Wilkins (1972, p.216) cites three aims of linguistics: to study the human language
faculty, to develop theories to explain language behaviour, and to provide the
most efficient means for describing languages and to make the most accurate
and comprehensive descriptions available. Linguistics is therefore concerned
with the description of language structure as well as the description of language
use (sociolinguistics) and language learning (psycholinguistics). It is not aimed at
solving problems of language teaching.