Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of linguistics which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, communication research, anthropology, and sociology.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. The earliest activities in the documentation and description of language have been attributed to the 6th century BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini, who wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī.
Pesticides are used around the world but can persist in the environment, contaminating drinking and irrigation water with toxic organic compounds. One example is Vietnam where herbicides and dioxins applied during the Vietnam war entered the water cycle, possibly leading to cancers and abnormalities in newborn babies.