Lecture No .1
'' What is linguistics''
In recent years, one of the fastest expanding branches of knowledge
has been linguistics- the systematic study of language. Not just
particular languages, but the system of human communication.
Linguistics tries to answer the basic questions: What is language? ,
How does language work?, What do all languages have in common?,
What kind of variation is found among languages?, how does human
language differ from animal communication?, How does child learn
to speak and why do language change?. What is the relationship
ًbetween language and culture? Language and thought.
 Most people spend an immense amount of their live in talking ,
listening, and reading. In any normal conversation ,regardless
of time , many words are used. Therefore, it is assumed that
people used at least 100,000 words per day.
 The use of language is integral part of being human. Children
all over the world start putting words together at approximately
the same age and follow similar ways of their speech
development.
 All languages are similar in their basic structure whether found
in south America, Australia or in another part of the world.
Language and abstract thought are closely connected.
 All speakers experience the material world about them with the
same senses and in the same way . The difference in
phonological, grammatical, and lexical systems reflect the
social organization of speech.
Linguistics has been studied in tow ways:
1- In relation to other sciences outside itself.
2- In the different branches within itself.
Moreover, linguistics perform tow tasks: first it is
concerned with the study of particular language as ends in
themselves, in order to be able to produce complete and
accurate descriptions of them, second it also studies
languages as means to a further end, in order to be able to
obtain information about the nature of language in general .
What is a Linguist?
A person who studies linguistics is usually referred to as a
linguist. The word '' linguist'' is unsatisfactory and it causes
confusion since it refers to someone who speaks a large
number of languages, one who is master of other tongs beside
his own. Linguists in the sense of linguistics experts need not
to be fluent in languages, though they must have a wide of
different types of languages. It is important for theme to
analyze and explain linguistic phenomenon such as Turkish
vowel system ,or German verbs and so on. They are skilled
objective observers rather than producers.
Linguist may be likened to a musicologist . A musicologist
cold analyze a piano concerto by pointing out the theme and
variation, harmony .But such a person need not to actually play
the concerto, a task left to concert pianist.
Linguists are interested in what is said , they describe
language in all its aspects and concepts
How does linguistics differ from
traditional grammar?
Linguistics is descriptive, and not prescriptive. Linguists
are interested in what is said, not what they think out to be
said. They describe and observe language in all its aspects
and facts. Traditional grammar are prescriptive they
prescribe rules of correctness to be followed by people.
According to them the grammarian are concerned to make
rules of how people ought to speak and write .According to
modern linguistics, before one prescribe rules, one must
first describe the observed facts about the language, and
this is the main difference between the two schools.
 Linguists regard the spoken language as primary, not the
written, where as traditional grammar is interested in the
written form of language rather than the spoken one. They
insisted on moulding language in accordance with the usage of
the best authors, and these best authors existed only in written
forms.
 Linguists look first at the spoken word, which preceded
the written every where in the world . Linguists regard spoken
and written forms as belonging to different, though overlapping
systems, which must be analyzed separately: The spoken first,
then the written.
Linguistics does not force languages into a Latin framework. Linguists
study each language in its own terms, and they do not impose or judge
one language by the standard of other. Traditional grammarians tried to
build language on a model and structure of Latin grammar in spite of the
fact that languages differ from each other.