Chapter 1 & Intro: What Is Linguistics?

(linguistic) competence

the sum total of all the knowledge, mostly subconscious and rule- or pattern-based, that a fluent speaker has about her language. (Brendan)

Syntax

the way in which linguistic elements (such as words) are put together to form constituents (such as phrases or clauses). [Isabelle John] [See merriam-webster.com]

descriptive rules

Language rules that describe what is observed to occur in natural language (e.g. In direct questions, place the question word at the beginning of the sentence: "What do you want?") (Brendan)

Syntactic Structures

Noam Chomsky's 1957 publication that began the current wave of "generative linguistics" (Brendan) [see Linguistics, p. 4]

Psycholinguistics

The study of the mental faculties involved in the perception, production, and acquisition of language. (Aleshia Crandall) [See merriam-webster.com]

Neurolinguistics

The subfield of biolinguistics that studies the relation between language and the brain, especially the correlation between brain damage and speech and language deficits. (Veronica Hill) [Linguistics, p. 591]

Phonology

The system of contrastive relationships among the speech sounds... (Brianne Baxter) [Oxford Dictionary] The science or study of speech sounds and their production, transmission, and reception, and their analysis, classification and transcription. [from dictionary.com] -Billy Finlay

hybrid sub-fields of linguistics

psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, neurolinguistics. The field of second language acquisition combines psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, roughly speaking... (Brendan)

Phonetics

The science or study of speech sounds and their production, transmission, and reception, and their analysis, classification and transcription. [from dictionary.com] -Billy Finlay

Linguistics

The scientific study of human natural language. One of the key components of the field of cognitive science. The field as a whole represents an attempt to break down the broad questions about the nature of language and communication into simpler questions to be answered, like connecting smaller puzzle pieces to form the whole puzzle. (Porter) [See Linguistics, p. 5 and 6]

Sociolinguistics

The study of language in relation to social factors, including differences of regional, class, and occupational dialect, gender differences, and bilingualism.(Soojin Kwak) [Oxford dictionary.com]

natural language

(A) human language developed over time in the natural way, as opposed to the artificial languages used for experimentation, computation or philosophy. It is the main focus of linguistic inquiry. (Brendan) [see Wikipedia s.v. "natural language"]

Pragmatics

A branch of linguistics that is concerned with the relationship of sentences [and their meanings] to the environment in which they occur.

language change

A central area of study within historical linguistics that seeks to account for the structural and pragmatic ways in which languages change over time (=diachronically) (Brendan)

Language Change

A phenomenon wherein a language is altered over a period of time due to various changes and influences, such as the social incorporation of a different language or culture, that impact several aspects of the language including sentence structure, creation of new words, and pronunciation. (Kait Brown) [National Science Foundation]

Structural Linguistics

A school of linguistics characterized by an emphasis on the overt formal features of language, especially of phonology, morphology, and syntax (Brett Armstrong) [http://www.dictionary.com/browse/structural-linguistics]

split infinitive

A syntactic structure common in spoken English in which (usually) an adverb is inserted between the infinitive particle 'to' and its base-form verb: e.g. "to boldly go", "to never eat".

Universal Grammar

A theory describing the most fundamental properties of all natural languages. (Margaret Bowman) [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Innateness and Language."]

Noam Chomsky

American linguist (and cognitive scientist/political activist) who is considered the father of modern linguistics; active from the 1950s to the present.

language variation

An important concept/sub-field of sociolinguistics that seeks to account for the linguistic differences among interlanguage groups (e.g. different dialects or idiolects) at the level of pronunciation, intonation, word choice, grammatical structures, etc. (Brendan)

Generative Linguistics

Field of linguistics developed by Noam Choasky published in his book Syntactic Structures. Since the 1960s it has been the dominant school of linguistics used in the United States as well as Europe and Japan. (Stacy Heiner) [see Linguistics, p. 4].

prescriptive rules

Language rules coming from authoritative sources such as academies, style guides, or prominent teachers (e.g. "Never split infinitives", "Never end a sentence with a preposition"). (Brendan)

Morphology

Refers to the study of the structure of words, especially in terms of morphemes; which are the smallest meaningful language units. (Monica Brissette) [See Learning to Teach Languages Volume 1: Establishing the foundations]

language acquisition

The process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. (Sara Augustine) [Wikipedia s.v. Language Acquisition]

Grammar

That department of the study of a language which deals with its inflexional forms or other means of indicating the relations of words in the sentence, and with the rules for employing these in accordance with established usage; usually including also the department which deals with the phonetic system of the language and the principles of its representation in writing. (Melissa Brown) [Oxford English Dictionary: Grammar 1.A].

(linguistic) performance

The actual productions of a speaker which sometimes reflect her 'competence', while at other times errors or variation arising from biological (tiredness), social (peer pressure), and psychological (stress) factors. (Brendan)

Cognitive Science

The field that studies the structure and functioning of the human cognitive process. [Its branches include linguistics, psychology, neuroscience and computer science] (Helen Day) [Linguistics page 5]

Linguistic Competence

The systemic linguistic knowledge that a speaker possesses that allows them to produce and comprehend an infinite number of utterances in their language(s) and to distinguish grammatical sentences from ungrammatical ones. Linguistic competence is notably separate from linguistic performance, or language use. (Carlin)

Language Acquisition Device

The theorized system of brain structures and instinctive cognitive processes that accounts for a person's acquisition of his native language, and arguably of additional languages as well. Another of Chomsky's ideas. (Brendan)

Chomsky's three models

linguistic competence, linguistic performance, and language acquisition. If fully developed, these three would theoretically account for all of the data observed in normal language comprehension and production. (Brendan)

structural sub-fields of linguistics

phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics (Brendan)