Microlinguistics is a branch of linguistics that concerns itself with the study of language systems in the abstract, without regard to the meaning or national content of linguistic expressions. In micro-linguistics, language is reduced to the abstract mental elements of syntax and phonology. It contrasts with macro-linguistics, which includes meanings, and especially with sociolinguistics, which studies how language and meaning function within human social systems.[1] The term micro-linguistics was first used in print by George L. Trager, in an article published in 1949, in Studies in Linguistics: Occasional Papers.[2] The field of microlinguistics has been birthed by and subsequently dominated by Euro-American linguists and sociologists. The heart of microlinguistics is often summed up by Sausurre's claim that “The fundamental idea of this course: linguistics has for unique and true object the language considered in itself and for itself.” [3]
References
edit- ^ Matthews, P.H. (2002), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Oxford: Oxford UP.
- ^ "Microlinguistics", The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.), Oxford UP, 1989.
- ^ Alatis, James E. (October 1989). Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 1989: Language Teaching, Testing, and Technology: Lessons from the Past with a View Toward the Future. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 978-0-87840-124-6.
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