Our Field

General linguistics deals with the diversity of linguistic structures and linguistic actions in the languages of the world, thus conducting language theory on a comparative linguistic basis. Besides searching for commonalities (universals), it particularly aims to determine the limits of variation possibilities of natural languages. These limits show, among other things, that two or more features typically co-occur (typology). We assume that linguistic typology and the study of universals are not limited to sound, word, and sentence structures but also include the level of meaning (semantics/pragmatics), vocabulary, and discourse structures.

It is important to us that typology and universals are researched on a broad and solid theoretical and empirical basis. Therefore, empirical work focuses on primary data (audio or video recordings, written texts, experimentally collected data). Since little is known so far about many of the approximately 7,000 languages currently still spoken worldwide, this also includes language description (fieldwork) and language documentation, i.e., compiling an extensive corpus of primary data of various kinds for a given variety.

The linguistic and grammatical theories we use must be useful for language description and language comparison. It is essential that the structural properties assumed for a language are also shown internally within the language itself and cannot be justified solely by reference to a theoretical model, in order to avoid falling prey to Eurocentric biases. Linguistic theory formation must also be able to capture both the cognitive and social embedding of linguistic knowledge and actions, thus representing linguistic structures and actions as part of a broader communicative practice.

Language comparison is not limited to comparing linguistic structures and practices from different parts of the world but also concerns the various historical developmental stages of a language (language change). It is not only about capturing and systematizing linguistic diversity but also about understanding the process of diversification and being able to explain why not all languages are the same and why they continuously change.