Language
Sukanya
Introduction
Language is a “ means of communicating ideas or feelings by
the use of conventionalized sounds and signs, thus, being the
spoken and written language”
It is a human tendency to communicate with others and this
could underlie the emergence of language.
Montessori said, “To talk is in the nature of man.”
Language uses both mental and external representations
Functions
The important function of language is to use symbols to convey
meaning.
Humans, use words, or pattern of sound, to refer to objects,
events, beliefs, desires, feelings and intentions.
Clark & Clark in 1977 explained that languages share four
elementary properties.
They observed that
children can learn them,
adults can speak and understand them easily,
they capture the ideas and information that people generally communicate,
and this can further enable communication among groups of people in a
social and cultural context.
Language is considered to be the most refined and sophisticated
human ability.
Structure of language
1. Phonology
2. Syntax
3. Semantics
4. Morphology
5. Pragmatics
Phonology
The study of linguistic sounds is known as phonology.
It refers to the congregation of sounds made by the mouth,
tongue, vocal chords and so on, whose combination produces
speech.
The basic unit of speech is the phoneme.
Each phoneme is produced by the vocal apparatus in the unique
manner.
The /p/ of pay and the /b/ of bay are pronounced nearly
identically; they differ only in that the vocal cords vibrate for /b/
but not for /p/.
This difference is called voicing.
Another distinction in which languages differ from each other is in
terms of the sorts of phonemes that are used.
Contd..
Phonemes basically consist of consonants, such as /d/, /b/,
or vowels, such as /i/, /a/.
Phonemes are also voiced as (/b/, /k/, /g/, etc.) or
voiceless (/s/, /t/, etc.), and are characterized as such based
on the location at which the initial sound burst is made,
whether it is in the vocal chords (voiced) or within the
mouth (voiceless).
Syntax
The grammatical rules that specify how words and other
morphemes are arranged to yield acceptable sentences are
called syntax.
study of grammar that contains a set of rules by which people
speak and write correctly.
A sentence consists of a number of words.
The way words are put together to form sentences is known
as syntax.
It is used in the rules of language. The grammar helps in
placing the words in the correct order to form meaningful
sentences.
Contd..
For example, if we transpose two words in the sentence
‘the dog bit the man’ to form ‘the man bit the dog’, we create
an entirely different meaning.
In English, the first noun is the subject of the sentence and the
second noun is usually the object. Between them is usually a
verb.
Thus in the previous example the sentence are of the form of
the (Subject), (Verb) and the (Object), and this is known as an
S-V-O word order.
It has been estimated that 75 per cent of all languages use the S-
V-O form
Semantics Syntax
Semantics syntax alone is insufficient to abstract meaning
from a sentence, whereas semantics is the study of meaning.
The theory of semantics must explain how people mentally
represent the meanings of words and sentences.
The expression of one’s thoughts and their comprehension by
listeners or readers obviously depend on these mental
representations.
The obvious example of this would be that formation of
sentences depends on S-V-O word order. But it would hold
no meaning if meaningful representation is not achieved, as
in the sentence ‘the jumper milked the sideboard’.
Contd..
The study of semantics is concerned with how we process the
meaning of linguistic information.
There are five aspects of language that are important for the study
of semantics
Ambiguity : Words can have more than one meaning and this can
make a sentence ambiguous, as in go to the right table – does this
instruction refer to the correct table or the table on the right-hand
side?
Anomaly : This is a sentence with correct syntax but one that has no
meaning, as in tables fly long hairs in the air.
Entailment In our language we often say something that conveys more
information than that contained in the sentence, as in Rita is my best
friend, who further also reveals, by inference, and that my best friend
is female.
Contd..
Conflicting meanings : A sentence may contain items that
appear to contradict with one another, as in the example of
my cat is not my pet. Generally, my cat and my pet would be
synonymous, except that here the word does not create a
conflict. It also means the cat is something more than just a
pet.
Implication: Words and sentences can have more than one
meaning; Eg : Students hate annoying lecturers. It could lead
to two interpretations: those students dislike those lecturers
who can be annoying or that students dislike annoying their
lecturers.
Morphology
Phonemes : Basic physical unit of speech
Morphemes: are the basic units of word meanings.
Morphemes include prefixes (pre-, un-, mis-, dis-, and so on)
and suffixes (such as -s, -ness, -d, and so on) as well as
individual words.
The word skirts have two morphemes, skirt (article of
clothing) and s (a suffix to denote more than one of these
items).
Morphemes which include most prefixes and suffixes are not
words by themselves but are therefore said to be bound.
Morphemes that are words by themselves are said to be free.
Pragmatics
The last aspect in the language structure is known as
pragmatics.
Language is used differently for referring to many different
contexts.
Pragmatics concerns about the social rules that determine
how language is used in certain contexts.
For example,
you might describe your college differently to a future
employer than you would to a close friend.
In the former, you might emphasize on the academic aspects of
being a student at the college, but in the latter you might
emphasize the social aspects of college life.
Contd..
According to Grice (1975) conversations in different contexts
vary according to four maxims.
Thus a discourse can be:
Highly informative versus weakly informative;
Completely truthful or untruthful;
Most relevant or irrelevant;
Perfectly clear or completely unclear.
People vary on each aspect depending upon with whom they are
conversing.
So, for example, someone who is lying to their boss about why they
didn't turn up to work might use a discourse that is weakly
informative, untruthful, irrelevant and unclear.
On the other hand, the same person talking to a friend might use a
discourse that is informative, truthful, relevant and clear.
Contd..
Other rules of conversation have been identified that concern
the type of utterance that might be used (Searle, 1979):
An assertive is a statement of opinion or belief, as in “I study
more than my fellow students do”.
A commissive is a statement that commits the speaker to some
action, as in “I am going to study for three hours this evening”.
A declaration is a factual statement, as in I spent two hours
watching TV yesterday evening.
A directive is an instruction directed at the listener, as in “Carry
these books for me”.
An expressive is a description of the speaker's internal state, as
in “I'm so pleased I got an A+ for my cognitive psychology
essay”.
Contd..
Therefore the pragmatic dimension of language stresses the
essential point that language involves a dialogue (Clark,
1996).
Speaking is bilateral activity in which it is equally important
to listen to what others say in response to utterances. Not
only, must a speaker engage in self-monitoring behaviour to
avoid an error or miscommunication, but he or she must also
monitor listeners for their understanding of what is said.
