Nature of language

Every creature strives to communicate with its own kind. One of the ways in which
this need is fulfilled is by expressing thoughts in the medium of language.

Meaning of Language
Language is a means of communication

Language is the bridge between individuals that tells them they are needed, they
are not alone. Language thus gives self-expression and by extension, identity.

Language is a systematic and conventional means of human communication by

way of vocal sounds.
Language is a system for communicating. Written languages use symbols (that is, 

characters) to build words. The entire set of words is the language's vocabulary.
The ways in which the words can be meaningfully combined is defined by the
language's syntax and grammar. The actual meaning of words and combinations of
words is defined by the language's semantics.

Functions of Language

   Gives self-expression and identity. It tells our listeners or readers about

ourselves, in particular about regional origins, social backgrounds, levels of
education, occupation, age, sex and personality.
  It gives shapes to thoughts and emotions and communicates these to
intended audiences.
      It is the basic elements with which the history of the world has been
recorded.
     It is a time capsule that allows us to view any moment in the past of a
literate man.
     It is a storehouse of information.
    It helps to express judgement, opinions, assertions etc. it is used if a
statement is true or false.
  It helps to maintain social rapport between people to build and maintain
relationship.
 One of the basic human urge is to communicate.
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 A Communication Model
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 Communication happens when the decoder receives, decodes and
understand the message of the encoder.
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 The encoder and the decoder are called the interlocutors. (Person who take
part in a conversation)

 Language is not only human phenomenon. Animals cry, hoot, bleat, coo,
dance and sing to communicate their message.
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 Sounds are basic units of language. But not sounds in themselves or in a
jumble. Sounds have to be meaningful. They acquire meaning when they
organize themselves in an intelligible combinations 
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 Sounds + Forms + Meaning gives us an intelligible (that can be understood)
sensible structure to understand the world around us. These three
components, in fact, represent the three fundamental dimension of the
organizations as well as the three levels of analysis in language
– Phonological, Syntactic and Semantic.
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
 1. Phonological level – Sound and their organizations. (sounds put together
to form a word)
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 2. Syntactic level – Forms and their organizations. (words put together to
form phrases)
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 3. Semantic level – Meaning as manifested at the phonological and syntactic
levels. (phrases put together to form sentences)
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
 Features of Human Language:
 Language as a system: Language is a system of system. Language is not a
collection of sounds and forms at random but a highly organized system in
which each unit has its place and value. Each sound is related to other
sounds, each word is related to other words to make meaning.
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 Arbitrariness: Human Language is an arbitrary phenomenon. There is no
natural connection or relationship between a word and its meaning. The
signifier and the signified are brought together arbitrarily.
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 Open-ended System: The sounds, words and sentences in language may be
finite or limited, but the combinations and constructions are infinite or
unlimited. Thus, this creative and productive potential of the language
enables its user to manipulate and make varieties of constructions to express
himself or herself. So human has the ability to say things that never been
said before, including the possibility to express invented things or lies.
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 Duality of structure: Human language is organized at two levels: Sound
production and its Meaning. At the level of sound productions or individual
sounds like a, b, c, d, e ….. But none of these individual sounds have any
meaning in themselves. Their meaning comes from the meaningful
combination to produce words. Although our capacity to produce new
sounds (letters) is limited, we frequently coin new words. Hence our
capacity to produce vocabulary (words) is unlimited.
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 Displacement: Human language can be used to refer to any dimension of
space and time. We can use language to refer to the past, present and future.
It can also be used to refer to any place, here or elsewhere; in neither case
does the language user have to move from his or her place to refer to any
time or place.
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 Meta-linguistic system: Human language can be used to talk about itself. Its
features, functions, varieties and levels of sophistications.
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 Cultural Transmission: Human Beings may be born with innate
predispositions to acquire language, but they are not born with the ability to
produce utterances in a specific language. Language is not genetically
transmitted. It is culturally transmitted and has to be consciously learned.
(The process thereby language is passed down from generation to generation
is described as cultural transmission)
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 Language is an individual and social phenomenon: Language serves in
expressing individual needs and urges; it brings an individual into
relationship with the external world.
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 Theories of Language Acquisition
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 Language acquisition is the process by which we are able to develop and
learn a language. This includes (in general but depends on the specific
language) speaking, listening, writing, and overall communication. Our
ability to acquire language is a uniquely human trait because although
bonobos, a species of primate, can produce vocalizations with meaning,
birds can produce song, and whales have their own version of a language,
no species on Earth that we know of can express neverending infinite
ideas (sentences) along with a limited set of symbols (gestures, words,
and sounds). The term language acquisition often refers to the first-
language acquisition which simply means that it’s the first language learned
as an infant (unless the child learns two or more language at the same time).
However, there is also the term second-language acquisition which refers to
the process in both children and adults when they learn addition languages
apart from their native one. Each of these terms has at least one language
 acquisition theory behind them and the big question of “how do we learn a
language?”
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 A Little History behind Language Acquisition Theory
 As with most of history, it all begins with some philosophers in ancient
societies who were interested in how humans were able to develop language.
Using “armchair psychology” (sitting and thinking about the problem), the
large conclusion from these philosophers was that we were able to learn
languages as we do due to the subset of a human’s ability to gain knowledge
and learn concepts. Easier said they found that language was an innate
ability that we were born with. Plato felt that word-meaning mapping was
also innate in one way or another. Grammarians who studied Sanskrit
debated over 12 centuries on whether or not a humans ability to recognize
and use the correct meaning of words in Sanskrit (an ancient Indian
language that is over 3,000 years old) was something passed down by
generations and learned from pre-established conventions (for example, a
child learns the word for horse because he hears older speakers talking about
horses) or whether it was innate (“God-given”).
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 A while later, philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes got in
on the language party and argued that knowledge (and language, in Locke’s
case) come from abstracted sense impressions. What does that mean? They
argue that language comes from a sensory experience.
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 Behaviorists, people who believe that everything is acquired through
conditioning, argued that language is learned through operant conditioning-
a form of conditioning that happens through rewards and punishments which
makes someone associate between a particular behavior and its consequence.
A child learns that a specific combination of words or sounds stands for a
specific thing/idea through successfully repeated associations. For example,
a child would learn that their house animal, Whiskers, is a cat while their
other house animal, Fido, is a dog. He would do so because when the child
would call Whiskers his dog, his parents would say that no, Whiskers is a
cat, not a dog. The “big face” for this language acquisition theory is B.F.
Skinner and he went on to publish this theory.
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
 However, Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s greatest linguists to
date strongly criticised Skinner’s theory. Chomsky argued that kids often
 ignore their parents’ corrections and would not likely learn that actual,
proper use of the word or phrase and end up using it incorrectly, by means of
Skinner’s conditioning theory. Chomsky’s language acquisition theory
involved a more mathematical approach to language development based on a
syntax (the meaning of a word) study.
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

 The Behaviourist Theory (the Sociocultural Theory)
 The sociocultural theory, also known as the interactionist approach, takes
ideas from both biology and sociology to interpret our language acquisition.
This language acquisition theory states that children are able to learn
language out of a desire to communicate with their surrounding environment
and world. Language thus is dependent upon and emerges from social
interaction. The theory argues that due to our language developing out of a
desire to communicate, our language is dependent upon whom we hang
around and with whom we want to communicate. Essentially, the theory
says that our environment when we grow up has a heavy influence on how
quickly and how well we learn to talk. For example, an infant who is raised
by a single dad will develop the word “dada” or “baba” before developing
“mama”.
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 Behaviourists believe that children learn to speak by imitations and parents
then reinforce or correct their speech constantly. They believe that the child
is born with an empty slate and language items ate written on that mental
slate as the child grows and experiences the world which it is experienced.
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 The Behaviourist Theory focuses on the use of imitation and practice for
language acquisition. According to this theory babies learn oral language
from the humans in their environment through imitation rewards and
practice. Then a baby tries to speak a word and succeeds parents and other
adults in his world often praise him. This propels the child to try harder to
achieve more. Behaviourism is an approach to language acquisition based on
the proposition that behaviour can be researched scientifically without
recourse to inner mental states. It is a form of materialism denying any
independent significance for mind. The behaviourist theory emerges on the
basis of following assumptions.
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 1.           Language learning is a habit formation resembling the formation of
other habits. That is a language is learned in the way in which other habits
are learned.
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 2.           Free will is illusory and all behaviour is determined by the
environment either through association or reinforcement.
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 3.           Human acquire a language as discrete unit of habits independently
trained not as an integrated system
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 This theory puts emphasis on three important factors like stimulus, response
and reinforcement.
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
 The Rationalistic Theory (the Nativist Theory)

Rationalistic argue learning is a much more complex process. The child is
born with all the facilities to learn language. The linguistic ability is in
inherited in the mind of the child. All the child does is discover and test.  

 American linguist Noam Chomsky proposed a completely different view of
language acquisition. His Rationalist view was a direct challenge to the
established Behaviourist theories of the time rekindling the age-old debate
over whether language exists in the mind before experience or not. This oral
language development theory states that learning is a natural process for
human beings. The Rationalist Theory gives rise to the Language
Acquisition Device (LAD which is thought to be a part of the brain that
enables all children to grasp language naturally). However, the Rationalist
Theory fails to explain why children from different cultures and
environments vary in the time taken to develop oral language. The
Rationalist Theory is more widely accepted and understood than the
Behaviourist Theory.


 More Detailed Idea: 
 Being the most well-known and one of the most scientifically accurate
theories yet, the Nativist Theory suggests that we are born with genes that
allow us to learn language. This language acquisition theory argues that
there is a theoretical device known as the language acquisition device
(LAD) that is somewhere in our brain. 
 This “device” is in charge of our learning a language the same way the
hypothalamus, for example, is in charge of regulating our body temperature.
The language acquisition theory also suggests that there is a universal
grammar (a theory by Noam Chomsky) that is shared across every language
in the world because universal grammar is part of our genetic
makeup. Essentially, almost all languages around the world all have nouns
and verbs and similar ways to structure thoughts. All languages have a finite
amount of rules that apply to all languages from which we can build an
infinite amount of phrases. The core and basic ideas from these finite rules
are built into our brains (according to Universal Grammar and the Nativist
Theory).
 This language acquisition theory explains well how humans seem to have a
far more complicated and complex set of communication patterns than any
other species in the world. It also is a working theory for how children are
able to learn so quickly complicated ideas. This language acquisition theory
is comparable to how we think of numbers- everyone in the world knows
what 4 apples look like regardless if we say that there are four, cuatro, vier,
or dört apples.

 The theoretical assumptions underlying the Rationalist theory is as follows:

 1.          Every human child possesses innate knowledge of language
structure which called language Acquisition Device or LAD.
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 2.          Language learning is distinct from other cognitive capacities.

 3.          Young children learn and apply grammatical rules and vocabulary as
they are exposed to them and do not require initial formal teaching.
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
 Similarities between Behaviourist Theory and Rationalist
Theory
 Both are the theory of language learning.

 Both of these theories help to describe some aspects of first language
acquisition.

 Neither the Behaviourist nor the Rationalist theories are able to adequately
encompass the complexity of language acquisition.

  Both of them are some way logical in some aspect of acquiring first
language.
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 Both of them are not totally independent one has been corrected by the
other.
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 Both of them have emphasis on a specific part of language learning process
but none of them is completely wholly appropriate for first language
learning.
 Differences between Theory and Rationalist Theory
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
Behaviourist Theory Rationalist Theory
According to behaviourism language According to rationalism language
is learnt in the way other habits are develops in the same way as other
learnt. biological functions.
Through behaviourist theory language
acquisition is a stimulus response Language acquisition is a congenital
process. process.
In behaviourism knowledge is seen as In rationalism knowledge is seen
constant. dynamic.
In rationalism learning is said to be
successful when the child can
In behaviourism learning is said to be generate innumerable grammatically
successful when the child can repeat correct sentences and rejects
what was taught. ungrammatical ones.
The behaviourist view holds that The Rationalist view maintains that
children need formal teaching and children do not require primary
guidance to learn in a correct way. formal instruction.
It ignores the creativity of human It views language acquisition as a
beings. creative process.
The Rationalist theory is not
The behaviourist theory is mechanical since it does consider the
mechanical. child as an inert recipient.
The behaviourist theory cannot
explain how the child precedes in The Rationalist theory gives some
his/her journey of language rational explanations about children’s
acquisition. language acquisition procedure.
Language acquisition is the result of Language acquisition is the result of
 nurture. nature.
The behaviourists experiment upon The Rationalist experiment on human
animals not human beings. child not animals.
[The notes on the grammar will keep changing. As i get more materials, more notes will be
added below. So keep checking the blog for any new updates😆💪]