METALINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION OF POWERFULNESS OR POWERLESSNESS OF ANALYTIC TOOLS IN CORE LINGUISTICS DESCRIPTION

Abstract

Researchers, students and teachers of linguistics basically use tools like symbolic properties, charts, logos and other iconic devices in their formations, descriptions and analyses of phonological, syntactic, semantic and morphological units. Of this analytical trend, not everybody is sufficiently equipped with the theoretical and practical implications of those tools, as they are seen as elements for rendering linguistics as adequately as scientific. Most of the tools, also, emanate from mathematical and logical contents but are situated within linguistic study. This study therefore targets to theoretically and descriptively examine the extent of positivity or negativity of those analytic devices in representations and readings of linguistic information across four core linguistics disciplines. This is done by responding to some questions that reflect the ways and manners those tools are handled.  The primary data of this study is generated from student’s tests, researcher’s documents like journal article and conference papers, this is also supported by the supplement of back up from other secondary sources, mostly textbooks. The selection is thus random and the analysis is descriptive. At the end of the investigation, the research came up with the following results: students found that the analytic tools are insufficiently relevant as such rarely use them in their linguistic formations and analyses; they also use the available tools most importantly in the realm of syntax. This tallies with what is obtained in the teachers’ or researchers’ use of the tools. The teachers/researchers however find the tools useful in exhibiting the scientific ramifications of linguistics.