Functional linguistics
APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE THAT SEE FUNCTIONALITY OF LANGUAGE AND ITS ELEMENTS TO BE THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING LINGUISTIC PROCESSES AND STRUCTURES
Functionalism (linguistics); Functionalist linguistics; Linguistic functionalism; Function (language); Functionalist theories of grammar; Functional theory; Functional and structural theory; Functional theories of grammar; Functional analysis (linguistics); History of functional linguistics
Functional linguistics is an approach to the study of language characterized by taking systematically into account the speaker's and the hearer's side, and the communicative needs of the speaker and of the given language community. Linguistic functionalism spawned in the 1920s to 1930s from Ferdinand de Saussure's systematic structuralist approach to language (1916).