Field of Linguistics

What is Linguistics

One of the most remarkable aspects of the human mind is the ability to acquire and use the rich and complex system of knowledge that is language. At an age when tying one's shoelaces still presents a major challenge, virtually all children are already quite competent in the language of their environment. These observations have led to two of the primary questions confronting linguists: "What is it that humans know when they know a language?" and "How do humans acquire that knowledge?" As we begin to answer these and related questions, we find fascinating insights into the nature of human cognition.

Theoretical linguists seek to describe and explain the complexities of the human linguistic system. They have determined that, in spite of the many superficial differences across languages, all human languages have the same fundamental structure and, at the deepest levels, work in the same way. Typically, the field is broken down into the following sub-fields: phonetics (speech sound); phonology (sound structure); morphology (word structure); syntax (sentence structure); and semantics (meaning).