabilities in relation to the whole span of mankind’s
achievements. (Robin, 1985)

Linguistics stands for the study of language as a system of human communication. (Richards, Platt and
Weber, 1985)

Scope of Linguistics

Linguistics covers varied factors and phenomena relating to language in general and languages in
particular. Such as-

 the sounds of speech and how different sounds function in a language

  the acoustics of speech and the physiological and psychological aspects involved in producing
and understanding a language.
 formation of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, utterances and discourse
 how children acquire their language capabilities
 social and cultural factors in language use, variation and change
 the biological basis of language in the brain
 relations of language to technology such as computer and internet
 relation of language to environment
 relation of language to gender diversity
 above all, functions of language as a means of communication.

Levels of Linguistics

1) Phonetics

 Concerned with the production, transmission and perception of speech sound.

 Focuses on the phenomena relevant to spoken language.
 Phoneticians describe speech sounds with reference to their place and manner of articulation.
 Places such as tongue, lips, jaws, palate, alveolar ridge etc.
 Manners of articulation refers to the degree of stricture employed in producing the sound. For
example- plosives, fricatives, approximants.
 Speech acoustics or transmission- air pressure transforms kinetic energy to acoustic energy.
 Perception- received by the auditory organs and perceived accordingly.
 Suprasegmental elements- stress, intonation, tone, duration, frequency, intensity etc.

2) Phonology

 Phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sounds. Phonology studies the functional
properties of speech sounds.
 It investigates sound substitutions that the replacement of one speech sound with another and
the functional consequences that this replacement brings in word meaning. For example- brick,
trick, but, cut, phone, foam etc.

3) Morphology

 Morphology is a Greek term and constituted of morph and ology.

 Morph means ‘shape’ and ology means ‘ the study of something’.
 It covers the scientific study of forms and structures of words in a language.
 Morpheme is the smallest, meaningful and indivisible grammatical unit of a language.
 The principle aim of morphology is to assign meaning to these parts of words.
 Calling. Call- free morpheme, ing- bound morpheme

4) Syntax
  Concerned with the structure of sentences, and determine which words go where, which words
combine with which and which words have which forms.
 Studying syntax allows us to define descriptive rules about how language works.
 The chief features taken into account in syntax are morphology and the principles which govern
sentence construction.
 Besides, syntax notes the differences between written and spoken language, as spontaneous
speech will often ignore standard structural rules.

5) Semantics

 Semantics studies meaning in isolation, in the language itself.

 The aim of semantics is to discover why meaning is more complex than simply the words written
down in a sentence. Why the structure of sentence is important to the meaning of the
sentence? And what are the semantic relationships between words and sentences?

6) Pragmatics

 Pragmatics is more practical and is interested in meaning in language in use in different social
contexts
 Pragmatics is concerned with the various ways in which many social contexts of language
performances can influence interpretation our utterances produced while interacting and
communicating with each other.
 Pragmatics looks beyond the literal meaning of utterances and tales into account how meaning
is constructed as well as focusing on implied meaning.
 Pragmatics considers language in context and how we communicate and understand each other
in our real life situations.

7) Lexicology

 Lexicology is the study of word, vocabulary in particular.

 It studies the origin, development and current use of a word.
 Lexicology also studies the relationship between different words, types of words and evolution
of words as well as their current use.
 The whole lexicon of dictionary, idioms and phrases are the study area of lexicology.

Graphology

 Studies the writing system of a language

Branches of Linguistics

 Micro-linguistics
 Macro-linguistics
  Theoretical Linguistics
 Applied Linguistics
 Comparative Linguistics
 Contrastive Linguistics
 Sociolinguistics
 Psycholinguistics
 Historical and diachronic linguistics
 Structural or synchronic linguistics
 Mathematical linguistics
 Ethnolinguistics
 Computational Linguistics
 Clinical Linguistics
 Forensic Linguistics
 Folk Linguistics
 Ecolinguistics
 Stylistics
 Language and Gender

Phonetics and phonology, two basic levels of linguistics, are concerned with the investigation, analysis,
description and exemplification of speech sounds.

These aspects examine different aspects and behaviors of speech sounds, such as their articulation,
transmission, reception, realization, structuring for producing meaning and so forth and provide us
theoretical information and material necessary to understand the principles regulating the use of the
sounds in the spoken form of a language.

Definition of Phonetics

Studies and interprets the physical, physiological and psychological aspects of speech sounds. It deals
with three distinct and interrelated factors of speech sounds:

 How they are produced and which articulatory organs take part in producing particular speech
sound.
 How they are transmitted through the air from the speaker to the listener.
 How they are received and perceived by the listener by dint of his/her auditory organs and
perception ability.
Equal importance is given on prosodic and suprasegmental aspects of spoken language as
duration, fundamental frequency and intensity as they determine some linguistically relevant
phenomena as tone, intonation, stress, emphasis and signaling of different boundaries like
boundaries of morpheme, words, phrases, clauses and sentences.
  Phoneticians describe speech sounds with reference to their place of articulation and manner of
articulation.
 Considered as a pure science covering both theoretical and practical activities.
 In sum, phonetics is a science of speech sounds which studies their production, transmission and
reception as well as prosodic and suprasegmental elements of spoken language in a
pract5ical manner, even in the lab.

BRANCHES OF Phonetics

 Articulatory Phonetics - Concerned with the production of speech sounds. To produce

speech, we use different articulators- lips, teeth, tongue, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft
palate, nasal passage, glottal folds, lungs etc.
We can classify speech sounds on the basis of our experience of the speech organs, their
interrelationships and behaviors.
Articulatory phonetics studies speech organs as well as their movement and contact in
the articulation of speech sounds and provides us with a classification of the sounds
used in particular languages.
It is concerned with how different speech sounds are articulated by using different
articulators.
 Acoustic Phonetics - Concerned with how speech sounds journey from the speaker’s
mouth to the listener’s ears.
Speech sounds articulated by the speaker is transmitted through the air to the listeners
ears.
This transmission is constituted of some physical properties such as frequency and
amplitude resulting in sound waves.
 Auditory Phonetics - Deals how the listener receives and realizes speech sounds.
To listen and perceive speech sounds, the listener has to use his/her ears, auditory
nerves and brain.
This complex procedure is explained in auditory phonetics.
It studies varied auditory impressions of quality, pitch, length and loudness of speech
sounds.

PHONOLOGY

 Phonology studies the functional properties of speech sounds.

  It investigates sound substitutions that the replacement of one speech sound with
another and the functional consequences that this replacement brings in word meaning.
For example- brick, trick, but, cut, phone, foam etc.
 Segmental Phonology and Suprasegmental phonology also known as Synchronic and
diachronic phonology

Differences between Phonetics and Phonology

 Phonetics approaches speech sounds from the standpoint of how the sounds o9f a
language are produced, transmitted and received.
 On the other hand, phonology attempts to study the properties of the sound systems
which the speaker has to acquire or internalize in order to use his/her language for the
purpose of communication.
 Phonetics is concerned with the physical, physiological and psychological aspects of
speech sounds. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with how the speech
sounds operate the structuring and functioning in language, which differences in sounds
are related to differences in meaning in a given language, in which way the
discriminative elements are related to each other and the rules according to which they
may be combined into words and sentences.
 A phonetic study is confined to the concrete level of sound descriptions. Phonology
deals with the abstract level of sound analyses.
 Phonetics deals with encoding, transmitting and decoding of speech sounds. Phonology
studies the unobservable phenomenon of how speech sounds combine to produce
meaning.
 A phonetic unit or entity is called ‘phone’, a phonological entity is called phoneme.
 A phonetic entity is transcribed between square brackets. A phonological entity is
represented between slashes.
 Two language can have same phonetic segments but very different phonology.

Phoneme, Phone, Allophone

 Parent, child, sibling

 A phoneme (parent) is a phonological unit that includes similar sounds or phones and
differentiates between two or more words. For example- /p/ in pen and /t/ in ten.
 A phone (child) is a phonetic unit used tioo indicate the smallest perceptible discrete segment of
speech sounds. For example- The English language has different ways of pronouncing the
phoneme /t/ in different words like ten, history, pet.
 The phones of the same phoneme are called allophone to each other.