Linguistics is the study of language and its concepts and structure. Understanding these basic concepts can help you get a sense of how a language is structured and help you make connections and learn new words and phrases more easily. We focus our support in the five areas of phonology, morphology, lexicology, syntax and semantics.
Phonology is the study of the sound and structure of a language. English is a complicated language for people to learn because even though there are twenty-six letters, there are forty-four phonemes. Phonology deals with how we mentally break down the pronunciation of words, while phonetics deals with producing the sounds, therefore phonology is more relevant for people who are learning a new language, not learning spoken language for the first time. A phoneme is a unit of sound that when replaced changes the sound of a word in a particular language. If you understand phonemes you will understand all the different sounds in the English language. Our study of Phonemes will focuses on the two categories vowels and consonants.
Morphology deals with the structure of a language’s morphemes, phonemes, and other linguistic units. Understanding the morphological relationship between two words can help an individual recognize a relationship between two different words, which helps you better understand new words and phrases. For example, if an individual can recognize the morphological relationship between words, you can begin to understand other complex nouns.
Lexicology is the study of words. Our overview of the principles of lexicology will help you move from understanding the sounds that make up the English language to understanding the words. When we study words we look at how words are formed, what makes them different from other words and break -down words to their roots, so you can get better at understanding the words and sentences that give the English language its meaning.
Syntax is the set of rules that govern the grammatical construction of sentences in a language and how sentences are classified. We’ll help you with your study of compound sentences and use of Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Preposition, Pronouns and Conjunction.
Semantics is a branch of linguistics that involves the study of words and their meanings and the study of Metaphors, Similes, Personification, Irony, Symbolism. We’ll also help you take a look at Synonymy, Hyponymy, Antonymy, Incompatibility, Homonymy and Polysemy.