Introduction to English Linguistics

Linguistics is a fascinating area. I was never aware of the role that linguistics played in my everyday life. Before I started studying it, I took language for granted, never I stopped a single second to think about this thing that I call language and that I somehow ‘learned’ without even realising. Linguistics is defined as the science of language, its structure, nature and variation, which includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics and syntax.

I will start by explaining what each of those concepts mean. Phonetics is a sub-discipline of linguistics which deals with the production of speech sounds (articulatory phonetics), their physical properties (acoustic phonetics), and the perception and processing of the speech signals by the listener (auditory phonetics); Phonology concerns the sound system of a language; Morphology deals with the internal structure of words, regarding to its meaningful elements; Semantics is the meaning of linguistic expressions; and finally, Syntax covers the structure of sentences or of linguistic constructions.

Source: Plag, I., et al, Introduction to English Linguistics