Cross-Cultural Linguistics

“It is often thought that linguistics is the study of foreign languages, but this is not quite true. Of course, linguists usually know several languages, and there are real polyglots among them. However, linguistics as a science studies the structure of human language as a whole and its various aspects — sounds, words, sentences, and meanings. Linguists study, for example, how language changes over time and space; how language is used in context; how people acquire native and non-native languages; and how the human brain processes language data. Linguists contribute to the development of artificial intelligence and translation, text recognition programs, decipher the human genome, and study the interaction of language and brain. They are employed in advertising, PR, and the development of political technologies.”