What is language and its characteristics

1. Prof. R.R.Borse
Language

2. What is
Language ?
Definition….plz

3. Relationship
“?”
Language
Society

4.  Can we imagine a life or a single
day with a language?
 Why Can’t we live without
language?
 Is it an Oxygen?
 Isn’t body language sufficient?

5. What is Language –
Language is an integral part of human life.
It is not possible to live life without language.
Definitions of Laguage –
 1. Aristotle – “Speech is the representation of the experience of the
mind.
 2. Edward Sapir – “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive
method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of
a system of voluntarily produced symbols.
There are two terms in this definition that call for discussion:
human and non-instinctive. Language, as Sapir rightly said, is
human. Only humans possess language and all normal humans
uniformly possess it. Animals do have a communication system but
it is not a developed system. That is why language is said to be
species-specific and species-uniform.

6. Definitions of Laguage –
 3. Henry Sweet –
“Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech
sounds combined into words.”
 4. Bloch and Trager –
“Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of
which a social group cooperates.”
 5. J. Whatmough –
“Language is human-------a verbal systematic symbolism-----a
means of transmitting information------a form of social behaviour------
(with) a high degree of conventions.”

7. Definitions of Laguage –
 6. R.H. Robins –
“Language (is) a symbol system-----based on pure or arbitrary
conventions--------infinitely extendable and modifiable according to
the changing needs and conditions of the speakers.”
According to this definition, language is a symbol system.
Every language selects some symbols for its selected sounds. The
English sound /k/ for example has the symbol k for it. These symbols
form the alphabet of the language and join in different
combinations to form meaningful words.

8.  7. Noam Chomsky –
“ Language is the innate capacity of native speakers to
understand and form grammatical sentences.”
“A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each
finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements”.
Chomsky meant to convey that each sentence has a structure.
Human brain is competent enough to construct different sentences
from out of the limited set of sounds/symbols belonging to a
particular language. Human brain is so productive that a child can at
any time produce a sentence that has never been said or heard
earlier.

9. Other Definitions of Language –
• Encyclopaedia Britannica states that, “Language is
a system of conventional spoken or written
symbols by means of which human beings, as
members of a social group and participants in its
culture, communicate”.
• Johns Lyons states that, “Languages are the
principal systems of communication used by
particular groups of human beings within the
particular society (linguistic community) of which
they are members”.

10. In short….

11.  Language is, today, an inseparable part of
human society.
 Human civilization has been possible only
through language.
 It is through language only that humanity
has come out of the stone age and has
developed science, art and technology in a
big way.

12.  Language is God’s special gift to mankind.
 Without language human civilization, as we now know it,
would have remained an impossibility.
 Language is ubiquitous. It is present everywhere––in our
thoughts and dreams, prayers and meditations, relations
and communication.
 It is our ability to communicate through words that
makes us different from animals.
 Language is a very important means of communication
between humans.

13.  A can communicate his or her ideas, emotions, beliefs or
feelings to B as they share a common code that makes up
the language.
 No doubt, there are many other means of
communication used by humans (body language) e.g.
gestures, nods, winks, short-hand, Braille alphabet,
Morse code, acting, miming, dancing etc.
 But all these systems of communication are extremely
limited or they too, in turn, depend upon language only.

14.  Language gives shape to people’s thoughts and
guides and controls their entire activity.
 It is a carrier of civilization and culture as human
thoughts and philosophy are conveyed from one
generation to the other through the medium of
language.
 It is through language that they store knowledge,
transfer it to the next generation and yoke the
present, past and the future together.

15. Characteristics of a Language
1. Language is Arbitrary:
Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no inherent relation
between the words of a language and their meanings or the ideas conveyed by
them. There is no logical relation between a symbol and its sense (meaning),
between a word and the meaning attached to it. There are thousands of
languages used in the world. Eventhough an object or an animal is the same,
there are different words used for that animal or object in different languages.
For example, there is a four-legged domestic pet animal. In English, it is
‘dog’, in Marathi it is ‘kutra’, in Hindi it is ‘kutta’, in Gujarathi ‘kutaro’, in German
‘hund’, in Telugu ‘kukka’ and in Sanskrit ‘kukkur’.
The animal has been conventionally called by that word. If the speakers
of Marathi decide to call it by the name ‘paani’, there will be no difficulty in
communication.

16. Characteristics of a Language
2. Language is Social:
• Language is a set of conventional communicative signals used by humans for
communication in a community.
• Language in this sense is a possession of a social group, comprising an indispensable set of
rules which permits its members to relate to each other, to interact with each other, to co-
operate with each other; it is a social institution.
• Language exists in society; it is a means of nourishing and developing culture and
establishing human relations.
• Language is a powerful tool of communication used by human beings. A society is a group
of individuals. This group is impossible without a language.
• We can not think of a society which does not use language for communication. The
members in a society establish and maintain their relationships through verbal
communication. It is through language that social members interact with each other and
co-operate each other. Every society has its distinct culture. This culture is developed and
nourished only through language. It is language though which we can understand the
people, their social class, their beliefs, their values and their attitudes.

17. Characteristics of a Language
3.Language is Symbolic:/ Language is a system of Symbols
• Language consists of various sound symbols and their graphological counterparts that are
employed to denote some objects, occurrences or meaning.
• These symbols are arbitrarily chosen and conventionally accepted and employed. Words in
a language are not mere signs or figures, but symbols of meaning. The intelligibility of a
language depends on a correct interpretation of these symbols.
• Language is means or vehicle of communication. We communicate through language means
that we use symbols. A symbol is a word or thing which stands for something else.
• For example- ‘rose’ word stands for the feeling of love. ‘Red’ stands for love or danger.
• Communication through language means communicating through symbols. The symbols in
communication are sounds and words.
• We communicate our thoughts, ideas and emotions though sounds and words. Every
language has a fixed number of sounds.
• These sounds are divided into two broad classes: consonants and vowels.
• These sounds are combined in particular order/pattern to form meaningful words. If the
sounds are not combined in a permissible way, we produce a non-sense word.
• For example- there are three sounds in English-/t/,/ / and/k/. If they are combined in the
order / / /k/ /t/ we get a word ‘act’. If we change order /k/ / / /t/ we get ‘cat’. If we change
it as /t/ /k/ / / we get nonsense word ‘tca’. The first two words are permissible and the last
word is not.
• We must put these symbols in permissible way for communicate sensibly.

18. Characteristics of a Language
4. Language is Systematic:
• Although language is symbolic, yet its symbols are arranged in a particular system. All
languages have their system of arrangements. Every language is a system of systems.
• All languages have phonological and grammatical systems, and within a system there are
several sub-systems.
• For example, within the grammatical system we have morphological and syntactic systems,
and within these two sub-systems we have systems such as those of plural, of mood, of
aspect, of tense, etc.
• Language consists of speech sounds, words and morphemes. Every language has a system
of sounds, a system of words and a system of morphemes.
• These systems are called phonology, lexicology and morphology, grammar. Grammar again
has systems like articles, tenses, active-passive voice, prepositions, number and gender.
• Syntax is the study of sentence pattern. There is a sentence pattern ‘S+V+O’
(Subject+Verb+object). If these units are changed in order, a sentence is ungrammatical.
“I like tea” is a structurally correct sentence but “tea I like” is an ungrammatical sentence.
• So language is system of systems.

19. Characteristics of a Language
5.Language is Vocal:
• Language is primarily made up of vocal sounds only produced by a physiological articulatory
mechanism in the human body.
• We use articulators like lips, teeth, tongue and lungs for an oral language.
• All normal human beings produce the vocal symbols with the help of these articulators.
• In the beginning, it appeared as vocal sounds only. Writing came much later, as an intelligent
attempt to represent vocal sounds.
• Writing is only the graphic representation of the sounds of the language. So the linguists say
that speech is primary.
• Speech is primary and writing is secondary.
• We speak our mother tongue more than we write in it.
• There are many languages in the world which exist only in the spoken form. These languages
do not have the writing system. This also proves that language is vocal or language is nothing
but sound.
• Illiterate people use language without knowing how to write it.
• We learn speaking a language (mother tongue) much earlier than writing that language.

20. Characteristics of a Language
6.Language is Non-instinctive, Conventional/Cultural transmission :
• No language was created in a day out of a mutually agreed upon formula by a group of
humans.
• Language is the outcome of evolution and convention.
• Each generation transmits this convention on to the next. Like all human institutions
languages also change and die, grow and expand.
• Every language then is a convention in a community. It is non-instinctive because it is
acquired by human beings.
• No body gets a language in heritage; he acquires it because he an innate(inborn) ability.
• Language is non-instinctive means language is to be acquired.
• It can not be inherited. It is not inborn or instinctive. We can inherit(get) physical features
from our parents/relatives like shape of nose, color, forehead, height, etc.
• Language is a cultural transmission it can not be that a child will necessarily and
automatically acquire language of its parents.
• If the language of the child is Marathi, the child may acquire Hindi or English. It depends on
the situation or context(environment) in which the child is brought up.
• If a child is born in Jalgaon but brought up in Japan, it will acquire Japanese.
• This is because language is non-instinctive.
• Language is a cultural transmission and not a genetical transmission.

21. Characteristics of a Language
7.Language is Productive and Creative:
• Language has creativity and productivity.
•
• The structural elements of human language can be combined to produce new utterances,
which neither the speaker nor his hearers may ever have made or heard before any,
listener, yet which both sides understand without difficulty.
• Language changes according to the needs of society.
• Due to science and technology, language gets new words and sentences.
• For example- mobile, computer, internet, bulldozer, etc.
• We humans discover new words, new sentences or new pronunciations which were not
present in the past in that language.
• For example-
• Traditionally we use ‘Hi’,’Hello’ for greetings, now we use ‘what’s up’.
• We now say ‘bro’ or ‘sis’ than brother and sister.

22. Characteristics of a Language
8.Language is a ruled governed behaviour:
 Language is a rule governed behaviour. It includes systems like phonology, morphology,
grammar, syntax and semantics.
 We cannot use language as we like and we have to follow the rules of language.
 For example, grammar is a set of rules for using a language. Grammar includes the
systems like tense, articles, prepositions, voice, number and gender. If we want to form a
sentence in Present Simple Tense, we have to follow two rules-
i) If the subject of a sentence is third person singular(he/she/it), the verb takes ‘s/es’ suffix.
ii) If the subject of a sentence is first person singular (I) or plural (we,they), the verb does not
take the suffix ‘s/es’.
For example-
I like coffee
He likes coffee.
She wants this book.
 If the rules of language are not followed, the sentence produced will be ungrammatical.
 Using a language is nothing but the use of rules in that language.

23. Characteristics of a Language
9.Language is open-ended,extendable and modifiable:
 Language helps us to communicate our thoughts and experiences effectively.
 This means of effective communication is open-ended, extendable and modifiable.
 Language is open-ended means that new words always added to the vocabulary of
language.
 The vocabulary of a language enriches and increases according to the changing time and
needs of speakers.
 New words are added in the course of process of science and technology. For example, e-
mail,fax, modem, internet, download, etc. new words have been added to the vocabulary
of English language.
 Language is extendable and modifiable means that we can take a word and frame a
sentence. We can add a few more words and modify the sentences. For example-
Birds fly.
Birds fly in the sky.
Birds fly high in the sky.
Birds sitting on the branches fly very high in the sky.
 We can extend and modify a sentence. Of course, there are limits to the understanding of a
listener or reader.
 Within certain limits we can extend and modify sentences in language.

24. Characteristics of a Language
10.Language is Human/Species specific:
 It means that language is used by the human beings/human speakers only.
 Humans use language as a vehicle of communication.
 We express our thoughts, ideas, emotions and messages through language. Humans
possess an inborn ability to acquire language.
 By using language, human beings can communicate infinite number of messages and
thoughts. By using the same sentence structure they can form a limitless number of
sentence.
 For example- there is a sentence pattern in English –S+V+O (Subject+Verb+Object). By using
this pattern human beings can produce sentences like the following-
I like tea.
I love my country.
He plays cricket.
She eats mangoes.
They read novels.
 Practically speaking there is no end to this. Only humans have an inborn or inbuilt language
learning mechanism called ‘Language Acquisition Device’ (LAD).
 Only humans posses this mechanism.
 So language is a rare gift of God to man.

25. Characteristics of a Language
11.Language is a means of communication:
 Human beings have an inborn ability to express their thoughts, ideas, emotions and desires.
 They have the capacity to share information from one person to another person and from
one place to another place.
 Humans also use the system of flags, colors, facial expressions. But these other system of
communication like flags, colors, facial expressions are limited.
 Through language we can share a large number of messages.
 We can share any thought through language.
 No other system of communication is as perfect as language.