Fields of Linguistics

Linguistics has many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure. These sub-fields range from those focused primarily on form to those focused primarily on meaning. They also run the gamut of level of analysis of language, from individual sounds, to words, to phrases, up to discourse.

Sub-fields that focus on a structure-focused study of language:

• Phonetics:  the study of the physical properties of speech (or signed) production and perception.
• Phonology:  the study of sounds (or signs) as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning (phonemes).
• Morphology:  the study of morphemes, or the internal structures of words and how they can be modified
• Syntax : the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences
• Semantics: the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences
• Pragmatics: the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by context and non-linguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning
• Discourse analysis: the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)
• Stylistics:  the study of linguistic factors (rhetoric, diction, stress) that place a discourse in context.
• Semiotics:  the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication.

Many linguists would agree that these divisions overlap considerably, and the independent significance of each of these areas is not universally acknowledged.