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I. Language and Communication

Lesson 1: The Nature of Language

Introduction

Just as the creation of human life is beautiful, so is the creation of a wonderful

and dynamic human capacity---language. Animals are said to be able to communicate
with each other. Whales sing, wolves howl, horses neigh, dogs bark, goats bleat, cows
moo, and birds chirp. The sounds that these creatures produce often reflect the state of
their emotions. While it may be true that animals communicate, only human beings are
truly capable of producing language (Madrunio and Martin, 2018).

Language is at the core of human interaction. In today’s society, it would be an

advantage if you, as the language learner, speak “glocal,” that is, you have the
proficiency in learning both local and global languages. Competence in the use of the
language becomes an edge as people are moving towards globalization. Human beings
are enmeshed with the cultures of the world. As a matter of fact, the twenty first century
learners are encouraged to boost their communication skills to cope with the changing
sands of time.

Human beings are born with the capacity to communicate. For communication to
transpire, language is used as a potential tool to create networks of human activities
leading to progress and development. Emerging world leaders in politics, business,
religion, media, health, and even academe, from presidents of nations to teachers in the
classrooms--all use the power of language to obtain results. Meanwhile, lack of
communication has given rise to differences in language, in thinking, in systems of belief
and culture in general (Asimov, 2010, cited in Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2010). The
power to use language efficiently and effectively is in the hands of people who are bent
to walk in the roads to progress. Charismatic and influential people know how to use
language and communicate effectively to move people to action. The proficient and
competent user of language has the greater advantage in the era of technological
advancement. So the question is: Why is there a need to understand the nature of
language? This lesson will help you improve your language proficiency and competence,
it is because as people in our community and culture, we are living in a global village.

Objectives

At the end of this lesson, you can:

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1. Understand the need to improve your competence in both local and global language;
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the key ideas in language and communication;
3. Apply accurate use of the language in various communication situations.

Topic Outline
1. The Nature of the Language
2. Terms used in the study of language
3. Using the language in both productive and receptive skils

Try this!

Note: Please do NOT skip the following exercises. Your experience in answering these
activities will help you in the succeeding parts of the lesson. Experiential knowledge is
important here.

As guide to your thoughts, answer all these queries by writing a unified paragraph
covering all answers together.

1. How many languages do you speak? (Please identify these.)

2. What is your first language/mother tongue?
3. How did you acquire your first language?
4. What skills can you perform using your first language?
5. What is/are your second language/s?
6. How did you learn your second language/s?
7. What skill can you perform using your second language/s?
8. What are your language strengths?
9. What are your language weaknesses?
10. What can you suggest to further improve your language competence?

Activity 1

Write coherently in a paragraph form, your answers to each question found above.
Ensure that you will have all questions answered. You are free to organize your ideas
according to your creativity and judgment. (Length: 10-15 sentences)

My Language Biography
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Activity 2
Translate the given words from global language to your local and national language.
Complete the table below with necessary information. Note: Use only one mother tongue
where you are proficient.

Local Language National Language

Global Language
(Cebuano, Tausug, etc.) (Filipino)

On Color
Green
Yellow
Black

On Wind Directions
North
South
East
West

On Topography
Peninsula
Gulf
Isthmus

On Kinship Terms
Niece
Nephew
Cousin

On Weights and Measures

Inches
Yards
Pounds

Think ahead!

Analysis on Language Biodata Form

1. Which languages you identified in your answers are considered dominant: local or
national languages?
2. Do you have troubles classifying which are languages and which are dialects or
vernaculars?
3. What is the difference between language learning from that of language acquisition?

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4. Are the skills that you can perform using your first language more complex than
those skills that you can perform using the second language?
5. What are your difficulties in using/learning the second language?
6. What are the common language strengths and weaknesses have you identified? Do
they fall under: vocabulary, grammatical accuracy, organization of ideas, content,
pronunciation, etc.?

Analysis on Translation or Equivalent Words

1. Do all the words in English have local and national counter parts in your own
language?
2. Which category of word/s are you dominantly not familiar? Why?
3. Were there similar or loaned words from local to national language that you
encounter?
4. What do you think are the reasons for their similarities?
5. Are the missing answers in your activity due to your lapses of not knowing the words
in your local language or the system of your local language do not have it? Where do
you attribute this?
6. Do you feel/realize that you need to know more of your local/national language?
Why?

Read and Ponder

The Nature of Language

“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we think about,”
(Benjamin Lee Whorf, cited in Samovar, Porter and McDaniel, 2010, p. 221). In every
human interaction, language is at the core. It enables us to exchange abstract ideas,
setting us apart from other animal species by allowing us to say or write down abstract
ideas. It was through language that you learned your cultural values and behaviors.
Together with the creation of human life is the creation of a wonderful and
dynamic human capacity that is, language. Animals are said to be able to communicate
with each other. For instance, cows moo, turkeys gobble, rats squeak, doves coo, and
owls hoot. The sounds these creatures produce often reflect the state of their emotions.
While it may be true that animals communicate, only human beings are truly capable of
producing language. Every language has systems of rules, phonology, grammar, syntax,
semantics, orthography, and other language intricacies. While grammarians are
concerned with clarity, rhetoricians are concerned with effectiveness. One becomes
proficient in the use of the language if he/she grows up knowing that language. Cultural
immersion contributes greatly in the expert use of that language. Exposure to the
intricacies of the use of that language makes one intelligibly functional.

Speech Community
The moment you are born in this world, you grow up in a community or culture
where your parents are part of it. The language that is spoken by the people in that
community becomes also your own. So, you grow up in that speech community where
your parents belong. They may speak the local language that many Filipinos are
accustomed to speak. According to SIL, Filipinos speak more than a hundred local

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languages. These can be Tagalog, Tausug, Cebuano, Chabacano, Maranao,

Maguindanao, Sinama, Yakan and what have you. In some cases, children grow up in
an environment where gadgets are their companions. And they pick up the language
that the gadgets speak to them. Exposure to watching TV—like cartoon network or other
e-learning tools, listening to music in English and other multimedia applications will make
them speak the language of their surroundings. Though it may be true, if for instance,
they are born with Chabacano or Cebuano speaking parents, yet they may speak
English if their dominant exposure to the gadgets influence their language use.

Language Acquisition
As you grow up, you pick up the language of your parents or the language of the
environment you are in. You started hearing sounds as a baby, and you mimicked them
while you were yet young. As you grow in age, you learn to speak their language. You
learn the words they speak in a natural way. Your vocabulary expanded as you use
them in various occasions. As you mature, you read materials, written texts, inscriptions
and other forms of writings in that language. The last skill to be developed is your writing
ability in that language. All of these occur naturally. Your developmental milestones are
obvious.

Mother Tongue
The language you acquired or picked up from the speech community you are in
while growing up, becomes your first language or your mother tongue.

Second Language
The language that you formally learn either in school or tutorial classes, where
you learned it with a teacher or tutor is the second language other than the first language
that you acquired from home. This can be your national language, like Filipino or may be
the global language like English. Formal learning of this second language will help you
proficient user of the language.

Language Learning
Language learning is the process of studying a second language formally. This
happens when you as a learner study: rules of grammar, correct usage, word derivation,
pronunciation and enunciation. In writing, you were trained to: build words from basic
parts, affixes and infixes, derive word meaning, construct sentences, as well as write
coherent paragraphs and even longer stretch of discourses.

Language Contact
Your exposure to various situations and with other learners who speak a
language different from your own provide a language contact. This can happen in a
classroom scenario, in a restaurant, online transactions and more.

Language Change
In your interaction with other people, your language comes into contact with other
languages resulting in language change. Language change can happen when two or
more languages try to adapt, loan or borrow words, coin new words as products of
exchanges of ideas. Language change is a natural behavior of all languages. Philippine
languages, as part of the Polynesian family of languages are observed to be interrelated.
For example, counting money in Tausug like twenty or “kawhaan” is also “kawhaan” in
Visayan. Variety may arise when spelling or speaking the language takes place.

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See if you can do this!

On Language Focus
Answer the exercises pertaining the use of the English language as your second
language or lingua franca. Encircle the letter/s in each of the word listed below that is/are
unvoiced or silent. The letter/s you encircle will reflect how you pronounce the word in
each item.

Example: listen= t is silent/unvoiced

1. indict 6. benign
2. corpse 7. debris
3. knack 8. subtle
4. rendezvous 9. gnome
5. shepherd 10. receipt

On Language Use
Using the words from the list, categorize the words according to the proper terminal
sounds these words should be pronounced.

Walked Flashed dreamt troubled said

Decided Noticed looked asked replied
Had Would needed could carried

/d/ /ed/ /id/ /t/

Had

Sentential Level
Underline the correct word to be used in the sentence.

1. The student heeded the (counsel’s, council’s) (advise, advice).

2. The (corps, corpse) was in the state of decomposition. He joined the signal
(corpse, corps).
3. He tasted a (dessert, desert) that was foreign to her taste buds when they went to
the sub-Saharan (desert, dessert).
4. Every woman’s dream is to walk on the (aisle, I’ll, isle). The (aisle, I’ll, isle) is full
of lush, green vegetation and seas teeming with fish.
5. Believing in God is not only a mental (ascent, accent, assent). It is giving him
your full (trash, trust, thrust).

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6. The (ewe, hue, you) looks beautiful as it grazes the vast forest where the (ewe,
hue, you) of the scenery in the backdrop looks amazing.
7. The (sweet, suite, suit) that they (chose, choose, choice) for the guest was very
expensive.
8. The inscription reads: On this (cite, site, sight, scythe) will soon (rice, rise, raise,
race, rays) the Jasmin Tower!
9. The washing machine is a time-saving (devise, device). Groups of engineers
(device, devise) a practical strategy where modern man can have ample use of
quality time.
10. The (imminent, eminent) return of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world as a
witness will really come. This event is very (imminent, eminent).

Sharpening your Writing Skill

Paragraph Writing

Write a coherent paragraph with 10-15 sentences describing: (1) how you acquired your
mother tongue, or (2) how you learned your second language. Choose only one task.
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Write the key word/s as your definition of the following terms below which reflects your
understanding of these words. Example: orthography= spelling

1. phonology 8. polyglot
2. morphology 9. rhetorician
3. syntax 10. dialectologist
4. semantics 11. linguists
5. grammar 12. linguistics
6. orthography 13. stylistics
7. lexicon 14. lexicography

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15. grammarian

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On the blank spaces provided before the number, write T if the statement is True and F if
the statement is False.
_________________ 1. Not all languages have a grammar system.
_________________ 2. Change happens to all languages.
_________________ 3. All living creatures have the capacity for languages.
_________________ 4. The first language that a child acquires is called mother tongue.
_________________ 5. Two persons who do not speak the same language will never be
able to communicate with each other.

Synthesis

1. Language is a human capacity that consists of (a) system of rules, also known as
grammar (b) a sound system, also known as phonology (c) and a vocabulary, also
known as lexicon.
2. While growing up in a community, people acquire the languages used by those in the
community. This is the process of language acquisition.
3. The languages acquired while growing up are known as mother tongues, which may
also be referred to as first languages.
4. Other than the first languages, there are other languages needed for various reasons.
These other languages are referred to as second languages.
5. People learn their second languages in school or on their own. This is the process of
language learning.
6. In our interaction with other people, our languages come into contact with their
languages, resulting in language change. Language change is a natural behavior of all
languages.

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