Portal:Linguistics

Portal:Linguistics is a comprehensive gateway to the study of language and its structure, known as linguistics. This field involves analysing language through various sub-disciplines, including phonetics, syntax, and semantics, among others.

Overview

Linguistics is a broad field that encompasses the scientific study of language and its structure. It involves analysing language form, language meaning, and language in context. Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay between sound and meaning.

Sub-disciplines

Phonetics

Phonetics is the study of physical sounds in human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (also known as phonemes), including their articulatory, acoustic, and auditory characteristics.

Syntax

Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. The term syntax can also be used to refer to the rules governing the behaviour of mathematical systems, such as logic, artificial formal languages, and computer programming languages.

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. It can be applied to entire texts or to single words. In linguistics, semantics is the subfield that is devoted to the study of meaning, as inherent in linguistic behaviour.

Related Fields

Linguistics also intersects with fields such as psycholinguistics, which explores the cognitive processes and representation of language, and sociolinguistics, which explores the social factors that influence language use and development.

See Also

• List of linguistics journals
• List of linguists
• History of linguistics