Branches of Linguistics - Meaning, Scope, Types, FAQs

Language is all around us. It is what enables us to communicate with others, express ideas and emotions, and think of the world in different ways. All human languages are made of intricate layers of knowledge structures and meaning. The study of these is linguistics.

Those who study languages are called linguists. These professionals seek to better understand the nature of languages - how they came about, how they evolve, how humans acquire languages, the commonalities and differences between languages, and a variety of other things of value. Because of the complex nature of languages, the study of linguistics is divided into multiple branches. In this article, we take a brief look at the structure of language and the broader interdisciplinary branches of linguistics that anyone interested in the study of languages needs to know about.

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Branches of linguistics

Due to the intricate structure of languages and their far-reaching impact, there are various subfields, domains, and specialised branches of linguistics. Here are the main branches of linguistics with examples.

1. Psycholinguistics - Psycholinguistics is amongst the most popular branches of linguistics that studies the relationship between psychological processes and linguistic behaviour. An example of psycholinguistics is found in the study of how humans perceive language and why certain words have the capacity to trigger us emotionally, more so than other words.
   Such branches of linguistics also seek to understand how humans acquire and master languages. Psycholinguists often work with child psychologists and conduct research on speech and language development to understand how humans perceive and produce language.
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2. Sociolinguistics - This is another one of those branches of linguistics that serves a crucial function in our understanding and application of linguistics. Because language is a deeply human and social construct, socio-linguistics deals with the effect of different aspects of society on language.
   On top of that, it studies the interaction of languages as people from different cultures and heritage interact. One example of sociolinguistics is the emergence of different dialects of a language, as is the study of language confluence, such as Hindi and English being spoken together as Hinglish.

3. Applied linguistics - Applied linguistics involves the practical use of linguistics to solve real-life problems. Linguists make use of other fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc. to better understand how to apply their study of linguistics to help people and solve real-world concerns.
   It is best to understand such branches of linguistics with examples. Applied linguistics can be seen in speech therapy, translating texts from different cultures or ages, and even in the process of second-language acquisition.
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4. Computational linguistics - This is a relatively new branch of linguistics that deals with the use of language by computers and programs. Such branches of linguistics leverage computer science to analyse, model, and produce speech. One example of computational linguistics is the AI-driven Google Assistant that uses natural language processing and speech recognition systems to do your bidding.
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5. Comparative linguistics - As the name suggests, this branch is associated with identifying similarities and differences between languages that have a common origin. For instance, romance languages like Italian, French, and Spanish differ in speech and construction even though they all originated from Vulgar Latin of the Roman era. Studies in comparative linguistics also include studying distant languages, such as Sanskrit and German that are separated by thousands of kilometres and years, but which nevertheless have structural and etymological similarities.
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6. Historical linguistics - This is one of the more intriguing branches of linguistics. It studies the evolution of languages over a period of time and analyses the changes that took place within them. One of the purposes of this branch is the examination of ‘dead’ languages, such as Latin, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, etc., and the emergence of current languages from them. Historical linguistics also enables us to reconstruct earlier stages of languages to understand how grammar, semantics, and phonetics can change over time.
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7. Stylistics - This is another one of the important branches of linguistics. It is the study and interpretation of style and rhetorics as employed by different authors within a language. Oftentimes, such interdisciplinary branches of linguistics include the study of literature which lets one analyze symbolism, rhyme and rhythm, dialogues, sentence structures, etc. For example, the language used in politics and advertising is very different from that of religious texts and classical literature. The analysis of that comes within the domain of stylistics.

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What is linguistics - Some more branches

While it is important to know about the major branches of linguistics, with examples, it is also equally necessary to learn the different subfields of linguistics that deal with the utterance of physical sounds, word order, and meaning construction. Here are a few more structural branches of linguistics that one needs to know about.

Phonetics - The scientific study of speech sounds that investigate how humans perceive and produce sounds. Three sub-fields make up this branch, namely - articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and perceptual phonetics.

Phonology - This branch studies how different sounds come together to form the spoken words of a language. It is the systematic arrangement of sound patterns in languages and dialects.

Syntax - Syntax is the study of rules of word arrangement to form proper phrases and sentences. In English, the simplest form of syntax follows the ‘Subject + Verb + Object’ formula.

Semantics - Semantic is one of the special branches of linguistics that deal with the study of meaning, reference, and truth. Semantics is related to various other fields and disciplines such as pragmatics (see below), philosophy and computer science as well.

Morphology - Morphology is the branch of linguistics that deals with the study of words, their formation, and their relationship with other words within the same language. Whenever one is dealing with etymology, root words, prefixes, suffixes, and word stems, etc., one is operating in the domain of morphology.

Pragmatics - This is one of the more unique branches of linguistics, in that it studies how the context of spoken or written language relates to semantics or the meaning of words. Pragmatics also borrows heavily from sociolinguistics and investigates how contextual clues can alter meaning in social interactions.

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Hierarchy of language

While we’re at it, let us also take a look at the hierarchy of language and how smaller units come together to form bigger, more complex structures of a language. Below, we start with the smallest unit (phoneme) and progress towards complete texts.

1. Phonemes - These are the smallest units of language that distinguish one word from another. For instance, the letters s, d, w, and b in the words say, day, way, and bay are phonetic elements.

2. Syllables - A word or part of a word that contains one vowel sound. For instance, the word day has one syllable, while daily has two syllables.

3. Morphemes - A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning that a word in a language can be divided into. For instance, the word unreasonable can be divided into three sections - un-, reason, and -able.

4. Words - A word is defined as the smallest sequence of phonemes that can stand on its own. Contrast this with morphemes that do not stand on their own. For instance, the word management can stand on its own as an entity in language, but its constituent morpheme ‘-ment’ cannot.

5. Phrases - Any group of words that are used together without a full verb is called a phrase. Phrases can be just a single word or a complete sentence but do not include the subject-verb pairing. For instance, “under the bed”, “a box of chocolates”, “in the air” are examples of phrases.

6. Clauses - A clause is a group of words that has a subject and a verb. For instance, “Rahul swims fast” is a clause.

7. Sentences - Sentences are groups of words that express a complete thought. They’re similar to clauses but have a more thorough statement to make. “Rahul swims fast but not as fast as Samar” is a sentence that consists of two clauses separated by a ‘but’.

8. Texts - Finally, a text is a coherent sequence of sentences, be it spoken or written, that is up for critical analysis and interpretation. Texts can be classified by genre or type, such as poems, essays, books, news, conversations, etc.

This is the basic hierarchical structure of a language. Although we’ve used English as an example, this is true for most languages of the world.

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Career scope of Linguistics

There is great career scope of linguistics in our world today. Some of the major employment areas for those studying the different branches of linguistics include teaching, speech therapy, computer science and programming, anthropology, translation, social psychology, linguistics research, etc.

One can easily find work as a translator, speech therapist, interpreter, writer, editor, accent coach, librarian, lecturer, social researcher, etc. The salary in these professions will vary depending on one’s area of specialization, the company that they’re working for, and the level of expertise and experience they have.

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Knowing about the different branches of linguistics with examples is necessary for anyone who loves languages and wants to pursue linguistics as a career option. Curiosity and problem-solving skills are highly rewarded in this field, especially for those who have a love and passion for languages and want to know what is linguistics on the whole. We hope you now have a better idea of what is linguistics and what are the major branches of linguistics with examples.

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