Emily's Introduction to Linguistics Introduction to Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Although linguists often know many languages, the goal of linguistics is not simply to learn a lot of different languages. Linguists study many different aspects of language, from its structure to the social nuances of how it's used. Grammar, as most people view it, is actually what is known as prescriptive grammar. Most linguists deal with descriptive grammar.
Descriptive grammar deals with how language is actually used.
When linguists talk about being grammatically correct, they simply mean using language in a way that is normal and understandable in the community. Dialect is another word that has different meanings in linguistics and everyday usage. However, in linguistics, a dialect is simply any variety of a language. So, to a linguist, the Queen's English is just another dialect. There are several branches of linguistics.