ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the ways in which language has been studied up to the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, with the new approach that sees language in a wider context, looking not only at structure but at how structure is indissolubly linked to function, meaning and the understanding of how the mind works. Until the late nineteenth century the study of language was limited to the analysis of its sentence structure, the categorisation of different types of words by labels that defined their functions, primarily nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives, and their placement in individual sentences. Language is constantly changing because the world is in a continuous state of change and language is the currency of understanding. The silent revolution has moved from a position where the structure of language and the meaning of words were fixed entities to a new view that recognises the importance of what we do with language when we are speaking with each other.
