Modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th century with a focus on language as a structured system situated at a particular point in time, rather than changes over time. Key characteristics include viewing spoken language as primary, describing language as it is used rather than prescribing standards, studying all languages equally, analyzing language structure synchronically rather than diachronically, and recognizing that meaning is mainly arbitrary.
Modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th century with a focus on language as a structured system situated at a particular point in time, rather than changes over time. Key characteristics include viewing spoken language as primary, describing language as it is used rather than prescribing standards, studying all languages equally, analyzing language structure synchronically rather than diachronically, and recognizing that meaning is mainly arbitrary.
Modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th century with a focus on language as a structured system situated at a particular point in time, rather than changes over time. Key characteristics include viewing spoken language as primary, describing language as it is used rather than prescribing standards, studying all languages equally, analyzing language structure synchronically rather than diachronically, and recognizing that meaning is mainly arbitrary.
Modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th century with a focus on language as a structured system situated at a particular point in time, rather than changes over time. Key characteristics include viewing spoken language as primary, describing language as it is used rather than prescribing standards, studying all languages equally, analyzing language structure synchronically rather than diachronically, and recognizing that meaning is mainly arbitrary.
Modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the shift of focus from historical concerns of changes in languages over time, to the idea that a language can be viewed as a self-contained and structured system situated at a particular point in time. Below are some of its important characteristics.
1- Priority of the Spoken Over Written Language
Modern linguistics maintained that spoken language is primary and
that writing represents speech in another medium. It implies that speech is older and more widespread than writing.
Writing has no more than 6 or 7 thousand years. On the other hand,
there is no group of people known to have existed without the capacity of speech.
It is reasonable to suppose that speech goes back to the origins of
human society. All writing systems are demonstrably based upon units of spoken language. In the description of spoken language, the linguist generally finds three different kinds of units: sounds, syllables and words. All systems of writing take one of these units as basic.
However, no writing systems represent all the variations of pitch and
stress present in the spoken language, so, there are conventions of punctuation to distinguish different kinds of sentences. Moreover, there is no direct face-to-face confrontation of writer and reader.
1 The fact that there are invariably such differences between speech and writing means that written language cannot be regarded as merely the transference of spoken language to another medium.
2- Linguistics is a Descriptive (Not Prescriptive) Science
The traditional grammarian assumed that the written language was
more fundamental than the spoken, and that literary language, a particular form of the written language, was purer and more correct than all other forms of language. His task as a grammarian was to preserve this form of language from corruption.
However, each socially or regionally differentiate form of language
has its own standard of “purity” and “correctness”. So, the linguist’s first task is to describe the way people actually speak and write their language. In other words, linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Another point to be made is that linguistic change involves
“corruption” because all languages are subject of constant change. All living languages are of their nature efficient and viable systems of communication serving the different social needs of the communities that use them. As these needs change, languages will tend to change to meet the new conditions. However, we need prescriptive studies for administrative and educational advantages in having a unified literary standard. But it is important to realize that they are subject to change and that their standard is based upon the speech of one socially or regionally determined class of people.
2 3- The Linguist is Interested in All Languages
Every language, no matter how “backward” or “uncivilized”,
has proven to be a complex and highly developed system of communication. Most linguists these days have found that the study of all languages on equal terms is rewarding. No language can be said to be “richer” than another, each is adapted to the characteristic pursuits of its users.
The linguist’s concern is the construction of a scientific theory of the
structure of human language.
4- Priority of Synchronic Description
Saussure introduced the distinction between the synchronic and the
diachronic study of language. The diachronic study of a particular language is the description of its historical development through time, from our earliest records to the present day. The synchronic study of a language is the description of a particular “state” of that language at some point in time, but it is not restricted to the analysis of modern spoken language.
Nineteenth-century linguists were concerned with the diachronic
description, whereas the majority of twentieth-century linguists are concerned with the synchronic description. For the latter, historical considerations are irrelevant to the investigation of particular temporal “states” of language.
3 5- Supremacy of the Study of Language Structure
At the beginning of the 20th century, attention shifted to the fact
that not only languages change, but language structure as well. The attention of the world's linguists turned more and more to the study of grammar—in the technical sense of the term the organization of the sound system of a language and the internal structure of its words and sentences. By the 1920s, the program of 'structural linguistics', inspired in large part by the ideas of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, was developing sophisticated methods of grammatical analysis. This period also saw an intensified scholarly study of languages that had never been written down. It had by then become commonplace, for example, for an American linguist to spend several years working out the intricacies of the grammars of Chippewa, Ojibwa, Apache, Mohawk, or some other indigenous language of North America.
The last half-century has seen a deepening of understanding of
these rules and principles and the growth of a widespread conviction that despite their seeming diversity, all the languages of the world are basically cut from the same cloth. As grammatical analysis has become deeper, we have found more fundamental commonalities among the languages of the world. The program initiated by the linguist Noam Chomsky in 1957 sees this fact as a consequence of the human brain being 'prewired' for particular properties of grammar, thereby drastically limiting the number of possible human languages. The claims of this program have been the basis for a great deal of recent linguistic research, and have been one of the most important centers of controversy in the field. Books
4 and journal articles routinely present evidence for or against the idea that central properties of language are innate.
6- Meaning is mainly arbitrary
There is also a long tradition in the study of what it means to say
that a word or sentence 'means' a particular thing and how these meanings are conveyed when we communicate with each other. Many popular ideas about what meanings are go back to the ancient Greeks:
One is that meanings are mental representations of some sort.
Another is that the meaning of an expression is purely a function of how the expression is used. They have been joined by a third approach, which applies formal methods derived from logic and attempts to equate the meaning of an expression with reference and the conditions under which it might be judged to be true or false. Other linguists have been looking at the cognitive principles underlying the organization of meaning. And still others have been examining the ways that sentences are tied together to form coherent discourse.
All aforementioned ideas have launched research programs that
are active today and are somehow guided by the idea that meaning is not fixed but mostly arbitrary.
