DEFINITIONS OF LANGUAGE

Language is a means of communication. It is a means of conveying our thoughts,

ideas, feelings, and emotions to other people. However, language is not the only means of communication. Signs, gestures and facial expression can also communicate our thoughts and ideas. Language is different from signs and gestures, because it employs speech

sounds. These speech sounds have meaning. To define language is not an easy task. Different linguists tried to define language variously. However, if we analyse the definitions closely, we will find that each of these definitions is incomplete in some respect or the other. These definitions will raise a large number of questions.

Some of the most commonly approved definitions of language given by the experts

in the field of linguistics are given below:

Edward Sapir says: “Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of

communicating ideas emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols” This definition is rather incomplete because ‘ideas, emotions and desires’ are not the only things communicated by language. The term language covers a wide range of implication such as body language, sign language and animal language.

According to Hall, language is “the institution whereby humans communicate and

interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.”

Hall’s definition is narrow because it regards language purely as a human institution.

We know that animals do communicate. Animals have their own language.

In the words of Noam Chomsky, language is “a set of (finite or infinite) sentences,

each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.”

Chomsky focuses on the structural features of language. He showed how language

can be investigated by analyzing it into its constituent elements.

Each of these linguists focuses on certain aspects of language and ignores some

others. However what they have said of language is true, though not comprehensive.

Some important characteristic features of human language are given below:

* language is ubiquitous

* language is a means of communication

* language is systematic

* language is conventional

* language is arbitrary

* language is social

* language is cultural

* language has a duality of structure

* language is recursive

* displacement

* transference

* language is dynamic

These characteristic features of human language make it different from other forms

of communication. The differences are primarily due to the fact that human brain is

different from animal. The human brain has an innate capacity for learning language

creativity.