Lesson 1: Linguistics and Language
When we talk about ‘linguistics and language’ we must make a clear distinction between the two.
Introduction to Linguistics and Language
Linguistics is conceived as the study of human language and the linguist is someone who engages in his study. Concerning language people have attempt to define it in a number of ways:
-a system for representing things, actions, ideas, and states
-a system of meaning shared among people
-a set of grammatically correct utterances (words, sentences, etc)
-a set of utterances that could be understood by a linguistic community
However for the sake of accuracy here is the definition of the word ‘linguistics’ given in Webster’s dictionary: "the study of human speech in its various aspects (as the units, nature, structure and modification of language or languages or a language including esp. such factors as phonetics, phonology, morphology, accent, syntax, semantics, general or philosophical grammar and the relation between writing and speech)."
