Keeleteaduses

Keeleteaduses is the study of human language. In Estonian-language academic usage, the term designates the field of linguistics — the scientific study of language structure, use, change, and meaning. It encompasses how languages are built, how people use them in real life, and how languages vary and evolve over time.

The scope of Keeleteaduses includes many subfields. Core areas are phonetics and phonology (sounds and systems of sound), morphology (word formation), syntax (sentence structure), semantics (meaning), and pragmatics (language in context). Additional branches cover sociolinguistics (language in society), psycholinguistics (language processing in the mind), historical linguistics (language change over time), language typology (cross-language comparison), and language documentation and revitalization. Computational linguistics and language technology are increasingly integrated, applying Keeleteaduses insights to natural language processing, speech recognition, and machine translation.

Methods employed in Keeleteaduses combine descriptive analysis with empirical investigation. Researchers conduct fieldwork to document languages, build and analyze corpora, perform experiments in perception and production, and develop computational models to simulate linguistic patterns. The discipline often uses interdisciplinary approaches, drawing on cognitive science, anthropology, and computer science.

History and practice: Keeleteaduses has roots in 19th- and 20th-century European linguistic traditions and has grown into a global field with diverse methodologies. It supports language education, policy, and technology development, including documentation of endangered languages and the creation of linguistic resources for research and applications. In broader contexts, the term aligns with the international field of linguistics, even as Keeleteaduses remains a term used within Estonian-language texts.