Microlinguistics
Encyclopedia
Microlinguistics is a branch of linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 that concerns itself with the study of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 systems in the abstract, without regard to the meaning
Meaning (linguistics)
In linguistics, meaning is what is expressed by the writer or speaker, and what is conveyed to the reader or listener, provided that they talk about the same thing . In other words if the object and the name of the object and the concepts in their head are the same...

 or notional content of linguistic expressions. In micro-linguistics, language is reduced to the abstract mental elements of syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

 and phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

. It contrast
Contrast
Contrast may refer to:* Contrast , the difference in color and light between parts of an image* Contrast , expressing distinctions between words...

s with macro-linguistics, which includes meanings, and especially with sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...

, which studies how language and meaning function within human social systems. The term micro-linguistics was first used in print by George L. Trager
George L. Trager
George Leonard Trager was an American linguist. He was born March 22, 1906, in Newark, New Jersey; he died on August 31, 1992, in Pasadena, California...

, in an article published in 1949 in Studies in Linguistics: Occasional Papers.
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