Our free linguistics essays cover a range of topics including sounds (phonetics, phonology), words (morphology), sentences (syntax), and meaning (semantics). Some of our essays also cover themes such as how language has evolved over time, how it varies in difference situations, groups and places (sociolinguistics, dialectology), how language is acquired/learned and how it is used in context.
When two languages interact it is referred to as a language contact. Two or more languages are used either by one individual or in speech communities. The ways the languages impact each other are transfer and integration. The feature of the item can remain as the idiolect of bilinguals or start to function as a … Read more
Thomas (1995: 21) notes that it is easy to pick holes in earlier approaches to the study of pragmatics, because the ‘pioneers’ of the field were reacting against an approach to linguistics which was strongly biased towards meaning in abstract rather than meaning in use. Lyons (1981: 171) states that pragmatics is ”variously defined as … Read more
