How Linguistics Is Superior Than Literature,5 Facts You Must Know

Linguistics is very superior subject than literature.Because Through linguistics you can understand literature.The relationship between linguistics and literature is very deep.It is a common fact that linguistics is concerned with the spoken language. Students study, in universities, that linguists are not that interested in the study of the written language. Linguists analyse the spoken language since a community shares it. They do not care about whether the language is a standard one, or not. Their major concern is to come up with a concise analysis of the grammar of the language. By the word ”grammar’’ here, I mean the linguistic competence that every native speaker of a language possesses, but is unaware of most of the time.

Why Linguistics Is Greater Than literature?

Thus, the job of a linguist is to provide us with a map of the linguistic knowledge of the language that one has in mind, but is unaware of (unless they are linguists, of course). The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure adopts this idea, giving his two famous terms Langue and Parole. Langue, as you know, is that abstract system that is shared by a community, a nd Parole is the actual use of language/ the manifestation of language. Saussure says that Langue
can be tackled scientifically since it is a common feature in society. Parole, on the other hand, cannot be studied scientifically since each individual has their own style of speaking. What I will emphasise throughout this essay is that linguistics should not be looked at as a separate field, but it should be looked at as a means that can be used to know more about the secrets of writing.

As it has been said earlier, linguists tend to deal with the spoken language. The majority of
linguists are still trying to know more about the languages of the world. For instance, we have
many works done on the sound patterns of a variety of languages. These kinds of works are
done, so as to investigate the common features among languages in terms of sounds. I do not
want to talk about theory a lot, but I just want you to see how language is dealt with in
linguistics.

Having paved the way for our discussion, let us talk now about linguistics and literature. It is
believed that linguistics is the language of Langue (that abstract system that is shared by a
community), and literature is the language of Parole (the actual use of language). Linguistics
gives the raw material that can be used later by writers. But, do writers write in the ordinary
way, or do they deviate from the norms of writing? If they do deviate from the norms of
writing, then we need something that will help us to understand more about these deviations.
Nowadays, we see linguists who become interested in the study of literary works.

This has helped in the appearance of a new discipline that can be looked at as a common aspect
between linguistics and literature. The latter is Stylistics, or what simply means, the study of
style. Thus, linguists interested in the field and literary critics seem to do the same work, or at
least, they can benefit from one another. Critics begin to study more about linguistic levels
such as the phonetic, the phonological, the lexical, the syntactic, the graphological levels, etc.
Linguists, on the other hand, start to know more about the language of literature, and how
writers deviate from the ordinary style of writing in terms of lexis and syntax, or how they
make use of a figurative use of language in their works.

Many students think that linguistics has nothing to do with literature, and they forget that the material of literature is language itself.Some people may argue that literature is a creative art, and it is not related to those complex rules of language. This is true. To write good literature, one has to put the suitable words in the suitable places. But, I can say that linguistics may be of use to those who want to know the secrets of writing. For instance, when you take a poem, you see that it is not written in the ordinary prosaic form most of the time. There is some kind of syntactic deviation from the norms of writing.

In normal writing, we see sentences not parts of sentences, and this is exactly what many poems lack. The question is why do we find this deviation from the norms of writing in poetry? Linguistics comes and shows you the reasons. Poets and writers deviate from the ordinary or normative rules of writing, so as to create some effects. Writers have
learnt a lot from linguistics. Let me give you a concrete example. Imagine that you want to write a novel in which you talk about the conflict between classes, and that members of these classes do not have the same educational levels. How can you show your readers that characters, in your novel, do not have the same educational level? It is by means of language, of course. Language is a vital aspect of characterization in prose.

To conclude, we come to emphasise the fact that linguistics is indeed a good tool that can be used to know more about written texts. Mastering a number of linguistic levels will surely help you to analyse texts properly.

by Abdullah Sam
I’m a teacher, researcher and writer. I write about study subjects to improve the learning of college and university students. I write top Quality study notes Mostly, Tech, Games, Education, And Solutions/Tips and Tricks. I am a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue.

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