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It would probably be useful to start out by explaining exactly what “linguistics” means.
Linguistics, to put it simply, is the study of languages, but in a scientific way. This means
not just looking at the meaning of words in a language, but at how the language is
formed, the contexts it is used in, and much more. Since it is the scientific study of
languages, there are, of course, numerous schools of thought related to it. Here are four
of the most well-known linguistic schools of thought:
1. Functionalism
This first school of thought focuses on how language is actually used in everyday life.
Those who abide by functionalism look at language as just another tool for humans to
use, and thus tend to focus on the function language and its different parts have in our
lives. The theories of functionalism focus on phonological, semantic, syntactic, as well as
the pragmatic functions of language. Functionalism emphasizes the importance of social
context, usage, and the communicative function of the grammar, phonology,
orthography, and more, of a language.
2. Structuralism
Based on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure of Switzerland, structuralism is an

approach to linguistics that focuses on the idea that languages are fixed systems made
up of many different units that connect with each other. This school of thought marked a
shift from historical linguistic analysis to non-historical analysis. Later on, other
linguists would come to see structuralism as rather out-of-date. It worked for phonology
and morphology, but the theories it proposes don’t make as much sense as the ones
proposed by new schools of thought. Saussure was aware of the fact that, in his time, he
would not be able to get a good understanding of the human brain, and so left that to
future linguists.
3. Generativism
The work of Noam Chomsky became the basis for the generativism approach to
linguistics. It was originally a way to explain how humans acquire language in the first
place, but soon it came to be used to explain the different phenomena that occur in all
natural languages. The generative theory of language suggests that, in its most basic
form, language is made up of certain rules that apply to all humans and all languages.
This led to the theory of “universal grammar”, that all humans are capable of learning
grammar. All of this was developed in the second half of the 20th century, with Noam
Chomsky taking into account the work of Zellig Harris as well.
4. Cognitivism
The last linguistic school of thought on our list emerged in the 1950s as a reaction to
generativism. In basic terms, cognitivism says that language emerges from human
cognitive processes. It challenges “universal grammar” by suggesting that grammar is
not something that all humans can inherently understand, but rather it is learned by
using language. In this sense, it is a bit similar to functionalism. However, the main
focus of cognitivism is how language is based on meaning that the mind creates.
Generativism
During the last half of the 20th century, following the work of Noam Chomsky,
linguistics was dominated by the generativist school. While formulated by
Chomsky in part as a way to explain how human beings acquire language and the
biological constraints on this acquisition, in practice it has largely been concerned
with giving formal accounts of specific phenomena in natural languages.
Generative theory is modularist and formalist in character. Chomsky built on
earlier work of Zellig Harris to formulate the generative theory of language.
According to this theory the most basic form of language is a set of syntactic rules
universal for all humans and underlying the grammars of all human languages.
This set of rules is called Universal Grammar, and for Chomsky describing it is the
primary objective of the discipline of linguistics. For this reason the grammars of
individual languages are of importance to linguistics only in so far as they allow us
to discern the universal underlying rules from which the observable linguistic
variability is generated.
In the classic formalization of generative grammars first proposed by Noam
Chomsky in the 1950s,[20][21] a grammar G consists of the following
components:
 A finite set N of nonterminal symbols, none of which appear in strings formed
from G.
 A finite set of terminal symbols that is disjoint from N.
 A finite set P of production rules, that map from one string of symbols to
another.
A formal description of language attempts to replicate a speaker's knowledge of
the rules of their language, and the aim is to produce a set of rules
that is minimally sufficient to successfully model valid linguistic forms.
Functionalism
Functional theories of language propose that since language is fundamentally a
tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analyzed and
understood with reference to the functions they carry out. Functional theories of
grammar differ from formal theories of grammar, in that the latter seeks to define
the different elements of language and describe the way they relate to each other
as systems of formal rules or operations, whereas the former defines the
functions performed by language and then relates these functions to the linguistic
elements that carry them out. This means that functional theories of grammar
tend to pay attention to the way language is actually used, and not just to the
formal relations between linguistic elements.[22]
Functional theories then describe language in term of functions existing on all
levels of language.
 Phonological function: the function of the phoneme is to distinguish between
different lexical material.
 Semantic function: (Agent, Patient, Recipient, etc.), describing the role of
participants in states of affairs or actions expressed.
 Syntactic functions: (e.g. subject and Object), defining different perspectives in
the presentation of a linguistic expression
 Pragmatic functions: (Theme and Rheme, Topic and Focus, Predicate), defining
the informational status of constituents, determined by the
pragmatic context of the verbal interaction. Functional descriptions of grammar
strive to explain how linguistic functions are performed in
communication through the use of linguistic forms.

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It would probably be useful to start out by explaining exactly what “linguistics” means.

Based on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure of Switzerland, structuralism is an

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