What is language?

UNIT 1: WHAT IS LANGUAGE? Unique features of

human language

UNIQUE FEATURES OF
HUMAN LANGUAGE
Structure
1.0 Introduction

1.1 Objectives

1.2 Definitions of Language

1.3 The Origin of Language

1.4 Functions of Language

1.5 Knowing a Language

1.6 The Uniqueness of Human Language

1.7 Let Us Sum Up

1.8 Answers

1.9 Suggested Reading

1.0 INTRODUCTION
“Man is man through language alone”, said Humboldt.

What then is this unique facility called language, which sets us apart from other
creatures, helps us respond to our environment and above all, enables us to reflect
on the very essence of our being? Language is that system by which sounds and
meanings are related (Fromkin and Rodman, 1974). Language communication and
human needs are unquestionably linked. Human beings have various needs “ individual,
social, emotional, economic, political and cultural “ and it is to fulfill these that human
beings need language. Even the youngest infant expresses its needs which are primarily
biological to begin with. As the infant grows and his/her needs become more complex,
so does its language. From the stage of whimpering in discomfort or gurgling with
pleasure, the individual reaches the stage where s/he starts reflecting on his/her
needs.

Language does not exist in a vacuum. It serves and is moulded by other systems in
the human mind. Since language is used to convey ideas, its structure and function
must reflect these ideas. Besides, since it exists within a complex social and cultural
system, it is moulded by these aspects as well. Language pervades and is pervaded
by all aspects of our lives.

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Nature of Language
1.1 OBJECTIVES
After going through this unit, you should be able to:

critically analyze the definitions of language given by various linguists and scholars;

understand the functions of language;

discuss various theories of the origins of language;

distinguish language from other forms of communication, especially animal

communication.

1.2 DEFINITIONS OF LANGUAGE

Language is a term, which due to its range of applications, has prompted innumerable
definitions. Some of these focus on the general concept of ‘language’, others on
more specific aspects of ‘a language’ and yet others on its more formal features like
phonology, grammar and semantics. Then there are also those which emphasize on
its range of functions or those which stress the differences between language and
other forms of human and animal communication. The range of definitions given
below amply illustrates this point. ‘Language is a purely human and non-instinctive
method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced
symbols.’ (E. Sapir, 1911)

‘A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members

of a society interact in terms of their total culture.’ (G. Trager, 1949)

‘A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed
of a finite set of elements.’ (N. Chomsky, 1957)

‘Language is the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each
other by means of habitually used oral - auditory arbitrary symbols.’ (R.A. Hall,
1964)

‘Audible, articulate meaningful sounds as produced by the action of the vocal organs.’
(Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Vol.2, 1971)

‘Language is the most sophisticated and versatile means available to human beings
for the communication of meaning.’ (Brown, 1984)

‘Language is patterned system of arbitrary sound signals, characterized by structure

dependence, creativity, displacement, duality, and cultural transmission.’ (Aitchison,
1987).

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 What is language?
Check your progress 1 Unique features of
human language
1 You’ve read the various definitions of language. Now, write your own definition of
language.

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2 What are the functions of language which emerge from these definitions? Name at
least two functions.

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1.3 THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

Language seems to be a highly developed form of animal signaling. But how and
when did we start to talk? Numerous philosophers have speculated on the origin of
language, resulting in the extensive collection of theories that we have with us. It is
a question which even today attracts much attention.

In the early part of the eighteenth century, theories of the origin of language proposed
that language was of Divine Origin. According to them man was created and at the
moment of his creation, speech was provided to him as a divine gift. In the biblical
story about the Garden of Eden, God created Adam and speech simultaneously, for
God spoke with Adam and Adam answered him – the language they used was
Hebrew.

Other cultures too propagated the divine origin of language “ the Egyptians, for
example, considered themselves the oldest civilization and therefore theirs was the
original language, passed down through their god-ancestor. One of their rulers –
Psammetichus is said to have tried an experiment to test this theory. He had two
babies from an ordinary family raised in isolation. When they were two years old,
the babies abruptly said “becos”, which in Phrygian means “bread”. Psammetichus
believed that this proved his theory that Phrygian was the original language.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, speculation on the origin of language
moved from the realm of divine origin and fancy to what is called the “organic phase”
with the publication of Johann Gottfried von Herder’s ‘On the Origin of Language’
(1772). According to him, language was too imperfect to have been a divine gift; it
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Nature of Language
came about through human being’s own groping efforts towards reasoning. “Language”,
he argued, “was the result of an instinctive impulse, similar to that of an embryo
pressing to be born.”

Darwin argued against any distinctly “human” quality of language. In his Descent of
Man (1871), he proposed that there is only a difference of degree between the
language of man and the cries of animals. According to him, human language came
from a more primitive form, probably expressions of emotions. For example, a
feeling of contempt is accompanied by the action of puffing air out through the nose
or mouth and this makes sounds such as “pooh”, or “pish”. Darwin’s contemporary
Max Muller, disagreed with him and scornfully named this the Pooh-Pooh theory.

Muller proposed what he called the Ding-Dong theory of the origin of language.
According to his theory there was a mystic correlation between sound and meaning.
Primitive man had an instinct by which every impression from without received vocal
expression from within. Just like every object when struck by a solid body gives off
a particular sound, so also a human being’s mind gives off a particular response to
the various impacts the world makes upon it. Muller later rejected his own theory.

Muller proposed another theory called the Bow-Wow theory – also referred to as
Onomatopoetic or Echoic theory. The theory suggests that first words were imitative
of natural sounds – the cry of birds, the call of animals, etc. Although Muller rejected
this theory too; it is true that virtually every language has some percentage of echoic
words in its vocabulary – ‘babble’, ‘rattle’, ‘ripple’, etc., are some English examples.
An argument against this has been that we hear and imitate the sounds of nature
within the limitations of our first language. A popular example of this cultural influence
is the roosters crowing – in English it is cock-a-doodle-doo; in French, coquerico;
in Russian, kukuiku; in German, kikeriki, etc.

Modern theorists propose that speech is not simply a manipulation of physical organs.
Concomitant psychological development was essential to the development of language.
Each person has different impressions of the world that s/he perceives. In order to
formulate a credible theory of the origin of language, it is important to learn about
the psychological development of early man.

Anthropologists believe that the factors that led to the development of the species
Homo sapiens, also led to the development of language – the upright posture gave
humans additional visual range, their eyes became stereoscopic, further improving
their vision. The cerebral cortex, virtually non-existent in the lower creatures, developed
tremendously in the evolving human. It was with this major development that the
human being graduated to reasoning powers – and began to speak.

Language evolved from the human need to communicate. It developed in a social

situation and was needed to spread information amongst the members of a group.
Each benefitted from the others’ experience and communicated through language.
Subsequently the whole working of the human society, through a division of labour
has been due to language. With an increase in the complexity in society, there was
a concomitant increase in the development of language.

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 What is language?
Check your progress 2 Unique features of
human language
1 What is the name given to the theory which holds that the origin of human speech
comes from the sounds heard by humans in their environment?

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2 Suggest three reasons why people talk.

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3 Can you think of any onomatopoeic sounds in your mother tongue? List them

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1.4 FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE

How language began continues to be somewhat of a puzzle but why language evolved
seems clearer. Perhaps as Jean Aitchison says, it began because human beings
needed to cooperate in order to survive, and for efficient cooperation a satisfactory
mode of communication was required.

Language is a complex phenomenon with multiple functions. Various linguists have

tried to understand and elucidate the functions of language. Roman Jakobson defined
six primary functions of language according to which an effective act of verbal
communication can be described. These functions are:

The referential function:

This function is primarily used to convey information which was one of the primary
reasons that language was discovered. Descriptions of situations, objects and even
mental states come under this.

The expressive function:

This function reports feelings or attitudes of the speaker or writer and it is also meant
to evoke feelings in the listener or reader. This form of communication can also
happen when we are alone. For example, if my mobile phone falls into a bucket of
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Nature of Language
water, what do you think I’m likely to say to myself? Probably use a swear word.
We can also utter emotive utterances of a positive nature, especially when we sight
something of great beauty “Wow, isn’t that beautiful!”

The directive function:

This function engages the addressee directly and is usually used for the purpose of
causing or preventing an action. It is therefore found in commands and requests
and requires the use of vocatives and imperatives, example, “Adit, come here at
once”, “Please shut the window.”

The phatic function:

This involves language for the sake of social interaction. This function can be observed
in greetings “Hi, how are you” and casual discussions about the weather, i.e. “It’s so
hot these days”.

The poetic function:

This function focuses on the message for its own sake, and is used in poetry as well
as in slogans. This is an aesthetic function of language.

The metalingual function:

This function is used to talk about language itself as we are doing in this unit.

However, it is very rare for any piece of discourse to serve only one function, unless
it is a very specialized and restrictive piece of discourse; most ordinary kinds of
discourse are mixed.

Check your progress 3

Given below are sentences expressing one of the functions. Indicate the appropriate
function against each.

i “It looks like it may rain, doesn’t it?”

ii Tired eyes,
Aching feet,
The commuters scramble
For a seat.

iii Don’t touch my papers.

iv India has a long tradition of grassroots bilingualism.

v The picture looks so pretty!

vi The place looked neat and clean.

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 What is language?
1.5 KNOWING A LANGUAGE Unique features of
human language

When people come together they use language. We use language to communicate
our thoughts and ideas amongst our friends and acquaintances. It is this facility which
is said to distinguish humans from animals. But we rarely reflect on this superior
ability that we possess “ the basis of our humanness. In fact, our use of language is
so spontaneous and natural that we pay no more attention to it than we do to our
breathing or to the beating of our hearts. We take language too much for granted.
Just for a brief while, try and imagine what our life would be like without language.
Extremely difficult, if not impossible! What then is this unique thing called language.
What does it mean when we say we “know” a language?

Normally when we say we know a language, it implies that we can speak to and be
understood by people who know that language. This means that we are able to
produce certain sounds, which are naturally interpretable as having a certain meaning.

Since all of us know at least one language and are able to use it without making much
of a conscious effort, why do we need to discuss it? Exactly this is the objective of
the unit “ to make us aware that the ability to carry on the simplest conversation
requires a profound knowledge of the language of which speakers are unaware. A
speaker can produce the most complicated sentences without being aware of the
principles and rules that govern their formation.

So what is this specific knowledge possessed by speakers of a language? In other

words, what does knowledge of a language mean?

1.5.1 Knowledge of the Sound System

When we say we know a language, we imply that we know the sounds which are
a part of that language, and by default which sounds are not. This fact becomes quite
clear when speakers of a particular language pronounce words from another language.
For example, a speaker of Bengali, Assamese or Oriya is not able to articulate the
distinction between the sounds ‘b’ and ‘v’. When they say the word ‘Vivek’ it
comes out as ‘bibek’. The very fact that they mispronounce it reveals they are
unconscious of this fact. They are able to distinguish it when they encounter it in the
written form or when another person is speaking those words, but are unable to
articulate the distinction properly themselves.

It is not enough that speakers of a language know only the permissible sounds of
their language “ they also possess an unconscious knowledge of the permissible
sound combinations and also the position in which these sounds can occur in a word.
When a speaker of one language encounters a word which has a different sound
combination than that which is permissible in his/her language, s/he will in all probability
mispronounce that word.

1.5.2 Knowledge of the Meaning of Words

Knowing a language also means that you know how to relate sound to meaning, i.e.,
apart from a knowledge of the sounds and sound patterns, it is important to know
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Nature of Language
that certain sound sequences signify certain meanings. This is obvious to us when we
hear a “foreign” or unknown language “ the string of syllables that the speaker of that
language produces are incomprehensible to us, but the speakers seem to be conveying
a lot to each other. This then also tells us that the relation between sound and the
meaning it signifies is arbitrary.

Many languages share many sounds but the way in which they combine them to form
words and the meaning that they assign to even a similar combination is not the same.
This at times can have amusing consequences. For example, Bulgarian and Hindi
share a sound sequence ‘kutia’, which in the former means a ‘box’, while in the latter
it refers to a ‘female dog’. This shows very clearly how sound and the meaning
attached to it is arbitrary. The corollary to this is that a particular concept will be
represented in different languages by different sound sequences.

There are some words in most languages whose pronunciation suggests the meaning
– these are referred to as onomatopoeic or echoic words. Sounds of these words
imitate sounds of nature. But even here there may be a variation from language to
language. The most well known example is the cock’s crow that we referred to
earlier on in this unit.

Sometimes particular endings suggest a certain meaning. For example, in Hindi, the
/I/ ending suggests a diminutive or feminine aspect – /dibbi/, /ladli/, etc.

But even if a person knows all the correct sound combinations and their meanings
in a language, one could not say that s/he “knows” the language. Knowledge of a
language also means that you know how to combine words to form phrases and
further to be able to combine phrases to form sentences. Since it is not possible for
a person to memorize all the possible sentences of a language, it is obvious that using
language also means being creative – there are many sentences a person speaks
which s/he has never spoken or heard before. This is essentially what is meant by
creativity of language, i.e. the ability to “create” and understand novel sentences
which one has never uttered before.

1.5.3 Knowledge of Appropriate Social Context

Just being able to create novel sentences is not enough, one must know exactly
where they can be used i.e., one must have a knowledge of the appropriate contexts
for their use. This is the social aspect of language. To communicate effectively, we
should know what kind of response is expected in a particular situation. If you
respond by saying “the weather is very fine”, when someone asks you your name,
it would not be appropriate, although your answer would not be grammatically
incorrect. Words and tones have the property of bringing to mind associations with
things and ideas, and communication is possible to the degree that the speaker and
hearer have similar associations. Words and tones are therefore symbols with meanings.
Since context determines and modifies the meanings of what is said, we must attribute
meaning potentials to the contexts also.

A language then, consists of the sounds, words and possible sentences. When we
say that we know a language, we mean that we know the sounds and the words and
the rules for their combination and use in appropriate social contexts.
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