The meanings of language

Dinnen looks at this term in a different way not like Lyons, he believes that it is not a
simple matter to answer such a question because language has two sides: the functinal
side (which refers to the function that the language performs in a society ) and the formal
side ( in which language is Structured).
Crystal says that the everyday use of language involves several mass nouns and count
noun senses which linguistics is careful to distinguish. At a more specific level it refers to
the actual act of speaking or writing in a given situation( performance, parale).

Some of the problems in defining language.

1 -The English word “language” doesn't have one equivalent in other languages. For
example, the French word “langage” is used to refer to language in general but “langue”
to language in particular.
2- The interest of linguistics is the natural languages, thus we must exclude any other
artificial languages in our definitions.

Some definitions of language

According to Sapir (1921:8): “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive
method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily
produced symbols.” This definition suffers from several defects. Language is not only
about communicating ‘idea’, ‘emotion’, and ‘desire’. On the other hand, there are many
systems of voluntarily produced symbols that we only count as languages in what we feel
to be an extended or metaphorical sense of the word ‘language’. For example body
language. Also, being ‘purely human and non-instinctive’ is open to doubt.
Bloch and Trager (1942), in their Outline of Linguistic Analysis, defined language as
“a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates.”
This definition puts all emphasis upon language social function; and, in doing so, it takes
a rather narrow definition differs from Sapir’s in that it brings in the property of
arbitrariness and explicitly restricts language to spoken language (thus making the phrase
‘written language’ contradictory).
 We should keep in mind that there is a close connection between language and
speech. Logically, the latter presupposes the former: one cannot speak without
using language, but one can use language without speaking.
In his Essay on Language, Hall (1968:158) defined language as “the institution
whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually
used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.” Hall, like Sapir, treats language as a purely
human institution. The property of arbitrariness is also mentioned here. ‘habitually used’
is another important feature in Hall’s definition. Within the framework of stimulus-
response theories of the behaviorists, the term ‘habit’ acquired a rather special sense. It
was used with reference to bits of behavior that were identifiable as predictable responses
to particular simuli. Much that we would not normally think of as being done as a matter
of habit was brought within the scope of the behaviorists’ term.
It would be wrong to imply that a speaker uses such and such a word, as a matter of
habit, on such and such an occasion.
 One of the most important facts about language is that there is no connection
between words and the situations in which they are used. For example, we do not
normally use the word ‘bird’ whenever we see a bird. Language is stimulus-free.
Robins (1979a:9-14) only stated a number of salient facts: “languages are symbol
systems, almost wholly based on pure or arbitrary convention”, but lays a special
emphasis on their flexibility and adaptability.
Chomsky considered language to be “a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite
in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.” This definition is taken from
Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures (1957:13). According to Chomsky, all natural languages,
in either their spoken or their written form, are languages in the sense of his definition:
since (a) each natural language has a finite number of sounds in it; and (b), although there
may be infinitely many distinct sentences in the language, each sentence can be
represented as a finite sequence of these sounds (or letters). It is the task of the linguist
describing some particular natural language to determine which are sequences of
elements in that language are sentences and which are non-sentences. And it is the task of
the theoretical linguist to discover the structural properties whereby natural languages
differ from what may be called non-natural languages.
Chomsky believed that such structural properties must be known to the child prior to
and independently of his experience of any natural language, and used by him in the
process of language acquisition.
Chomsky’s definition focuses attention upon the purely structural properties of
languages and to suggest that these properties can be investigated from a mathematically
precise point of view.
 It is Chomsky’s major contribution to linguistics to have given particular
emphasis to what he calls structure-dependence of the process whereby
sentences are constructed in natural languages and to have formulated a general
theory of grammar which is based upon a particular definition of this property.
Most of them have taken the view that languages are systems of symbols designed for the
purpose of communication. Thus, we can make this definition clear:
 “Language is a system of arbitrary symbols for human begins’ communication in
speech and writing, that is used by the people of a particular community.”

The nature of language ( Dinnen 6-11)

Language is sound
The statement that language is sound may appear obvious, since the most
common experience all men have of language is in speaking and listening to
it. But this statement is meant to point out that the sounds of language have
primacy over their representation in writing. While the writing systems of
languages have their systematic aspects, the linguist considers writing and
other methods of representing language secondary to the basic phenomenon
of speech. All traditional orthographies symbolize only part of the important
signals given in speech, and the letters used in common alphabets, such as
the familiar Roman alphabet, represent different sounds in different
languages.
By regarding language primarily as sound the linguist can take advantage of
the fact that all human beings produce speech sounds with essentially the
same equipment. While the sound of foreign language may sound strange or
difficult to us, all of them can be describe with reasonable accuracy for the
movements of the articulatory organs that produce them.

Language is linear
Since the sounds of language are produced by successive movements of the
speech organs, we can say that a fundamental feature of spoken language is
that it is Linear. That is we can accurately represent language by using
separate symbols for each distinct sound and arranging the symbols in a
linear succession that parallels the order in which the sounds are produced.
The order of the symbols is immaterial: we are accustomed to a left-to-right
order in our writing system, but any other consistent sequence would do as
well.
 Language is systematic
When language is said to be linear, it is meant only that it can be represented
by a string of symbols. An examination of many languages will show that
the number of symbols required will not be indefinite. As few as a dozen
may suffice, while perhaps fifty or more may be required. But whatever the
number of symbols, not all possible combinations of sounds will occur. This
is an illustration of part of what is meant by saying that language is
systematic: It is describable in terms of a finite number of units that can
combine only in a limited number of ways.

Language is a system of systems

Speakers of English would probably discuss the examples involving table
and stable and their permissible forms in terms of two kinds of reasoning.
For example, they might say that there is no such word as gstable and that it
is not grammatical to put another suffix after the –s of stables. Another way
of putting this is to say that languages have both a phonological (or sound
system and a grammatical system, each with its proper units and rules of
permissible combination and order. Units are not permitted to reasons,
phonological, grammatical, stylistic, or semantic. Language is a system of
system, all of which operate simultaneously, but we can distinguish, for the
sake of analysis, the units and combinatory rules proper to each.

Language is meaningful
The reason the linguist, or anyone else, is interested in studying language is
that the sounds produced in speech are connected with almost every fact of
humans life and communication. There is a stable relation between the kinds
of sounds speakers of various languages make and their cultural
environment. It is principle through the acquisition of language that the child
becomes an effective member of the community, and the leaders is in a
society preserve and advance their leadership largely through their ability to
communicate with people through language.

Language is Arbitrary

Communication through speech alone between speakers of different

languages is impossible because there is no necessary connection between
the sounds that each language uses and the message that is expressed, even if
the massage in both language is identical. When we say that language is
arbitrary we are simply pointing out the condition required for the
existence of more than one language: that there be no direct, necessary
connection between the nature of the things or ideas language deals with and
the linguistic units or combinations by which these things or ideas are
expressed. This statement is clear enough when we consider that there are
alternative expressions for baby or infant in English, and that other
languages employ quite different-sounding words to express the same thing
—for example, German kind, Spanish criatura, Turkish cojuk. If there had
to be a direct connection between the nature of the things languages talk
about and the expressions used to represent them, there could only be one
language , or there would have to be a one-to-one set of conversion rules to
account for the different sounds used in different languages. Onomatopoeia,
the use of words that imitate the sounds of their referents, for example buzz,
hum, bang, may seem to invalidate this statement, but such words are
comparatively few in languages, and the accuracy of the imitation depends
on the sounds available in the language.

Language is conventional

If it is true that there is no predictable connection between the things that

language deals with and the expressions we use to represent these things, it
would appear that there is nothing predictable about language at all. This is
obviously not true, since people use language according to fixed analogical
rules. It is only when consider an item of language as isolated that its
arbitrariness is clear; but no linguistic unit is really isolated. It is part of a
system of systems, with regular and clearly specifiable relations to the other
units of the language. In fact, the use and formation of linguistic units is so
regular that these units almost seem to be employed according to an
agreement among the speakers.
Language, therefore, can be said to be conventional as a consequence of this
apparent agreement. This agreement is not, nor could it be, explicit; rather, it
is an agreement of fact, of action. Speakers in a given community, for
example, use the same sort of expressions to name the same things, and the
same sorts of constructions to deal with similar situations. It is this implicit
convention that constitutes and stabilizes linguistic systems. An important
consequence of the conventional nature of language is that we can be
confident that an accurate description of speech of a single representative
speaker will be applicable to the speech habits of others in the same
community.

Language is a system of contrasts

one reason a description of a single speaker's habits will be valid for the
speech of a community is that language is a system of differences to be
observed. How these difference are made is relatively unimportant. For
example, parakeets cannot produce sounds exactly like human speakers
because they do not have the vocal cords or nasal cavities that men have. Yet
the sounds that they produce differ from each other in a manner analogous to
speech sounds and are understood to represent human speech. Individuals do
not and cannot speak in direct imitation of each other; they speak alike , and
in the same language, when they make the same number of phonetic and
grammatical distinctions as other speakers.

Language is creative
Viewed as a system of contrasts, language can be understood as a pattern
common to an indefinite number of utterance that differ completely in
reference. This patterning provides the analogical basis for our ability to
produce novel sentence or to understand sentence we hear for the first time.
By imaginative manipulation of the standard interlocking of the
phonological, grammatical, and lexical systems poets and creative writers or
speakers can extend our awareness of possible relations among things. In
this way they may be said to create a new world for us through language.

Languages are unique

Since languages are arbitrary, systematic networks of contrasts, each
language must deservedly be considered unique. For example, two language
may differ in the number of parts of speech, or may require quite different
combinations of these parts, even though the number is the same. For such
reasons we have new patterns to learn in the study of foreign language.

Language are similar

Apart from the more evident cases of historically related languages, such as
the Romance group, it is not surprising that all languages have certain
features in common. All speakers experience the material world about them
with the same sense and in substantially the same way. The differences in
the phonological, grammatical, and lexical systems alluded to above reflect
the social organization of speech, a subject discussed earlier in this chapter.
While this arbitrary selection of important feature of experience makes
learning languages that are unrelated to one's own difficult, there are still
pervasive similarities to be found among different language can be learned.

The origin of language

For centuries, people have speculated over the origins of language. They
keep asking about the oldest form of spoken language and whether or not all
languages have developed from one single language. The fact is that this is a
fruitless quest.
Each generation ask the same question and arrive to the same conclusion
that there is no direct knowledge and evidence about the origin and
development of language.

Early Experiments
The writer Herodotous reported the story of an Egyptian Pharaoh Psamtik I
2.500 years ago. This pharaoh isolated two children with a shepered and
goats. After two years the children uttered the word “bekos” which after
investigation turned to be a phrygian word means bread. The pharaoh
assumed that it must be the original language. This experiment is wrong for
two reasons from Philology we know that the phrygian language is one of
the several languages that developed at that time. The other reason is that it
assumed that the “Kos” is a Greek addition and the original word is “be”
which seems to be the sound of goats.

Theories of origin of language

I The ding-dong theory
Speech arouse as people react to the Stimuli around them in the
environment.
They were “oral gestures." These gestures were in harmony with the world
around them e.g crash refers to thunder, Bomb to explosion. The problem
with this is that onomatopea represent a very limited
part of the language vocabulary.

2 The Pooh – pooh theory

Speech arouse as people make sounds when they are in pain, anger or other
emotions. This is a weak theory because language is not about expressing
emotions only, adding to that it is languagespecific, in that it represents the
Phonology of each separate language. English painis ouch while Russion
pain is oi.

3 The bow-wow theory

Speech arouse after the human attempts to imitate the voice of animals
"meow, bark.” once again it is a limited part of language and the linguistic
rendetion of animal sound is different from language to another. Cat., meow
- Russian; myaoo , chin;mao...

4 The yo- he-ho theory

Speech arouse as people work together and during their physical effort, they
produce rhymeicall grunts, and these change to chants and finally to
language. There is a saying that necessity is the mother of invention.
All these hypothesis lack the scientif basis and all of them are equally far-
fetched that is why the Royal Linguistic Society in Londen in the 19th
century banned the discussion of such topic beacuse they believed that it was
a wasting of time to dig deep in such fruitless quest.
Scientific Approaches
Linguists and anatomies compare btw othe Skull of Neandertal man and
acro-magnon man, they see that the size of the brain is the same but this has
no value, because there is no direct correlation btw the use of longuage and
the size of the brain.
One problem is that only the jaws and the cavaties remain in the fussils,
there is no evidence for tongue, pharynx or larynx and their shape and size.
Neandertal man could have been produced certain sounds, thus it could be
deducted that Neandertal man represent an intermediate stage in the
evolution of speech.

Language behavior and Language-systems

To use one particular language rather than another is to behave in one way
rather than another. Both language in general and particular languages may
be looked at as behaviour, or activity, some of which at least is observable,
and recognizable as language behaviour, not only by participant-observers
(i.e. speakers and hearers in so far as we are restricting our attention to
spoken language), but also by observers who are not themselves involved at
the time in this characteristically interactive and communicative behaviour.
Furthermore, although it is of the essence of language behaviour that it
should be, in general, if not on each and every occasion, communicative, it is
usually possible for external observers to recognize language-behaviour for
what it is, even when they do not know the particular language that is being
used and cannot interpret the utterances that are the product of the behaviour
that is being observed.

Thus, A language-system is a social phenomenon, or institution, which of

itself is purely abstract, in that it has no physical existence, but which is
actualized on particular occasions in the language-behaviour of individual
members of the language-community.