WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

BBI3102_What is language? 1
‘Of course I know what
language is. I use it all the
time’

BBI3102_What is language? 2
What is language?

BBI3102_What is language? 3
• Language is a very complex phenomenon.

• There is both a functional side to language

(the jobs language does in human society)
and there is a formal side (the way language is
structured)

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Language is many things…
• It is a system of communication
• A medium for thought
• A vehicle for literary expression
• A social institution
• A matter for political controversy
• A factor for nation building

• All normal human beings speak at least one language,

and it is hard to imagine much significant social or
intellectual activity taking place in its absence.

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Language is a system of arbitrary vocal
symbols used for human communication.
(Wardhaugh, 1994)

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The importance of understanding language …
 
• Language is everywhere.
• It permeates our thoughts, mediates our
relations with others, and even creeps into
our dreams.
• Most human knowledge and culture is stored
and transmitted in language, which is so
ubiquitous that we take it for granted.
• Without it, however, society as we know it
would be impossible.
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The Universals of Language
 • Characteristics that apply to all known languages, everywhere, at
any one time, are called universal traits.

• The exact number of such traits will vary according to the classifying
system used, but here we shall discuss five major ones:
 
1. Language is human.
2. Language is spoken.
3. Language changes in various ways.
4. Language is systematic.
5. Language is symbolic in various ways.
 

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Language is human
• No species besides homo sapiens appear to use the communication system of
language in the same way that human beings do.

• Belonging only to human beings, language is therefore species specific.

• Children (with the exceptions of isolated feral children and of the physically
impaired) do acquire language. Some children may use language more
competently than others; for instance, children who are severely mentally
retarded often have severe speech impediments as well.

• But with the exceptions noted, there is no known instance of a human being
not using language.

• Belonging to all human beings, language is therefore species universal.

• To be human is, above all, to speak.

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Language is spoken
•  All languages, whether they are now or were
ever written, were and are first spoken.

• Children learn to speak long before they are able

to write; and children do not need to be formally
taught to speak, as they usually do to write.

• Furthermore, all adult language users speak more

often, and speak many more utterances, than
they ever write.

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What Do You Remember?

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Language changes
•  All languages change in various ways, and any language is
in a constant, slow, not always steady process of alteration.

• Constructions are dropped or added, old patterns

combined in new ways, new words coined from old parts.
This form of change is chronological or historical: change
over time.
 
• In addition to changing over time, all languages show
variation over space. At any particular time, many different
versions of the same language will be spoken in different
regions by different types of people. These variations are
collectively known as dialects.

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Language is systematic

• Every language in the world regulates itself, fits its units and unit groups
together in predictable ways, and produces systematically intelligible
sounds and sentences.

• No language’s systems are more ‘primitive’ or more ‘advanced’ than any

other’s -- which is to say, there is no correlation between the
technological complexity of a culture and the complexity of its language.

• All languages are complex but regular at all levels, from sound to form to
sentence.
 
 
  Usually the means or patterns of regulation -- the systematic structure -- are fairly
limited in number. For example, depending on the expert you talk to, English has about
45 sound patterns and about 15 to 30 basic sentence structuring (syntactic) patterns.

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Language is symbolic
• Words have no inherent, innate, or divinely decreed meanings.

• Words merely stand for, represent, or symbolize meaning.

• The creature we call a ‘whale’ is not so named because ‘whale’ has

some innate connection with large, aquatic mammals, but because
a majority of English speakers use that name.

• Other language speakers use other names: la baleine (French), der

Walfisch (German), la ballena (Spanish).

• All of these different terms are symbols for the creature itself, for
the referent-- that is, the figure (or idea or action) to which a word
refers.

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What do you know
when you know a
language?

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• Many people consider ‘knowing a language’ to be the
ability to speak that language well.

• Your linguistics competence is your (mostly

unconscious) knowledge of the rules of a language.

• This competence differs in significant ways from

linguistic performance, which is your actual speech
behaviour.

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The sound system (phonology)

 
• Part of your competence has to do with the
phonology of the language.
• When you hear or attempt to learn a foreign
language, you become acutely aware that other
languages have sounds that English does not
have -- for example, the French r , Spanish or
French p , the clicks of some African languages,
the German u and o vowels, and the tones of
languages like Chinese.
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Morphology

• Speech consists of continous utterances.

• Often there are no physical breaks between

words.

• Yet we can break utterances down into words

without difficulty.

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 For example, (a) can be broken down into (b),
but no speaker would break it down to (c).
 
(a) hewenttotownonhishorse
(b) he went to town on his horse
(c) * hew enttot ow nonh ishor se

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What do you remember?

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Syntax

• You can recognize well-formed -- that is, grammatical

sentences:
 
(a) *You up pick at o’clock will eight.
(b) * I will picks you up at eight o’clock.
(c) I will pick you up at eight o’clock.
 
Only (c) is grammatical: (a) is ‘word salad’ and (b)
violates the English rule of subject- verb agreement.
 

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• There is an important difference between the grammaticality of a
sentence-- is it structurally well formed? and semantic well-
formedness -- does it make sense?

• Below, (d) is structurally well formed but semantically odd.

Compare (d) through (g).

 
(d) I just saw a unicorn playing a concerto on his horn.
(e) *Colourless green ideas sleeps furiously.
(f) Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
(g) *Green furiously colourless sleep ideas.
 
• Both (d) and (f) are grammatical. however, they are Semantically
peculiar.

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Semantics
• Part of your linguistic competence has to do with your
ability to determine the meaning of sentences.

• But your competence goes beyond this. You can determine

when a sentence has more than one meaning.

(a) Jack rolled over Jill.

(b) Mary threw up her lunch.
(c) Visiting martians can be a nuisance.
(d) I saw her duck.
 

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• You also know when different sentences mean
the same thing.

(a) John is an unmarried male.

(b) John is a bachelor.

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 Styles of speech

• You also understand the contexts or situations

in which different styles of language may be
used.

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Summarize What You Have
Learned Today

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