WHAT APPLICATIONS DOES THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE HAVE? - LITERATURE - 2024

The study of language, understood as the inquiry into the human capacity to communicate, has shown to have multiple applications. Among other areas, its results are applied in psychology, philosophy, education, language teaching and sociology. They also have an important impact on disciplines such as anthropology or computer science.

Within this wide range of action, the applications of the study of language include both the theoretical and the practical part. Thus, they can go from registering all existing languages ​​to find their common properties to finding solutions to specific problems.

On the other hand, it should be noted that the study of language is not of recent date. This goes back even to antiquity. Since then, attempts began to try to discover the mechanisms of acquisition and use of human language.

Practical applications of the study of language

Communications in society

Within this field of the study of language are all those applications related to language as a social tool.

In general, in this area there are applications both individual and related to social groups. Among them, we can highlight:

1. Language protection policies and planning
2. Language and cultural rights of civilizations
3. Language and communication in social groups: sectorizations by ethnicity, age, gender and class
4. Language preservation
5. Language and socio-cultural identity
6. Documentation of associated languages ​​and cultures

Language and communication technology

In this field of applications are those that are based on technical sciences. All of them are intended to allow or facilitate communication and to produce, process and store language data by electronic means. Among a wide and growing variety of applications, we can mention:

1. Word processing (summaries, information retrieval and text extraction)
2. Automatic speech recognition and synthesis (such as in voicemail)
3. Translation software
4. Improved perceptibility of speech (medical devices such as cochlear implants)
5. Communications in new media (Internet, social networks and the like)
6. Computer-assisted language learning and tutoring systems

Interpersonal and intercultural communications

This line of applications includes all those that facilitate daily communication. They promote, maintain and solve problems in communication at an interpersonal and intercultural level. In this group of applications of the study of language are:

1. Communication and daily socialization processes
2. Communication in community contexts (in couples, in families and in work centers)
3. Cases of communicational conflicts (diagnoses and therapies)
4. Social interaction patterns (courtesy, humor, praise and blame, among others)
5. Analysis of cultural patterns in different contexts (healthcare, administration, education and legal contexts)
6. Development of appropriate forms of intercultural training
7. Translation and interpretation
8. Lingua franca communication (common or commercial language to communicate between people who speak different languages)

Individual communication skills

In this applicative field of the study of language are the findings of those disciplines related to knowledge and verbal skills. They also include disorders, acquired or developed, that affect communication.

In the same way, they promote the acquisition of knowledge and the development of skills for the required therapies. Some of these applications are related to:

1. Acquisition and teaching of the mother tongue
2. Acquisition and teaching of a second language
3. Literacy
4. Diagnosis and therapy of disorders, developed or acquired
5. Changes in communication skills

Neurolinguistics

This branch of the study of language is responsible for investigating the way in which language is represented in the brain. That is, how and where human brains store knowledge of language (or languages).

In the same way, it studies what happens in them as knowledge is acquired, and what happens when it is used in everyday life. They can be highlighted in this branch, among other applications:

1. Neural connection mechanisms that allow language
2. Duality of these connections in the case of speakers of several languages
3. Mechanisms of learning the mother tongue in the case of neonates
4. Learning of other languages ​​by children
5. Ability to relearn in cases of patients with brain damage
6. Cases of dyslexia and their partial or total recovery capacity

Rescue of languages ​​in danger of disappearance

The projects related to the rescue of languages ​​in danger of disappearance have a valuable tool in the study of language. These are dedicated to exploring ways to maintain, preserve and revitalize endangered cultures.

To this end, they use the combination of lexicographic and pedagogical methods applied to threatened civilizations and combine them with adequate communication designs. They can be mentioned among them:

1. Methods to assess "the health" of languages ​​threatened with disappearance
2. Development of methods, models and software for the collection, preservation and revitalization of languages ​​in the process of disappearance
3. Research and development of innovative methods for language documentation, (creation of dictionaries and language teaching methods)
4. Developments of new software and other digital tools to document and accelerate the learning of languages ​​in danger
5. Awareness campaigns on the threats faced by linguistic diversity
6. Creation of platforms and forums so that communities with threats to their native culture can share their preservation efforts with others in similar situations
7. Identify distribution patterns of a language and its degree of danger

Identity and languages

In this field, the study of language reviews the relationships between language and the characteristics of solidarity, resistance and identity of a culture or human group. In this way, this type of research can have applications related to the following topics:

1. Use, context and meaning of signs, symbols and sounds
2. Degree of racial identity contributed by the language
3. Sub-languages ​​(dialects) and geographic relationships
4. Influence of linguistic distortions on the rest of the cultural characteristics
5. Equivalent language systems
6. Linguistic and cultural feedback
7. Learning a second language and relationship with transculturation
8. Similar cultural traits in groups with different languages

Multilingual interactions

This field of the study of language has had a great boom since the middle of the 20th century. It has a lot to do with the phenomenon of globalization and growing emigration. Faced with these facts, new areas and applications of the study of language are presented, such as:

1. Transfers due to language switching
2. Lexemas “borrowed” during the communication process
3. Language deficiencies and "loans"
4. Reformulated transfers, speech-related transfers, allusive transfers, and anaphoric transfers

References

1. Fromkin, V.; Rodman, R. and Hyams, N. (2018). An Introduction to Language. Boston: Cengage Learning.
2. The University of Arizona. (s / f). What is linguistics and why study it ?. Taken from linguistics.arizona.edu.
3. Knapp, K. (s / f). Applications in applied linguistics. Taken from benjamins.com.
4. Menn, L. (s / f). Neurolinguistics. Taken from linguisticsociety.org.
5. Research Lab at Stanford University. (s / f). Project: Design for Endangered Languages. Taken from hdlab.stanford.edu.
6. Lanehart, SL (1996, December 01). The language of identity. Taken from journals.sagepub.com.
7. Guerini, F. (2006). Language Alternation Strategies in Multilingual Settings. Berlin: Peter Lang.