What is Language and why do we interpret it in the way that we do?

Answer 1

www.aucegypt.edu/academic/anth/anth352/what_is_language.htm - 17k - Cached - MorWhat Is Language?
Definitions
Sapir
Trager
Chomsky
Hall
Halliday
Design Features
Channel
Broadcast
Fading
Interchangeability
Feedback
Specialization
Semanticity
Arbitrariness
Discreteness
Displacement
Productivity
Tradition
Duality of Patterning
Prevarication
Reflexiveness
Learnability






"Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols."
Edward Sapir, 1921
"A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members of a society interact in terms of their total culture."
G. Trager, 1949

A language is "a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements."
Noam Chomsky 1957

Language is "the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols."
R.A. Hall 1964

"Language is a range of possibilities, an open-ended set of options in behavior that are available to the individual in his existence as social man. The context of culture is the environment of any particular selection that is made from within them ... The context of culture defines the potential, the range of possibilities that are open. The actual choice among these possibilities takes place within a given context of situation."
Michael Halliday, 1973



The Design Features
of Language
Vocal-Auditory Channel
Sound is used between mouth and ear, as opposed to visual, tactile, olfactory or other channels of communication.

Broadcast Transmission
A signal can be heard by any person within earshot, and the source can be determined by the ears' direction finding ability.

Rapid Fading
Auditory signals are transitory. They disappear seconds after having been spoken and do not wait on the listener's convenience.

Interchangeability
Speakers of language are also listeners and vice-versa. Speakers of a language can reproduce any message they understand, unlike the courtship message of some other species.

Total Feedback
Speakers can hear their own voices and can reflect on -- and modify -- their own speech.

Specialization
The sound waves of speech have no other function than to signal meaning.

Semanticity
The elements of speech convey meaning through their referential relationship to the social, cultural and physical worlds shared by communicants.

Arbitrariness
There is no natural or essential relationship between the signal and its referent. The meanings of linguistic signals are purely a matter of social convention.

Discreteness
All speech can be broken down into a finite set of speech elements that contrast with one another (phonemes). This feature differs from animal growling, where there are continuous scales of variation in strength.

Displacement
It is possible to talk about things or events displaced in time and space from the speaker and hearer.

Productivity/Openness
Languages have an infinite capacity to express and understand meaning by using old speech elements to produce new utterances.

Traditional Transmission
Language is not instinctual; it is passed down from generation to generation through processes of teaching and learning.

Duality of Patterning
The sounds in a language have no intrinsic meaning but can be combined in different ways to produce an infinite number of meaningful utterances.

Prevarication
Linguistic messages can be false. Because of this, we can make guesses, tell stories, construct hypotheses and lie.

Learnability
Any speaker of one language can learn any other language.

Reflexivity
Language can reflect on itself. It is possible to talk about the way people talk.

Adapted from Charles F. Hockett 1960; Hockett and Ascher 1964.







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Answer 2

Language is just a way to communicate what we're thinking or feeling. We interpret it the way we do because that is the way we are programmed from the time we are born. It's all the culture and the people around you that change how you interpret what you hear and see.

Answer 3

Language is nothing but symbols put together in a way that makes sense to us. The way you interpret it is different then the way anyone else interprets it. Alot of this has to do with your back ground and what you are taught by parents, friends, family, etc.

Answer 4

Language is the sounds (10%) and signals (90%) we use to re-enforce the things we wish to communicate. The rules are set up with the people we wish to communicate with, thus we learn primarily from our Parents as we grow.

A local dialect reflects the common language rules and sounds adopted by your immediate community. A Regional Dialect will be confined to a geographic boundary, and most speakers will speak the same language.

National Language reflects the political situation of groups of regions, and groups of languages stem from historical exploration and conquest.

Autism is the inability to interpreted body language, which leads to social isolation. Even our pets learn to read body language.

Answer 5

language is way we express our feelings ,desires, needs, together with our facial expressions...so many things in this world are made with certain reasons, and i believe there is a higher power which looks upon us and give us so many unexplained thing . We as a human creatures are very complicated , and unique, just as any language and nation in this world..we do interpret them because we have certain needs just as need to drink, need to eat , and the very amazing need to survive

Answer 6

Language is a form and a means of expression, and we interpret it the way we do, because of our particular genre,upbringing, and television.