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The study of the physical sounds of human speech.
Phonetics
The process by which people get to speak a second language.
(Second Language) Acquisition (SLA)
The smallest unit of meaning in a language.
Morpheme
The study of how language varies and changes in social groups.
Sociolinguistics
The set of rules that dictate the structure of sentences.
Syntax
The study of how languages are actually used by speakers as opposed to a set of rigid rules known as prescriptive linguistics.
Descriptive Linguistics
The study of meaning in language.
Semantics
The method that focuses on the use of language for communication rather than the formal rules of grammar.
Communicative Language Teaching
The study of how context influences the interpretation of meaning.
Pragmatics
A group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor.
Language families