THE NATURE AND GIFT OF HUMAN LANGUAGE AND ITS

CHARACTERISTICS/FUNCTIONS

Princess Aura Lee C. Joya

2nd year student – College of Education

ABSTRACT
This article explores some aspects of human language from the point of semiotic

view in the first place, and then it describes how a message is communicated using

signals and a channel with an example drawn from real world. In addition, the article

discusses the nature of human language with specific attention to the definition

provided by Bloch and Trager (1942) who emphasized that a language is a set of vocal

symbols which people use to communicate with each other. Finally, it argues that all

human languages existing in the world are equally useful and vital in that no single

language can claim to be superior to another in terms of structural, historical or

biological priority.

INTRODUCTION
If a question like “What is a language?” is posed to someone, it is likely that

he/she will say that we communicate with language. But If we probe into this concept

and ask someone to explain it, he or she will say that, with language, we express our

thoughts, feelings, concepts and exchange information. However, a description of this

kind does not provide us with a complete meaning to the question asked above because

human language is such a phenomenon that one may naturally be tempted to explore

it further. Therefore, we need to examine language from a broader perspective. To

express that we communicate with language, too, does not reveal much about language

because we are aware that even animals do communicate, even though they do not

have a language. Human beings have other means of communication, in addition to

language. For these possible reasons stated above, it is necessary to investigate how

language differs from other human and non-human communication system.

Literature relevant to human language reveals that language comes under the

discipline called semiotics which is the science of signs or the study of communication

systems. Several concepts in semiotics are embedded in the following explanation by

Lyons (1981).

A signal is transmitted from a sender to a receiver along a channel of

communication. This signal will have a particular form and will convey a particular

meaning (or message). The connection between the signal and its meaning is

established by the code. Thus, the message is encoded by the sender and decoded by

the receiver.

A practical application of how communication system operates

These features discussed in the explanation above are common to all

communication systems including language. Some concepts involved in the

communication system, when practically applied to human communication, can be

illustrated from a real-world situation as follows: Suppose I am thirsty and walk into

a restaurant, sit at a table and say to a waiter, “Coca Cola, please”. The waiter will

respond to my request saying either “Right or OK” and he/she will bring me a coke in

a short while. If we analyze what really occurred in the situation described above in

terms of semiotics, it becomes evident that my signal was the sound I produced

/kou’,kӘ’ kou.lӘ/. This signal was transmitted from my mouth to the waiter’s ears,

along what is called the oral auditory channel. I encoded my signal as /kou’,kӘ’

kou.lӘ/. However, I could have changed its form as Coco Cola buddy, which would

have conveyed a different meaning or message. When the waiter replied, “Right or

OK”, I know that he had decoded my message correctly. This is a very simple example
drawn from our day-to-day happenings. What has been discussed concerning

semiotics has centered so far on some features common to all communication systems

in general but our interest is in human language to which I now turn. Recorded

literature indicates that the attention of linguists, anthropologists and sociolinguists

and psychologists has attracted to different aspects of human language for generations

(Lightbown & Spada, 2006). When talking about human language, the first thing

which strikes our mind is that it is unique among all communication systems. This is

to emphasize that language is very versatile. To understand this characteristic of

language, let us consider the traffic lights which can convey only a very few messages

such as GO, READY, STOP. Likewise, the number of messages that animals can convey

is limited. However, with human language, people have the ability to talk about

anything existing under the Sun. What enables us to use the language in such a

remarkable manner is worth discussing in detail.

A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols

Bloch and Trager (1942, p. 5) define the language, “A language is a system of

arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates” If we examine

this definition, we find that each key word in this definition is a characteristic of

language. Thus, we can conclude that a language is a set of symbols. For example,

(returning back to the restaurant scenario) the signal transmitted in the restaurant,

coca cola consists of at least four symbols:/ kou’,kӘ’ kou.lӘ/. The substance of these

symbols is sound produced by mouth. Hence, they are vocal symbols. A symbol is a

form, which stands for some real thing, i.e. some meaning. Thus, there are different

symbols for different meanings.

According to George Yule in his book, The Study of Language, arbitrariness

means there is no natural connection between a linguistic form and its meaning. In
other words, it is not necessary that a word has its particular meaning. Instead, there

are many words with different languages that can convey a meaning of particular

things. As for example, a "tree" can be stated in French that is arbre, in Russian that

derevo, in Japanese that is ki, in Korean that is namu and in German that is Baum.

The term ‘vocal’ may need further clarification because the language can be

written as well as spoken. When we produce symbols with mouth, we use phonic

medium. But we can also produce the same symbols by drawing bits of lines on a paper

with a pen or a pencil. This method is called graphic medium. This transferability of

medium appears to be a special feature of language.

Then if language can be both spoken and written, the question next arises is as

to why language is defined as vocal symbols. In discussion of language, linguists

generally are concerned with spoken language or what they call ‘primacy’ of language.

Primacy of speech means that speech is basic and writing is only secondary. There are

many reasons to justify this view. Some of them are stated below.

 Structural priority: We write what we speak. This does not mean that

spoken language and written language are identical. It only means that writing

is a device to transfer the phonic medium to graphic medium. Moreover, there

are more than 3000 spoken languages in the world, but only a few hundred of

them have writing systems. Based on this premise, one cannot say that the

unwritten languages are not languages. On the other hand, there is no

language, which is only written and not spoken.

 Historical priority: Human beings have had spoken languages for millions

of years, but the history of writing is not even five thousand years old.

 Every human speaks a language every day, but the majority does not either

read or write.
  Biological priority: spoken language is natural, whereas written is artificial.

Written language can be said as man-made in the sense that every human child

acquires spoken language without any conscious learning.

Furthermore, even if this matter is discussed within the same language, it is found

that the form of words changes over time. There are words which change meanings

over time, so that the same form comes to be associated with a different meaning. The

example when form of word change is the word hus which was being used a long time

ago to convey a meaning as house. But to convey about the house today, the word

“house” itself is being used. In the perspective when the meaning of word changes,

there was once a word girl means a child but today, the word girl symbolizes a girl in

English language.

There is no logical connection between the form and its meaning

Given the reasons above, language is speech to a linguist. With this background

knowledge, I now describe the next important key word ‘arbitrary’ in the definition of

Bloch and Trager (1942). Vocal symbols in natural languages are arbitrary. This means

that there is no logical connection between the form of a symbol and its meaning. For

example, there is no connection whatsoever between the sound /pen/ and the object

called pen. There is no reason to call a ‘chair’, except that speakers of English call it so.

Further, a few words in any language can be onomatopoeic, e.g. The English word

‘crow’, ‘flutter’, ‘splash’ are related to their meanings. Arbitrariness of language is not

limited to words. There is no reason for “He is a doctor”, to be a statement and “Is he

a doctor?” to be a question except the agreement among the speakers of English to

interpret them in that way. It is now evident that the arbitrariness of forms is one of

the factors, which make language so versatile. If we had to match forms with meaning,

it would be impossible to make words for many things. For example, what sounds will
suit abstract concepts such as democracy, kindness and so on. Thanks to arbitrariness,

anything could be called anything.

Duality of Human language

Given the understanding of the characteristics of human language, I now move

to another characteristic which makes it much more efficient than any other

communication system. That is called duality. Language forms consist of units. The

smallest unit of the language is the phoneme and syllables are larger than phonemes.

Morphemes and words are at a higher level than syllables. These units belong to two

classes: phonemes and syllables have no meaning of their own, but morphemes and

words are meaningful units. In other words, meaningful units are made of meaningless

units. For example, let us examine the word ‘umbrellas’. It consists of nine phonemes.

/Λmbrella:z/ The nine phonemes make three syllables: Λm, brel, la;z. Therefore, we

can see that neither the phonemes nor syllables have any meaning. These phonemes

make two morphemes: umbrella+s. These two morphemes as a full word have

meanings as other full words have. This type of characteristic (duality) is an important

feature of language. If each of the phonemes or syllables had a meaning of its own, we

cannot use that phoneme again in another word. To simplify this, imagine /Λm/ in

‘umbrella’ means the ‘handle’. Then it cannot be used in the word ‘umpire’. It is

because of duality and arbitrariness of language, we can form unlimited number of

words with a small number of phonemes.

The next key word in Bloch and Trager’s definition is ‘System’. A language is a

system of symbols and this does not mean to say that a language not merely a collection

of symbols. It was Ferdinand de Saussure (1959) a Swiss linguist who introduced the

concept of language as a system. A language can be compared to a game of chess. What

makes a game of chess a game of chess? Of course, there is a chessboard, chess pieces
and more significantly, the rules for moving those chess piece, you could use any small

object as a dummy piece, and continue the game. Similarly, the pieces of language

games are phonemes, morphemes and words, and a set of rules of how to use them

when speaking or writing. For example, the English language system allows its users

to say or write as, “Peter ate a piece of bread”, but not “ate a piece of bread Peter”, or

“A piece of bread ate Peter. The rules of the system, unlike the symbols, are invisible,

but they can be discovered when they operate. It is the symbols and the rules together

that form the system. Another term which is more or less similar to the meaning of

system is ‘structure’.

Human language is productive

According to Chomsky (1965), the most important property of human language

is its productivity because humans can understand and produce indefinitely many

utterances that nobody has either produced or heard previously. It means generally

we produce brand new sentences, except when we use conventional expressions such

as “Good morning”, “How are you?” and so on. The number of phonemes, morphemes

and words in a language are limited, but with these limited symbols, we can create

countless sentences which cannot be done in any other communication system.

Animal signals are ready-made fixed messages, perhaps like our “Good morning”. As

Chomsky has pointed out that productivity of language is due to its structure

dependence and recursiveness. “By recursiveness, we mean that certain grammatical

constructions can be extended indefinitely by repeated application of the same rules.

Thus, noun phrases may be coordinated without limit; Jack and Jill and Annie and

Frank and ………. went to dance” (Robins, 1980). Commenting on another

characteristic of human language, Firth, (cited in Widdowson, 1971, p. 102) claims,

 The moment a conversation is started whatever is said is a determining

condition for what in any reasonable expectation may follow. There is positive force

in what you say, and there is a negative side too, because what you say shouts out

most of the language of your companion, leaving him only a limited range of possible

responses.

Careful analysis of what Firth’s claim informs us is that we are not free to tell

what we want or like as we are bound by social rules, norms and ethics that have

established in each society.

According to Rischard Nordquist in his website of Glossary of Grammatical and

Rhetorical Terms, language productivity is a general term in linguistics for the

limitless ability to use language (i.e.any natural language) to say new things. The

history of the English Language shows a series of English language revolution from

Old English (Anglo-Saxon Period) until today Contemporary Period. Each period has

potrayed its own famous literary works with particular characteristics of language that

can describe the language at those times. The literary works which are in form of

words, sentences, short stories and novels and reflects many centuries of development.

The political and social events that have in the course of English history so profoundly

affected the English people in their national life have generally had a recognizable

effect on their language. During Old English (Anglo-Saxon Period), the writers who

were famous at that time were Caedmon and Cynewulf. Besides, during Middle

English Period, Geoffrey Chaucer was famous with The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and

Criseyde and Book of the Duchess. During The English Renaissance, Sir Thomas More

was famous with The History of King Richard the Third, John Skelton with A ballade

of the Scottysshe Kynge, William Shakespeare with Romeo and Juliet, Chistopher

Marlowe with The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Edmund Spenser with The

Faerie Queene and John Donne with Song A Hymn to God the Father Death. Next, The
Neoclassical Period was famous with John Milton, John Dryden, Jonathan Swift and

Samuel Johnson. Other than that, Romanticism was famous with William Blake,

Charles Dickens, Gordon Byron and Jane Austen. Modern Period had featured George

Bernard Shaw with his literary work, Pygmalion, William Butler Yeats with Sailing To

Byzantium, D.H. Lawrence with Everlasting Flowers Elegy and T.S. Eliot with Ash

Wednesday. Finally, today as in contemporary period, J.K. Rowling is famous with her

Harry Potter series and Jodi Picoult is proud with her series of family genre novels.

Language is an Agent of Cultural Transmission

According to Alberto Bisin and Thierry Verdier, cultural transmission is the

transmission of preferences, beliefs, and norms of behavior which is the result of social

interactions across and within generations. In the process of transmitting all those

elements in daily life, a medium is needed to make two different groups of people are

able to interact. Thus, language is used. Accoring to Edward Sapir, one of the most

important functions of language is its role in the construction of reality. Language is

not simply a tool for communication, it is also a guide to the terms social reality.

Language has a semantic system, or a meaning potential which enables the

transmission of cultural values. Therefore, while the child is learning language, other

significant learning is taking place through the medium of language. The child is

simultaneously learning the meanings associated with the culture, realized

linguistically by the lexico-grammatical system of the language.

Conclusion
To conclude this short article about the nature of human language and its

characteristics, I consider it useful mentioning Brown’s (2000, p. 5) composite

definition of language as follows:

 1. Language is systematic

2. Language is a set of arbitrary symbols.

3. Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual.

4. The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they refer.

5. Language is used for communication.

6. Language operates in a speech community or culture.

7. Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to humans.

8. Language is acquired by all people in much the same way; language and

language learning both have universal characteristics

We can say the more we probe into the language the more we see how wonderful

and exciting the language is and this is true for all world languages used across the

world today in that there are no primitive or under-developed languages as such. All

languages are equally complex and productive for all human beings.

Resources:

Bloch, B., & Trager, G. L. (1942). Outline of Linguistic Analysis. Linguistic Society of
America. Waverly Press, Inc.
Brown, H.D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching, Fourth
Edition,NY Longman.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Mit press
Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2006). How Languages are Learned, (3rd ed.).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.