Page 20 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes literature. Linguistics additionally draws on and informs work from such diverse fields as acoustics,
anthropology, biology, computer science, human anatomy, informatics, neuroscience, philosophy,
psychology, sociology, and speech-language patholog

2.1 Branches of Linguistics

Historical Linguistics
Historical linguists study the history of specific languages as well as general characteristics of
language change. One aim of historical linguistics is to classify languages in language families
descending from a common ancestor, an enterprise that relies primarily on the comparative method.
This involves comparison of elements in different languages to detect possible cognates in order
to be able to reconstruct how different languages have changed over time. Some historical linguists,
along with non-linguists interested in language change, have also employed such tools as
computational phylogenetics. The study of language change is also referred to as “diachronic
linguistics”, which can be distinguished from “synchronic linguistics”, the study of a given language
at a given moment in time without regard to its previous stages. Historical linguistics was among
the first linguistic disciplines to emerge and was the most widely practised form of linguistics in
the late 19th century. However, a shift in focus to the synchronic perspective began in the early
twentieth century with Saussure and became predominant in western linguistics through the
work of Noam Chomsky.
Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs, and
symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems, including the study of how meaning is
constructed and understood. Nonetheless, semiotic disciplines closely related to linguistics are
literary studies, discourse analysis, text linguistics, and philosophy of language. Semiotics, within
the linguistics paradigm, is the study of the relationship between language and culture. Historically,
Edward Sapir and Ferdinand De Saussure’s structuralist theories influenced the study of signs
extensively until the late part of the 20th century, but later, post-modern and post-structural
thought, through language philosophers including Jacques Derrida, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel
Foucault, and others, have also been a considerable influence on the discipline in the late part of
the 20th century and early 21st century. These theories emphasise the role of language variation,
and the idea of subjective usage, depending on external elements like social and cultural factors,
rather than merely on the interplay of formal elements.

Semioticians often do not restrict themselves to linguistic communication when
studying the use of signs but extend the meaning of “sign” to cover all kinds of
cultural symbols.

Language Documentation
Since the inception of the discipline of linguistics, linguists have been concerned with describing
and analysing previously undocumented languages. Starting with Franz Boas in the early 1900s,
this became the main focus of American linguistics until the rise of formal structural linguistics in
the mid-20th century. This focus on language documentation was partly motivated by a concern
to document the rapidly disappearing languages of indigenous peoples. The ethnographic
dimension of the Boasian approach to language description played a role in the development of
disciplines such as sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, and linguistic anthropology, which
investigate the relations between language, culture, and society.
The emphasis on linguistic description and documentation has also gained prominence outside
North America, with the documentation of rapidly dying indigenous languages becoming a primary

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