Here's a breakdown of what synchronic linguistics examines:
* Phonology: How sounds are organized and used in a language. This includes things like pronunciation rules, sound patterns, and the relationship between sounds and meaning.
* Morphology: How words are formed. This includes things like prefixes, suffixes, and the way words are combined to create new words.
* Syntax: The rules that govern how words are combined into sentences. This includes things like word order, sentence structure, and the relationship between different parts of a sentence.
* Semantics: The meaning of words and sentences. This includes things like the relationship between words and their meanings, the different ways words can be used, and the way meaning is conveyed in different contexts.
* Pragmatics: How language is used in context. This includes things like the way people use language to achieve different goals, the way they interpret the meaning of what others say, and the way they use language to build relationships.
Examples of synchronic linguistic studies:
* Analyzing the grammar of modern English
* Describing the sounds of a particular dialect of Spanish
* Studying the way people use slang in online chat rooms
In contrast to Diachronic Linguistics:
Diachronic linguistics, on the other hand, focuses on the historical development of language over time. It examines how languages change, why they change, and what the consequences of these changes are.
In summary: Synchronic linguistics is like taking a snapshot of a language at a particular moment in time, while diachronic linguistics is like watching a movie of how the language has evolved over time.