WHAT
IS linguistics? Let’s begin by offering a couple of indirect
and therefore partial answers to this question. First, linguistics is the field of study and knowledge that used
to be called Philology or Comparative philology in the 19th century.
This older name points to one of the points of origin of modern linguistics.
Scholars who made a study of literature as historical documents realized
the importance of understanding the working of languages in which they were written
– of course, in a historical perspective. But linguistics is now much more than an extension of philology. Bhashavijnan has to be distinguished from Vangmayavidya.
Secondly, linguistics is what linguists do.
The word ‘linguist’ is not to be understood here as a person knowing many
languages and therefore able to use them in a practical situation. Rather, a linguist in the present context is
someone who keeps company with sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and
other students of man and who is busy not only in a library (like a true philologist)
but also in a laboratory or in the field.
COMING NOW TO a more direct answer, we could identify linguistics as the
science of language as such. The components
of this definition need to be carefully looked into. The word ‘science’ refers
both to a collection of certain activities – asking questions about things and
events in the observable world, experimenting with them if necessary, describing,
analyzing, and explaining them in the course of answering those questions, testing
and checking these answers publicly, weaving these answers into a logical system
– and also at the same time to a body of knowledge resulting from such activities.
Linguistics, being a science, is therefore not to be confused with the
intuitive grasp of an ordinary person using a language fluently or a literary
artist transforming it into something rich and strange or with the critical scrutiny
of language by a philosopher who is trying to go beyond the limits of this or
that language. It is not a natural science
like physics or biology but (as we have already suggested) a human science like
psychology or anthropology.
The word ‘language’ is not to be taken in its extended, metaphorical sense
so as to include in its range the language of bees or bats or the language of
music or flowers or ritual or the language of computers. This is not to deny that
linguistics may not have a bearing on the study of these other ‘languages’ or
that the latter may not have a bearing on linguistics. Indeed one can perhaps argue that the study
of man’s natural language, that is linguistics, can be regarded as a branch of
or an application of a general theory of signs, symbols, and communications –
in short, as a branch of semiotics.
This leads us to the inclusion of the words ‘as such’ in our direct definition. The point is that other scientists are also
interested in man’s natural languages. The
formal sciences of mathematics, logic, statistics or the natural sciences of human
physiology and ecology or the human sciences of psychology, anthropology, sociology,
even political science are all interested in language – but not in language as
language. Linguistics is the only science
for which language is the central focus. It
is not a branch of psychology or anthropology as has been suggested.
SO FAR WE have looked at linguistics from the outside, as it were. Let’s now take a look at the inside of linguistics,
at its various divisions or branches. To begin with, linguistics can be divided into two main branches:
(1) Linguistic
analysis or analytic linguistics
(2) Linguistic
comparison or comparative linguistics
The analytic study seeks to answer the questions.
How do two persons understand each other? Because they share the same language? Well then, what makes the ‘same’ language? The same way of linking speech signs (or written
signs) with meanings? In answering these
questions, analytic linguistics looks at the various subsystems that together
make up a language and thus partially regulate behaviour.
(1) (a)
Phonology
(b)
Grammar
(c)
Lexicon (Lexicology)
(d)
Semology
(e)
The writing system (Graphonomy)
(f)
The naming system (Onomastics)
(g)
The vocal gestures (Paraphonology)
The comparative study seeks to answer two sets of questions that call for
a comparison of languages. The comparison
may be historical or functional. Why do
two persons fail to understand each other? Because
they use different languages? Historical
comparison will consider these differences historically in order to find how two
languages have come to be similar and different in terms of history.
Historical linguistics accordingly deals with language change over a line
of descent, language divergence yielding a language family, language convergence
yielding a language area, and language competition and symbiosis within a language
network. Functional comparison will consider these differences
in functional terms in order to find how two languages resemble or differ from
each other in solving comparable functional problems. Correlative linguistics deals with the possibility
and improbability of adequate translation, with language universals, and with
language types. Schematically –
(2) (a)
Historical linguistics
(b)
Correlative linguistics
Either of these could concentrate on any of the subsystems of languages
listed earlier as (1a) to (1g).
THE QUESTION ‘What is linguistics?’ cannot entirely be separated from the
question ‘Why linguistics?’
At the personal level, this question is to be understood in the sense ‘Why
do I study linguistics?’ The answers may
equally be personal ranging from ‘I do linguistics because I enjoy finding more
about such a fascinating subject as language’ to ‘I do linguistics because it
will help me earn a living since it seems to be the latest rage’.
At the social level, this question is to be understood in the sense ‘What
are the possible applications of the scientific study of language in general and
of particular languages or groups of languages?’
The applications lie in three different directions (1) application towards
more effective methods for learning and teaching languages for practical purposes
(language pedagogy), (2) application towards wiser and more effective policy-making
and planning (language planning) (3) application towards the solution of problems
in respect of language in printing, telecommunication, speedwriting, and so forth
(language technology). The cover term for these three that is sometimes
used is ‘applied linguistics’ as if this is a branch of linguistics.
It will be much better to speak of ‘Applications of Language sciences’
such as linguistics, the psychology of language, language statistics, and the
like...,
COLOPHON
This was published in the Souvenir 14th All-India Conference
of Linguists, Nagpur : Dept. of Linguistics and Foreign Indian Languages, Nagpur
University, 1985, p.3-5.
