Language : The Features of Language

 

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.

                                                                                              Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind

 Language is an inseparable part of human life and society. Whatever else people do when they come together- whether they play, fight, make love, or make automobiles- they talk. We live in a world of languages. We talk to our friends, our associates; we talk face to face and over the telephone, and everyone responds with more talk. We also talk when there is no one to answer. The possession of language, perhaps more than any other attribute, distinguishes humans from other animals. To understand our humanity, one must understand the nature of language that makes us human. According to the philosophy expressed in the myths and religions of many peoples, it is language that is the source of human life and power.

 Language functions as a means or a system of communication that uses symbols, such as spoken or written words, gestures, or signs, to express thoughts, ideas, emotions, etc. when a child grows up, he/she  imitates others surrounding him/her .. It is a continuous and systematic process.   Thus, he/she learns language. The French term ‘langue’ encompasses the abstract systematic rules and conventions of a signifying system.

 Definition of language:

Speech represents the experience of the mind. According to Aristotle, language is the speech that humans produce to exchange their experiences, resulting in ideas and emotions.

Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, characterized language as a system of signs that express ideas. According to him, "Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. “He demanded that language is not just a collection of words but an orderly system of signs where each sign comprises two elements: Signifier: the sound or written form of a word. Signified: the concept or sense the word signifies.

 Leonard Bloomfield, an American linguist and a key figure in structural linguistics, defined language in a more scientific and behaviorist way. His famous definition is:

“Language is a system of arbitrary (instinctive) vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.”

Noam Chomsky (1957) in his Syntactic Structures defines language, “a set (finite or nonfinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements”.

 Thus, we can say that language is an arbitrary system of artificial sounds naturally generated by human beings for the purpose of interaction and communication with each other in their real-life situations.

Characteristics of language:

Language is human, so it differs from animal communication in several ways. language can have scores of characteristics or properties, but the following are the most significant ones:

language is arbitrary

Language is productive and creative

Language is human and complex

Language is verbal, vocal

The meaning of communication

Language is social

Language is non-instinctive, conventional

Language is creative and productive

Language is symbolic

Language is arbitrary

Language is systematic

Language is both linguistic and communicative competence.

Thus, we find that language is arbitrary, symbolic, systematic, human, non-instinctive, vocal, articulate, conventional, related to society and culture, open-ended and changing, structurally complex, natural, creative, habitual, collective, both oral and auditory, and functions as a means of communication.