什麼是語言學

對語言的性質和結構的研究。語言學既可用共時的方法（即描寫一特定時間的某一特定語言）來研究，也可用歷時的方法（即透過歷史追溯語言的發展）來研究。西元前5世紀的希臘哲學家們是最早關注語言理論的人，他們對人類語言的起源進行爭辯。西元前1世紀狄奧尼修斯.特拉克斯（Dionysius Thrax）編撰了第一部完整的希臘語語法書，成為羅馬語法學家的楷模，而這些羅馬語法學家的著作又成為中世紀和文藝復興時期的當地語法的基礎。19世紀由於歷史語言學的興起，語言學成為一門科學。19世紀末和20世紀初，索緒爾建立了一支語言學的結構語言學派，分析了真正的語法以瞭解語言的基礎結構。1950年代，喬姆斯基挑戰了這種結構語言學方法，主張語言學家應該研究操本族語者對自己語言之本能條件下的熟悉狀況（語言能力），而不是探索操該語者對語言的實際產生的效果（語言行為），他還發展了衍生語法。

linguistics

Study of the nature and structure of language. Linguists use a synchronic (describing a language as it exists at a given time) or a diachronic (tracing a language's development through its history) approach to language study. Greek philosophers in the 5th century BC who debated the origins of human language were the first in the West to be concerned with linguistic theory. The first complete Greek grammar, written by Dionysus Thrax in the 1st century BC, was a model for Roman grammarians, whose work led to the medieval and Renaissance vernacular grammars. With the rise of historical linguistics in the 19th century, linguistics became a science. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure established the structuralist school of linguistics, which analyzed actual speech to learn about the underlying structure of language. In the 1950s, Noam Chomsky challenged the structuralist approach, arguing that linguistics should study native speakers' unconscious knowledge of their own language (competence), not their actual production of language (performance), and developed generative grammar.