structural linguistics

American  

noun

1. a usually synchronic approach to language study in which a language is analyzed as an independent network of formal systems, each of which is composed of elements that are defined in terms of their contrasts with other elements in the system.

2. a school of linguistics that developed in the U.S. during the 1930s–1950s, characterized by such an approach and by an emphasis on the overt formal features of language, especially of phonology, morphology, and syntax.

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structural linguistics British  

noun

1. (functioning as singular) a descriptive approach to a synchronic or diachronic analysis of language on the basis of its structure as reflected by irreducible units of phonological, morphological, and semantic features

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Example Sentences

Schooled in the modern field of structural linguistics, Gove believed that speech should guide usage, that rules obscured the reality of how language is used, and that dictionaries should describe rather than prescribe usage.

From Slate • Jan. 12, 2015

So the sociological approach varies considerably from the more psychological approaches based in structural linguistics.

From New York Times • Nov. 18, 2010

This approach relies heavily on the spadework done in structural linguistics, a new science, born in this century, that has set out to crack the hidden code of speech.

From Time Magazine Archive