What are Linguistics and Applied Linguistics about?
Anyone can study Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. It is not necessary to know a language other than English, or to be good at learning languages, to do well in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. The field offers rigorous intellectual training which stands one in good stead wherever clear, independent, creative thinking is valued. Applied Linguistics will be of particular interest to those studying second or foreign languages, and to anybody seriously interested in practical issues to do with communication in social contexts. It is also a useful general preparation for a career in second or foreign language teaching, including teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) or as a Second Language (TESL).
Linguistics and Applied Linguistics is inherently a multi-disciplinary study, drawing on methodologies and theories from many fields, including archaeology, psychology, anthropology, history, literature, philosophy, sociology, social theory, education, the mathematical sciences and computer science. Thus it has contributions to make to a range of study and professional practice areas.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the study of human language in all its aspects. It provides a methodology for exploring the structure of particular languages; it investigates what is universal to all human languages: how language varies over time and between different societies, how language is learnt, and how language is used for human communication.
Why was Navajo the one code that was never broken during World War II? Are our thought patterns so determined by the language we speak? Why do men and women understand so much of each other's conversation? How can three words kaan bathun birri, from the Australian Aboriginal language Lardil, mean 'here they two come from the west, who are related as people separated by an even number of generations'? How can a seven-year old child of average intelligence have a better knowledge of their mother tongue than the most sophisticated computers? What can the study of language tell us about human prehistory? These are just some of the questions linguistics examines.
Applied Linguistics
Applied Linguistics is concerned with practical issues involving language in the life of the community. The most important of these is the learning of second or foreign languages. Others include language policy, multilingualism, language education, the preservation and revival of endangered languages, and the assessment and treatment of language difficulties.
Other areas of interest include professional communication, for example, between doctors and their patients, between lawyers and their clients and in courtrooms, as well as other areas of institutional and cross-cultural communication ranging from the boardroom to the routines on an answer phone.
Linguistics and Applied Linguistics is a challenging and stimulating discipline, offering many opportunities for original work.
Links
English as a Second Language (ESL)