Linguistics (the study of human speech in its various aspects including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics) has as its primary goal, the understanding of human language processes and mechanisms. However, as a field, linguistics is quite broad.
The purpose of this report is to review four current articles examining some facet of linguistics. As a whole, the reviewed material will provide an illustration of the wide scope of the field and the diverse language issues with which it deals.
Linguistics: Scope of the Field and Language Issues
Although linguistics is often characterized as a highly conceptual field of study or discipline, many of the language issues with which it deals are quite practical. In other words, there is an applied component to the discipline. One example of this applied element can be seen in a study conducted by Williams (1992) which sought to increase the comprehensibility of the language of teaching assistants who were non-native speakers of English, a group which Williams refers to as International Teaching Assistants or ITAs.
Specifically, Williams (1992) looked at the effect of discourse marking on the comprehensibility of the speech of 24 ITAs. Discourse marking involves improving the quality of instructional explanations through the use of such cues or signals as definitions, illustrations or examples, restatement, introductions, identifications, and summaries.
In Williams' study, ITAs provided instructional explanations both before and after being exposed to a program teaching them discourse marking; these explanations were videotaped. Videotapes were then played to 25 undergraduates and 10 ESL specialists who rated the explanations for comprehensibility.
Findings showed that comprehensibility was significantly improved through discourse marking. Interestingly, native speaking teaching assistants remained significantly more comprehensible than ITAs re...