ESL Blogs

What is Language? We define language as a system of communication that is primarily verbal, symbolic, dually-patterned, and arbitrary and is used by humans with common cultural expectancies. Language is also a means to communicate ideas, knowledge and emotions to other individuals through the use of the body. The system of communication used is a set of codes or rules; a specific signaling system developed by humans. This signaling system consists of sounds used by individuals to express knowledge, emotions and ideas. This system is learned and passed on through cultural transmission by the teaching and the imitation of others. This system is significant because it is purely human in nature and no other species is able to duplicate our system. Language is primarily verbal because it is part of the grammatical machine in humans that uses sound, phonology, to express ideas and emotions. Produced by the organs of speech, this vocal language helps in the communication of ideas between individuals. These ideas are interpreted in the brain and processed into thoughts so we are able to understand what is happening around us. Language is symbolic because of the trafficking of non-sensory understanding of ideas or thoughts through the reading of symbols. The written language is considered symbolic because it uses symbols to represent symbols. These symbols are given meaning when they are used to describe a physical occurrence or natural event. Symbols are significant because it is the base of what made verbal language possible. Language is also dually-patterned because the sounds produced by humans can be combined in many ways to create an infinite amount of sounds. By using part of the grammatical system, morphology, many different words and sentences can be created. This process produces many new expressions showing how the human language can be manipulated.