释义 |
macrolinguistics, n. pl. (const. as sing.)|mækrəʊlɪŋˈgwɪstɪks| [f. macro- 1 e + linguistic n. b.] The branch of linguistics that deals with language and related extra-lingual phenomena as a whole; sometimes spec. the statistical analysis of large-scale linguistic phenomena. Cf. microlinguistics n. pl.
1949G. L. Trager in Stud. in Ling.: Occasional Papers i. 2 The whole of the field concerned with language..we shall call Macrolinguistics. The three subdivisions we shall call Prelinguistics, Microlinguistics, Metalinguistics. 1972Hartmann & Stork Dict. Lang. & Linguistics 135/2 Some linguists regard macrolinguistics as the study, by statistical means, of large-scale linguistic phenomena. 1983Lang. & Lang. Behavior Abstr. XVII. 710/1 Linguistics may possess two dimensions: one studying the system in and by itself (‘microlinguistics’), the other studying all aspects of linguistic events (‘macrolinguistics’). 1992W. Bright Internat. Encycl. Linguistics IV. 75/1 A proposed new discipline of ‘macrolinguistics’..was intended to bear the same relation to grammar (or ‘microlinguistics’) as thermodynamics bears to the mechanics of individual gas molecules. Hence macrolinˈguistic a., of or pertaining to macrolinguistics.
1960E. Delavenay Introd. Machine Transl. 93 Macrolinguistic analysis will be brought to bear on sign/meaning combinations and not on signs alone. 1985English World-Wide VI. 322 Most of these [papers]..attempt to make macrolinguistic or theoretical conclusions that are drawn on the basis of pitifully small populations. |