WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

Definitions of Language

1. Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols (Sapir 1921: 8).

2. Language is an arbitrary system of articulated sounds made use of by a group of humans as a means of carrying on the affairs of their society (Francis 1958: 13).

3. Language is a system of arbitrary, vocal symbols which permit all people in a given culture, or other people who have learned the system of that culture, to communicate or interact (Finochiaro 1964: 8).

4. Language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements (Chomsky 1957: 13).

5. Language is an expression of human mind rather than a product of nature, is boundless in scope and is constructed on the basis of a recursive principle and that permits each creation to serve as a basis for a new creative act (Chomsky 1972: 102).

6. Language is a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings (Webster New International Dictionary of the English Language 1980).

Selectively Combined Definition:

Translated into Indonesian:

LINGUISTIC THEORIES SUMMARIZED

Q: What is LANGUAGE?

de Saussure: Language is a social fact. cf. Sociolinguistics

Language is a system of arbitrary signs.

Language is a system of functional differences.

The five dichotomies:

langue vs. parole

signifier vs. signified

paradigmatic vs. syntagmatic à (a) Sociolinguistics; (b) Poetics

synchronic vs. diachronic

form vs. substance

Bloomfield: Language is an observable verbal fact.

Language is primarily speech.

Language is a set of habits.

Every language is unique—structurally and culturally.

Chomsky: Language is a mental / psychological fact.

Language is innate.

Language is fundamentally creative

ß Language is a “mirror of the mind.”

Human language is basically the same à Universality

A good linguistic theory, according to Chomsky (1965), is internally simple and elegant, and externally meets conditions of adequacy: descriptive adequacy and explanatory adequacy.

Sociolinguists: Language is a social fact.

Language as a social fact varies (in form and function).

Linguistic variation correlates with social factors.

Ethnolinguists: Language is a cultural fact.

Language is a “mirror of the culture.”

Linguistic expressions reveal culture-specific beliefs and/or values.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis:

Language shapes people’s way of thinking / their thought patterns.

People’s thought patterns shape their culture:

Language à Thought Pattern à Culture

Ethno. & S-W Hypothesis combined:

Language ß à Thought Pattern ß à Culture

Jakobson: Language is to be seen as functions in a communicative act.

Language has 6 universal communicative functions: (a) expressive, (b) conative,

(c) referential, (d) poetic, (e) metalingual, and (f) phatic functions.

The poetic function: Projecting the principle of equivalence from the axis of

selection (paradigmatic axis) into the axis of combination (syntagmatic axis).

Other Linguistic Schools: the Prague School, the London School, the Hallidyan School …