The Libyan Academy

MA program In Translation
First Semester
Linguistic course

"An Introduction to Language"

Submitted by:

Ferial Ali ISshayt

Supervisor Dr. Fathi Akel

Academic year 2019/2020

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 Language

1.1 What is language?

Humans generally communicate with each other by means of language. In
this respect they are very different from other animals. Human language has a
number of specific properties that set it apart from other communication
systems. When we say that humans know a language, this means effectively
that they have mentally stored a large amount of knowledge about the language
and how it is used. Operating as speakers and hearers, they can employ their
language faculty in actual language use.

1.2 Some definitions of ‘language’

There are many definitions/ theories of Language that can be found and looked
at, here are a few that were quite interesting to look at:

R.H. Robins says ‘‘language is a form of human communication by means of a

system of symbols principally transmitted by vocal sounds". Robins, R. H. (1990).
Endangered languages. Oxford, England: Breg.

According to Sapir “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of

communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced
symbols". John Lyons clearly states in his book that this definition suffers from
several defects. It makes no appeal to the communicative function of language;
instead it puts all the emphasis on the social function of language. Lyons, J. (1981).
Language and Linguistics- An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.

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 Chomsky tells us strikingly a very different note of transformational grammar-
‘‘From now I will consider a language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences,
each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements’’. In his book
(Syntactic Structures, 1957:13)

As he further claims, this holds true for all natural languages since they have “a
finite number of phonemes (or letters in its alphabet) and each sentence is
representable as a finite sequence of these phonemes (or letters)” (Syntactic
structures 1957:13)

In my research I have determined a simple definition for language, which

declares that Language is a system of produced sounds, written symbols and
interpreted signs, that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance and
use of this complex system in a productive communication, particularly the human
ability to do so; a language is any specific example of such a system.

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1.3 Properties of Language:
 Duality: Duality describes the human ability to produce language in
multiple forms. We can both write the word table and say it out loud,
with both evoking the same idea of a table. 
 Cultural transmission: Language is both acquired by and continues the
process of cultural transmission. Humans are not born with an innate
understanding of communication in the way that birds or lions are. We
must learn, along with other elements of culture, how to communicate
with others using language.
 Arbitrariness: Arbitrariness of language is the fact that the symbols we
use to communicate meaning to not have any natural form or meaning in
and of themselves. For example, all of the words you are reading right
now do not have a natural essence to them, but we have assigned these
words to their particular meanings. The word table is not a table itself;
rather, it is a word we have agreed means or signals for the idea of a
table. Onomatopoeia differs somewhat in their arbitrariness, because
these are words which replicate the sounds they describe. The word
"plop" is intended to replicate the sound plop.
 Productivity: Productivity is a feature of human language which enables
us to combine symbols (words, sounds, phrases) in new ways to express
particular ideas.
 Discreteness: Discreteness in language describes the fact that human
language is composed of sets of distinct sounds. One sound on its own
may convey one meaning; multiple sounds combined in a particular
order convey a different meaning. Even repeated sounds have a
particular meaning.

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  Displacement: Displacement of language refers to the ability of human
language to communicate throughout time and across space. In animals,
language is primarily an exchange between stimulus and response — the
meaning conveyed by animal language only works in context. When a
dog barks, it is in response to whatever prompted the barking, and that
bark can't really be used to express its meaning before or after the event.
In human language, however, we are able to talk about things that
happened a long time ago or have not yet happened. We might even read
books produced hundreds of years ago and be able to make sense of
them.
 Language is Symbolic: any language works with a set of signs and
symbols. Through these symbols the different objects of nature and
abstraction of life are identified; for example the word book is treated as
symbol to convey the idea associated with it. i.e. A book is something
which has many printed pages. On the other hand, we find abstracts like
happiness, sadness and pleasure which describe feelings which aren’t
objects.

All of the previously explained properties are as enlightened by Lyons, J.

(1981). In his book, Language and Linguistics, as well as Yule, G. (2010). In
his book, The study of Language. However, every language is used for general
communication. Using a natural language, humans can in principle
communicate with each other about anything in their world, from talking about
the weather to writing or reading a scientific article about global warming.

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1.4 Difference between Language and a language:

According to Lyons, (Language and Linguistics: 1981), Language refers to

a system of communication unique to human beings that makes use of written and
vocal symbols. A language, on the other hand is a subcategory of this type of
communication peculiar to a particular people, region, geographical region or
socio-political background. For example, Creole languages are largely spoken in
the Caribbean and Hindi largely spoken in India. Language is a more general term
than a language. The distinction is usually made by capitalizing the 'L' of the more
general term.

1.5 Language behavior-language systems:

Language is a fundamental part of total human behavior. Each person was born
with a linguistic competence which is the ability to acquire the knowledge of a
particular language in order to master it. The action or the activity of this mastery
of using one particular language instead of another is known as language behavior
(it`s choosing to behave in a way rather than another). This communicative
behavior is not restricted only to the two observers (i.e. speaker and hearer) of the
communication process. External observers can possibly recognize language
behavior, even if they don’t know the particular language that’s being used, for
example based on our linguistic culture, we can recognize certain languages being
spoken even though we don’t speak this language, such as recognizing Chinese or
French.

Language behavior describes a behaviorist theory on how human develop

language. The behaviorist Skinner proposed that language, like any other skill, was

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gained by reinforcing responses from the environment. It’s a process of building
language skills on top of each other as a result from interacting with the
environment which eventually forms the ability to speak languages. In other words,
language inherently relies on behaviors. Skinner, B. F. (The Behavior of
organisms: 1938).

In his book (Syntactic Structures, 1957) Chomsky, among other linguists

agreed to distinguish the difference between two main factors in language behavior
which are competence and performance. When competence is the participant’s
knowledge of language, performance is the actual use of language in concert
studies. For example; when we say that “someone speaks English” that can mean
one of two things, a) that he occasionally engages in a particular behavior, or b)
that he has the ability to engage in a particular behavior. The first case of the
example is performance which contrasts with competence as in the second case of
the example.

Ferdinand de Saussure in his (Course in General Linguistics, 1986), also

distinguished the terms Langue (French meaning of language) and Parole ( French
meaning of speaking). Langue encompasses the abstract, systematic rules and
conventions of a signifying system; it is independent of, and pre-exists, individual
users. Langue involves the principles of language, without which no meaningful
utterance, "parole", would be possible. Parole refers to the concrete instances of
the use of langue. This is the individual, personal phenomenon of language as a
series of speech acts made by a linguistic subject. Saussure did not concern himself
overly with parole; however, the structure of langue is revealed through the study
of parole. He drew an analogy to chess to explain the concept of
langue and parole. Then he compared langue to the rules of chess the norms for

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playing the game and compared the moves that an individual chooses to make the
individual's preferences in playing the game to the parole.

Language is considered as a system primarily because it is mode of linguistic

unites that are independent of each other, since they are smaller unites working
within a whole system, by default language becomes a system of systems.

The basic premise of this concept is that the diversity of features that are found in
language formation prevents it from being described in a generalized way. Instead
language study has to be pulled apart and studied by each of its multifunctional
sub-systems and they are:

 Phonology: study of sounds or signs as discrete, abstract elements in the

speaker`s mind that distinguish meaning.
 Phonetics: study the physical properties of speech production and
perception.
 Morphology: study of internal structures of words and how they can be
modified.
 Syntax: study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences.
 Semantics: study of the meaning of words and fixed word combination
and how these combine to form the meaning of sentences.
 Pragmatics: study of how utterances are used in communicative acts,
and the role played by context and nonlinguistic knowledge in the
transmission of meaning.

According to Lyons, (Language and Linguistics: 1981), the competence of a

speaker is purely linguistic as referred by Chomsky and agreed by linguists.
Language system is a social abstract phenomena, it has no physical

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existence, but which is actualized on particular occasions in language behavior of
individual members of the language community.

Chomsky claimed that linguistic competence can be identified with the typical
speaker`s knowledge of language system. While Sausser emphasized on the social
character of language system, “language system is closer to sociology and social
psychology” than to cognitive psychology as Chomsky claimed. Linguists believe
that language system should be studied separately. When we say that linguist who
is interested in language it implies that he is interested in the structure of language
system independently.

1.6 Language and speech:

Language is the process of communication of thoughts and feeling through a
system of signals, such as sounds, gestures, or written symbols. While speech is
the act of expressing or describing thoughts, feelings or perceptions by the
articulation of words.

It`s important to refer to the fact that principles of modern linguistic that spoken
language is more basic than written language. Although, it doesn’t mean that
language is identified merely with speech. There`s a distinction between language
signals and the medium in which the signals are realized. Based on that, it`s
possible to read what`s written and conversely to write what`s spoken. It`s
important to clearly highlight the mechanism of speech which can be described
separately for: understanding of speech (that`s spoken or written), and expression
of speech (that`s spoken or written). Thus, language has the property of medium
transferability.

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 Throughout the historical development of languages, scholars have come to
realize more clearly that in the language of written texts of different periods, could
be explained in terms of the changes in the spoken language.

There is no human society known to exist or have existed at any time in the past
without the capacity of speech. It has been proven experimentally that for men in
his present state of evolutionary development, sound, and audible sound that can
be produced by human speech organs, is the nature or biologically basic medium in
which language is realized. Almost every human child succeeds in learning
language. However, in the normal course of events, children acquire a command of
the spoken language naturally without special training. Whereas other language
skills such as reading and writing must be taught with special instruction, based
upon the child`s prior knowledge of a spoken language. Nevertheless, also adults
can learn to read and write without excessive difficulty and it`s quite possible to
learn a written language without a prior knowledge of its spoken part such as in the
case of deaf and dumb. The process of language learning must not be taken for
granted. Language seems like a basic instinct as simple as breathing or blinking. In
fact it is the most complex ability that a human being will ever master. Language
and speech development is merely an evolutionary operation of the human mind as
agreed by psychologists among linguists, as all of the above was declared by
Meyer, C. F. in (Introducing English Linguistics 2002).

1.7 The semiotic point of view:

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols as a system of communication

either spoken or non-spoken. There are common examples of semiotics that
involve traffic signs and emojis which are used in electronic communication.

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 According to Ferdinand de Sausser (Course in General Linguistics, 1986) a
sign is any motion, gesture, event or image that conveys a meaning. Therefore,
semiotics is the theory and study of signs and symbols as elements of language or
other systems of communication.

The literal meaning of semiotics is the theory of signs. As we know, any

language works with the help of particular signs and symbols, which are
interpreted in most different ways. Actually, there is a difference between a sign
and a symbol, a sign represents a single associative bond with the idea that it
conveys whereas a symbol represents multiple associative bonds with it. To clarify
it further, each gesture that we make, such as the nodding of the head, and the
movement of the hands, are signs for the others to interpret, while the traffic signs
are symbols that we are supposed to understand.

In order to convey a message, we use signs. Each sign is divided into two parts:
a signifier and a signified. For example, the word book refers to an object consisted
of many printed pages. Here, the word book is the signifier, while the idea that
comes to the mind is the signified. In brief, what is used as a sign in the form of a
word, sound or image is the signifier, and what is conveyed in the term of an idea
is the signified.

Different societies have different sets of signs and symbols for the same thing. It
means that the same object is named differently in different languages. For
instance, (water) in English is maa in Arabic, and acqua in Italian, etc. This
example shows the same object of nature is represented differently in different
societies.

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1.8 The fiction of homogeneity:

It can be defined as the belief or assumption that all members of the same
language community speak exactly the same language. The term language
community means there is no differences in pronunciation, grammar, or
vocabulary in the speech of its members.

Homogeneity is the state of being similar in kind or nature, and the homogenous
language is one that has a very few or no regional variations, accents and dialects
that can easily understood by its speakers anywhere it is spoken. There are obvious
differences of accent and dialect between the members of a particular language
community. An accent refers to the way in which the language is pronounced with
respect to grammar and vocabulary. For example, it is uncommon for a foreigner to
speak the language as its native speakers. And it is possible for two native speakers
to use the same dialect but to speak it with a recognizable different accent. Many
linguists included differences of accent under differences of a dialect. That means
that, the same dialect can be pronounced in strikingly different ways. A dialect is a
regional speech person variety, and it includes vocabulary and grammar as well as
pronunciation .It is obvious that, language is a composed of different dialects.
Additionally, dialects are spoken but languages include both spoken and written
aspects. Dialects are mostly contrasted with the standard language of a country and
generally are influenced by historical factors. It is better to imagine language as an
umbrella category for all of the dialects including the standard language, and the
accents are just one part of a dialect. Therefore, no one of the human languages is
homogenous. Languages change according to the time, geographical regions, sex,
social and economic groups, as explained by John Lyons, in (Language and
Linguistics.1981).

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 References:

 De Saussure, F. (1986). Course in general linguistics (3rd ed.). (R. Harris,

Trans.). Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company. (Original work
published 1972). p. 9-10, 15.
 Ferster, C. B., & Skinner, B. F. (1957). Schedules of reinforcement.
 Lyons, J. (1981). Language and Linguistics- An Introduction. Cambridge
University Press.
 Meyer, C. F. (2002). Introducing English Linguistics. Cambridge University
Press.
 Sharma R.K & Alashab O.S. An Introduction to linguistics.
 Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis.
New York: Appleton-Century.
 (Tom Graves- Ph.D. Linguistics Suny at Buffalo) retrieved from
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-such-thing-as-primitive-language.
 Yule, G. (2010). The study of Language. Cambridge University Press.

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