Linguistics as an independent field of study，a creation of the twentieth century，and more specially a phenomenon of the period after World WarⅡ，is a university discipline with different specializations within it and areas of application，with its own professional organizations，journals，and scholarly meetings.The study of language in the Western world—not to speak of the East—is of course not at all new；it goes back many centuries to Greek and Roman antiquity and biblical times.Indeed many of the concepts one uses today in the language classroom as simple technical terms of language instruction such as‘gender’，‘number’，‘case’，or‘person’，ultimately derive from Greek and medieval linguistic philosophy.But in the past ages questions about the nature of language were studied as parts of other scholarly activities，in connection with philosophy，theology，rhetoric，and not unexpectedly the teaching of Latin，Greek，and Hebrew.

It was from the late eighteenth century that language in general and languages other than the great classical ones Greek，Latin，and Hebrew，became objects of scientific enquiry.Historical and comparative linguistics attempted to describe and explain the historical changes which languages undergo and to build up scientifically attested knowledge of the evolution of languages and dialects and the relations among them.The linguistic scholar thus became aware of the modern form of languages as the result of a long process of historical evolution.Comparative philosophy—like modern linguistics—studied natural languages as objects of scientific enquiry，formulated hypotheses，looked for empirical evidence，and in so doing gathered an enormous body of information on the natural languages of the world.A new science of language was clearly in the making.Although future language teachers as students in European universities，towards the end of the nineteenth century，were trained in comparative philology，there was little in this new knowledge that was directly relevant to second language learning.Some language teachers felt encouraged to include in their teaching historical information，for example，on the etymology of words，or to draw attention to regularities in the relations among languages by making comparisons between the student's language and the target language or by comparing two languages.Mostly，however，philological scholarship had link bearing on the teaching of modern or classical languages and teachers relied principally on prevailing traditional forms of language study.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century，the emergence of phonetics introduced several new elements of particular interest to language teachers.First expressed a recognition of the importance of speech in language study.Second，it offered a scientific approach to the contemporary form of the language.Third，it was a study applicable to any language.Phonetics therefore opened up the possibility or an empirical study of language in general.

Around the same period，several linguists recognized as an important step in linguistic scholarship to surpass the knowledge that had accumulated about the evolution of different languages and language families and to formulate general statements about the nature of language.However，Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye，published in 1916 the Cours de Linguistique Générate de Ferdinand de Saussure on the basis of notes taken by students during the three courses.The book by Bally and Sechehaye is considered by most linguists today as the work that has initiated modern linguistics.It defines the nature of language and sets out principles of language study.