Definition of Linguistics – Scientific Study of Language

Definition of Linguistics

If we look at the definition of linguistics, we can define it from different aspects. Broadly speaking, Linguistics is the study of Language. The foremost and most important thing in linguistics is language

• What is Language?
• What is the use of Language?

First of all, we must consider these questions, before going into the details of the definition of linguistics.

Sapir defines language as a purely human and non-instinctive method of communication through voluntarily produced symbols. While Chomsky defines language as a set finite or non-finite sentences each having a finite length and constructed out of a finite number of elements.

 

The anchor point that holds all the above-mentioned questions is communication. In other words, the answer to the question as to why anything needs to use language is quite explicit in the form of communication. The basic goal of a language, most importantly,  is the transfer of data or thoughts from one mind to another. 

Different songs by male whales, flashing signals by a male firefly, squeaks and screams by a young and lost monkey, dance by honeybee and meowing in a particular way by a cat for its kitten are all forms of communication. 

Communication

Communication is any behaviour that affects the behaviour of other organisms by conveying information. In other words, this information can be termed as a message. For successful communication or transfer of a message, successful detection of the message is necessary. This message can be regarding a pleasant or dangerous situation, or an internal state of organisms such as fear, thrust, hunger, etc. 

Flashing signals in a specific pattern by a firefly male carry a specific signal. As a result of a certain kind of scream by a young monkey, its parents will get the message that it is lost or is in danger. This association of specific messages with specific behaviour is code, and the process is encoding. 

At this point, there is a need to distinguish between intentional communicative signals and unintentional informative signals. A girl walks into the room with her wet clothes and an umbrella in her hand will provide you with the information that she has wet clothes due to rain. But when she says that I am here to submit my resume for a job, she is intentionally communicating a message to you.

Language

Language is intentionally communicating messages, encoded in the form of words. These words are uttered through a sequence of changes in organs, which other organisms perceive and decode.

Linguists consider language a unique trait of human beings, as it helps them differentiate themselves from other living organisms. What sets humans apart from other organisms is that human language is more elaborate and generative. 

A firefly can only produce specific sets of signal sequences. A lost monkey can produce a specific scream to indicate its present condition. Moves by a dancing honeybee are specific and can be interpreted easily. Contrary to this, the human language was and is evolving.

Properties of Human Language

Human language can have the following distinctive features that are hard to find in other organisms:

Reflexivity

Firstly, one of the distinctive properties of human language is that humans can use language to think and talk about language itself. 

Displacement

Secondly, human language has a property of displacement. By displacement, it means that human language has a specific property using which they can talk about the past, present and future. It allows humans to talk about things that existed in the past, for instance, “this desert had an oasis” or refer to events in the future as we see in weather forecasting daily. Animal communication lacks this property.

Productivity 

Thirdly, human language has this special property of productivity. Productivity is the ability of humans to create a huge number of expressions using the same sentence structure, each conveying a completely distinct message. 

Cultural Transmission

Human language forms a pivotal building block of culture. Language is an important part of any culture and is the source of the cultural identity of people.

Arbitrariness

Human language has this strange property of arbitrariness by which it means that words in the human language have an arbitrary link with the form it encodes.

Definition of Linguistics

Linguistics is the study of language. Now having gone through the basic concept of language, the above-mentioned definition of linguistics can be elaborated precisely.

In the first place, linguistics is the study of the following components:

• Which rules govern the formation of linguistics elements.
• How linguistic elements carry meaning.
• How contextual influence shapes and alters the meaning.

This study of language is collected through already available data of language. Which is collected through observation. Consequently, we can say that the study of language undergoes a set procedure. Thus, defining linguistics as the scientific study of language. 

Including the above-mentioned components, linguistics also studies how language works i.e. how language is acquired, used, and represented in the brain. Moreover, It studies as to how language changes over time. 

In a conclusion, Linguistics is the scientific study of any aspect of language.

In conclusion, the study of language thus has two parts:

1. Formation of a language: this part deals with the formation of different linguistics items. Starting from phoneme, which is the lowest level of language structure, to sentence, which is the highest level of study of language structure. Moreover, it deals with the representation of language in mind and how the change in context affects the meaning conveyed by linguistics items. This part of the study of language is studied under the umbrella of Theoretical Linguistics. 
2. Use of Language: this part studies the use of language and application of information collected from theoretical linguistics. The information is used in defining the patterns and innovating methods to aid the learning of language and is studied under the umbrella of Applied Linguistics.