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Common linguistic problemsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. It can be divided into three categories: 1. The study of language structure or grammar-This focuses on the system of rules to be followed by the speakers of the language. It encompasses the formation and composition of words, phrases and sentences and phonology. 2. The study of language meaning-How language employ logical structures to convey, process and assign meaning, as well as to manage and resolve ambiguity. 3. The study of language in context-This includes and looks at language origins and changes, relation with social structures, language processing in the mind and language acquisition. Within the english language, there are many problems that as native speakers, we don?t really think about but when learning the english language as a second or foreign language, there are many common misunderstandings and problems that arise. These can be divided into lexical and structural problems. One of the most common lexical problems is that of ambiguity. This is evident in: ? Idiomatic speech whose meanings cannot be understood by the individual words or elements-?drop someone a line?-meaning to write to someone, ?fire someone?-meaning to end someone?s employment. This causes confusion to second language learners when they are trying to understand the basics of the language. ? Homographs where words are spelled the same but have different meanings-fair(county fair), fair(reasonable); tear(in the eye), tear(rip); lie(untruth), lie down. The second language learner gets easily mixed up as to why there are 3 words with the same form or spelling, different pronunciation and used in completely different contexts. ? Homonyms where words sound alike but have different meanings and same or different spellings-see, sea; pair, pear; their, there; bow(tied with ribbon), bow(shoots arrows). Again, the second language learner is confused because they learn a word in one form and then see it again in another. Structural ambiguity is another common cause of linguistic problems and misunderstanding. Structural ambiguity occurs when a phrase or sentence has more than one underlying structure or meaning. For example the phrase, ?Tibetan history teacher? can be represented in two different ways- the (Tibetan history)teacher who teaches Tibetan history or the (Tibetan)history teacher who is Tibetan. Likewise, ?the chicken is ready to eat? can be used to describe either a hungry chicken or a broiled chicken. Ambiguity is a property of linguistic expressions. This implies that the language we use is built up of separate words and the structural ambiguity is caused by the combination of these words in a sentence. This kind of structure is confusing to both native english speakers as well as second language learners who need to fully understand the context of the sentence before they are likely to fully understand the meaning of the sentence. In conclusion, there are many ambiguities and linguistic problems within the language that native speakers take for granted to understand. However, as a second language learner, it is even more challenging to understand these ambiguous forms which therefore lead to confusion and hence the development of these common linguistic problems.
