Introducing English Linguistics/
Charles F.Meyer
- New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- x, 259 p. ill.; 26 cm. Book
Includes References and index.
This chapter provides an overview of how linguists approach the study of language. It describes language as one of many different systems of communication, a system that is unique to human beings and different from, for instance, the systems of communication that animals employ. Language exists in three modes: speech, writing, and signs (which are used by people who are deaf). Although all languages (with the exception of sign languages) exist in spoken form, only some have written forms. To study language, linguists focus on two levels of description: pragmatics, the study of how context (both social and linguistic) affects language use, and grammar, the description of how humans form linguis tic structures, from the level of sound up to the sentence. http://172.20.27.22:4000/handle/123456789/27