CHAPTER ONE THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE MARTA FALCES SIERRA 1.1 What is linguistics? 1.2 Grammar within the scope of linguistics Further reading Exercises Summary Chapter 1 provides an overview of linguistics as the scientific study of language and introduces some of its main areas of interest. It presents grammar as one of the several levels of description within linguistics, and some key notions such as grammatical unit and grammatical hierarchy or rankscale. 1.1. WHAT IS LINGUISTICS? (1) – ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ – ‘I want to be a linguist.’ The dialogue in (1) contains a striking answer. Kids want to be doctors, astronauts, dolphin instructors… but not linguists. (2) – ‘What do you do for a living?’ – ‘I am a linguist.’ The answer to the question posed in (2) would sound even more exotic, if you were ever to hear it. Why so? What is it that makes linguistics sound like such an