Defining Language

The use of gestures, symbols, vocal sounds, and other signals to

communicate does not, in and of itself constitute language.

The use of gestures, symbols, vocal sounds, and other signals to

communicate does not, in and of itself constitute language.
Communication and language are different but strongly related.
Language is the "communication of thoughts and feelings through a
system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written
symbols," (American Heritage, 2000). When we say a person is using
language, we mean that he is using in a rule governed communication
system to represent his thoughts and feelings to members of his
community that share his language (Valli,2000).

Defining language is a lot like defining "art." If I stick my duck's feet in

paint, set him on a canvas, and let him waddle around, --is that art?
What if I had nothing to do with it? Suppose the duck just happened to
walk across the paint and the canvas on his own, I notice it and then
tack it to the wall, (the canvas, not the duck). Is that still art? What if I
notice the canvas and throw it away but the janitor mistakenly thinks it
was intended to be art and he takes it home and puts it on his wall.
The point is that some people will loosely define this as art, while
others will vehemently shout them down. What often ends up
happening is you get a number of different definitions that are applied
according to circumstance. Definitions become a big issue when
government funding is involved. Sometimes in the art world you want
to use a very strict definition requiring many features and
characteristics so as to differentiate your branch of the arts from other
branches so that you can get money. Other times you want to lobby for
a very loose definition of art so that your "duck walk special" qualifies
for the latest grant money. Obviously this can cause problems and
confusion. The same issues are present when trying to define
language.
Linguists tell us that language consists of identifiable elements:
phonemes, morphemes, and lexemes, plus a set of rules on how to use
combine those elements to in consistent ways so as to facilitate their
correlation with ideas and thoughts. For example, the idea or thought
of "more than one" is strongly correlated to the English language letter
"s." For example to show more than one cat we add the phoneme "s"
to the morpheme "cat." Once the phoneme "s" has been added to
morpheme "cat" the phoneme "s" takes on meaning (which is to say it
now represents the idea of more than one cat) and thus "s" is no
longer considered a phoneme but is in that circumstance considered to
be a morpheme (a bound morpheme actually) because it is now a
meaningful unit. In words such as "sit, sign, and kiss" the letter "s"
functions as a phoneme and carries no independent meaning. It is at
the morphemic level that elements of speech start carrying meaning.
Morphemes can be broken down to linguistic units that do not carry
meaning, (phonemes). Encoding the idea, "more than one" into the
bound morpheme "s" and then using that "s" either in your own mind
to manage thinking or by transmitting it to someone else's mind
through signing, speaking, or typing, is an example of language use.
That is language at its most basic.

On the other end of the definition spectrum, there are many features
that a communication system must possess prior to it's being
considered "a language." Notice, there is a difference between
"language" and "a language." Neurolinguistic psychologists talk about
"language." Linguists talk about languages. Cognitive scientists talk
about language use. Linguists talk about language features. How you
define language depends on your audience. A linguist will tell you that
while all languages are communication systems, not all communication
systems are languages (Valli, 2000).

Communication vs. Language

Communication and language are different. Language helps you to

communicate. Language enables the mind to compress and efficiently
manage thoughts, then it serves as a vehicle to transport those
thoughts out of the mind and into the world.

Communication is a broader concept than language. The purpose of

language is to provide one of the essential elements needed for
communication, but communication is the goal. (Finnerty, 1991)
Language is a vehicle, communication is the destination.

Defining Nonlinguistic Communication

Linguistic" means pertaining to language. "Nonlinguistic" means not

using language. Nonlinguistic communication is the imparting of
information without using language. Or in other words, sending and
receiving messages without using a communication system that has
the characteristic features of a language as identified by linguists.
Gestures, written symbols, or voice sounds don't constitute "language"
unless they take place within a language framework. For example, the
voicing of sounds that are not part of any system is not called
language, it is called babbling. Eventually babies start associating
ideas and thoughts with sounds or signs (Owens, 1988). At that point
you could say they are using "internal language." They aren't using "a
language" yet, but they are using the building blocks of language to
expedite their cognitive development. When a child starts saying a few
words like mom or milk he is using language fragments to
communicate. He is literally building a language framework. Suppose
you were building a house. At what point could you actually call it a
house? Would you call it a house when the frame is up? How about
when the roof is on but not yet shingled? Suppose the roof has shingles
and the walls have drywall but there are no doors or windows. Is it a
house yet? As you can see there is no one exact defining moment
when you could hammer in a certain nail and proclaim that "Whereas
three seconds ago you were not a house and now with the hammering
of this nail you are a house!"
Similarly you cannot look at a developing child and say you don't have
language yet but let me teach you just one more syntactical construct
and three more vocabulary words and boom you now have language.

Albert Mehrabian, a psychologist at UCLA and a pioneer in nonlinguistic

communication research, has studied nonlinguistic communication for
over thirty years. His research shows that, on average, the spoken
words we use account for only seven percent of the meaning people
derive from conversations. Paralinguistic information accounts for
thirty-eight percent. The majority of meaning, fifty-five percent, comes
from nonverbal, or unspoken information. This nonverbal information is
sometimes called "body language." When our body language conflicts
with words, listeners will typically pay more attention to our body
language. (Mehrabian, 1972).

Body Language

What is body language, and is body language linguistic or nonlinguistic

communication? Body language, as indicated by Mehrabian, is
"nonverbal communication." Communication isn't the same thing as
language. Many hearing people automatically consider body language
to be nonlinguistic. Many people in the signing world tend to think of
body language as being linguistic because they obviously using their
bodies to produce language independent of their voices. There is a
difference between sign language and body language. Just as there is a
difference between using your body to produce ASL and using your
body to produce mime. Both ASL and mime allow you to communicate.
Of the two, only ASL qualifies as language. Mime is nonlinguistic. Two
people of different languages can communicate using mime. Mime is
defined as, "the art of portraying characters and acting out situations
or a narrative by gestures and body movement without the use of
words, (American Heritage, 2000). In contrast, ASL uses gestures and
body movements to create signs. Signs are the visual equivalent of
words. A sign can be broken down into phonemes, (cheremes actually).
Those signs are combined according to grammar rules to describe the
thoughts and ideas of the signer more efficiently than can be
accomplished via mime.

Paralanguage

Paralanguage is the nonphonemic properties of speech that people use

to inflect the meanings or their verbal language. Speaking faster, using
a lower tone of voice, raising the pitch of your voice at the end of a
sentence are all examples of paralanguage. (American Heritage,
2000).

Table 1: Paralinguistic Communication

Paralinguistic Communication

vocal speed

vocal loudness

pitch

tone

"tsk, tsk,"

clicking the tongue

"sighing"

laughing

sobbing

Nonverbal Communication

The term "verbal" has two common meanings: using words, and
spoken. If I say that someone is using nonverbal communication, does
that mean he is communicating without words? Or does that mean he
is communicating without speaking. Popular usage tends to interpret
the term "nonverbal communication as meaning communicating
silently without words." American Sign Language is nonverbal in the
sense that it is gesturally produced. But it is certainly "verbal" in the
sense that it uses words, or rather signs. Words are the lexemes of
spoken languages. Signs are the lexemes of signed languages.

Gestures

A gesture is a body or limb movement that you use to express a

thought or feeling (Websters, 2001). A cognitive scientist might say
that a person using a gesture is employing language in that the
gesture is a symbol that outwardly represents a thought or idea. A
linguist would counter however that just because a symbol represents
a thought or idea doesn't qualify it as language. Most adult Americans
recognize dozens of gestures. For example, they recognize the
shrugging of the shoulders as meaning "I don't know." Gestures are not
the same as words or signs. Deaf people use signs as lexemes and use
gestures to inflect the meanings of their signs. Gestures have meaning
but are not organized into a language. Gestures are to language like
spice is to food. One could argue that spice is a type of food and he
would be right in that spices have calories and are consumable, but
spice, in and of itself, is not considered to be food because it is used
differently. People sit down and eat food. No body sits down, pours
himself a bowl of pepper, and digs in.

Language is sort of like the freeze drying and packaging process. Why
do people freeze dry food? Freeze drying makes it easier to preserve
and transport food. Once the food arrives at its destination it can be
reconstituted. What freeze drying and packaging does for food,
language does for thoughts and ideas. Via language I can package my
ideas into a few words and then transport them to your mind where
you will (hopefully) reconstitute them. Just as a fresh banana is not
freeze dried food--gestures and facial expressions are not language.
Neither is mime.

Language is like a cake

A cake can and does incorporate flour, but flour and cake are certainly
different. Ingredients are not finished food products. Milk, flour, sugar,
baking powder, and eggs are not cake. It is only when these
ingredients are mixed together and baked that they become cake. If
you don't follow the rules of baking, and you don't combine the
ingredients in the right way then you cannot claim to have cake. You
can eat milk, flour, sugar and eggs separately and you will get full. You
can also eat cake and get full. You can learn and come to an
understanding about things from watching mime. You can also learn
and come to an understanding about things from watching American
Sign Language. ASL and mime are two different ways of accomplishing
communication.
American Sign Language can and does incorporate facial expressions,
gestures, and certain body movements. When used with ASL, these are
called non-manual markers. For example the cheek-to-shoulder marker
can be used to modify signs like shy, recent, and there to mean "very
shy," "very recent," and "right there, close." The fact that gestures and
facial expressions are used as part of ASL doesn't make them linguistic
anymore than the fact that flour can be used as part of a cake makes
flour a cake.

Why Study Nonlinguistic Communication?

Understanding nonlinguistic communication can reduce frustration and

improve relationships between people. As global commerce increases,
people of different language backgrounds increasingly find themselves
needing to communicate with each other. If nonlinguistic
communication conflicts with or is perceived to conflict with
corresponding linguistic communication, the discourse will tend to be
skewed. Perhaps you've heard the phrase, "I know you think you
understood what I said but what you heard was not what I meant." In
response, you might say, "Yes, well the reason why I interpreted what
you said the way I did is because you scratched your nose and crossed
your legs while saying it, plus you've got a white rose in your pocket."

You might wonder what a "white rose" has to do with anything. The
answer is: color communicates. The color of the rose is a nonlinguistic
form of communication. The meaning of color is different from culture
to culture. (WorldSmart, 2001) White flowers, in some countries--
especially in Asia, are symbolic of death and mourning. To you the
flower may be an attempt at nonlinguisticly communicating pure
motives and good intentions, but your culturally Chinese friend is
instead wondering, "Who died." Worse, suppose you decide to
decorate a meeting hall with centerpieces made of white flowers? Your
company is working on a multi-million dollar sales contract with an
Asian corporation. You finish setting the last of over a hundred tables
with your little beacons of death just in time for the delegates to come
streaming though the door.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream

The advertising slogan of the 1979 movie "Alien" was, "In space, no
one can hear you scream." That may be true, but they can hear your
nonlinguistic, nonverbal communication loud and clear.
Miscommunication in space can easily result in serious ramifications
(Connors, 1985). Think about Dennis Tito on April 28 of this year,
boarding the Russian Soyuz booster and rocketing into space. Imagine
the safety and communications issues as Tito boarded the
International Space Station, Alpha (David, 2001). Imagine the
communication between the astronauts and the cosmonauts. Perhaps
commander Talgat Musabayev was worried about a lack of
communication causing the loss of a multi-billion dollar space station
or causing the death of Tito? Multinational space travelers face
weightlessness and other conditions in space that alter nonlinguistic
communication cues such as voice tone, facial expressions, posture,
and distancing. These nonlinguistic cues can either mitigate or
exacerbate the linguistic and cultural differences between crew
members (Connors, 1985).

Of course, only a few people ever need to communicate in space, but

we still face communication issues daily. Many people circumnavigate
nonlinguistic communication miscues by simply increasing the quantity
of their linguistic communication. For example if two people are talking
and the receiver of a message feels that the nonlinguistic
communication of the other person conflicts with the linguistic
communication being sent, the recipient will tend to ask for more
clarification, whereupon the sender will explain more in-depth.
Clarifying directions, repeating and rephrasing of messages, and
delays in providing additional information, all consume valuable time
and effort. Often the additional time and effort translate directly into
monetary penalties. Extended hotel stays, longer dialup fees,
additional auto-rental days, conference room rental expenses, etc.
Communication is expensive. Studying or at least becoming more
aware of non-linguistic communication can help corporations
streamline and fine tune their communication methods and thereby
save money.

Table 2: Nonlinguistic Communication

Nonlinguistic Communication

video

gaze

non-sign gestures

facial expressions

pictures

proximity
 posture

color

objects

jewelry

clothes

symbols

perfume/cologne

pheromones

Examples of Nonlinguistic Communication

Suppose I design a new water dispensing system for charitable use in

an multilingual locality. I want to make sure people of any language
background can use it. So I videotape myself going to the machine,
setting my jug under the spigot, pressing a red button to position the
spigot, pressing and holding a blue button to fill my bucket, releasing
the blue button, pressing a green button to raise the spigot, and then
taking my jug and walking away. My making and posting the video
equates to my sending a message. The video is on a loop and so it
continues playing again and again. People coming to the machine will
be able to watch the video and form and understanding in their mind
of how to use the dispenser. The message has been received.
Language was not involved in the communication. The person
watching my video may choose to use his native language to encode
the steps of getting water into his memory. But that doesn't take away
from the fact that I'm not using his language to communicate with him.
A message has been sent and received without reliance upon
language. I may use language to formulate my message. He may use
language to process and encode my message into his brain...but the
medium of transfer of the message was not language. That is the
essence of nonlinguistic communication.