CHARACTERISTICS OF A LANGUAGE

What is Language…..?

Many definitions of language have been proposed.

Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language scholar, stated:

“Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.”

The U.S. linguists Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager formulated the following definition:

“A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.”

Any concise definition of language makes a number of presuppositions and begs a number of questions. Also a number of considerations enter into a proper understanding of language as a subject e.g.

1. Every physiologically and mentally normal person acquires in childhood the ability to make use, as both speaker and hearer, of a system of vocal communication that comprises a circumscribed set of noises resulting from movements of certain organs within his throat and mouth. By means of these, he is able to impart information, to express feelings and emotions, to influence the activities of others.

2. Different systems of vocal communication constitute different languages; the degree of difference needed to establish a different language cannot be stated exactly. No two people speak exactly alike; hence, one is able to recognize the voices of friends over the telephone and to keep distinct a number of unseen speakers in a radio broadcast. Yet, clearly, no one would say that they speak different languages. Generally, systems of vocal communication are recognized as different languages.

3. Normally, people acquire a single language initially—their first language, or mother tongue, the language spoken by their parents or by those with whom they are brought up from infancy. Subsequent “second” languages are learned to different degrees of competence under various conditions, but the majority of the world's population remains largely monolingual. Complete mastery of two languages is designated as bilingualism; in a few special cases—such as upbringing by parents speaking different languages at home—speakers grow up as bilinguals, but ordinarily the learning, to any extent, of a second or other language is an activity superimposed on the prior mastery of one's first language and is a different process intellectually.

4. Language, as described above, is species-specific to man. Other members of the animal kingdom have the ability to communicate, through vocal noises or by other means, but the most important single feature characterizing human language (that is, every individual language), against every known mode of animal communication, is its infinite productivity and creativity.

Language interacts with every other aspect of human life in society, and it can be understood only if it is considered in relation to society. Because each language is both a working system of communication in the period and in the community wherein it is used and also the product of its past history and the source of its future development.

The science of language is known as linguistics. It includes what are generally distinguished as descriptive linguistics and historical linguistics. Linguistics is now a highly technical subject; it embraces, both descriptively and historically, such major divisions as phonetics, grammar, and semantics, dealing in detail with these various aspects of language.