Language and Linguistics

Language

 A. Definition of Language
1. Spair, Language: "Language is primarily human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols."
2. A.H. Gardiner, Speech and Language: "Language in its widest sense means the sum total of such signs of our thoughts and feelings as are capable of external perception and as could be produced and repeated at will."
3. Henry Sweet, the History of Language: "Language may be defined as the expression of thought by means of speech sounds".
4. Mario A. Pei and Frank Gaynor define it "A system of communication by sound that is through the organs of speech and hearing among human beings of a certain group or community, using vocal symbols possessing arbitrary conventional meaning."

B. Meaning of Language
     Language means system of sounds, words, patterns used by humans to communicate their thoughts and feelings. So language is the source of expression of thought by means of speech sounds. Language is the most powerful, convenient and permanent means and form of communication.
     Importance of Language in Communication. Any language can play a vital role in learning, it enables you to communicate and understand a subject. Following are reasons to understand language and develop your language skills whether in academic English or professional life.
1. Understand how to use your study material most effectively
2. Learn more and more about language and vocabulary relevant to the academics. For example a study of Journalism and Mass Communication should develop skill relevant to JMC terminologies.
3. When writing assignments it should be well structured and coherent
4. Share your thoughts and opinions with your colleagues, friends, and class fellows or in workplace.

 Linguistics

A. Definition of Linguistics
     Linguistics can be defined as the scientific or systematic study of language. It is a science in the sense that is scientifically studdies the rules, system and principles of human languages.

B. Research Areas of Linguistics

• Phonetics: The study of the different sounds that are employed across all human languages
• Phonology: The study of patterns of a language's basic sounds  
• Morphology: The study of the internal structure of words 
• Syntax: The study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences 
• Semantics: The study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences 
• Pragmatics: The study of how utterances are used (literally, figuratively, or otherwise) incommunicative acts
• Sociolinguistics: The interaction of the language and the society in which it is spoken  
• Psycholinguistics: The behaviour of human beings in  their production and  perception of the language
• Stylistics: The study of style in languages    
• Dialectology: The study of the variation of a language in different regions and social classes
• Linguistic Typology: The study of the grammatical features that are employed across all human languages
• Historical linguistics: The study of language change   

2. Applied Linguistics (in broad sense): uses linguistic theory to address real-world problems

• Language teaching: Teaching a foreign language (applied linguistics in narrow sense) 
• Computational linguistics: Speech recognition and synthesis, language understanding, processing, translation and generation
• Translation and interpreting: Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication 
• Speech therapy and speech pathology: Helping people to overcome speech difficulties
• Lexicography  Writing language reference books (dictionaries, thesauruses)

Referensi: George Yule.2006.The Study of Language