Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important division of the topic
 is between the study of language structure (grammar) and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics).

Grammar encompasses

• morphology (the formation and composition of words),
• syntax (the rules that determine how words combine into phrases and sentences) and
• phonology (the study of sound systems and abstract sound units).

Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones), non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived.

Other sub-disciplines of linguistics include the following:

• evolutionary linguistics, which considers the origins of language;
• historical linguistics, which explores language change;
• sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures;
• psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and functioning of language in the mind;
• neurolinguistics, which looks at the representation of language in the brain;
• language acquisition, which considers how children acquire their first language and how children and adults acquire and learn their second and subsequent languages;
• discourse analysis, which is concerned with the structure of texts and conversations;
• pragmatics, which is concerned with how meaning is transmitted based on a combination of linguistic competence, non-linguistic knowledge, and the context of the speech act.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlinguistics