Understanding Language: Functions, Disciplines, and Grammar
Functions of Language
- Denotative, Referential, or Representative: When the sender uses language to transmit information about things to the recipient.
- Emotive or Expressive Function: When the sender uses language with the intention to express feelings and desires.
- Conative or Appellative Function: When the sender’s intention is to draw the attention of the recipient or to get them to act.
- Phatic Function or Contact: The sender uses language to start or complete communication, to keep up and check if the communication is being carried out successfully.
- Poetic Function: The form of the message with aesthetic intent.
- Metalinguistic Function: It is a language used to refer to the language itself.
Disciplines of Language
Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics and phonology are in charge of studying the sounds of language.
- Phonetics: Studies sounds from a physical or material point of view.
- Phonology: It is the branch of linguistics that studies the phonic elements from the view of their distinctive and functional characteristics.
Grammar
Grammar is the science that studies the elements of a language and their combinations. It is divided into:
- Morphology: Studies words and the elements that form them. It is in charge of analyzing the form of words.
- Syntax: It deals with the functions and the relationships established between words.
Relations of Meaning
Semantic relationships are those that are established between a word and others in terms of meaning and can be:
- Synonymy: Relationship between words that have the same meaning.
- Polysemy: For example, a word has several meanings that are conditioned by different contexts.
- Homonymy: When two words have the same significant but different meanings.
- Antonymy: When two meanings have a relationship of opposition.
Semantic Field
It is the set of words that share semantic features or SEMAS.
- Hyponymy and Hypernymy: These are the meaningful relationships that are established between terms of a semantic field and a generic term.
Semantics
Semantics is located within grammar in the units with significant and meaningful characteristics. There are two types:
- Denotative: Meaningless and specific.
- Connotative: Acquires meaning when words are combined with others in a given context.
Semantics is in charge of the relations of meaning.
Other Linguistic Disciplines
- Pragmatics: Studies language in its relationship with users and the circumstances of communication.
- Sociolinguistics: Studies the impact of language on social aspects.
- Psycholinguistics: Focuses on the relationship between verbal behavior and psychological processes.
Types of Grammar
- General Grammar: Establishes common principles for all languages.
- Comparative Grammar: Studies the relationships between two or more languages.
- Historical Grammar: Studies language from a historical perspective, considering its evolution over time.
- Normative Grammar: Prescribes correct usage through standards.
- Descriptive Grammar: Addresses the synchronic study of a language, without considering its historical evolution or regulatory aspects.
- Traditional Grammar: Body of teaching grammar consisting of the ideas contributed by authors on the antiquity of the Greek/Latin language.
- Structural Grammar: Studies language according to the principle that all elements are systematically linked.
- Generative Grammar: Formulates rules to generate all possible and acceptable sentences in a language.
- Textual Grammar: Studies the supra-orational level and considers the text, not the sentence, as the highest linguistic unit.
Morphology and Syntax
Morphology is the part of grammar that studies classes of words. Syntax is the part of grammar that studies the relationship between words and the way they have to be organized.