Features of Modern Linguistics

No.1

  Priority is given to spoken language.

No.2

  Focus is on synchronic study of language, rather than on diachronic study of language.

No.3

  Modern linguistics is descriptive rather than prescriptive in nature. Linguists endeavor to state objectively the regularities of a language. They aim at finding out how a language is spoken. They do not attempt to tell people how it should be spoken.

No.4

  Modern linguistics is theoretically than pedagogically oriented. Modern linguistics strive to construct theories of language that can account for language in general