Linguistic

What is meant by the fields of linguistics? This introductory chapter concerns some dimensions of linguistics, which give us a general idea of what linguistics is, including the history of linguistic, grammar, and other disciplines of linguistics study.

A. Definition Of Linguistic
Linguistics is study of language. Based on The New Oxford Dictionary of English (2003), linguistic is: “The scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of grammar, syntax, and phonetics. Specific branches of linguistics include sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, comparative linguistics, and structural linguistics.” Linguistics as the scientific study of languages is a study to describe and explain the human faculty of language. Lyons (1968: 1), the scientific study is means its investigation by means of controlled and empirically verifiable observation with reference to some general theory of language structure.

B. History of linguistics
Historical of linguistics is the branch of our discipline that studies language change. It is concerned both with the description of language change and with the factors that cause and constrain it (O’Grady, 1989: 189). The history of linguistics can be divided into three periods: antiquity, middle ages and modern linguistics.