subject: Linguistics throughout Society Development [print this page] Linguistics throughout Society Development
In the time of globalization contacts between various cultures, countries as well as societies are being established in all spheres nearly every day. In the conditions of the continually developing society linguistics becomes a really important discipline, since it is used in various spheres of human life today. Linguistics is a complicated study that concentrates upon natural human languages based on their speech acts and text material. Linguistics is typically subdivided into three key branches: 1.Theoretical linguistics which comprises such areas as phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. It works with the theoretical concerns of the word-study and the rules and laws of the learned languages. It dwells upon sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics to examine and clarify the so-called linguistic universals - the characteristics common for the natural languages. 2.Applied linguistics - the study that includes linguistic and extralinguistic disciplines and aims to solve the practical controversial points related to language. The branch of linguistics is linked to psychology and sociology and contains such subfields as translation study, pragmatics, lexicography, language pedagogy, computer-mediated communication, contrastive linguistics, discourse analysis and some others. 3.Practical linguistics - the term that means the field of human activities which aims at confirmation of theoretical issues of language study and of the proper work of applied linguistics products such as, for example, machine translation programs. Although language-study is underestimated now, you can not imagine life without the benefits provided by the study of linguistics. It has established links with different sciences and humanities forming some new branches of study like cognitive linguistics, computer linguistics, neurolinguistics, toponymy, speech-language pathology and many others. Most of the branches of study are relatively new. Some appeared at the start of the XX century or at the end of the century.
