This document discusses the key components of language: semantics, phonetics, morphology, syntax, discourse, pragmatics, and orthography. It provides overview definitions and explanations of each component. Semantics refers to the study of meaning. Phonetics is the study of how humans produce and perceive vocal sounds. Morphology deals with the internal structure of word forms. Syntax governs the rules and principles of sentence structure. Discourse analysis examines language use across sentences. Pragmatics studies how context contributes to meaning. Orthography refers to the conventions of writing down a language.

2. LANGUAGE
Language is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of
communication, particularly the human ability to do so, and a
language is any specific example of such a system.
Language contains various components such as:
 Semantics
 Phonetics
 Morphology
 Syntax
 Discourse
 Pragmatics
 Orthography

3. SEMANTICS
The term semantics is used broadly to refer to the study of
meaning. It is also central to the study of communication. Though the
‘meaning’ or the information one wants to communicate can be
conveyed through a number of means like gestures, pictures, signals,
etc., language is the main tool of communication of the human
beings. Semantics as a branch of linguistics is mainly concerned with
how the ‘meaning’ is conveyed by the linguistic system consisting of
different units and structure like sentences , phrases, words,
morphemes etc. Before understanding what is semantics it is essential
to understand how language is structured or organized.

4. PHONETICS
Depending on modality, language structure can be based on systems of
sounds(speech), gestures (sign languages), or graphic or tactile symbols (writing)..
The signs to contrast meaning are sounds or signs to construct meaning are studied
in phonology…The study of how humans produce and perceive vocal sounds is
called phonetics. Sounds as part of a linguistic system are called phonemes.
In order to represent the sounds of the worlds languages in writing, linguistics
have developed the international phonetic alphabet, designed to represent all the
sounds.

5. MORPHOLOGY
Morphology deals with a very basic level of linguistic
analysis and language description. The branch deals with
construction of grammatical word-forms and word formations in
a given language and languages in general which occur in actual
utterances. Thus morphology is the branch, which deals with
internal structure of the word-forms those occur in actual
utterance. The basic unit, which constitutes a word –form , is a
‘morpheme’.
Morphology is the branch, which is the bridge between syntax
and phonology.

6. SYNTAX
In linguistics , syntax, is the set of rules ,principles, and
process that govern the structure of sentences in a given
language specifically word order. The term syntax is also used to
refer to the study of such principles and process.
The goal of many syntacticians is to discover the syntactic
rules common to all languages. There are many different
formalist and functionalist frameworks that propose theories for
describing syntactic structures , based on different assumptions
about what languages is and how it should be described.

7. DISCOURSE
Discourse analysis is a general term for a number of approaches
to analyze written, vocal, or sign language use or any significant
semiotic event.
The objects of discourse analysis are variously defined in terms of
coherent sequences of sentences, prepositions, speech or turns at talk.
Discourse analysis has been take up in a variety of disciplines in
the humanities and social science, including linguistics ,education,
sociology, anthropology, social work, psychology, human geography,
each of which is subject its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis
and methodologies.

8. PRAGMATICS
It is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in
which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encomprases
speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and
other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology,
linguistics and anthropology.
Unlike semantics, which examines meaning that is conventional
or ‘coded’ in a given language, pragmatic studies how the
transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and linguistic
knowledge of the speaker and listener.
In this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able
to overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner,
place, time , etc..of an utterance.

9. ORTHOGRAPHY( SPELLING)
An orthography is a set of conventions writing a language. It
includes norms of spelling , hyphenation, capitalization, word
breaks, emphasis and punctuation.
Most significant languages in the modern era are written
down, and for most such languages a standard orthography has
been developed, often based on a standard variety of the language,
and thus exhibiting less dialect variation than the spoken
language.
sometimes there may be variation in a languages orthography
as between American and British spelling in the care of English
orthography.