 |
Linguistics
is the study of language. Like other rapidly developing
fields, linguistics resists simple classification into one
of the traditional categories of academic disciplines. As
one of the humanities, linguistics is concerned with the
historical development of a particular language or language
family. As a social science, linguistics may be related
to anthropology in describing language as part of culture;
or it may be related to psychology in describing phonetics;
it may even be considered a natural science, related to
the physical science of acoustics and the biological sciences
of anatomy and physiology. As an applied science, linguistics
has found many applications in fields as far apart as language
pedagogy, speech therapy, and computer programming. Finally,
linguistics may be considered a formal science in its own
right, related to mathematics and logic.
|