THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE [ENG-I]

Language
Every creature strives to communicate with its own kind. One of the ways in which this
need is fulfilled by expressing thoughts in the medium of language. Language is the
bridge between individuals that tells them what they needed to convey. Language thus
gives self-expression and by extension of there identity. Language is a systematic and
conventional means of human communication by way of vocal sounds.

Functions of Language
1. Gives self-expression and identity. It tells our listeners or readers about ourselves-
in particular about our regional origins, social backgrounds, levels of education,
occupation, age, sex, and personality.
2. It gives shape to thoughts and emotions, and communicates these to intended
audiences.
3. It is the basic elements with which the history of the world has been recorded.
4. It is a time capsule that allows us to view and re-view any moment in the past of
literate man.
5. It is a repository of information.
6. To express judgment, opinions, assertions etc. It is used to say if a statement is
true or false.
7. To maintain social rapport between people to build and maintain relationship.
Language a means of communication
A COMMUNICATION MODEL

Encoding Transmission Reception Decoding

Communication happens when the decoder receives, decodes and understands the means
of the encoder.

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The encoder and the decoder are called the interlocutors (persons who take part in a
conversation)

Language is not only human phenomenon. Animals cry, hoot, bleat, coo, dance,
sing…….to communicate their message.
Sounds are basic units of language. But not sounds in themselves or in a jumble. Sounds
have to be meaningful. They acquire meaning when they organize themselves in an
intelligible combinations and forms as:

Sound Forms Meaning

Sounds >> Forms >> Meaning give us an intelligible(that can be understood), sensible
structure to understand the world around us.
3 level of analysis in language
These three components, in fact, represent the three fundamental dimensions of the
organization as well as the three levels of analysis in language- Phonological, syntactic
and semantic.
1. Phonological level: Sounds and their organization.
2. Syntactic level: forms and their organization.
3. Semantic level: Meaningful as manifested in the phonological and syntactic
levels.

Features of Human Language

1. Language is systematic:
It is system of system. Language is not a collection of sound and forms at
random but highly organized system in which each unit has its place and
value. Each sound is related to other sounds, each word is related to other
words to make meaning.
2. Vocal-auditory channel :
This means that the standard human language occurs as a vocal (making
sounds with the mouth) type of communication which is perceived by hearing

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 it. There are obvious exceptions: writing and sign language are examples of
communication in the manual-visual channel. However, the vast majority of
human languages occur in the vocal-auditory channel as their basic mode of
expression. Writing is a secondary, and somewhat marginal form of language,
while sign languages are in limited use, mostly among deaf people who are
limited in their ability to use the auditory part of the vocal-auditory channel.
3. Arbitrariness:
Human language is an arbitrary phenomenon. There is no natural connection
or relationship between a word and its meaning. The signifier and the
signified are brought together arbitrarily. E.g.1 Why is a table called a table?
Tables do not make noises similar to the word. (Hence No connection),we
cannot tell from the sound structure which meaning is behind it.
4. Open-Ended System:
The sounds, words and sentences in language may be finite or limited, but the
combinations and constructions are infinite or unlimited. Thus creative or
productive potential of the language enables its user to manipulate and make
infinite varieties of constructions to express himself or herself. So human gave
the ability to say things that have never been said before, including the
possibility to express invented things or lies.
5. Duality of structure:
Human language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously: at the
level of individual sounds like n,p,b,k, a……. but none of these individual sounds
have any meaning in themselves.Their meaning comes from the meaningful
combinations to produce words. Although our capacity to produce new
sounds(letter) is limited, we frequently coin new words. Hence our capacity to
produce vocabulary is unlimited.
6. Displacement:
This means that the speaker can talk about things which are not present, either
spatially or temporally. For example, human language allows speakers to talk
about the past and the future, as well as the present. Speakers can also talk about
things that are physically distant (such as other countries, the moon, etc.). They

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can even refer to things and events that do not actually exist (they are not present
in reality) such as the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause.
7.Meta-linguistic system: Human language can be used to talk about itself its
features, functions, varieties and levels of sophistications.
8.Traditional Transmission: Language is not genetically transmitted. It is
culturally transmitted and has to be consciously learned. This means that human
language is not something inborn. Although humans are probably born with an
ability to do language, they must learn, or acquire, their native language from
other speakers. This is different from many animal communication systems where
the animal is born knowing their entire system, e.g. bees are born knowing how to
dance and some birds are born knowing their species of bird-songs (this is not true
of all birds).
9. Language is an individual and social phenomenon: Language serves in
expressing individual needs and urges; it brings an individual into relationship
with the external world.
10. Human language is species-specific and species-uniform: Language is
specific to the home of the species and all human beings are capable of learning
the language in which they are born.

Theories of Language Acquisition

The Behaviorist Theory

Behaviorists believe that children learn to speak by imitation and parents then
reinforce or correct their speech constantly. They believe that the child is born
with an empty slate and language items are written on that mental slate as the
child grows and experiences the world which it is experienced.

The Rationalistic Theory

Rationalists argue learning is a much more complex process. The child is born
with all the facilities to learn the language. The linguistic ability is inherent in the
mind of the child. All that the child does is discover and test (Chomsky)

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The Cognitive Theory
According to this theory the children can only use certain linguistic structures
when they understand fully the concepts surrounding them. Piaget linked
language acquisition to a child's maturation. To use linguistic structures, they
must understand the concept. A child's comparison of size is difficult if the child
does not understand the concept of size. (Piaget)
Language keeps on changing pronunciation, sound patterns, vocabulary and
grammar features. Language is subject to a process of change handed down orally
from one generation to another. Sound changes-the sounds of spoken language do
not match up lot of time with letters of written English. Eg:- Knife (written) -nife
(pronounced)
Office (written) - Ofice (pronounced)

Pre-Language stage
The pre-linguistic sounds of the very early stages of child language acquisitions
are simply called “cooing” and “babbling”.
Cooing -when the child is around 3 months
Babbling – When the child is around 6-9 months (contain syllable type sounds
such as ma,da)

Two-Word Stage (18-20 Months)

The child's vocabulary moves beyond 50 distinct words by the time the child is 8
years old. A variety of combinations similar to “baby chair” (meaning put baby in
the chair) “mommy eat” (meaning I want to eat), “cat bad” (meaning the cat is
bad) etc, will have appeared.

Telegraphic Speech
Between 2-3 years, the child will begin producing a large number of utterance’s
which could be classified as multiple word utterances. Eg- Andrew want ball, cat
want milk, this shoe all wet etc.

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The child has clearly developed some sentence building capacity by this stage and
can order the forms correctly.

Care Taker Speech

The characteristically simplified speech style adopted by someone who spends a
lot of time interacting with a young child is called caretaker speech. It is also
known as “Motherese”. Eg- Food – mam.