General Linguistics - Introduction
 

Why study Linguistics?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language in all its facets. Language is a fundamentally important aspect of human life, and impinges on virtually everything that we do. Thus, Linguistics is a study which shares interests with a very wide range of other disciplines, and usefully combines with a variety of other subject areas, such as language subjects (Te Reo Māori, French, German, English, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish), Philosophy, Education, Sociology, Social Anthropology, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, and Communication Studies.

Studying Linguistics provides insights into the way languages work, and enhances students' understanding of their own language and of those they are studying. This is not just a matter of the grammar and pronunciation of these languages, but also of what counts as appropriate linguistic behaviour in different cultures and settings, of the different statuses which languages enjoy, of the way languages change, and so on.