This chapter discusses linguistics. It also examines the scopes of linguistics as well as exploring its roles and benefits for language teachers.

1. Chapter 1: What is Linguistics?
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Master of
Education
Course:
Applied
Linguistics for
Language
Teachers

2.  Explain what linguistics
involves, and why it is
important;
 Explain how linguistics differs
from traditional grammar
studies.
 Outline the main subdivisions
of the subject;
 Discuss how linguistics benefits
language teachers.
Learning Goals
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3. Linguistics tries to answer the basic
questions
 What is linguistics?
 What is language?
 How does language work?
 What do all languages have in common?’,
 ‘ What range of variation is found among languages?
 How does human language differ from animal
communication?’
 How does a child learn to speak?
 How does one write down and analyse an unwritten
language?,
 Why do languages change?
 To what extent are social class differences reflected
in language? ’
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4. What is Linguistics?
 Linguistics:
– ‘the systematic study of
language’ or ‘the scientific study
of language’
– a discipline which describes
language in all its aspects and
formulates theories as to how it
works.
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5.  ‘Language’ is a
patterned system of
arbitrary sound signals,
characterized by
creativity, displacement,
duality and cultural
transmission.
What is Language?
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6. What is ‘linguist?’
 studies linguistics
 analyses and explains linguistic
phenomena
 doesn’t not need to speak many
languages, though they must
have a wide experience of
different types of language.
 Linguist tries to answer the
above questions
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Linguist
(linguistician)
refers to sb who:

7. How does linguistics differ from
traditional grammar?
Linguistics
Descriptive
linguistics/grammar
 Concerns with what is said;
– Describes language in all
its aspects
 Spoken
Traditional Grammar
Prescriptive
linguistics/grammar
 Concerns with what they think
ought to be said;
– Prescribe rules of
correctness
– Don’t end a sentence with a
preposition.
– Use nominative pronouns after
the verb to be.
 Written
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8. How does linguistics differ from traditional
grammar?
Linguistics
 often has negative
social value;
 Attempts to set up
universal framework
common to all
languages
Traditional Grammar
 has positive social
value according to some
authority (your older sibling,
your teacher, your parents, a
writing or grammar
handbook)
 Latin-based
- I don’t know who to see. vs. I don’t know whom to see.
- What are you looking for? vs. For what are you looking?
- It’s me. vs. It is I.
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Spoken and
written
language need
to be analysed
separately.
Both are important,
and neither is better
than the other.
Each language must
be described
separately, and must
never be forced into
a framework
devised for another.

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The scope of
linguistics
Linguistics covers
a wide range of
topics and its
boundaries are
difficult to defi ne.

11. Linguistics
sounds structures
Phonetics/
phonology
Morphology/
syntax
meaning
Semantics/
pragmatics
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12.  Phonetics:
– the study of human speech sounds
(the inventory of sounds: b, p, æ, aɪ,
etc)
 Phonology:
– Rules of how sounds are combined
in a language; the study of the
relationship between these sounds
(the study of sound pattern). Examples:
 (1) seven five four,six seven nine
four
 (2) sevem fife four,sik seven nime
four
Branches of Linguistics
 Phonetics gathers the
raw material.
 Phonology cooks it
(Pike, Kenneth, 1944.)
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13.  Morphology:
– the study of word structures, or
how words are formed (prefixes,
suffixes, parts of speech, etc)
 Syntax:
– The study of sentence formation in
a language or how words are put
together in a sentence. (phrases,
clauses, sentences, diagramming, etc). Ex.
 Ella found my backpack.
 Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
Branches of Linguistics
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14.  Phonology, syntax and semantics,
together constitute the grammar of a
language.
Branches of Linguistics
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The word grammar refers to sound patterns,
word patterns and meaning patterns
combined, and not (as in some older books)
word order and word endings only.

15.  Semantics:
– The study of meaning; rules that
govern how meaning is
expressed by words and
sentences in a language.
 Pragmatics:
– the study of language use in
context, including rules of
conversation and politeness
conventions
– goes beyond linguistic
knowledge alone.
Branches of Linguistics
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16. Hybrid
terms
Socio-
Linguistics
Psycho-
Linguistics
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17.  Sociolinguistics:
– The study of relationship
between language and society
 how social factors—including class,
race, and ethnicity—influence language
 Language variation: dialect, registers,
accents, etc.
 Psycholinguistics:
– The study of how we acquire
(learn), comprehend and
produce our first /second
language.
Branches of Linguistics
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18.  Applied linguistics (the application of
linguistics to language teaching),
 Computational linguistics (the use of
computers to simulate language and its
workings),
 Stylistics (the study of language and literature),
 Anthropological linguistics (the study of
language in cross-cultural settings)
 Philosophical Linguistics (the link between
language and logical thought).
Branches of Linguistics
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19. Historical linguistics (philology)
 The study of language change over
time, including the study of
language families and relationships
among the world’s languages
Omission of Linguistics Branch
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The terms ‘synchrony’
and ‘diachrony’ refer to
two different
approaches in linguistic
research, with respect to
the periods of time
considered in the
research in question.
Synchronic linguistics is the
study of language at a
particular point in
time. Diachronic linguistics
is the study of the history or
evolution of language

20. The synchronic
approach
• studies any aspect of
language solely in one
particular period of time
(typically the present),
without taking into
account other periods of
time in that language’s
history
• studying the usage
patterns of double
negatives in English (e.g. I
ain’t got no money) in the
early 21st century, without
looking into the usage
patterns of double
negatives in English prior
to the 21st century.
The diachronic
approach
• studies any aspect of
language by
comparing it between
two (or more) periods
of time, focusing on the
change and evolution of
whatever it is you’re
looking at.
• studying the usage
patterns of double
negatives in English in the
18th century and
comparing it to the
patterns in the 19th, 20th,
and early 21st centuries to
see how double negatives
in English may or may not
have changed.
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21.  Linguistic typology:
–the study of different language
types.
Omission of Linguistics Branch
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22.  Language teachers are linguists because we need to
be aware of what is going on in the language we speak
and teach, analyze these patterns, and make sense of
them.
Linguistics and Language Teachers
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• While you may believe that teaching students
how to speak a language is a different job
description than analyzing language, the two are
inextricably linked.
• In order to develop the best way to approach a new lesson,
address a pattern of errors across a student’s work, or explain
a concept in the target language that simply DOES NOT EXIST
in the students’ first language, teachers have to first identify
and understand the inner workings of the language.

23. Linguistics and Language Teachers
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• receive
much
linguistic
training
linguists
• Focuses on methods
and the teacher’s own
language
proficiency, not much
on linguistics
Language
teacher’s
training • are not often explicitly
taught the structure of
their language, or how to
analyze linguistic data
• Thus, rely on the textbook
to learn about the
language
Language
teachers

24. Language Teachers benefit from linguistic
training:
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There is an entire world of
research and resources out
there about …
language acquisition, bilingualism,
heritage languages, classroom language
learning, and how the specifics of your
target language work (e.g., how German
speakers determine which pronoun to use
to mean you, what sound changes are
occurring in contemporary Quechua).

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