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Linguistics

Notes actual physical sounds, the raw material out of which language is made. He studies the position
of the tongue, teeth and vocal cords during the production of sounds, and records and analyses
sound waves. Around the central core are various branches of linguistics which are being rapidly
developed at the present time: such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, mathematical linguistics,
philosophical linguistics, anthropological linguistics, stylistics and language teaching.

Phonology (sound patterning), grammar and semantics, (meaning) are the bread
and butter of linguistics. They are the core of linguistics.

1.3 Linguistic Levels
By ‘linguistic levels’ is meant the levels of language structure. There is a considerable difference
among the linguisticians about the number and terminology of linguistic levels. Robert Hall (1969:
32) recommends three levels-phonology (phonemics—phoentics), morphology and syntax. R. H.
Robins (1971: 11) mentions phonology, grammar and semantics. Hockett (1973: 137-138) advocates
the following five levels which he calls ‘subsystems’:
1. The grammatical system: a stock of morphomes, and the arrangements in which they occur;
2. The phonological system: a stock of phonemes, and the assignments in which they occur;
3. The morphophonemic system: the code which ties together the grammatical and the
phonological system;
4. The semantic system: which associates various morphemes, and arrangements in which
morphemes can be put, with things and situations, or kinds of things and situations;
5. The phonemic system: the ways in which sequences of phonemes are converted into sound
waves by the articulation of a speaker, and are decoded from the speech signal by a hearer.
Hockett calls the first three of the above “central” subsystems, and the last two “peripheral”
subsystems.
Such a labelling of names, however, should not lead one to confusion. There are no basic differences
about the structure of language. Such a classification is done by the linguist for the sake of
convenience in the study of the subject-matter, i.e. language which is a complex phenomenon. All
these levels are inter-related aspects of his subject-matter, quite often over-lapping. Any separation
or classification should not be treated as rigid or opaque. A linguist has to describe human language,
and human beings do not use just one level of it at a time. For our purpose, we shall follow the 1.3
figure 1.3.
Broadly speaking, there are three aspects of language activity, or three types of pattern in language,
the material, the structural and the environmental leading to three separate linguistic levels—
Substance, Form and Context. “The substance is the raw material of language: auditory (Phonic
substance) or visual (Graphic substance). The form is the organization, the internal structure, it is
grammar + lexis. The context is the relationship between form and situation, which we call meaning
(Semantics). The linguistic science has to explain language at all these levels. These levels are
explained below:
1. Phonetics: Phonetics is the study of speech processes including the anatomy, neurology and
pathology of speech, the articulation, classification and perception of speech sounds. Phonetics
is a pure science and need not be studied in relation to a particular language, but it has many
practical applications, e.g. in phonetic transcription, language teaching, speech therapy,
communications engineering. Some phoneticians consider phonetics to be outside the central
core of linguistics proper, but most would include it under the heading ‘linguistic science’. The
linguistic aspects of phonetics, i.e., the study of sound systems of particular languages, is part,
of phonology.

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