Microlinguistics is a branch oflinguistics that concerns itself with the study oflanguage systems in the abstract, without regard to themeaning or national content of linguistic expressions. In micro-linguistics, language is reduced to the abstract mental elements ofsyntax andphonology. It contrasts withmacro-linguistics, which includes meanings, and especially withsociolinguistics, which studies how language and meaning function within human social systems.[1] The termmicro-linguistics was first used in print byGeorge L. Trager, in an article published in 1949, inStudies in Linguistics: Occasional Papers.[2] The field of microlinguistics has been birthed by and subsequently dominated by Euro-American linguists and sociologists. The heart of microlinguistics is often summed up by Sausurre's claim that “The fundamental idea of this course: linguistics has for unique and true object the language considered in itself and for itself.”[3]
