Do You Know What Linguistics is ?

The following information is about the science which studies called Linguistics.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It endeavours to answer the question--what is language and how is represented in the mind? Linguists focus on describing and explaining language and are not concerned with the prescriptive rules of the language (ie., do not split infinitives). Linguists are not required to know many languages and linguists are not interpreters.

The underlying goal of the linguist is to try to discover the universals concerning language. That is, what are the common elements of all languages. The linguist then tries to place these elements in a theoretical framework that will describe all languages and also predict what can not occur in a language.

Linguistics is a social science that shares common ground with other social sciences such as psychology, anthropology, sociology and archaeology. It also may influence other disciplines such as english, communication studies and computer science. Linguistics for the most part though can be considered a cognitive science. Along with psychology, philosophy and computer science (AI), linguistics is ultimately concerned with how the human brain functions.

The fields of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and language acquisition are considered the core fields of study and a firm knowledge of each is necessary in order to tackle more advanced subjects.
source : www.geocities.com

Language, Culture, and Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology

Zdenek Salzmann, a native of Prague, is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst . A specialist in Native American languages and folklore, he has held guest professorships at Yale University and the University of Freiburg in Germany. He has been visiting professor at several universities in the Czech Republic. At present, he is adjunct professor at Northern Arizona University . With his wife, Joy, he is the author of Native Americans of the Southwest (Westview Press, 1997).

- Linguistics, Linguistic, and Linguist

Linguistics (noun) : The scientific study of language. (an academic discipline)

Linguistic (adjective) :
(1) The adjective from language, as in such phrases as ‘linguistic skill’
(2) The adjective from linguistics, where it refers to an approach characterized by the scientific attributes of that subject, as in ‘linguistic analysis’.

Linguist (noun) :
(1) A person who studies linguistics. For this meaning, the term Linguistician is
also used.

(2) Someone who speaks a large number of languages.
A linguist in the sense of a linguistics expert need not be fluent in languages, though he must have a wide experience of different types of languages