HUMAN LANGUAGE

1. Arbitrary and vocalic

- Language is undoubtedly arbitrary as there is no inherent connection between the
nature of things or concepts the speech deals with. However, those things and ideas are
expressed, and there is no reason why different communities pronounce a ‘single term’
differently.
- A word was chosen to mean a specific thing or idea is arbitrary. It might be noticed that
if a language had not been arbitrary, there would have been just a single language that
remained throughout the world. That is why we can consider language as an arbitrary
vocal symbol.

2. Symbolic

- Language signifies a symbolic system, and it consists of different sound symbols for concepts,
things, ideas, objects, etc. Language has sounds and words as their symbols.

- The language uses words as symbols and not as signs for the concept represented by them.
The core value of a language sometimes relies on the proper explanation of these symbols.

3. Rule – governed

- signs occurring not in a random collection, but in a system.

- a system consisting of smaller units which stand in relation to each other and perform
particular functions.

- these smaller units are organized on certain principles, or rules> language is said to be rule –
governed.

*) Syntatic rules: ordering of words within phrases (e.g: v-adv/adj-n).

*)Semantic rules: meaning of individual words (e.g: association of recognizing the idea as the
word).

*) Pragmatic rules: implications of interpretations of statements (e.g: context and tone of voice).

4. Universal:

A pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially, true for all of them.

- A finite set of fundamental principles that are common to all languages; e.g., that a sentence
must always have a subject, even if it is not overtly pronounced.
- A finite set of parameters that determine syntactic variability amongst languages; e.g., a
binary parameter that determines whether or not the subject of a sentence must be overtly
pronounced (this example is sometimes referred to as the Pro-drop parameter).
5. Innate:
people are born with an inborn capacity for language acquisition and are genetically equipped to
learn a language ( not a specific language, but human language in general)
6. Creative:
-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.
- We can create sentences of (theoretically) infinite length.

7.Human:

- Language is human as it differs from animal communication in several ways. The characteristics
highlighted above set apart language from animal communication forms.

THREE FACES OF HUMAN LANGUAGE:

 Expression encompasses words, phrases, and sentences, including intonation and stress.

 Meaning refers to the senses and referents of these elements of expression.

 Context refers to the social situation in which expression is uttered and includes whatever
has been expressed earlier in that situation. It also relies on generally shared knowledge
between speaker and hearer.

 What links expression and meaning is grammar.

 What links grammar and interpretation is context.

 Without attention to both grammar and context, we cannot understand how language works.

THREE MODES OF LINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION:

1. Oral communication:
o Speech: a primary mode of human language with some advantages over other modes:
o speech can accomplish its work effectively in darkness and in light
o the human voice is complex and has variable volume, pitch, rhythm, and speed > it’s capable
of wide-ranging modulation
o Speech takes advantage of the organization of the sounds, their sequencing into words and
sentences.
o Like writing and signing, speech can take advantage of word choice and word order.
2. Writing:
o Some advantages of writing over speech
o it can be read and understood much more quickly than speaking can be heard and
understood, although it generally takes longer to produce than speech.
o Writing (in correspondence or books or on cave walls) endures longer than non-recorded
speech and if published has a greater reach.
o A message on a blackboard can be read after its author has left the room; not so for a
spoken utterance.
3. Signing:
o the use of visible gestures to communicate
o speakers often use gestures and facial expressions to convey meaning in support of oral
communication
o signing can be used as the sole means of accomplishing the work of language.
BRANCHES OF LINGUITICS:

1. Phonetics

the study of the speech sounds of human language in general

- from the perspective of their production (“articulatory phonetics”),

- from their perception (“auditory phonetics”), or

- from their physical properties (“acoustic phonetics”)

2. Phonology

the study of the speech sounds of a particular language

3.Phonetic

the study of the speech sounds of human language in general

- from the perspective of their production (“articulatory phonetics”),

- from their perception (“auditory phonetics”), or

- from their physical properties (“acoustic phonetics”) .

4. Morphology

 the study of the structure or form of words in a particular language, and of their classification

 considers principles of word formation in a language:

o how sounds combine into meaningful units such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots (as in re-
mind-er),

o which of these units are distinctive and which are predictable variants (such as the different
forms of the indefinite article, a and an), and

what processes of word formation a language characteristically uses, such as compounding (as in
road-way) or suffixing (as in pave-ment)

5. Semantics

- the study of how meaning is conveyed in words, phrases, or clauses

- focuses either on meanings related to the outside world (“lexical meaning”) or meanings
related to the grammar of the sentence (“grammatical meaning”)

6. Pragmatics
- the study of the functions of language and its use in context