The+Nature+of+Language

What is human language and how can we describe it? (2139 words)

Introduction

Defining human language and looking at ways of describing it is a challenge. Smith (1999, p. 164), suggests that the idea that language is primarily intended for communication is widely held. However, Finch (2003), claims it is more than this. For instance, for an ethnic minority it may mean preserving culture and tradition, to a writer it is a creative expression, to a teacher a system of correct structures and rules, and to researchers an insight into the functioning of the human mind. (Finch, 2003, p. 39). According to Trask (1999, p. 138), the principle focus of linguistics is language, however, the term refers to many and varied ideas which should be differentiated. Gaining an insight into the differing functions and characteristics of language will ultimately help us understand it better and in turn learn more about ourselves. (Justice, 2004, p. 3). In this essay, I will not give a complete description or definition of language. In fact it will be quite limited. The focus here will be on the cognitive and social aspects of language, which are of particular interest to linguistics. Firstly, I will look at the structural aspect of language by discussing the work of Noam Chomsky. To follow, I will examine Chomsky’s influential theory of language; Universal grammar. And to finish, I will focus on the social aspect of the nature language by discussing its relationship to identity and culture.

Structural Aspect

Teaching English as a second language, I have observed that students have great difficulty producing consistently accurate language but possess a large amount of grammatical knowledge. It seems that they know the language well on a conscious level but are lacking at a subconscious level which prevents them using what they know in an intuitive manner. There seems to be a gap between the conscious and subconscious. This I think relates to Chomsky’s grammar theories.

Trask (1999, p.37) states, the approach to the study of linguistics which has over the past century been most influential is structuralism. Wallwork (1989, p.145) offers a useful definition, “Structuralism might be summarized as saying that it sought to explain the working of language in terms of the functions of its components and their relationship to each other”. Since the 1960’s the major figure in this area has been Noam Chomsky. (Smith,1999, p. 2). The work of Chomsky can essentially be viewed as structuralism, as well as that of most serious linguistic study in the 20th Century. (Trask, 1999, p. 294). Chomsky’s main focus of attention in the study of language was sentence structure. He was concerned with the question of how people come to know what is and what is not grammatically possible without having been taught it. (Bauer, Holmes, & Warren, p. 103)

 Chomsky’s contribution to this field is generative grammar based on the theory of transformation. Trask (1999, p 101) defines generative grammar as, “A grammar of a particular language which is capable of defining all and only the grammatical sentences of that language”. In other words, it should be possible to determine a complete set of grammatical rules for a language from which we can generate all the possible sentences in that language. The problem here is, as explained by Trask (1999, p. 101), that the range of possible sentences in any given language is infinite and so an infinite set of rules would be impossible to create. The key to overcoming this is a rule that applies to all sentences. (Trask, 1999, p. 101).

In Chomsky’s theories of grammar two key concepts are competence and performance. Competence takes a cognitive or physiological angle and concerns our capacity to use language. In contrast, performance is the language we actually use or in other words observable language behaviour. Finch (2003, p. 16). The relationship between these two components is demonstrated in a quote from Chomsky taken from Lyons (1981, p. 7) (Introductory Book, 2008), “From now on I will consider a language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements”. This can be explained another way. There is a relationship between surface structures i.e. characteristics of language that are observable and internal structures i.e. innate grammatical knowledge that allows us to produce surface structures. (Bauer et al., 2006, p. 103). Put another way, with a restricted set of grammatical rules and limited number of words we can produce endless numbers of sentences including ones we have never encountered before. (Bauer et al., 2006, p. 103).

Despite its extreme importance, Chomsky’s work has not been free of criticism. Because of its focus on the abstract, it is hard to prove and we only have evidence of it from what people actually say. (Finch, 2003, p. 92). Finch (2003, p. 92) argues that it does not reflect how people actually talk, because his grammars are based on cleaned up and idealized language which does not consider such things as context.

Universal Grammar

Related to Chomsky’s influential contributions to linguistics is his theory of Universal Grammar (UG). Pinker (2008, p. 31) defines UG ‘as a set of plans for the grammatical machinery that powers all human language’ Therefore, it could be said where generative and transformational grammar looked at the relationship between surface and deep structure for individual languages, UG is concerned with the same but for all languages.

According to Crystal (1997, p.84) (Introductory Book, 2008) in Chomsky’s view, “linguistics needs to go beyond the study of individual language and to find the universal properties of all languages and establish a universal grammar”. In my opinion, this view is valid. Smith (1999, p. 2) offers support to Chomsky’s statement when referring to his body of work. He claims that Chomsky’s research has bought linguistics into the mainstream of science and has made it relevant to the rest of humanities and the natural sciences. Furthermore, he suggests that language instruction is likely to be more effective if it is based on research such as Chomsky’s. (Smith 1999, p. 212)

The key principle of UG is that the internal structure of language is present in our brains from birth. Trask (1999, p. 329) In other words, grammar has physiological and cognitive roots. This principle explains how a child comes to intuitively learn the grammatical rules of their first language without having been taught them. (Emmitt and Pollock 1997, p. 46). They have to extract a set of rules from the language by making generalizations about the language they are exposed to. They do this despite a limited input. (Pinker, p. 30). This has led Chomsky to claim that the brain has a system for organizing language which has a restricted set of rules. From this, the implication can be made that a universal set of grammatical rules underlying all languages exists. (Pinker, p. 30)

Evidence of linguistic universals has been used to support the idea of UG. A universal as defined by Trask (1999, p. 328) is a statement which is true of all languages. Examples of universals which are generally well accepted are; every language has nouns and verbs and every language recognizes three persons. (Trask, 1999, p. 328) UG appears to have important implications for the acquisition of a second language. For example, Lydia White (1998) talks about Inter-Language Representation and states that, “UG is a theory relevant to the issue of linguistic competence i.e. a theory as to the nature of grammatical representation”. She claims UG does not account for the process of how we learn a language but how we come to know what is and what is not possible during the process of acquiring language. (White, 1998, p. 3)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">White’s concern is how UG may impact second language (L2) acquisition. Do L2 learners have full access, partial access, or no access to UG in the course of L2 acquisition? (White, 1998 p. 3) According to Emmitt and Pollock (1997, p.189) in the case of children, “Linguistic and cognitive processes similar to those used in first language learning are used in second language learning”. Hawkins (2001) says in the case of older learners this is not so clear but finding out the differences between how first language (L1) and L2 learners access UG will help us understand the nature of second language acquisition much better.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Social Aspect <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Just as I see Chomsky’s view of the purpose linguistics as valid, equally I would agree with the view that language is more than just a tool for communication but also an important tool for expressing identity and creativity (Introductory Book, 2008).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Many applied linguistics argue according to Cook (2003, p. 70), “the current Chomskyan focus upon the biological and cognitive aspects of language fundamentally distort its nature, and prefer to see language as intrinsically social”.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To see language from another perspective I will contrast the structuralism view with that of the systemic view of language. Whereas structuralism focuses on the cognitive aspects of language, systemics is concerned with how the individual applies language according to given social environments. (Wallwork, 1989, p. 100, 147) Where structuralism is concerned with what is possible and not possible in language, systemic linguistics looks at language people actually use.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When thinking about the actual language people use, we can see not only is there a great diversity of languages but within individual languages we can see great variation of usage. (Wallwork, 1989, p. 100, 147) This diversity is examined in the area of dialect variation. Fasold and Linton (2006) define a dialect as, “one of several distinguishable varieties, generally (but not always) mutually intelligible, of a language”. Schilling-Estes (Fasold and Linton, 2006, p. 311) offers different levels of variation including differences in the use of words and their meanings, pronunciations, sentence structures, and how language is used in context. (Fasold and Linton, 2006, p. 311). These differences can have significant impacts for individuals and society.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">How we use language can affect us socially. Emmitt and Pollock (1997, p. 46) claim, “It is by our language that we generally describe and define ourselves to others”. Each of us has our own idiolect or an individual way of speaking which changes according to a given social context. We do this to maintain or enhance our status within the group. Justice (2004, p. 250). The variety of language a person uses whether it be a dialect or idiolect will affect the social judgements other people make toward them. (Wallwork, 1989, p 113)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Language is one the most important symbols of nationality. (Fasold, 2006 p. 375) Just as an idiolect expresses an individual’s status, languages and dialects can have a similar function for communities. We use language to express our ties to one group and our separateness from another. (Emmitt and Pollock, 1997, p 46). This gives speech an indentifying function. (Fasold, 2006). This can have serious political consequences as Trask (1999, p. 188) explains, “In the not too distant past, speakers of minority languages like Welsh and Basque were openly persecuted by centralist governments”. The reason for suppression can be explained by the fact that governments are concerned with the loyalty of their citizens to the state, and so are also concerned with how individuals express their identity and loyalty through the use of language and dialects. (Fasold, 2006 p. 375)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Our creativity is how we express our thoughts and our interpretation of our environment. Language can influence how we think and as a result what we create. According to Emmitt and Pollock (1997, p 49), Edward Sapir and Lee Whorf believed that culture and thought are dependent on language and language determines thought because it shapes how we interpret the world. Emmitt and Pollock (1997, p 49), explain that differences with terms for the same colour between languages have often been used to illustrate this concept. For example, the Russian language has no direct equivalent to the English ‘blue’. Instead Russian has distinct and separate terms for light blue and dark blue. This of course would make a translation of the world blue problematic. (Emmitt and Pollock, 1997, p 49). Similarly Thai does not make a clear distinction between fingers and toes and the phrase ‘let your fingers do the walking’ could perhaps cause some confusion in a direct translation.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Conclusion

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It seems that in the end, language is a subject of extreme complexity and importance and I have not been able to give you a definitive explanation of what language is. I have only scratched the surface in terms of trying to define what language is. I have briefly touched on the cognitive and social aspects of language each in themselves being complex areas of inquiry. What seems apparent is that language is at the core of what it is to be human both at an individual and societal level. How you define language depends on your agenda.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> References

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Bauer, L., Holmes, J., and Warren, P. (2006) Language Matters. Palgrave

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cook, G. (2003). Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Emmitt, M. & Pollock, J. (1997). Language and Learning. Oxford University Press

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Fasold, R.W. & Connor-Linton, J. (1997) Language and Linguistics. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cambridge University Press

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Finch, G. (2003) How to Study Linguistics. (2nd Ed.) Palgrave

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hawkins, R. Second Language Research. Oct. 2001, Vol. 17 Issue 4, p345-367, 23p

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Justice, Paul. W. (2004) Relevant Linguistics. (2nd Ed.) CSLI Publications

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pinker, S. (2008) The Stuff of Thought. Penguin

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Smith, N. (2008) Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals. Cambridge University Press

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Trask, D. (1999). Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics. Routledge

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">White, R. (1998 October). Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition: The Nature of Inter-Language Representation. Paper presented at GASLA, Pittsburgh, Sept. 1998 and at SLRF, Hawaii, Oct. 1998