English Linguistic | Short Notes

linguistics, Sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, Syntax, What is Phonetics, What is Morphology? What are phonemes? What is difference between linguistic and physcholinguistic?


Linguistics:

What is linguistic?

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields: the study of language form, of language meaning, and of language in context.



The first is the study of language structure, or grammar. This focuses on the systems of rules that are followed by speakers or a language. lt encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the formation and composition of phrases and sentences from these words), and phonology (sound systems).

Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds, nonspeech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived.


The study of language meaning is concerned with how language users make the inferences required to understand another's speech, how meaning is assigned and processed, and ambiguity. This subfield encompasses semantics (how meaningis inferred from words and concepts) and pragmatics (how meaning is infered from context).

Language in its broader context includes evolutionary linguistics, which considers the origins of language; historical linguistics, which explores language change sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic vanation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and function of language in the mind: neuro-linguistics. which looks at language processing in the brain; language acquisition, now children or adults acquire language and discourse analysis, wnich involves the structure of texts and conversations.


Although linguistics is the scientific study of language, a number of other iitellectual disciplines are relevant to language and influence its study. Semiotics, for example, is the general study of signs and symbols both within language and without. Literary theorists study the use of language in literature. Linguistics additionally draws on work from such diverse fields as psychology, speech-language pathology, informatics, computer science, philosophy, biology, human anatomy, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, and acoustics.


Short Type Questions Answers on linguistics


Q.1. What is Psycholinguistics?


Ans: Psycholinguistics is the study of the understanding and production of language in its spoken and written forms. It covers the
thought processes that make it possible to create a meaningful sentences out of words and the processes that make it possible to understand words.

Q.2. What are the similarities between sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics?


Ans: Socio-linguistics: studies the relation of language to society Psycho-linguistics: studies the relation of language to psychology,

Q.3. What is Sociolinguistics?


Ans: Sociolinguistics is the study of all aspects of society. It studies the relationship between language and different social factors such as class, sex, age and ethnicity.

Q.4. What are the goals of Sociolinguistics?


Ans: The goals of Sociolinguistics are:
  1. the social as well as the linguistic
  2. socially realistic linguistic
  3. socially constituted linguistics

Q.5. What is the purpose of sociolinguistics?

Ans: Sociolinguistics is the study of the way culture and society affect the way language is used. Aspects of sociolinguistics include slang, vernacular, local dialect, etc.

Q.6. What does Syntax Mean?


Ans: Syntax is basically a particular pattern of the formation of sentences, or phrases in any given language. It deals with the grammatical arrangement of words.

Q.7. What is a Syntax Error?


Ans: A syntax error is used to refer to an error in the sequence of characters in coding. Programs will not compile languages until all syntax errors are corrected.

Q.8. What is Phonetics?

Ans: Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech.

Q.9. What is Morphology?

Ans: Morphology is the study of formation and functions of words.

Q.10. Is abbreviation a long word?

Ans: Abbreviation, in itself, is not an abbreviation, so obviously it is not going to be small, and concise, but more of a broad word. The long word "abbreviation" starts from the short word 'brevis' meaning
brief.

Q.11. What are some disadvantages of the English language?

Ans: A much more serious disadvantage for learners of English is the extent of the vocabulary, we often have many words for the same concept. Another disadvantage of English is its reliance on rigid word order for meaning.

Q.12. What is the difference between  Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar?

Ans: Both kinds of grammar are concerned with rules--but in different ways. Specialists in descriptive grammar study the rules or patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. On the other hand, prescriptive grammarians lay out rules about what they believe to be the "correct" or "incorrect" use of language.

Q.13. What are phonemes?

Ans: Phonemes include all significant differences of sound, including features of voicing, place and manner of articulation, accent, and secondary features of nasalization, glottalization, labialization, and the like.


Q.14. What is auditory phonetics?

Ans: Phonetics studies speech sounds according to their production in the vocal organs (articulatory phonetics), their physical properties (acoustic phonetics), or their effect on the ear (auditory phonetics).

Q.15. What are articulatory phonetics?


Ans: Phonetics studies speech sounds according to their production in the vocal organs (articulatory phonetics), their physical properties (acoustic phonetics), or their effect on the ear (auditory phonetics).

Q.16. What is acoustic phonetics?

Ans: Phonetics studies speech sounds according to their production in the vocal organs (articulatory phonetics), their physical properties (acoustic phonetics), or their effect on the ear (auditory phonetics).

Q.17. What is the International Phonetic Alphabet?

Ans: Systems of phonetic writing are aimed at the accurate transcription of any sequence of speech sounds; the best known is the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Q.18. What is stylistics?

Ans: Stylistics is the study of style and the methods used in written and spoken languages. 

Q.19. What is Graphology?

Ans: Graphology is the study of handwriting. Graphology usually focuses on determining a person's mood or personality based on the
way they write.

Q.20. What influence has Noam Chomsky had on psycholinguistics?

Ans: The work of Noam Chomsky and other proponents of transformational grammar have had a marked influence on the field.

Q.21. What additional studies are involved in psycholinguistics?

Ans: Most problems in psycholinguistics are more concrete, involving the study of linguistic performance and language acquisition especially in children.


Q.22. What relationship is of particular importance to psycholinguists?


Ans: Psycholinguists investigate the relationship between language and thought, a perennial subject of debate being whether
language is a function of thinking or thought a function of the use of language.

Q.23. What does psycholinguistics focus on?


Ans: An important focus of psycholinguistics is the largely unconscious application of grammatical rules that enable people to produce and comprehend intelligible sentences.

Q.24. What is difference between linguistic and physcholinguistic?


Ans: Psycholinguistics covers the cognitive processes that make it possible to generate a grammatical and meaningful sentence out of make it possible to understand utterances, words, text, etc. Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

Q.25. How would you describe dialect?

Ans: Dialects reflect and may reinforce class, ethnic, or regional vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as the processes that differences among speakers of the same language.