Post on 01-Jun-2017
QUESTION 1
DEFINITIONS OF LANGUAGE
Bloch and Trager (1942): “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social gorup co-operates”.
Noam Chomsky(1957): “Language is a set of finite number sentences, each finite in lingth and constructed out of a finite set of elements”
Michael Halliday (2003): “A language is a system of meaning- a semiotic system”
DEFINITIONS OF LANGUAGE Muharrem Ergin(1990): “Language is a natural means to
enable communication among people, a living entity that it has its own peculiar laws, by means of which alone can it develop, a system of contracts whose foundation was laid in times unknown, and a social institution interwoven with sounds”.
Language is a purely human and non instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols (Sapir 1921)
DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE Language is a medium/ tool used for communication. It is
about what human speaks, writes and signals. It brings meaning intentionally and unintentionally.
QUESTION 2
Properties Concept Example
Communicative and informative signals
Communicative: • signals which we have not
intentionally sent through body language
Communicative: • A person has cold.
(if he sneeze)• A cat is mewing. (if
he is hungry)
Informative: • signals we use intentionally to
communicate something through language.
Informative: • I got straight As in
my exam.• My father is a
millionaire.
Displacement • Can refer or talk about the past and future time or event, other locations, and things.
• Can talk about also the events that do not actually exist.
• However, animal did not have that characteristic. (They only care about now and here.)
I celebrated my birthday at Tanjung Aru last week.
Properties Concept Meaning
Arbitrariness • The absence of any natural or necessary connection between a word's meaning and its sound or form.
• Different languages can use different signs to refer to one and the same thing.
• When language tries to mirror the sounds made by animals and objects, this is called onomatop(o)eia.
• “The rice is burning!”(that utterance is just as likely to send the parent hurtling to the kitchen) • A flower in English is a
bunga in Bahasa Melayu or a hua in Mandarin.
• Cuckoo
Productivity • The limitless ability to use language to say new things.
• Also known as creativity• Have no difficulty in
understanding
• Shakespeare wrote his plays in Swahili, and they were translated into English by his African bodyguards.
Properties Concept Example
Cultural transmission • Learn, or acquire their native or foreign language from other speakers.
• However, many animal is born knowing their entire language system.
• A child born in Korea to Korean parents but then adopted by French parents in France will tend to grow up speaking French as his/her first language and not Korean.
Duality • The discrete parts of a language(phonetic) can be recombined to create new forms.
• Two separate layers of language working together
• N, b, I• Bin• Nib
REFERENCES Hyde, K. (1998). The feature of human language.
Retrieved from http://people.exeter.ac.uk/bosthaus/Lecture/hockett1.htm
Yule,G. (1996). The study of language (4th ed.). Retrieved from http://staff.neu.edu.tr/~dpopescu/Cambridge.The.Study.Of.Language.4th.Edition.Apr. 2010.eBook-ELOHiM.pdf