科普 | 为什么要学语言学？

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Why Major in Linguistics?

为什么要选择语言学专业？

If you are considering becoming a linguistics major, you probably know something about the field of linguistics already. However, you may find it hard to answer people who ask you, "What exactly is linguistics, and what does a linguist do?" They might assume that it means you speak a lot of languages. And they may be right: you may, in fact, be a polyglot! But while many linguists do speak multiple languages — or at least know a fair bit about multiple languages — the study of linguistics means much more than this.

如果你打算成为语言学专业的学生，你可能已经对语言学领域有所了解。但是，你可能很难回答别人问你“语言学到底是什么？语言学家做些什么？”之类的问题。他们会以为这是你会说很多种语言的意思。实际上他们可能说对了：你确实会多个语种！尽管许多语言学家确实会讲多种语言，或至少对多种语言有一定的了解，但是语言学的研究意义远不止于此。

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Many topics fall under this umbrella. At the heart of linguistics is an understanding of:

• the unconscious knowledge that humans have about language

• how children acquire language

• the structure of language in general and of particular languages

• how languages vary

• how language influences the way in which we interact with each other and think about the world

语言学是对语言的科学研究，其下有多个子学科。语言学的核心是理解：

• 人类对语言的无意识知识，

• 儿童如何习得语言，

• 一般语言和特殊语言的结构，

• 语言如何变化，

• 语言如何影响我们相互交流和思考世界的方式

语言学详解

1

What exactly do we mean by this?

具体是什么意思呢？

When you were born, you were not able to communicate with the adults around you by using language. But by the time you were five or six, you were able to produce sentences, make jokes, ask questions, and so on. In short, you had become a fluent native speaker. During those first few years of your life, you accumulated a wide range of knowledge about at least one language, probably with very little conscious effort. If you studied a foreign language later on, it’s likely that you discovered that it was not nearly as easy.

当你出生时，你不能用语言与周围的成年人交流。但是当你五六岁的时候，你就能够造句、开玩笑、提问等等。简而言之，你已经成为一个流利的母语使用者。在你生命的最初几年里，你可能无意中积累了关于至少一种语言的广泛知识。但如果后来你再学习一门外语，很可能你会发现，它远没有那么容易。

2

English as example

让我们拿英语来举个例子

Speakers of all languages know a lot about their languages, usually without knowing that they know it. For example, as a speaker of English, you possess knowledge about English word order. Perhaps without even knowing it. You know that when you ask a yes-no question, you may reverse the order of words at the beginning of the sentence and that the pitch of your voice goes up at the end of the sentence (for example, in Are you going?). 

各种语言的使用者通常对自己的语言非常了解，很多认知是无意识的。例如，作为一名母语英语的人，自然而然，你会明白英语词序的问题。当你询问“是--否”的问题时，可能会改变句子开头的单词顺序，并且在句子结尾处升调处理（例如，“您要去吗？”） 。

3

What about other languages?

如果是其他语言呢？

However, if you speak French, you might add est-ce que at the beginning, and if you know American Sign Language, you probably raise your eyebrows during the question. In addition, you understand that asking a wh-question (who, what, where, etc.) calls for a somewhat different strategy (compare the rising intonation in the question above to the falling intonation in Where are you going?). You also possess knowledge about the sounds of your language, for example, which consonants can go together in a word, and how they go together. You know that slint could be an English word, while sbint and lsint could not be. And you most likely know something about the role of language in your interactions with others. You know that certain words are “taboo” or controversial, that certain contexts might require more formal or less formal language, and that certain expressions or ways of speaking draw upon shared knowledge between speakers.

但是，如果你说的是法语，则可以在开头加上est-ce que，如果你懂美式的肢体语言，你可能会在提问时扬起眉毛。此外，你明白问一个wh问题（谁，什么，在哪里，等等）需要一种稍微不同的策略（比较上面例子中的升调和“你要去哪里”中的降调）。你还拥有有关语音的知识，例如，哪些辅音可以在一个单词中组合在一起，以及它们如何组合在一起。你知道slint可能是英语单词，而sbint和lsint可能不是。你可能还对语言在与他人交流中的作用有所了解。你知道某些单词是“禁忌”或有争议的，某些语境可能需要更正式或不太正式的语言，某些表达或说话方式需要说话者之间有共同的信息背景。

语言学是一门科学

Yes, linguistics is a science!  

是的，语言学是一门科学！

Linguists investigate how people acquire their knowledge about language, how this knowledge interacts with other cognitive processes, how it varies across speakers and geographic regions, and how to model this knowledge computationally. They study how to represent the structure of the various aspects of language (such as sounds or meaning), how to account for different linguistic patterns theoretically, and how the different components of language interact with each other. Linguists develop and test scientific hypotheses. Many linguists appeal to statistical analysis, mathematics, and logical formalism to account for the patterns they observe.

语言学家调查人们如何获得与语言相关的知识，该知识如何与其他认知过程相互作用，其在说话者和地理区域之间如何变化，以及如何以计算方式对语言知识进行建模。他们研究如何表示语言各个方面（例如声音或含义）的结构，如何从理论上解释不同的语言模型，以及语言的不同组成部分如何相互影响。语言学家发展和检验科学假设。许多语言学家都提倡使用统计分析，数学和逻辑形式主义来解释他们观察到的语言模型。

文章来自美国语言学社区，翻译来自小编，图片来自必应图库。你为何选择语言学专业，欢迎留言谈一谈~

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