Outline of linguistics


The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to linguistics:
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist. Linguistics can be theoretical or applied.

Branches of linguistics

Subfields of linguistics

Subfields, by linguistic structures studied

Sub-fields of structure-focused linguistics include:
  • Phonetics – the study of the physical properties of speech production and perception
  • Phonology – the study of sounds as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning
  • Morphology – the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified
  • Syntax – study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences
  • Semantics – the study of the meaning of words and fixed word combinations, and how these compose to form the meanings of sentences
  • Pragmatics – the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts – and the role played by context and nonlinguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning

Subfields, by nonlinguistic factors studied

Other subfields of linguistics

  • Contrastive linguistics – an approach which seeks to analyze a pair of languages via their similarities and differences
  • Corpus linguistics – an empirical linguistic methodology that aims to study language by using large, searchable, annotated databases
  • Dialectology – the study of language dialects, i.e, subsets of a language
  • Discourse analysis – an approach that studies language as it is naturally used and constituted within discourses, with discourses considered generally as semiotic structures
  • Grammar – the system of rules and principles governing the composition and usage of a language
  • Interlinguistics – the study of auxiliary and planned languages for the facilitation of communication between speakers of different languages and their design
  • Language acquisition – process by which an individual acquires their first language
  • Language education – teaching specific language and language science
  • Language for specific purposes – the study of language learning in context of highly specific goals and purposes for which the language is learnt, particularly in education and applied linguistcs
  • Lexicology – the study of the lexicon of a given language and its structure
  • Orthography – sets of conventions for writing a language, including spelling, punctuation, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and emphasis
  • Rhetoric – the study of the techniques by which language can be used to persuade
  • Text linguistics – an approach that views texts as communicative systems, particularly focusing on the study of texts as a whole

Schools, movements, and approaches of linguistics

Related fields

History of linguistics

Timeline of discovery of basic linguistics concepts

When were the basic concepts first described and by whom?

Questions in linguistics

  1. What is language?
  2. How did it/does it evolve?
  3. How does language serve as a medium of communication?
  4. How does language serve as a medium of thinking?
  5. What is common to all languages?
  6. How do languages differ?

Basic concepts

What basic concepts / terms do I have to know to talk about linguistics?

Linguistics scholars

People who had a significant influence on the development of the field

Linguistics lists

ArabicAramaicArmenianBrailleCopticCyrillic
GeorgianGothicKoreanHebrewIPAEnglish IPA
KannadaHiraganaKatakanaMorse codeICAO spellingPhoenician
RunicSAMPA chartEnglish SAMPAShavianThai

The placement of linguistics within broader frameworks

Linguistics can be described as an academic discipline and, at least in its theoretical subfields, as a field of science, being a widely recognized category of specialized expertise, embodying its own terminology, nomenclature, and scientific journals. Many linguists, such as David Crystal, conceptualize the field as being primarily scientific.
Linguistics is a multi-disciplinary field of research that combines tools from natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, and the humanities.
Historically, there has been some lack of consensus on the disciplinary classification of linguistics, particularly theoretical linguistics. Linguistic realists viewed linguistics as a formal science; linguistic nominalists viewed linguistics as an empirical or even physical science; linguistic conceptualists viewed linguistics as a branch of psychology and therefore a social science; others yet have argued for viewing linguistics as a mixed science.
Linguistics is heterogeneous in its methods of research, so that each area of theoretical linguistics may resemble methodologically either formal science or empirical science, to different degrees. For example, phonetics uses empirical approaches to study the physical acoustics of spoken language. On the other hand, semantically and grammatically, the usability of a formal or natural language is dependent on a formal and arbitrary axiomatization of rules or norms. Furthermore, as studied in pragmatics and semiotics, linguistic meaning is influenced by social context.
To enable communication by upholding a lexico-semantic norm, the speakers of a shared language need to agree on the meaning of a sequence of phonemes; for instance, "aunt" would be acknowledged to signify "parent's sister or parent's sister-in-law", instead of "drummer" or "guest". Likewise, grammatically, it may be necessary for the interlocutors to agree on the morphological and syntactic properties of the sequence; say, that the sequence would be treated as a singular noun convertible morphologically to plurality by the addition of the suffix -s, or that as a noun it must not be modified syntactically by an adverb.