Language Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Study== [[File:Portrait of Sir William Jones (4671559) (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|[[William Jones (philologist)|William Jones]] discovered the family relation between [[Latin]] and [[Sanskrit]], laying the ground for the discipline of [[historical linguistics]].]] {{main|Linguistics|History of linguistics}} The study of language, [[linguistics]], has been developing into a science since the first grammatical descriptions of particular languages in [[India]] more than 2000 years ago, after the development of the [[Brahmi script]]. Modern linguistics is a science that concerns itself with all aspects of language, examining it from all of the theoretical viewpoints described above.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Newmeyer|2005}}</ref> ===Subdisciplines=== The academic study of language is conducted within many different disciplinary areas and from different theoretical angles, all of which inform modern approaches to linguistics. For example, [[descriptive linguistics]] examines the grammar of single languages, [[theoretical linguistics]] develops theories on how best to conceptualize and define the nature of language based on data from the various extant human languages, [[sociolinguistics]] studies how languages are used for social purposes informing in turn the study of the social functions of language and grammatical description, [[neurolinguistics]] studies how language is processed in the human brain and allows the experimental testing of theories, [[computational linguistics]] builds on theoretical and descriptive linguistics to construct computational models of language often aimed at processing natural language or at testing linguistic hypotheses, and [[historical linguistics]] relies on grammatical and lexical descriptions of languages to trace their individual histories and reconstruct trees of language families by using the [[comparative method]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Trask|2007}}</ref> ===Early history=== [[File:Ferdinand de Saussure by Jullien.png|thumb|upright|[[Ferdinand de Saussure]] developed the [[structuralism|structuralist]] approach to studying language.]] The formal study of language is often considered to have started in [[India]] with [[PΔαΉini]], the 5th century BC grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of [[Sanskrit]] [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]]. However, [[Sumer]]ian scribes already studied the differences between [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] and [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] grammar around 1900 BC. Subsequent grammatical traditions developed in all of the ancient cultures that adopted writing.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Campbell|2001|pp=82β83}}</ref> In the 17th century AD, the French [[Port-Royal Grammar]]ians developed the idea that the grammars of all languages were a reflection of the universal basics of thought, and therefore that grammar was universal. In the 18th century, the first use of the [[comparative method]] by British [[philologist]] and expert on ancient India [[William Jones (philologist)|William Jones]] sparked the rise of [[comparative linguistics]].<ref>{{harvnb|Bloomfield|1914|p=310}}</ref> The scientific study of language was broadened from Indo-European to language in general by [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]]. Early in the 20th century, [[Ferdinand de Saussure]] introduced the idea of language as a static system of interconnected units, defined through the oppositions between them.<ref name="Saussure"/> By introducing a distinction between [[Diachronic linguistics|diachronic]] and [[Synchronic linguistics|synchronic]] analyses of language, he laid the foundation of the modern discipline of linguistics. Saussure also introduced several basic dimensions of linguistic analysis that are still fundamental in many contemporary linguistic theories, such as the distinctions between [[syntagmatic analysis|syntagm]] and [[paradigmatic analysis|paradigm]], and the [[Langue and parole|Langue-parole distinction]], distinguishing language as an abstract system (''langue''), from language as a concrete manifestation of this system (''parole'').<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Clarke|1990|pages=143β144}}</ref> === Modern linguistics === [[File:Noam chomsky cropped.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Noam Chomsky]] is one of the most important linguistic theorists of the 20th century.]] In the 1960s, [[Noam Chomsky]] formulated the [[Generative linguistics|generative theory of language]]. According to this theory, the most basic form of language is a set of syntactic rules that is universal for all humans and which underlies the grammars of all human languages. This set of rules is called [[Universal Grammar]]; for Chomsky, describing it is the primary objective of the discipline of linguistics. Thus, he considered that the grammars of individual languages are only of importance to linguistics insofar as they allow us to deduce the universal underlying rules from which the observable linguistic variability is generated.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Foley|1997|pp=82β83}}</ref> In opposition to the formal theories of the generative school, [[Functional theories of grammar|functional theories of language]] propose that since language is fundamentally a tool, its structures are best analyzed and understood by reference to their functions. [[Formal grammar|Formal theories of grammar]] seek to define the different elements of language and describe the way they relate to each other as systems of formal rules or operations, while functional theories seek to define the functions performed by language and then relate them to the linguistic elements that carry them out.<ref name="NewmeyerForm"/>{{refn|group=note|"Functional grammar analyzes grammatical structure, as do formal and structural grammar; but it also analyzes the entire communicative situation: the purpose of the speech event, its participants, its discourse context. Functionalists maintain that the communicative situation motivates, constrains, explains, or otherwise determines grammatical structure, and that a structural or formal approach is not merely limited to an artificially restricted data base, but is inadequate even as a structural account. Functional grammar, then, differs from formal and structural grammar in that it purports not to model but to explain; and the explanation is grounded in the communicative situation".<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Nichols|1984}}</ref>}} The framework of [[cognitive linguistics]] interprets language in terms of the concepts (which are sometimes universal, and sometimes specific to a particular language) which underlie its forms. Cognitive linguistics is primarily concerned with how the mind creates meaning through language.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Croft|Cruse|2004|pp=1β4}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page