What is linguistics?

The scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of grammar, syntax, and phonetics. Specific branches of linguistics include sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, comparative linguistics, and structural linguistics. Linguistics is the study of language; not just particular languages, but the system of human communication.

What are some of the branches of linguistics? The part of linguistics that is concerned with the structure of language is divided into a number of subfields: Phonetics - the study of speech sounds in their physical aspects Phonology - the study of speech sounds in their cognitive aspects Morphology - the study of the formation of words Syntax - the study of the formation of sentences Semantics the study of meaning Pragmatics - the study of language use Applied linguistics: application to areas such as speech pathology, reading, social work, missionary work, translation, dictionary compilation, language teaching, error analysis, computer language processing. dialectology: investigation of regional variation in language. ethnolinguistics (anthropological linguistics): investigation of the relation between a people's language and culture. historical (diachronic) linguistics: study of language change and evolution. morphology: study of word formation and inflection. neurolinguistics: research into the specific location of language in the brain. paralinguistics: study of nonverbal (auxiliary) human communication. philology: study of how language has been used in literature, especially in older manuscripts. phonetics: description of how speech sounds are articulated and heard. phonology: study of how languages organize the units of speech into systems. pragmatics: study of the strategies people use to carry out communicative business in specific contexts. psycholinguistics: investigation of language as cognitively-based behavior; how it is acquired and processed. second language acquisition (SLA): study of how older learners acquire language, and of ways to improve it.

sociolinguistics: study of social variation in language: the relation between social structure and language usage, and of social issues involving language. semantics: study of word and sentence meaning. syntax: study of the structure of sentences and of underlying principles for generating and processing them.

http://linguistics.wfu.edu/Some_basics.html

The main purpose of the study of Linguistics in an academic environment is the advancement of knowledge. However, because of the centrality of language in human interaction and behavior, the knowledge gained through the study of linguistics has many practical consequences and uses. Graduates of undergraduate and graduate programs in Linguistics apply their training in many diverse areas, including language pedagogy, speech pathology, speech synthesis, natural language interfaces, search engines, machine translation, forensics, naming, and of course all forms of writing, editing, and publishing. Perhaps the most widely appreciated application was contributed by UCSC Linguistics alumnus Marc Okrand, who invented the Klingon language for Star Trek. http://linguistics.ucsc.edu/about/what-is-linguistics.html

How is linguistics applied? Many students find linguistics useful because it broadens and deepens their understanding of related fields: languages and literature (English and foreign), social sciences (especially anthropology, sociology, and psychology), education, philosophy, communication... Those who obtain degrees in linguistics often proceed to careers in:

foreign language teaching instructional technology ESL (teaching English as a second language) teaching and research in general linguistics (phonology, syntax...) translation (human and machine-assisted) speech pathology and audiology.