Goals of Linguistic Essay Example

the basis of available evidence, it is safe to say that few of them can distinguish between scientific insight and technological “progress”. Thus, if one wants at all a scientific approach to the problem of the goals of a discipline, one would have to combine – as usual – deductive and inductive methods, hoping that they will compensate for each other's shortcomings. It would certainly be reasonable to do this scientific work (from time to time). However, it has apparently not been done.

I will therefore abide by taking a common-sense approach to the problem, informed both by some epistemology of linguistics and by some experience with linguistic work. Fundamentals Like any human activity, linguistics has a place in a teleonomic hierarchy (see teleonomic Hierarchie) which is headed by its ultimate goals. Science is the pursuit of objective knowledge/understanding (Greek episteme, German Erkenntnis). The attainment of such knowledge is its ultimate goal. This goal is itself subordinate to the goal of human life, which is the improvement of the conditio humana.

It is in the nature of human cognition – as opposed to God's cognition –, that it can be fully achieved only in communication. To say that the goal is objective knowledge is therefore almost tantamount to saying that it is rational communication. This rephrasing also serves the purpose of avoiding a static conception of ‘objective knowledge. In the more specific discussion below, the role of communication in the achievements of the goals of science will come up again. Understanding has two sides, a spiritual and a practical one. On the spiritual side, the human mind is enriched if it understands something; and this in itself

is a contribution to improving the conditio humana.  On the practical side, understanding something is a presupposition for controlling it. Controlling1 the world in which we live is another contribution to improving the conditio humana. Some sciences make a stronger contribution to the spiritual side, others make a stronger contribution to the practical side. This is the basis for the distinction between pure and applied science. Linguistics is the study of human language.

Understanding this object has a purely spiritual aspect, which constitutes what might be called “pure linguistics” and what is more commonly called general linguistics. It also has a practical aspect, which concerns the role of languages in human lives and societies and the possibilities of improving them. This epistemic interest constitutes applied linguistics. Given the divergence in the epistemic interest of pure and applied science, there can be no universal schema by which the goals and tasks of science should be systematized.

As discussed elsewhere (see Wissenschaft), there is a basic distinction between logical, empirical, and hermeneutic approaches. Linguistics shares components of all of them. Here we will focus on the tasks of linguistics as an empirical discipline. For such a discipline, the main tasks are

1. elaboration of a theory of its object
2. documentation and description of its object
3. elaboration of procedures for the solution of practical problems in the object area.

In what follows, the main goals of linguistics will be characterized, at a general level, according to this schema. . Theory: the nature of human language The spiritual aspect of the human understanding of some object is realized in the elaboration of a theory of that object. In this respect, the task of

linguistics consists in the elaboration of a theory of human language and its relation to the languages. Its most important aspects include  the structure(s) and function(s) of human language and languages  the relationship between unity and diversity of human languages  linguistic change  acquisition of one's native language

In characterizing the nature of human language, linguistic theory also delimits it against other kinds of semiosis, both synchronically in the comparison of spoken and written languages with sign languages, whistling languages and, furthermore, with animal languages, and diachronically in the comparison with primate semiotic systems from which human language may have evolved. Empiry: documentation and description of languages As recalled above, linguistics is (among other things) an empirical science.

In such a discipline, there is a necessary interrelation between the elaboration of a theory of the object and the description of the object; one informs the other. Furthermore, since speech and even languages are volatile, they have to be documented. The tasks of linguistics in this area may be systematized as follows: 1. language documentation: recording, representation, analysis and archiving of speech events and texts that represent a certain language. language description: . the setting of the language ethnographic  social/cultural genealogical. the language system:  semantic system: grammar, lexicon expression systems: phonology, writing The documentation of a language must be such that people who do not have access to the language itself can use the documentation as a surrogate for as many purposes as possible. In particular, it should be possible to develop a description of a language on the basis of its documentation.

The description makes explicit the meanings that the language expresses and the functions it fulfills – what

it codes and what it leaves uncoded –, and represents the structure of the expressions that afford this. It does all of this in the most systematic and comprehensive way possible. Such a description may be used for a variety of purposes, most of which are mentioned below in the section on applied linguistics. Both documentation and description take the historical dimension of the object into account.