Linguistics is the scientific study of how humans ‘do’ language. As a multidimensional discipline, linguistics is interrelated with other areas of study such as anthropology, neurology, psychology, sociology, computer science, and even advertising. As a discipline in its own right, linguistics is generally thought to have two sub-fields: theoretical and applied linguistics.
Theoretical linguistics takes a scientific approach to studying speech patterns and providing explanations for them by creating and testing theories. The major core grammar areas in this realm include: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
The focus of applied linguistics is the study of how to relate linguistic theory to real-life language usage. Psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and education are the more prominent disciplines in which the application of language grammars are observed and tested.
