Levels of Linguistic Analysis
We mark or divide the territory in order to investigate it analytically and methodically when studying language, which is the topic of linguistics. Language has a hierarchical structure. This indicates that it is composed of units that are composed of smaller units that are composed of even smaller units until we get at the smallest indivisible unit, which is a single unique sound known as a phoneme.
Morpheme:
Alternatively, single sounds or phonemes combine to form larger units of sounds, which combine to form a larger meaningful unit known as a morpheme; morphemes combine to form larger units of words, and words combine to form a large unit or sentence, and several sentences combine or interconnect to form a unified piece of speech or writing known as a text or discourse.
At each step (or level), particular restrictions govern the occurrence and combination of smaller components. Thus, phonological rules regulate the occurrence and combination of particular phonemes, word-formation rules govern the behavior of specific morphemes, and sentence building rules govern the combination and placement of words in a sentence.
Each level is a self-contained system. It's important to remember that since each level has its own set of regulations, we may study each one separately from the others. This means that learning one level, like as phonology or the sound system, does not imply learning another, such as sentence structure.
We can examine phonology and syntax independently. Although two levels are related in the sense that one is lower in the hierarchy and the other is higher, and the higher level includes the lower, each level is separate because it follows its own set of laws that can be explained, studied, and understood. These levels may be expressed as follows, with each level of analysis corresponding to a level of linguistic structure:
Levels of Analysis Levels of Structure:
Phonetics and Phonology Letters that Make a Sound (Graphology) Morphology The Creation of Words Syntax of Sentence Formation Semantics Definitions Sentences with a Discourse Relationship A closer look at the image above demonstrates that the levels of linguistic structure are not completely different from one another.
In reality, there are significant and vital linkages between the levels. It was formerly assumed that phonology, or the level of sound structure, had no relationship to semantics, or the level of meaning structure. We now know that the linkages between these levels are much more complex than we previously imagined.
As we can see, discourse is made up of all levels of language working together, while semantics comprises meaning analysis at both the word (word-meaning) and sentence levels (sentence-meaning). However, we can only investigate these links after defining and evaluating structure at each level separately. Thus
Phonetics:
Phonetics is the study of language at the level of sounds:
How sounds are articulated by the human speech mechanism and received by the auditory system, as well as how sounds are identified and categorised based on their creation.
Phonology:
Phonology is the study of the organization of sounds into ordered units of speech, such as syllables and larger units.
It discusses the sound system of a language, as well as the mix and distribution of sounds present in that language. To identify sounds, the phoneme concept, i.e. a distinct, contrasting sound unit, such as /m/, //, and /p/, is utilized.
These many noises are combined to form a new sound. The rules for merging words varies across languages. Though phonology is considered the surface or superficial level of language (because to the fact that it is real rather than abstract like meaning), some components of it, such as tone, contribute to an utterance's meaning.
Morphology:
Morphology is the study of how words are produced by mixing sounds to create morphemes, the smallest units of meaning.
A morpheme cannot be divided apart since the meaning would be lost; for example, the morpheme 'bat' is made up of three sounds: /b/, //, and /t/. This combination forms the single morpheme 'bat,' and if it is separated, it no longer has the meaning 'bat.'
Words may be made up of single morphemes like 'bat,' or morpheme combinations like 'bats,' which is made up of two morphemes: 'bat' +'s.' Morphology is concerned with the principles for connecting morphemes to generate words, as suffixes and prefixes are attached to single morphemes to form words.
It looks at changes in word structure, such as the morpheme 'take' changing to 'took' and 'taken'––these changes imply a tense shift. Morphology is related to phonology on the one hand, and semantics on the other.
It is clear from the preceding example of 'take' that the transition to 'took' involves a change in one of the morpheme's sounds. There is also a semantic shift: 'take' relates to the action 'take' + present time, while 'took' refers to the action 'take' + past time. As a consequence, morphological changes often indicate changes in both sound and meaning.
syntax:
The level at which we examine how words combine to create phrases, phrases combine to form clauses, and clauses unite to form sentences is known as syntax.
Syntax study covers a range of activities. The rules for placing sentence parts such as nouns/noun syntactic phrases, verbs/verb phrases, adverbial phrases, and so on.
In a sentence, these pieces must be placed in a certain order. Syntax also attempts to describe how these components function inside the sentence or what their purpose is. For example, the word 'boy' is a noun.
It does, however, perform a specific function in each of the following sentences:
(a) The child adores cricket
(b) the old gentleman admired him.
It acts as the subject of the phrase in sentence
(a). It serves as the sentence's object
(b). A sentence should be both grammatically accurate and meaningful.
For example, although the sentence 'Colourless green thoughts sleep passionately' is theoretically correct, it is useless. As a consequence, syntax rules should be detailed enough to explain how grammatical and meaningful sentences are constructed.
Semantics:
Semantics is the study of the degree of meaning in language. It makes an effort to examine the structure of meaning in a language.
It, for example, attempts to explain how words that are similar or separate are linked by defining 'categories.' Semantics is concerned with explaining the meaning of words and phrases, as well as analyzing and defining what is considered abstract.
It is easier to define the meanings of words like "tree" than it is to define the meanings of words like "love" or other abstract ideas. As a result, semantics is one of the most challenging areas of language research to describe. Pragmatics is a semantics discipline that analyzes meaning.
Pragmatics:
Pragmatics is concerned with the context of meaning in particular situations.
Pragmatics, as opposed to sentence analysis, focuses on utterances, or sentences pronounced by native speakers of a language.
Discourse :
Discourse is the study of linguistic chunks bigger than a single phrase.
At this point, we examine the data. Inter-emotional linkages that result in a unified or connected text.
Cohesion:
Cohesion is the relationship established in a sentence between it and the sentences preceding and following it via connectives such as 'and,' 'though,' 'also,' 'but,' and the manner in which references to other parts of the text are made via devices such as repetition or the use of pronouns, definite articles, and other similar devices.
By examining the characteristics of cohesiveness, we may understand how a piece of connected language might have more meaning than the sum of the individual sentences it contains. In addition to these, we study these levels of linguistic analysis.
Graphology:
The study of a language's writing system and the standards for representing speech in writing is known as graphology.
For example, consider the evolution of letters. Lexicology is the study of how lexical components (words) are organized in dictionaries. Linguists dispute on what they consider to be the scope of linguistic study. Some individuals argue that linguistics' true scope is restricted to levels of phonology, morphology, and syntax This is known as a micro-linguistic point of view.
Conclusion:
Some people, on the other hand, take a different approach. A broader or macro-linguistic approach that includes the above-mentioned levels of analysis, as well as other aspects of language and its linkages to a wide variety of human activities.