The Study of Language / Applied Linguistics

The study of Language

Nineteenth century: historical linguistics

1786 is the year which many people regard as the birthdate of the linguistics. On 27^th of September, 1786, an Englishman, Sir William Jones, read a paper to the Royal Asiatic Society In Calcutta pointing out that Sanskrit, Greek , Latin, Celtic and Germanic all had striking structural similarities.  It was an important step forward for linguistics to realize that language changes were not just optional tendencies, but definite and clearly stateable ‘laws’.

Early to-mid-20^th century: descriptive linguistics

In the 20^th century, the emphasis shifted from language change to language description.  If any person can be held responsible for this change of emphasis, it was the Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure.  De Saussure’s crucial contribution was his explicit and reiterated statement that al language items are essentially interlinked.  His insistence than language is a carefully built structure of interwoven elements initiated the era of structural linguistics. All linguistics since de Saussure is structural, as ‘structural’ in this broad sense merely means the recognition that language is a patterned system composed if interdependent elements, rather than a collection of unconnected individual items.

Mid- to late-20^th century: generative linguistics and the search for universals

In 1957, linguistics took a new turning. Noam Chomsky, published a book called Syntactic structure.  Chomsky point out that anyone who knows a language must have internalized a set of rules which specify the sequence permitted in their language.  A grammar which consist in a set of statements or rules which specify which sequence of a language are possible, and which impossible, is a generative grammar.

Applied Linguistics and Linguistics

Generative linguistics

Chomsky’s second work presented the theory known as “standard theory” were he explained for first time the terms competence and performance, and other terms.  Finally he argued that his theory had a psychological reality. The claim of a psychological reality, proposed in the early 1960s, provided a strong impetus for the field of psycholinguistics.

Current Generative Theory

The idea of Chomsky was to create a grammar capable to be teaches to adults and children.  In 1979 Chomsky departed from the revived extended standard theory (REST) in a series of lecture known as government-and-biding” (CB) that was first presented in Lectures on government and binding (1981).

Descriptive Syntax

Much linguistics contributed to the development of sociolinguistic.  Sociolinguistic research comparing oral and written varieties of language make extensive use of descriptive grammar.  Lexicographer and grammarians base their dictionaries and reference grammars on the results of corpus data base, particularly in England.

Functional and typological theories

The most consistent proponent of a functional grammar one which explains its central role in communication and its adaptation to this purpose is Holiday’s systemic functional theory.  For holiday, each language elements chosen plays a meaningful role in furthering communication in that its choice represents a binary decision not to say something else.  Other functional theories whit less applied concerns have developed in the 1970s as researchers, many of whom were trained in generative linguistics, became discouraged by the absence of discourse influences and the abstraction away from communicative function of language by formal generative theories.  These researchers study how language differ from one another, what generalization may be made cross-linguistically based on the data analyzed, and how universal statements about language structure may be derived from the patterns of typological variation.  This approach is not to be equated with Chomsky’s universal grammar perspective.

While groups of functionalist linguistics were concerned about the discourse, their interest lies primarily in examining how discourse exerts influence on the shape and frequency of occurrence of syntactic construction in various contexts.  Also final group was concerned in examine how language is used in term of its pragmatic function.

Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics

The anthropological linguistics grounded in European structuralism and influenced by Sapir’s later work, expanded their research interests to include the study of discourse uses of language in various social contexts, as well as the study of language changes resulting from contact among language and dialects.

The sociolinguistics derived from the reactions of Hymes and other to Chomsky’s notion of competence and performance in the 1960s.  Hymes proposed that real object of linguistic research should be the study of communicative competence.  By the mid-1970s sociolinguistics was recognized as a major alternative discipline to ‘formal’ approaches to linguistics.

Linguistic research and applied linguistics

The descriptive researchers make use of sociolinguistics research to explain stylistic variation in their corpus data.  Tagmemic theory was also among the few approaches that stressed the importance of discourse analysis, having an impact on America rhetorical theory and the teaching of composition at the tertiary level.

Phonetics and Phonology

It is the more traditional articulatory phonetics and phonology that still make the greatest contribution to applied linguistics.  The traditional articulatory approach is still the basis for most discussion of pronunciation and oral language instruction generally in second-language context.

Morphology

Applied-linguistics research on lexicography, terminology development, second-language acquisition, and language teaching is still employing descriptive approaches that have been in use for some time.

Syntax

The descriptive syntax texts have been used for grammar course and for resource references in language policy and planning-particularly in the development of language standards in school, in second-language acquisition, in discourse analysis, in computational stylistics and in lexicography.

Semantic and Pragmatics

Researches in second-language acquisition and lexicography have both used lexical semantics as a resource for research on how words may be related, and on how they differ in various ways. Therese same concerns become important issues in vocabulary development as well, in both the learning of language arts and the teaching of second language.  Pragmatic, a historical development out of semantics has had a much greater impact on applied linguistics, primarily because the issues raised and the theories developed directly inform discourse analysis.  While pragmatics can take on formal characteristics, many interpretations of pragmatics amount to an exploration of the uses of language in discourse context and the study of the intentions of speakers underlying the literal message.

Sociolinguistics and Discourse Analysis

Other direct contributions from the sociolinguistics to applied- linguistics research include the fields of conversational analysis and conversational style.  Conversation analysis include research on interactional structure such as turn-taking, topic initiation, conversation closing, etc., all of which would come under the heading of ethnomethodology.  The basic premier of this research is that most of which are difficult to observe except when communication breaks down for some reason.