iol-kal
Knowledge About Language for IOL
If you’re preparing for the IOL, it would be helpful to know something about how languages work. Here are some leads for you to consider.
- How linguists divide the study of language structure:
- Graphology (writing systems)
- Phonology (sound systems)
- built on phonetics:
- articulatory phonetics (physiology: how sounds are produced, e.g. voiced/voiceless)
- acoustic phonetics (acoustics: how sounds sound – probably not relevant to IOL)
- built on phonetics:
- Grammar
- morphology (word structure; how word-parts combine)
- inflection (same word, different grammar, e.g. singular/plural)
- derivation (different words, e.g. farm – farmer)
- syntax (sentence structure; how words combine)
- morphology (word structure; how word-parts combine)
- semantics (meaning directly read off words)
- pragmatics (meaning that we read between the lines)
- lexis (vocabulary – really straddling all the above).
- Different ways of studying language structure:
- Descriptive (how one language works)
- Contrasted with ‘prescriptive’
- Historical (how a language has changed)
- Comparative (how languages are similar or different)
- Typological (general ‘types’ of language)
- Psycholinguistics:
- Child language (how we learn language)
- Production, perception (how we use language)
- Neurolinguistics (language in the brain)
- Language disorders
- Sociolinguistics
- Language variation (dialects, styles, etc)
- Language interaction (politeness, etc)
- Language and culture
- Theoretical (main focus on general theory applying to all languages)
- Applied linguistics
- Linguistics applied, e.g. to education, language loss, …
- Descriptive (how one language works)
- Useful source books:
- David Crystal: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.
- For example, the 2nd edition, 1997, has a useful summary of grammatical terms and categories on p. 93, in Chapter 16 on Grammar.
- David Crystal: Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics.
- David Crystal: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.