WHAT IS LANGUAGE

 What is the nature of the relationship

between signs and what they signify?
 What are the elements of language?
 What enable us to produce and understand
sentences we have never before?
 How do languages achieve their
communicative goals?
 What is the origin of language?
 What makes it so challenging for an adult to
learn a language?
So what is language?
 it is the symbols we use in order to communicate with one another,
and the rules that govern how we use them


 NOUN:

◦ Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals,

such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols.
◦ Such a system including its rules for combining its components, such as words.
◦ Such a system as used by a nation, people, or other distinct community; often
contrasted with dialect.
◦ A system of signs, symbols, gestures, or rules used in communicating: the
language of algebra.
 Body language; kinesics.
 A characteristic style of speech or writing: Shakespearean language.
 A particular manner of expression: profane language; persuasive
language.
 The manner or means of communication between living creatures
other than humans: the language of dolphins.
 Verbal communication as a subject of study.

 When we study human language, we are approaching what
some might call the “human essence,” the distinctive
qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man .
Naom Chomsky, Language and Mind



 When people know a language, they must know how speech
sounds relate to meanings. When speaking, we produce
sounds and our hearers hear sound.
 Speech sounds are the medium we use to represent what it is
we are saying.
 content + meaning : both speaker & hearer know the
meaning
 i) Language is a code
 ii)Linguistic symbols have function & form
 iii) Linguistics units are constructed according to rules


 iv) Language is specifically human
 v) Language use is creative
 vi) Language use is constrained




 No TWO words of a language have exactly
the same meaning.

Human language

 "human system of communication that uses

arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds,
gestures, or written symbols."
 Language is often viewed as a vehicle of
thought, a system of expression that
mediates the transfer of thought from one
person to another.
 It serves equally important social and
emotional functions.
Three faces of Language
System
 Expression + context = meaning
 E.g : Is there a state income tax in China?
 E.g : Is there any salt on the table?
SIGNS : Arbitrary &
Nonarbitrary
 Signs – indicators of something else
 Nonarbitrary signs– have a direct, causal
relationship to the things they indicate.
 E.g : smoke, clouds

 Arbitrary signs : have no causal or inherent
connection, can be changed. The arbitrary
indicators can be present even when the
thing indicated is absent (bachelor wearing
wedding ring)
 E.g traffic lights
Language is a system of arbitrary sign
 Onomatopoeic words
 It is known as sound symbolism – words whose
pronunciation suggests the meaning

 is one or more words that imitate or suggest the
source of the sound they are describing.
Common occurrences include animal noises,
such as "oink" or "meow" or "roar".
Onomatopoeia are not universally the same
across all languages; they conform to some
extent to the broader linguistic system they
are part of; hence the sound of a clock may be
tick tock in English and tik tak in Dutch or tic-
tac in French.
INTRODUCTION TO
LINGUISTICS
 Linguistics is the science of language,
including the sounds, words, and grammar
rules.
 Words in languages are finite, but sentences
are not.
 The rules of a language, also called
grammar, are learned as one acquires a
language.

Rules of grammar

 Phonology – sound system

 Morphology – structure of words
 Syntax – combination of words into
sentences
 Semantics – the ways in which sounds and
 meanings are related
 LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE &
PERFORMANCE
 Our linguistic knowledge permits us to form
longer & longer sentences by joining
sentences & phrases together or adding
modifiers to a noun.
 There is a difference between having the
knowledge necessary to produces
sentences of a language and applying this
knowledge.
 Linguistic competence – what we know
 Linguistic performance –
 how we use this knowledge in actual speech

production
 WHAT IS GRAMMAR
 1) Descriptive – unconscious knowledge of language
 e.g : me likes X
 I like /
 - do not teach the rules of language
 - describe rules that are already known


 2) Prescriptive – dictate what a specific grammar should be

 UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
 There are rules of particular languages, e.g
English- that form part of the individual
grammars of the language.
 There are rules that hold in all languages
 It is the universal concepts & properties that
are shared by all languages.