The Levels of Language Study

Chapters Two and Three dealt with the sounds and sound systems of language. The present chapter looks at the structure of words, which is a part of grammar. The way these topics have been selected and sequenced may seem to suggest that there is some sort of logical order in which to study language. It raises the question: Where should we start?

In fact, there is no logical or necessary place from which to launch a study of language. We use language to study language, and we cannot stand outside it as we study it or separate ourselves from what we are investigating. We cannot turn language into an object to be neatly and reliably divided into sections and classified. In a sense, therefore, we could start anywhere, but we must start somewhere.

The approach taken so far in this book has been based on the structures of language, starting with the physical forms of sounds, moving on to patterns for the combination of forms and leading towards meaning. This is not meant to suggest that the study of language is a simple and neatly structured matter, or that there is a simple, one-to-one equivalence between form and meaning. Nor is it meant to suggest that language study should focus on structural aspects while excluding social uses of language.

As Crystal (1987:82) points out, there is ‘too much going on in a piece of speech, writing, or signing to permit us to describe its characteristics in a single, simple statement'. He, together with other linguists, suggests that we should think of language as having various ‘levels'. However, we should remember that ‘parts’ of language cannot be isolated from one another, and that all ‘levels’ of study are interconnected.

Words and Grammar

The study of words is part of the study of grammar. Greenbaum (1991:1) places grammar at the centre of language. Grammar ‘mediates between the system of sounds or of written symbols, on the one hand, and the system of meaning, on the other'.

In other words, grammar is between the two systems and connects them.