THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE Definition 1. Language Language by means of human communication as it is used to put their ideas over to other.

Language is an instrument of communicating. Language is a system of communication that cannot be separated with the elements of language. Communication with language is carried out through two basic human activities: speaking and listening. These are of particular importance to psychologist, for they are mental activities that hold clues to the very nature of human mind. In speaking people put ideas into words, talking aout perceptions, feeling and intentions they want order people to grasp. In listening, they turn words into ideas, trying to reconstruct the perceptions, feeling, and intentions they were meant to grasp (Herbert H. Clark & Eve V. Clark. 1977:3) In speaking human convey the facts, ask for favors, and make promises. On the other hand, listening is used to receive the information. Therefore, speaking and listening tell us the great deal about social and cultural activities. 2. The study of language Language has the structure because human are the subject to certain general laws of though. Grammar relates sound to meaning. Thus, if one could discover the true structure and function of language, one could discover these universe laws of thought. Speaking and listening are always integrated to language. Therefore, studying language, they are finding out how people speak and understand. If we are to understand speaking and listening, we must understand the relation between language structure and the process of speaking and listening. There are some elements of language to understand the language, those are: a. Grammar; is a system of rules that relates sound to meaning. The example the rules of English is have the capability generating all the legitimate sentences of English. We can create a sentence grammatically and understand the pattern. The sun is shining but not sun the shining is. One rule in English states that for the and sun to form a noun phrase.

b. Competence and performance; is ones capacity to use a language, peoples competence while they are capable in using their language both in speaking and listening. All people have a capacity in producing language. But in practicing their language in speaking and listening, they usually have common mistake. In speaking they particularly repeated the words, phrases on and on, hesitate with the words. And some time get slip of tongue. In addition, in listening people usually get misunderstanding what the speaker has been said. c. Structure, function and process; language is a system which cannot be separated each other. Language not only has the structure but also function. Function is intimately tied to structure. Take the sentence who knows George? the function it can serve that of asking someone for the name of a person who knows George. It depends on its structure. in creating a sentence people also need to build the word to be a sentence it is called process. So it can be identified that structure is the grammar of the language, function is a description of how sentences communicate what they are meant to communicate, and process a description of the mental tools, materials, and procedures people use in producing or comprehending them. d. Complexity and creativity in language; speaking and listening are creative activities. No matter how unintelligent people are, they seem able to speak and listen with some effectiveness. As Charles W. Kreidler states (1998:3) All animals have some system for communicating with other members of their species, but only humans have a language which allows them to produce and understand evernew messages and to do so without any outside stimulus. It means that people has creativeness in producing language, they do not stop responding from others. No cat or bird can tell another animal about the past events, and still less are they able to communicate their plans for the future. Humans alone are able to talk the extensive things which come from accumulated knowledge, memory and imagination.

Human has free scope in producing new language. Human language is stimulus-free. Human language is creative: we are always producing new utterances which others understand; we comprehend new sentences which others have produced. There are some possible theoretical positions about the nature of language. Here are views reflected in current approaches to language learning. 1. The structural view of language (the structure of language) is that language is a system of structurally related elements for the transmission of meaning. These elements are usually described as; Phonological Units Those are phonology and phoneme. The description of how speech sounds are organized is called phonology. The units which combine in various ways to express meaningful such as word called phoneme. The phoneme contrast with one another to give different unit of meaning. How someone articulate the words with different meaning. For example the phoneme /f/ and /v/ has contrast meaning between the word fat and vat. Grammatical units Those are phrases, clauses, sentences. Speech has the appearance of a succession of ideas expressed bit by bit in words, phrases, and clauses. The purpose of the grammatical units in used to discover how speakers turn ideas into words and how listeners turn words into ideas because there is no complex sentence without one of the grammatical units. grammatical operations (adding, shifting, joining or transforming elements) preposition as unit of meaning combining preposition coordinating ellipsis lexical items (structure words and function words)

Words, the basic building blocks in the surface structure of the sentences, have a structure all their own. word structure is simple and complex words. It

is original word. Such as book word can receive component while it is in plural book books. . Function of words is the surface structure to glue the content words together, to indicate what goes with what and how; they include articles, pronouns, conjunction, auxiliary, verbs and preposition but content words they are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. From this structural view there is a target of language learning, is the mastery of elements of this system. Some of the language learning methods based on this view of language are: the Audio-lingual method, Total Physical Response (TPR), the Silent Way 2. The communicative or functional view of language as the function of study of language. Language is a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning. In this activity there are three main elements: (1) a speaker (2) a listener (3) a signaling system (for example, the English language). Communication begins with the speakers. They decide, for example, to impart some information in a particular way. The function of language is intimately bound up with the speakers intentions and the listeners current knowledge. The semantic and communicative dimensions of language are more emphasized than the grammatical characteristics, although these are also included. Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics studies the use of language without drawing conclusions about the nature of the underlying formal system. An example of a phenomenon studied in sociolinguistics is politeness. Pragmatics Pragmatics is the study of language in use, including the ways in which we derive meanings from the context and from knowledge of speakers apart from the linguistic meanings of what is said (Charles W. Kreidler. 1998:302). Pragmatics relates to the description of how people actually use language in communicating. Semantics Semantic is the study of meaning in language (James R. Hurford et al.

2007:1). Semantics is concerning with the language system that people have in common that makes them able to communicate with one another. The target of language learning is to learn to express communication functions and categories of meaning. Some of the language learning approaches and methods based on this view of language are:

Communicative approaches Functional-notional syllabuses The Natural Approach

3. The interactional view of language sees language primarily as the means for establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships and for performing social transactions between individuals. Interactional process Interaction process means how the cognitive activity is developed in the participants discourse. There are some basic types of interactional process. Nat Bartels (2005:77) states as the following basic types: Inform (supply) Elicit Reply - Accept - Evaluate - Comment

Based on the basic types on interactional process can be shown an example in dialogs or in conversation. Because in dialogs and conversation will have an interactional process between the speaker and the listener. In simple example; A: Today is hot (inform), is it nice to you (elicit) B: yes (reply) The target of language learning in the interactional view is learning to initiate and maintain conversations with other people. Some of the language learning approaches and methods based on this view of language are:

Strategic interaction

communicative approaches

Reference Clark, Herbert H. and Eve V. Clark. 1977. Psychology and language; an introduction to psycholinguistics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Inc Kreidler, Charles W. 1998. Introducing English Semantic. New York: Routlegde. Hurf, James R., Brendan Heasley, and Michael B. Smith. Semantic a Course Book second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bartels, Nat. 2005. Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education.Boston: Springer Science + Business Media, Inc

The Nature of Language

Lecturer Dr. Oikurema P. Dr. Ali Mustofa

By Miftachudin NIM: 117835080

UNIVERSITAS NEGERI SURABAYA PROGRAM PASCA SARJANA PROGRAM STUDI PENDIDIKAN BAHASA DAN SASTRA 2011