Learning Outcomes

In this chapter, you are expected to:

o explain personal views on language vis-à-vis existing views and definitions;
o trace the nature and characteristics of language; and
o decode the functions of language and use them to create a composition.

Language is an essential attribute to humans. It is a gift to mankind. It sets us apart from other creation. Everything that we
do involves language, from thinking to talking, writing, solving problems, expressing ourselves, communicating, establishing, and
maintaining relations. Language is a significant ingredient. We manage to transfer knowledge from one another and keep records of
inventions and discoveries through language. It is ubiquitous. A society without language is unthinkable. Thus, understanding the
nature and characteristics of language will enable us to use it more effectively.

THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE

In its basic constitution, the nature of language is described as 1) learned, 2) related to the culture of society, 3) species-specific,
uniformed and unique to humans, 4) system, 5) vocal, 6) skill subject, 7) means for communication, and 8) arbitrary.

Language as something learnt.

In as much as human beings are programmed to acquire language easily, they learn a language.

Maybe you don't have an idea of how you actually learned a language. However, when your parents started
communicating with you, as an infant, using sounds and simple utterances, you started learning and responding to the
language they are using to interact. This is how you learned your native language. When you started attending school and your
teacher was speaking a particular language as a medium of instruction, you managed to acquire the language, too, little by
little. When you watch a TV show where the language used by the characters seemed unfamiliar at first, however, you continue
watching repeatedly and gradually get acquainted with the language they use, you learn the language.

Language could be programmed and coded in our genes as human beings, but mastering the system of language
programming is far beyond being able to produce it. Every time we read is an opportunity to learn the language codes. When
we watch our favorite show, when we read social media posts we are learning the language.

Language is something that is learned through exposure and practice. Although the language is genetically
programmed in our brain to make distinctions of the different sounds, things, activities, and notions, language acquisition is
produced through active learning and repetitive interactions (Perry, 2020). Language learning, therefore, is behavioral,
imitative, and learned through effort.

As soon as we get acquainted with a particular language and become interested in its system and structures, then we
can master its use. This means that human beings are capable of learning as many languages as they can when interested.

Language as related to the culture of society.

Look at the people around you, do they communally think and behave like you do?

Different people from different social orientations speak differently. You might be wondering why you love having
friends who share a common language and interest with you. When you share the same language, your minds meet and you
understand each other using common code. Even hand gestures, facial expressions, body language would be meaningful and
understandable when you have a similar orientation with a certain groups of people.
 At birth, we are socialized into our various linguistic identities. Because of that social configuration, we speak the
same language as the people we belong to. Since people of a particular community or group have one language, most of the
time, they understand each other, they share the same sentiments and they form a culture, a society of similar interest.

This is how language works. Language influences culture: the values, the practices, and the interests of people.
Similarly, culture influences language. This is the reason why the longer you watch Kdrama and get very familiar with their
verbal and non-verbal cues you tend to get Koreanized, or when you watch Hollywood films, you become westernized, too.
This is the influence of language in shaping culture and society.

There is always a cyclical association among language, society, and culture that is produced due to the interaction.
Language is culturally defined. They are inseparable in a way that culture affects language, and language affects the mental
state of society. When people communicate their values, beliefs, and customs, they use language as a tool. The interaction
patterns that they create constitute culture. Through the use of language, the common values and identity of a certain crowd
are cultivated and formed since the same language that people use in speaking has a significant role in shaping their collective
identity. Thus, language creates a vital foundation in the development of a society.

Language as species-specific, uniformed, and unique to humans.

"Language is human."
- Edward Sapir

Here is a man who has different pets at home. He has a couple of dogs, a few chickens, and cats. He assigned all the
pets a name. As time progressed, he realized that only dogs respond to their names. The cats will respond to the sound of /i3/
while the chickens respond only to the sound of /k/. Because of this observation, he changed the with catsall ' names with /13/
and the chickens with /k/. Every day he attempted to communicate of his pets. Later on, he found out that only his dogs had
positive responses to his words. He realized that some animals only exist to survive, that they only respond to a stimulus,
which is food, and not to the language that humans use to communicate.

The ability to use and respond to language is genetically inherited by humans. It is species-uniformed since only
human beings are capable of acquiring language, set in the right environment. All animals communicate, however, language is
an important tool for human communication, hence, it is tough to think of a society without language. Although animals
communicate in various ways for some terrestrial purposes such as the dancing of the bee, the singing of the birds especially
during mating season, the communication of the crabs and spiders using signals (Mukherjee, 2015), the different ways of dogs
barking, yet none of them utter a single word, unlike humans do. This is ascribed to how human brains are preset.

According to Chomsky (1975), the human brain is different from that of the animals. Humans learn and produce
language creatively. Language functions in the left hemisphere of the brain, seated on the cerebral. cortex, different from the
rest of the animals. This is what makes humans capable of producing language. Language is human species-specific since only
human beings are gifted with language.

Language is an attribute of humans. Humans converse with others using oral and auditory symbols, which are
important characteristics and forms of human behavior.

Language as a system.

Learning a language is similar to learning mathematics. It needs analysis. This is in reference to the fact that language
is a system of systems. It is a system of sounds and symbols. There are phonological and grammatical systems in all languages.
A careful analysis of these systems would lead you to the proficient use of a particular language.

Linguistic units constitute language. These units are interdependent on one another. A language is a unit of combined
speech sounds that form into words, phrases, to sentences and eventually become ideas, and thoughts. There are two
distinguishing systemic categories of language: the sound system, structures, and meaning; and the system of symbols and
non-verbal signals. Noam Chomsky (1975) believed that language is a controlled-noise. The sounds form their own system as
numerous sounds function systematically. In the same manner, language is a set of organized and boundless sentences,
constructed out of a definite set of elements. With a language system of syntactic structures, words are formed and meaning
is created.

It is also evident that language works through symbols. Language is a system of spoken and written symbols in which
abstract figures concretely represent. The words used in the language are symbolic representations of ideas, characterized
through letters and figures, which are carefully arranged to form a meaning. The combination of w.i.s.h for example, stands
for an abstract idea of a desire. When the letters are rearranged which may result in s.h.i.w or h.i.s.w, these would not make
sense. The idea that the word -wish" represents has become a convention, something that is difficult to change.

Language is also a system of non-verbal signs purely based on arbitrary conventions. When speakers or writers
desire to communicate they convey their message across in non-verbal signs such as gestures, facial expressions, body
movements, and written communication. The receiver of the message who shares the common codes interprets and arrives at
the intended meaning.
Language as vocal.

Although today, people usually communicate by texting or chatting, there is no substitute for verbal communication,
especially when communicating with familiar people.

Language is oral. Speech is primary, writing is secondary. Speech is the fundamental expression of language. A
language without speech is unimaginable. Language is spoken first before written. This will be traced back to how language
evolved from the sounds produced by the Primitive days when men used to hoot or grunt to communicate. The vocal sounds
produced by the articulatory device of the human body primarily makes up language. Through generations, language has been
passed on verbally and eventually in written form. Writing preserves language. When you were a child, you learned to speak
it first before you learned to write it. Most probably during our lifetime, we speak more than write. As a whole, the sum of the
considerable amount of speech produced is way larger than that of the written works.

Language as a skill subject.

Learning a language is acquiring skills. The macro skills - listening and viewing, speaking, reading, and writing -
are categorized into receptive and expressive language skills.

Receptive skill is the ability to understand information represented in words and sentences either through visual or
auditory, while expressive language skill is the facility to put forth sensible ideas into visual and acoustic symbols such as in
writing and speaking, with accurate grammatical representation. Receptive and expressive skills are intertwined; receptive
language skill is an essential foundation in developing expressive skills. The skills are honed through extensive reading,
studying of the rules, listening for precision in the articulation of sounds, and accuracy of intended meaning, practice, and
repetition.

Language mastery is acquired by learning the skills through constant practice and exposure. In formal setting,
language is part of the curriculum, the ultimate goal of which is usage in both verbal and non-verbal communication. To
maximize the language skills acquisition, a language teacher has to devise curricular tasks that will allow the students to be
exposed to the language and use it themselves.

The language skill acquired is a stepping stone to gaining linguistic and communicative competence and performance.

Language as a means for communication.

Communication is branded as a process of conveying and exchanging messages from person to person using a
medium, mostly done for the society to function cohesively. It is a basic human necessity. Language, similarly, is the greatest
form of intelligent interaction for the gifted individuals of the universe: humans. CommunicatiOn and language are mutually
linked since the beginning of time. Now that people are living in an organized global community, interaction has become
progressively possible.

As previously defined, language is a linguistic and speech communication purposively designed to put intended
messages across either spoken or written. It is a tool to express feelings and ideas. It is a social phenomenon, programmed with
sets of conventional communicative marks, that allows humans to communicate with precision.

Because language is specifically a human activity that facilitates the transport of emotions and thoughts from one to
another person, people can share and receive information, interact, persuade, or affect others. As a whole, language serves as
an intermediary between the individual and the community.

Language as arbitrary.

We are born with no name, but once christened, a name is assigned to us, which makes up our identity. The same
principle is applied when it comes to language. Language is arbitrary in the sense that language meanings existed as they are.
There are no plausible explanation or inherent relation as to how meanings are assigned to each letter, symbol, or word. There
is no scientific principle that underlie the naming of symbols. It is a matter of convention. The availability of the words is
guided by no purpose.

Socrates once discussed that a word assigned to an object was not based on pure convention. It resulted from integral
correctness, which related the features of the object to the sounds used to label it. However, this idea was dismissed later by
Lucretius with the argument that anyone could be given any names and continuously used them. Wilhelm von Humboldt, a
prominent writer in the modern era, vied that there is an acceptable basis in forming words that "language naturally selects
for particular objects speech sounds which partly and independently in comparison with others produce an impression on the
ear similar to that which the object makes the mind". Saussure, the father of modern linguistics, on the other hand, contended
that the structural configuration of the word has no relation to its meaning. Saussure added that "language is a convention, the
nature and sign that are agreed upon do not matter because they are arbitrary, it follows no law but rather based on pure tradition." (pratclif.com)
Language, therefore, is a structure of conventional symbols. Each symbol embodies a stretch of sounds with which a sense
 could be associated. If language was not randomly created, there could only be one language in the entire world; fixed and
unchanging.

CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE

Language characterized according to its distinguishing qualities. These include conventionality and non-instinctive,
productivity and creativity, duality, displacement, humanness, and universality.

Conventional and Non-instinctive

Just like any other conventional practices naturally acquired, language is non-instinctive and conventional. Language
is brought about by evolution and strengthened with convention. It is a silent pact that each generation transmits to the next.
Like all human institutions, language flourishes and perishes, it expands and transforms. It adapts with the change of time.
Every language is a convention in the community, a product of a cooperative mind. People communicate spontaneously and
patterns of communication are not planned. Language is non-instinctive since none is born with the spontaneity to speak any
language. It is learned through interaction and socialization. Language is not biologically automated but culturally determined.
A word does not make sense unless it is collectively understood by the users. The language systems, symbols, structures, and
meanings are always products of the peoples' thoughts produced in harmony.

Productivity and Creativity

"A rose by another name would smell as sweet."

- William Shakespeare

Notice how Shakespeare associates the object "rose" to its distinguishing characteristic "sweet" scent as if these two
words are interchangeable yet the description of the smell of the object is a specific attribute of a rose. The images that he
created do not only limit to the two words "rose and sweet", but to multifarious Metaphors, which generate other words.

However, no one sets a finite line as to the particular words that have to be associated with rose and sweet. This
means that every reader or listener is allowed to link the words as to the limits-of his imagination, without specific rules set.

Language is productive. It is creative. It keeps on sprouting that with one word emerges another.

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And the next year's words await
another voice."
- T.S. Eliot

As the needs of the people change, language evolves as a means of adapting to the demands of the people who use it.
Old English has a distinct feature-compared
T.S. Eliot to modern English, in the same way, that the language of the Millennial is different
frdm the language of the alpha generation. The structural features of human language can he fixed to create new expressions,
which are understood by both speakers and listeners. Man uses concurrent linguistics to produce complete novel ideas and
expressions. This makes language- productive
T.S. Eliot and creative.

Duality

Study the sentences below:

The hunters shot the lion.

Lion the hunters shot the.

The sentence "The hunters shot the lion" conforms to the general philosophical theory of signs and symbols concerning
its semantic and pragmatic sense. It makes sense since the sounds are arranged according to their fixed combinations and the
words are arranged according to the prescribed grammatical structure.

The second sentence "lion hunters shot the" does not conform to the established language syntactical rules, thus, it
doesn't make sense.

Human language comprises of two sub-systems: the sound system and the meaning system. Predetermined sound
combinations create units of meaning. Different combinations of sounds produce syntactic categories, units, and constituents
that create more sophisticated and meaningful utterances.

The duality of patterning is the double articulation and semiotic. Language duality is what gives language expressive
power since meaningless sounds are combined according to rules to form meaningful words (Luden, 2016). Significantly in
speech production, the individual sounds of p.e.n do not have intrinsic meaning, but when combined as in "pen" it now has a
distinct meaning. The combination of sounds is based on fixed rules that no word starts with zI, 1r, bz, or ng in the English
language. This makes language dual.

Displacement

“No matter how eloquently a dog may hark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest."
- Bertrand Russell

Unlike animal communication that is context-bound, human language is context-free. Human beings are capable of
narrating events and situations without actually living them at the moment. For human language, a stimulus is not directly
induced, objects may not necessarily be tangibly present at the place and time of speaking. This is called displacement.

Only humans are capable of recounting events that occurred before or the vision of what happens next. Example: I
visited my cousin's place last week, or I am enrolling in linguistics next semester. When a dog produces a sound, it generally is his reaction
to his present condition. A dog cannot tell its masters that it saw a thief previously, nor a cat can tell its master that it went to
the neighbors' house, events happened in the past.

The property of displacement explains why humans are capable of recalling stories that happened or even creating
stories that may not be realistically possible, such as fiction.

Humanness

"To say that language is not innate is to say there is no difference between my grandmother, a rock, and a rabbit. In other words, if you
take a rock, a rabbit and my grandmother and put them where people are communicating in English, they will all learn English."
- (Chomsky, 2000)

Language is innate to human beings. No species other than humans are gifted with language. Humans are endowed
with physical attributes for them to acquire language. Language has complex structures of sounds and meanings, which
animals could not comprehend. A cow's moo today is similar to the moos centuries ago. Human language is changeable and
extendable.

Although animals could communicate with each other, it is limited to signs and sounds. A bee could determine the
distance and sources of honey by instinct or a dog can bark when he is excited or angry. Yet these messages are limited. Humans
could clearly distinguish concrete identifiable symbols through the use of language, however, animal communication is often
non-discrete.

Indeed, human language is way more intricate than animal communication.

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Universality

Although each language has a unique style of functions in terms of sounds, vocabulary and structures, language is
equal in all the parts of the universe. A linguistic universal is a systematic occurrence of the linguistic patterns across national
languages. All languages have nouns, although the structural arrangement may vary in the same way that all languages have
vowels and consonants. Linguists identified two universals: the absolute, where all elements apply to every known language;
and the implicational, where only particular features apply to different languages.