GROUNDWORK ESSENTIALS OF LINGUISTICS:: A Foundation Course Manual of Linguistics

GROUNDWORK ESSENTIALS OF LINGUISTICS: A Foundation Course Manual of Linguistics This book is an intellectual journey to explain, as clearly and exhaustively as possible, to the beginner in the objective study of Language, exactly what object Linguists are referring to with ‘Language’ in defining their academic discipline thus: Linguistics is the science of Language. The intellectual journey consists of the author identifying several key but erroneous statements about Language that are found even in some Linguistics textbooks, demonstrating the errors in the statements, and specifying thereby critical objective knowledge about Language. While explaining what Language is in this book, the author also makes the crucial distinction that, according to him, “is a central groundwork facet of knowledge for the proper conduct of Linguistics, which every foundation manual of Linguistics should promulgate.” It is the distinction between the substance itself of Language, called Language Content, on the one hand, and the Language Phenomenon in its entirety, called Language, on the other hand. According to the author’s position in his Performative Linguistics paradigm used in this book, Language is not Language Content! Language Use, also called Language Context, is, too, necessarily crucial in making Language what it is. Therefore, Linguistics as a science investigates both Language Content and Language Context. Then, the author coalesces Language Content and Language Context into ONE subject matter for Linguistics - such that, in short, Language is Language Content in Language Context. The author’s position that the business of Linguistics is also Language Context is an update, first of all, of the General Linguistics teachings of the great Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de SAUSSURE at the beginning of the twentieth century. SAUSSURE, the acclaimed Father of Modern Linguistics, and Founder of the Structuralism School of Modern Linguistics, had postulated then that the only business of Linguistics, as the science of Language, must be Language Content, which he called “a system of signs” Secondly, the author’s position that Language is inherently context-sensitive is also a revision of the theory of the renowned American Linguist Noam CHOMSKY as proffered in the first decade of the second half of the twentieth century, CHOMSKY, the Founder of the Generative Grammar School of Modern Linguistics, had postulated then that, Language Context being merely of secondary and marginal interest, the essential business of Linguistics must be the study of Language Content, called Language Structure, consisting of context-free sentences.