Philology concerns itself with both form and meaning of linguistic expression and combines both linguistics and literary studies. . The invention of recording equipments proved to be a boon for the nascent science of sociolinguistics enabling researchers for the first time to record and consider speech directly rather than inferring it indirectly from written documents.
This enabled them to focus not only on linguistic variations across regions and time but also study those variations in the context of such variables as age, gender and class. The terms sociolinguistics and linguistics are used interchangeably in this. However a widely held belief is that sociolinguistics and linguistics differ from each other. Linguistics usually takes care of the structure of a language while excluding social factors which govern its usage, dissipation or death in a society. Thus linguistics works out the rules of a language while sociolinguistics studies the interaction of these rules with society.
One major focus of philology is the historical development, or origins of a language. Academics within this field work to trace the roots of a language, and to determine how it spread to different regions or countries. They also attempt to analyze how language within a specific historical period relates to events taking place at that time. Finally, they try to see what kind of information or clues that language can provide about the people who spoke it, or about the period or place where it was spoken.
Philology can be broken down into several sub-fields based on the goals and interests of different researchers. Comparative philology is concerned with how languages relate to one another, as well as similarities and differences between them. Those interested in the textual analysis of words use philological principles to analyze literature and to combine multiple versions of a manuscript. This type of study is particularly prevalent in studying the Bible.
Cognitive philology focuses on how historical texts can help define the psychological and intelligence aspects of mankind, or of an individual. In this way, this field includes attributes of psychology and philosophy. Finally, philological researchers may specialize in decipherment, which includes deciphering old texts or even cracking the code of a dead language.
Philologists typically choose to focus on a certain group of languages with similar origins. This is often necessary due to the vast differences in structure, history, and development between eastern and western dialects, for example. Many publications and study programs within this field are geared towards classical romance languages, like Greek and Latin, or towards eastern languages such as Chinese, Sanskrit, or Arabic.
The role of English in our lives has got much importance. English may be a foreign language, but it is international in its significance.It is taken as a lingua France, the common language , for all parts of the world today.The importance of English language in our lives is as firstly , it is spoken , read or understood in most parts of the world. Due to this language, we can belong to whole world as well as to our own country.
Secondly, the role of English in our lives is that it is truly the language of science and technology. No other language offers such a wide scope for scientific studies and research in English. Without our mastery of English, we could not have easily used atomic energy for power generation, in engineering projects , medical treatment etc. Thirdly, the most major role of English is that it offers us treasures of knowledge in all social sciences like history, political science, economics , anthropology , sociology , philosophy an psychology.
Fourthly ,it plays its role in modern medicine and surgery , developed from world wide studies and researches in different countries and language, now make a tremendous store house of medical knowledge in English.


Foreign philology (24.89 KB)

