Principles and Major Concepts of Linguistics Synchrony and Diachrony The distinction synchrony and diachrony refers to the difference in treating language from different points of view. When we take a synchronic point of view, we are looking at a language as we find it at a given period in time. The diachronic point of view, on the other hand, gives us the historical angle; we look at a language over a period of time along with changes that occurred in it. The principles that introduce this dichotomy enable us to obtain ‘particularly accurate information about a language in its current usage’ (Wilkins). The synchronic linguistics studies how a language works at a given time, regardless of its past history or future blueprint. This has also been called descriptive linguistics. Though the historical character of a language cannot be ignored, its present form being the result of definite historical processes, changes and transformations, it is necessary for a complete unders...
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