macrolinguistics (n.)

A term used by some LINGUISTS, especially in the 1950s, to identify an extremely broad conception of the subject of linguistic enquiry. In a macrolinguistic approach, LINGUISTICS is seen in its overall relation to PHONETIC and EXTRALINGUISTIC experience. It is divided into three main subfields: PRELINGUISTICS (whose primary subject-matter is PHONETICS), MICROLINGUISTICS (whose primary subject-matter is PHONOLOGY, MORPHOLOGY and SYNTAX) and METALINGUISTICS (whose subject-matter is the relationship between LANGUAGE and all extralinguistic features of communicative behavior, e.g. including what would now be called SOCIOLINGUISTICS). Some sociolinguists (e.g. Joshua Fishman (b. 1926)) distinguish between the broad concerns of macrosociolinguistics (e.g. MULTILINGUALISM, language planning) and the detailed investigation of microsociolinguistics (e.g. speech events, conversations).