Applied linguistics

The Applied Linguistics, and Applied Linguistics, is a branch of linguistics. You interdisciplinary deals with foreign language teaching, with the language description in the form of dictionaries ( lexicography ) and grammar as well as problems of natural, cultural, information, law and humanities under on linguistics point of view. Also for the task field of applied linguistics, the application of linguistic theories, methods and findings from the linguistic basic research to clarify language-related problems in other areas.

Issues and priorities

In the post-industrial era of the knowledge society and the increasing emergence of the information society, the Applied tried linguistics to combine fundamental issues and challenges that arise in the context of human ( verbal and nonverbal ) communication and knowledge organization, presentation, modeling and processing, and to develop appropriate language technology solutions. Topics such as knowledge transfer, multilingualism, computer-aided modeling and representation of knowledge, use of language in new media, methods and tools to broaden skills in acquisition and use of mother tongue and foreign language information forms the biggest challenges of this discipline.

Upon acquisition of reading and writing, the text comprehension in oral communication and adequate communication skills (eg moderation) is a close relationship between learning and teaching processes, which direct reference of applied linguistics implies the didactics. The linguistic knowledge is conveyed through textbooks and codified in dictionaries. One particular issue - in the face of advancing globalization - the translation brings with it, which is strongly rooted in the linguistic and cultural mediation, and can be implemented automatically only very limited. Overcoming language barriers is a very important issue for Applied Linguistics; this includes both efforts as assigned structural simplifications of natural languages ​​(such as Basic English ), working out the basic vocabularies and artificial constructed language like Esperanto, Interlingua, Interlingue or Volapük.

Another focus is the study of the interfaces between writing and speech and non-verbal expression. Documents often consist partly of ( partial) non- linguistic representations, which interrupt the text or the text complements the image. Tables, pictures, charts, formulas, equations, models, maps, graphs, diagrams, etc. to transport certain content particularly economical and can be verbally expressed only cumbersome. So it is impossible to dispense with this often complex elements and essential to explain the language and to interpret. In media such as comic, the image can continue the language or even replace, where it is inadequate, or the author can realize the text subordinieren the pictures. Other texts are in dialogue with readers: forms, questionnaires, diaries require active processing of boxes and columns. The study of such texts in terms of clarity, logic and simplicity has contributed significantly to improved usability ergonomic man-machine interfaces in computer science.

More overlap between linguistics and computer science arise, for example, in locating information and answering questions based on large databases ( information retrieval, data mining, information extraction ) and in the automatic search for text signatures, and not only its form but according to their significance ( information retrieval and search engines). Also the support for the translation of texts into another language (CAT, computer -aided translation) or the complete automatic translation, support for the computer user in word processing ( typing, grammar and spelling corrections, thesaurus, etc.) and the processing of spoken language ( speech recognition and speech synthesis) also part of the working field of applied linguistics.

In parallel, Applied Linguistics in the clinical- pathological range with the theoretical foundations as well as the diagnosis and treatment of language disorders is concerned. This includes psycholinguistic basic knowledge of language acquisition and language processing, cognitive and neurolinguistic approaches to the connection between language and the brain, theoretical bases of language disorders in adults and childhood, and methods for analysis, diagnostics and speech therapy of developmental language disorders and acquired speech and language defects. Study of gestures, the development of static and dynamic Braille as well as research and use of sign languages ​​of deaf and placement of the finger alphabet are also in the focus of interest of applied linguistics.

The Applied Linguistics is dependent on the cooperation of practice and with other scientific disciplines. The Applied Linguistics presents the results of theoretical linguistics in application-specific contexts and draws on sciences that are related only indirectly to the language. (Definition according to F. King )

The term Applied Linguistics is therefore often used as a generic term for all interdisciplinary sciences linguistics share. The so-called " hyphenated Linguistiken " as the psycho -, socio - and pragmalinguistics in which the use of language from a certain viewpoint ( interdisciplinary) in the center of the cognitive interest is incurred.

Interdisciplinary application

Examples of interdisciplinary applications are:

• Medicine (eg cures for speech disorders: in speech therapy, Phoniatrics, orthodontics, etc.)
• Anatomy (function of the lungs, throat, larynx, palate, tongue, lips and other organs and cavities in the production of sounds )
• Brain research ( Neurobiology )
• Hermeneutics ( translation studies),
• Philosophy ( Semiotics, pragmatics and logic)
• (Media ) Pedagogy and Psychology ( Psychology )
• Sociology (eg sociolects and social interaction through language )
• Literature (eg, comparative literature ),
• Art history (eg comic Research),
• Paleontology and anthropology ( research of the origin of language ),
• Criminology ( Forensic )
• Jura ( eg the problem of the legal language )
• Computer science ( computational linguistics, word processing, computer-aided translation, markup languages ​​and other formal languages ​​, etc.)
• Cultural studies (especially discourse analysis )
• Artificial Intelligence, Information Science and Cybernetics ( expert systems, communication equipment, storage and retrieval of linguistic information)
• Physics ( frequency and amplitude of acoustic waves, physical phonetic acoustic articulation of speech sound signals )
• Policy ( eg the problem of the mass media, language, languages ​​, language imperialism, rhetoric ),
• Economy (eg technical language, communication in business, general business communication )
• And society in general (eg, cross-cultural and general interpersonal communication )

Content and research areas

For the contents of applied linguistics include not only the present-oriented language use:

• Sociolinguistics (also: Varieties, language use of different social groups, language barriers and Code Switching)
• Psycholinguistics ( language acquisition, language knowledge and language research process )
• Pragmalinguistics ( language and action, language usage rules, speech act theory of conversational maxims )
• Ethnolinguistics ( culture-specific forms of language use )
• Historical linguistics ( diachronic language change with respective synchronous language states, influencing factors )
• Text linguistics / discourse analysis (analysis of linguistic regularities and the extra-linguistic context)
• Clinical Linguistics ( diagnosis and treatment of impairments of verbal communication or language learning in medicine, especially aphasia )
• Forensic linguistics ( criminological investigation of linguistic units in forensics )
• Contact Linguistics ( deals with the linguistic structures and consequences as well as the social and political conditions of said voice contact)
• Corpus Linguistics (created or proof of the theories of language, using examples from a large text corpus as possible tried)
• Politolinguistik ( the scientific study of communication in politics)
• Neurolinguistics ( deals with the relationship between language processing and the underlying neural structures in the brain)
• Law Linguistics ( the study of the backgrounds of legal issues that have to do with language )
• Patholinguistics ( the doctrine of pathological language, including the language impairment )
• Feminist linguistics ( which analyzes the linguistic behavior among feminist viewpoints and assessed )
• Euro Linguistics ( concerned with the languages ​​of Europe )
• Inter Linguistics ( the study of international communication and the plan languages)
• Media linguistics ( primarily for the study of multilingualism in the media, but also for the detection of media discourses )
• Quantitative Linguistics ( Languages ​​investigated by means of statistics in order to set up language laws )
• Ecolinguistics (examined interaction between languages ​​and between languages ​​and their environment, ie the society in which they are used )
• Paläolinguistik ( with the origin of human language, has many overlaps with psychology and anthropology ).

Important representatives

• John Langshaw Austin and John Searle ( philosopher of language, speech act )
• Jerry Fodor ( cognitive science Modularitätsthese for models in the Patholinguistics )
• Gottlob Frege (was the first to develop a formal language )
• Paul Grice ( philosopher of language, theory of conversational maxims, semantic implicature )
• Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm ( the founder of the German dictionary and the modern German lexicography )
• Samuel Johnson ( the founder of the modern dictionary )
• George Lakoff ( important representative of cognitive linguistics)
• William Labov ( sociolinguist, language change and language variation among socio- linguistic aspects )
• Desmond Morris ( semiotic triangle)
• Charles S. Peirce (character symptom types, icon, symbol, character properties )
• Edward Sapir ( founder of anthropological linguistics)
• Mario Wandruszka (the study of multilingualism )
• Leo Weisgerber ( central figure of the Bonn Linguistics, founder of the magazine -action word)
• Anna Wierzbicka (Natural Semantic Metalanguage )
• Ludwig Wittgenstein ( founder of analytical philosophy of language )