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THE NATURE OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

The nature of human language

 

For the Linguistics, a language is a system of arbitrary vocal sings and is rule-governed, creative, universal, innate, learned; All at the same time. It is distinctly human.

1.1      Fundamental beliefs about language

Like whatever belief, the preconceive ideas about language has wrong knowledge but at the same time it contains the seed to find the truth.

Some of these ideas are:

v Language gives expression to our thoughts;

v Language is used to transmit information, also known as its “communicative function”.

v Language is used to maintain social intercourse (as in greetings of talk about the weather) often referred to as its “phatic” function.

v Language provides the raw material for works of literature.

And other functions:  not only express thought.

ü Express emotions, or feelings.

ü Ask question, to make promises.

The most important and frequent function of language is it phatic function.

1.2      Linguistic Signs.

Signs are things that stand for or represent something else.

C.S. Peirce recognized 3 tipes:

1.   Iconic: Resemble the things they represent for example photograps, diagrams, quemical models.

2.   Indexical:  Connection with the things they represent for example smoke to fire, smile to happiness.

3.   Symbolic: conventionally related to the representation.

Ex: Flag to nation, Rose to love.

1.3       The rule – governed nature of language.

ü  Language consists of signs occurring in a system.

ü  System is smaller units which stand in relation to each other and performs particular functions.

ü  These smaller rulers are organized on rules, therefore language is rules, therefore language is rule – governed.

1.4       Language universals, innateness and creativity.

ü  Universals: In terms of the syntax of a language, all language vary significantly but in a deeper level, they share certain universals.

ü  Innateness: We are born with an inborn capacity for language acquisition.

ü  Creative: Human beings can produce and understand novel sentences and new words.

We can create sentences of infinite length.

1.5      Animal Communication codes:

Animals have communication but are different from human language: Is indexical and stimulus bound.

Do not distinguish time of space. Is iconic and natural but do not symbolic   the animal codes are finite, innate and concrete, don’t abstract language.