ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief introduction to the ‘scientific’ study of language. Language is not a collection of words, but rather there are rules for putting those words together. Linguistic theory is basically about what the best system for writing the rules is – that is, a system of rules that can allow all the possible utterances of language but doesn’t allow anything that is not a possible utterance. Most languages are spoken using sound, but deaf communities have developed signed languages which are full languages in their own right, with all the systematic features of spoken languages. Change is a feature of language, not a bug. It makes language infinitely adaptable to all the new things, ideas, and concepts that humans invent, and it allows creativity and poetry. Critical linguists try to show how sociolinguistic processes maintain the privilege and judgement around standard language.
