what is linguistics?
introduction
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguistics looks at how we write, how we speak, and how we process language. It is a complex, interdisciplinary field that takes many other fields into account, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, cognitive science, neurology, forensics, and computer science. Linguistics serve as translators, code-breakers, forensic analysts, writers, teachers, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, scientists, computer programmers, and more. It is a flexible field that allows you to apply the skills that you've learned to many different areas of life. Once you've taken a course in linguistics, you'll never look at language the same way again.
Everything that we do is centered around language and it is important that we understand how language works. Surprisingly, you'll find that a lot of people are not inherently aware of how they use language. There are a lot of grammar rules in our brains that we are not conscious of. We can't explain why a sentence doesn't look or sound right - we just know that it's wrong.
A really good example of this in English is the way that we organize our adjective order. If I were to ask you how you choose to organize your adjectives when you describe something, would you be able to put together a list of rules? I'm guessing you probably wouldn't.
Luckily, The Cambridge Dictionary has already done this for us:
- Opinion
- Size
- Physical quality
- Shape
- Age
- Color
- Origin
- Material
- Type
- Purpose
So you can have a lovely little round gray skipping stone, but not a skipping little gray round lovely stone. It immediately sounds wrong. Why does it sound wrong? Well, there are subconscious rules in our brains that tell us it does. Where these rules come from is a topic of discussion among linguists. You can read more about the two main branches of linguistics at Formal vs Cognitive Linguistics.
This example is just one of many things that linguists study.
common myths
One of the most infamous question that many linguists are asked is "How many languages do you speak?" (so often so that it's actually become a meme). I would like to clarify that linguistics is not necessarily about how many languages you know, it's about studying and analyzing the features of language itself. While many linguists are familiar with many different languages (and are often fluent in other languages than their native language), this is not a requirement to be a linguist.
Linguistics is also not about learning how to "properly speak" a language. Linguists are descriptivists, which means that they observe the language the way that it is used, not the way it is "supposed" to be used - for more on that, you can read the article on Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism.
Going along with this topic, there seems to be a trend of people saying that with the prevalence of the internet and text messaging, that the English language is "deteriorating" and that young kids and young adults are "ruining" English. Let me assure you that this is something that people have been complaining about for literal centuries. The short answer is no, the younger generations are not ruining English. In fact, this what languages are supposed to do. Languages are continuously changing and evolving. I, for one, am excited to see how the language changes through the internet and through the ability of mass communication between ourselves and people in other countries around the world. It's an exciting time to be a linguist!