this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
22 points (92.3% liked)

Linguistics

1728 readers
1 users here now

Welcome to the community about the science of human Language!

Everyone is welcome here: from laypeople to professionals, Historical linguists to discourse analysts, structuralists to generativists.

Rules:

  1. Instance rules apply.
  2. Be reasonable, constructive, and conductive to discussion.
  3. Stay on-topic, specially for more divisive subjects. And avoid unnecessary mentioning topics and individuals prone to derail the discussion.
  4. Post sources when reasonable to do so. And when sharing links to paywalled content, provide either a short summary of the content or a freely accessible archive link.
  5. Avoid crack theories and pseudoscientific claims.
  6. Have fun!

Related communities:

Resources:

Grammar Watch - contains descriptions of the grammars of multiple languages, from the whole world.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
lvxferre@mander.xyz
fossilesque@mander.xyz
22
What is linguistics for? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by IndigoGollum@lemmy.world to c/linguistics@mander.xyz
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Don't get me wrong, i think linguistics is a lot of fun and i get that it's an interesting field. I just don't understand what practical applications it has beyond understanding languages better. What do we do with that understanding of languages? Is it purely about seeking knowledge?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I think you and @rigatti@lemmy.world got caught in the words.

"History" can refer to the past events or their study. "Economy", to the system of production and consumption or its study. "Chemistry", to a set of properties of the matter or their study. And so goes on.

The same does not apply to "language". The word refers to a bunch* of phenomena, but not their study. Their study gets a different name, Linguistics. So when OP is asking "what is linguistics for", they're clearly referring to the study; they are not asking "what are the phenomena called «language» good for?"

*at least three: a human faculty, a communication system relying on that faculty, and concrete instances of the usage of that system.

Side note, Linguistics is great to catch this sort of hidden polysemy.

[–] rigatti@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Yes, this exactly. And thank you for being polite about it.