Major branches of applied linguistics include bilingualism and multilingualism, conversation analysis, contrastive linguistics, sign linguistics, language assessment,discourse analysis, language pedagogy (the discipline that deals with the theory and practice of teaching and how these influence student learning), second language acquisition, language planning and policy planning,stylistics, pragmaticsand translation(Wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_linguistics).3.
7 Computational Linguistics Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions.It refers to the use of computers to simulate languageand its working. The study of language and speech by using computers (inautomatic/electronic translation, data analysis, corpus data) (Mansoor, 2014: 25). Computational linguistics has theoretical and applied components. Theoretical computational linguistics focuses on issues in theoretical linguistics and cognitive science, and applied computational linguistics focuses on the practical outcome of modeling human language use (Uszkoreit, 2000).
3.8 Anthropological Linguistics Anthropological linguisticsis the subfield of linguistics and anthropology, which deals with the place of language in its wider social and cultural context, and its role in making and maintaining cultural practices and societal structures(Foley, 2012).It is the study of language in cross-cultural settings (the relationship between language and culture; traditions, beliefs, and family structure).Anthropological linguistics is one of many disciplines which studies the role of languages in the social lives of individuals and within communities.
Conventional linguistic anthropology also has implications for sociology and self-organization of peoples. (Duranti, 2009).3.9 Comparative Linguistics Comparative linguistics, originally known as comparative philology, is a branchofhistorical linguistics that is concerned with comparinglanguages to establish their historical relatedness.It is the study of two or more languages in order to compare their structures, and to show whether they are similar or different (Mansoor, 2014: 25). Comparative linguists compare and contrast languages as regards their phonological and morphological systems, syntax, and vocabularies.
It is used in the study of language types known as linguistic typology which classifies languages according totheir structural features. It deals with the classification of languages into different types (tone languages, intonation languages, SVO (English), SOV (Turkish/Kurdish), VSO (Arabic), and so on (Mansoor, 2014: 24). It is also used by some applied linguists for establishing differences between the learner’s native language (L1) and the target language (L2) in the areas of syntax, vocabulary and sound systems (Richards, 1993:68).3.10 Discourse Analysis Discourse analysis, or text linguistics is the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which language is used. It is “the study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc.
“(ibid, 111). Some major concerns of discourse analysis are the relationships between utterances in a discourse, the grammatical structure of discourse and the moves made by speakers to introduce a new topic or change a topic (ibid). 4. Domain of Microlinguistics As is the case with macrolinguistics, although linguists and researchers are not in much agreement about all the branches or fields that fall within the domain of microlinguistics, thefollowing are the main branches that the majority have agreed upon.4.1 Phonetics and Phonology Phonetics is the study of the characteristics of human speech sounds (their articulation:description and production). It includes a detailed study of phonemes (the smallest segment (part) of sound which can distinguish the meaning of two words) and their different forms or variants (allophones).
There are three branches of phonetics:a)Articulatory Phonetics:It deals with the production and description ofspeech sounds.b)Acoustic Phonetics: It deals with the transmission of speech sounds in the air (in waves). It deals with the physical properties of sounds. c) Auditory Phonetics: It deals with the perception of speech sounds; howthey are received or heard via the ear (Yule, 2010: 26).
Phonology is the description of the systems and patterns of speech sounds.It is the study of sound patterning in language.It deals with the description of distinctive sound units of language (distinctive features). It also deals with word-to-word relations in sentences; how sound patterns are affected by the combination of words as in stress, consonant clusters, intonation patterns, assimilation and elision (Richards, 1993:275).4.2 Morphology Morphology is best defined as the make-up (composition) of words: their formation andderivation by using affixes (prefixes, infixes, suffixes).
It is the study of morphemes (the smallest meaningful units in language), their different forms (allomorphs)and the way they combine in different word formation processes such as (coinage, borrowing, compounding, blending, clipping, conversion, abbreviation and acronymy), and also the study of word classes (parts of speech).Briefly stated, it is the study of word formation (Mansoor, 2014). It deals with all types of morphemes; free/bound, lexical/functional, derivational/inflectional (Yule, 2010: 68-69).4.3 Syntax Syntax isthe arrangement and combination of words to form sentences.
Itis sentence formation. It is the study of how words combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the formation of sentences (Richards, et al, 1993:370). According to Yule (2010, 97, 102) an important goal of syntactic analysis “is to have a small and finite (limited) set of rules that will be capableof producing a large and potentially infinite (unlimited) number of well-formed structures”. This kind of rules is described as generative grammar since it is capable of generating (producing) sentence structures and not just describing them. It is a grammar that enables us to produce a very large number of sentences by using very small number of rules (phrase structure rules).
It is also capable of revealing two important phenomena: deep and surface structure (ibid).4.4 SemanticsSemantics is the study of the meaning (of words, phrases and sentences) in language. It describes the meaningful relationships between words, and explains the processes that lead to new words and senses. It is the meaning of words or linguistic expressions in a given language without reference to the speaker and the situation. Asemanticistis a linguist who is concerned with the study of meaning or a specialist in semantics (Mansoor, 2017: 4-5).
When dealing with semantics, we are actually interested in word or sentence meaning. It is what a word or a sentence means literally. This is often referred to as denotative meaning, conceptual meaning or literal meaning; meaning that is conveyed by the literal use of words as found in dictionaries (dictionary definition of words).It is the meaning of words or linguistic expressions in a given language without reference to the speaker and the situation. It is the literal or denotative meaning of words and sentences, which is predicted from linguistic knowledge (dictionary definition or meaning) (ibid, 98).
Basic concern of semantic interest is the study of semantic features, e.g., (+/-animate, +/-human, +/-female), etc.; semantic roles (agent, patient, instrument,experiencer, location, goal, etc.) and lexical relations (synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, polysemy, metonymy, collocation, etc.) (Yule, 2010:113-121). 4.
5 Pragmatics The most common definition of pragmatics is; meaning in use or meaning in context (Thomas, 1995, 1) as interpreted by different speakers in different contexts or situations.Pragmatics deals with how speakers use language in ways which cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone. It is the type of meaning that depends more on the context or situation and the communicative intentions of the speaker and the associations made between linguistic forms and situations or contexts (connotative meaning) rather than on theconceptual (denotative) meaning(Mansoor, 2017:98).Briefly stated, pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning or meaning in context.
Pragmatics is closely related to the connotations or associations language users make with words of language to convey additional meanings which are far from the denotative or dictionary meanings. Connotations are the emotions, thoughts, images, and associations attached to a word. Connotation is what a term or a word implies. Itis the emotional and imaginative association surrounding a word (ibid, 100).
Basic terms within the scope of pragmatics include; reference and inference, anaphoraand anaphor, context, deixis, presupposition, entailment, implicature, speech acts, politeness (positive/negative), face theory, felicity conditions, performatives and constatives, etc. 4.6Stylistics Stylistics is the study of style in language and literature. It is mainly concerned with the study of written language including literary texts (ibid, 24) although it sometimes includes investigations of spoken language. It is the study of language variation (style) which depends on the context or situation in which the language is used, and the effect the writer/speaker wishes to create on the reader or hearer (Richards, 1993: 360).
Stylistics is a branch of applied linguistics which studies and interprets texts in regard to their linguistic and tonal style. As a discipline, it links literary criticism to linguistics. It does not function as an autonomous domain on its own, and it can be applied to an understanding of literature and journalism as well as linguistics(Widdowson, 1975; Simpson, 2004 cited in Wikipedia). The scope of stylistics may extend to include a variety of areas such as works of writing of popular texts, and from advertisingcopy to news, non-fiction, and popular culture, as well as to political and religiousdiscourse (Davies, 2007; Simpson, 2004).5.
Conclusion The paper has been an attempt to make a clear-cut distinction between the two terms macrolinguistics and microlinguistics which are often overlapping, and which are not clearly distinguished by the majority of advanced students, researchers and those interested in linguistic research. Macrolinguistics, which refers to the wider or broader areas of linguistics covers a variety of topics such as general linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, comparative linguistics, etc. Microlinguistics, which deals with the narrower areas of linguistic research, is focused on phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Making such a distinctionhelps researchers to approach linguistic science with more clarity, accuracy and specification
