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What is a language [autosaved]
- 2. Linguistics is the science of language(s). It generally a descriptive discipline rather than a prescriptive one. Linguistics is science which can either be studied in a theoretical or a more applied way.
- 3. It is a particular form of words and speech used by the people of a country, area or social group. “The method of human communication using spoken or written words”.
- 4. Most linguists would probably agree that although many animals are able to communicate. They do not actually have ‘language’ in the sense that humans do. Birds may sing, cats meadow etc. ‘Language’ is therefore a major attribute distinguishing us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
- 5. Displacement This is the ability to use language to talk about times, places and people other than the ‘here and now’. It also enables us to say things which we know to be false i.e. to lie. Bees are said to be able to convey some of this information in their ‘dance’ which they employ to pass on information about food sources.
- 6. Arbitrariness This means that there is generally no natural, inherent relationship between the signs (i.e. sounds or letters) we produce and their meaning. Arbitrariness also enables languages to evolve, both in the sense that existing signs can comet mean new things but also that new signs can be introduced for existing things.
- 7. Productivity it is an important characteristic of human language allowing us to continuously create new utterances, combining the ‘building bricks’ of language in ever new ways, whether these be sounds, words or sentences. Human languages are therefore continually evolving.
- 8. Cultural Transmission This refers to how languages are acquired by our children. The assumption is that there is no genetic component (although Noam Chomsky challenges this with his theory of Universal Grammar) which would enable a child to simply start speaking.
- 9. Duality Duality (or ‘double articulation’) refers to two separate layers of language working together to provide us with a pool of sounds which we can combine to communicate with one another.
- 11. Language is a cognitive skill and one therefore whose roots are situated in the evolution of the brain. when our ancestors began to speak (estimates vary from 30,000 – 100,000 years ago), or even what triggered them to do so, but once they started, there was no stopping them. From such humble beginnings the 5,000 – 6,000 languages we assume to exist today have evolved.
- 12. Aphasia has been able to show that there are two major areas of the brain.Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, situated in the left hemisphere and named after the two physicians who first discovered them in the 19th century.
- 13. Linguistics is the science of language(s). It is generally a descriptive discipline rather than a prescriptive one. Linguistics is a science which can either be studied in a theoretical or a more applied way.