Page 9 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 1: Introduction to Linguistics: Its Aspects

way language is the expression of human thought, and all thought is expressed through language, Notes
hence all knowledge of the universe may fall within the scope of linguistics, and the scope may be
a complex mess.

Figure 1.1

Yet linguistics being a science, has got to be a systematic discipline. So the questions: what kind of
behaviour does the linguist want to investigate? or what is the scope of linguistics?—need to be
answered. A linguist has to study and describe language which is an enormously complex
phenomenon. He, therefore, concentrates at any one time on one of the many different, though
interrelated, aspects of his subject matter. His subject matter, broadly speaking, is the data of
language, or the facts of language as it is spoken and written.
A full understanding of the various components of language and their relations with the rest of
the world outside language, thus, would constitute the right scope of linguistics, which can roughly
be represented by the figure 1.2 borrowed from Jean Aitchison:

PSYCHOLOGY SOCIO SOCIOLOGY
LINGUISTICS
PHYCHO LINGUISTICS
LINGUISTICS

PHONOLOGY
S E AND PHONETICS ARD ANTHROPOLOGY

TEACHING S GRAMMAR T PHILOSOPHY
C
LANGUAGES M A N

COMMUNICATION I
ENGINEERING LITERATURE

Figure 1.2
Thus general linguistics covers a wide range of topics and its boundaries are difficult to define. In
the centre is phonetics, the study of human speech sounds. A phonetician is concerned with the

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