Have you ever wondered about your medium of communication? Have you ever thought what is this language through which you can express your feelings and knowledge so well? Have you ever tried to get to know all these things?
Well, here is your chance to know something from my homework.
Language is a system of conventional, spoken or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group, communicate.
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There are some features that consists the whole language. Let’s discuss those features:
Verbal and Vocal:
Language is an organization of sounds, vocal symbols-the sounds produced from the mouth with the help of various organs of speech to convey some meaningful message. It also means that speech is primary to writing. There are several languages in the world which have no writing system, yet they are languages because they are spoken. Language is vocal in as much as it is made up of sounds which can be produced by the organs of speech.
Social Phenomena
Language exists in society it is means of nourishing and developing culture and establishing human relations. It is as a member of society that a human being acquires a language. We are not born with an instinct to learn a particular language-English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Bangla, German. We learn a language as a member of the society using that language. If a language is not used in a society it dies out.
Non-instinctive
Language is non-instinctive because it is acquired by human beings. Nobody gets a language in heritage; he acquires it. Everybody is provided with “innate ability”.
Arbitrary
It means that there is no natural connection between linguistic form and its meaning. There is no natural relation between the word “goat” for instance, and what that word designates. Similarly there is no reason why the four-legged domestic animal should be called “dog” in English and “kukur” in bangla.
Language is Human
Only human has endowed with language. No other species other than humans have been endowed with language. Animals cannot acquire human language because of its complex structure and their physical inadequacies. Animals do not have the type of brain which the human beings possess.
Unique
Despite common features and language universals, each language has its peculiarities and distinct features.
Displacement
Human language can refer to past and future time and to other locations. No animal can tell another about pas experiences, and still less are they able to talk about vast numbers of things, which come from accumulated knowledge, memory and imagination.
Productivity
Humans are capable of creating new expressions for new objects. Animals have limited set of signals to choose from and cannot produce any new signals to describe novel experiences.
Cultural Transmission
We acquire language with other speakers not from parental genes. The first language is acquired in a culture.
So this was the discussion on language. I hope you(the reader) learned something at least.