What is Linguistics?
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguists are scholars and researchers who use scientific methods to study the nature and function of language.
Because language is a complex entity that encompasses many different aspects, there are many fields of study within Linguistics.
For example, there are linguists who focus on studying the grammatical structure of specific languages, such as the grammatical structure of Cantonese. Other linguists focus on the historical developments of, and inter-relationships between, different languages and language families, such as the historical developments of the Indo-European Family of languages. Still others focus on the brain processes involved in language learning, such as the processes involved in first language (native language) and second language acquisition.
Through their research, linguists have established many overarching theories and concepts about the science of language (even if they often disagree on many specific things).
Because Linguistics is not widely understood, however, the general public (including students learning a foreign language) is often unaware of the established theories and concepts in the field and have misconceptions about language that are not based on--and might even directly contradict--what linguists know.
For example, there are often misconceptions among non-linguists regarding what “grammar” is, how different languages relate to each other, or the processes involved in language acquisition, and so on. (Different articles in this blog will explore these topics in detail.)
It is important to clarify these misunderstandings and false beliefs about language and learn basic linguistics concepts if we want to approach foreign language learning from a systematic and scientifically informed perspective.
語言學是甚麼?
語言學是探討語言科學的學科。語言學家是以科學性方式研究語言性質和功能的學者及研究人員。
語言是個複雜的整體，涵蓋了許多不同的範疇，因此語言學可研究的領域也非常廣闊。
某些語言學家著力研究特定語言的文法結構，例如廣東話的文法結構；其他語言學家則可能專注於不同語言和語言家族的歷史發展及相互關係，例如印歐語系的歷史發展；還有一些專門研究在學習語言時大腦的運作過程，例如大腦在學習第一語言（母語）和第二語言時的不同方式。
透過這些的研究，語言學家們建立了不少關於語言科學的總體理論和概念（即使他們在很多特定問題上仍經常會意見分歧）。
不過，由於公眾對語言學沒有廣泛的認知，很多人（包括學習外語的學生）一般不會注意在這領域中已建立的理論和概念，也因此容易對語言（包括語言作為整體概念或某個特定語言）出現誤解，有些誤解甚至會與語言學家所認知的觀念完全相反。
例如，對語言學沒太多認識的人會經常對「grammar」(文法) 的定義、不同語言之間的關係、或者是吸收語言的過程等概念有所誤解。（我們博客中不同的文章將會探討這些主題。）
如果我們想以科學角度更有系統地學習外語，釐清大眾對語言的種種錯誤觀念，並學會基本的語言學概念可說是尤其重要。
A meme found online about Linguistics (presumably by a linguist 🤓)