Language is a very complex process. It is the very trait that sets human beings apart from,
other living creatures. Although, it is uncertain to know exactly when or where language
originated, there are several theories about the genesis of it as a mean of communication.
Formerly, ancient people believed language came from a Divine source, a gift from God.
Another hypothesis is the natural source approach, which establishes the formation of
language as an imitation of nature sounds also known onomatopoeia. A similar approach
states that language formed as the result of the noises and sounds produced by people
working together such grunts, which later developed as chants. Physical adaption,
distinctive human physical features, enable humans to produce speech, thus language. In
addition, there are the tool making and the genetic theories, which relate language
production to an evolutionary source. The brain simply evolved to fulfill needs of the early
humans, in this case to aid communication as a tool. In addition, monogenesis theory, all
languages branched out from a proto-language; and polygenesis, language families
emanate from many original languages.
Human Language as a communication mean has a number of distinctive features, for
example:
-
Arbitrariness: There is no connection between a linguistic sign and the form,
neither can the form be assigned by the meaning, except for onomatopoeic words.
Displacement: Oppositely from other creatures, human language can cope with
any subject, not matter the time and space.
Productivity: Human language is always incorporating new words. There is
limitless number of utterances.
Cultural transmission: A specific language is acquired by the cultural immersion,
not from genes.
Duality: The ability to recombine small units in different orders, which can produce
utterances that sound different, and in a different level have a different meaning.
Structure Dependence: Human languages depend on the sentence structure, not
on mere sequence of words. In other words, there is a grammatical order of words,
which is fixed and cannot be changed.
The different aspects of language has concerned many people throughout the years, due
to this linguistic has come forth to give answer to many questions related to language. The
history of linguistic goes back thousands of years ago with the ancient civilizations such as
the Babylonians, who have the earliest writing texts. The Hindu tradition with the famous
grammarian Panini, who covered phonetics. The Greeks and the Romans, followed by the
Arabic and Hebrew traditions, who like Greeks focused on morphology, and they produced
the first grammar and dictionary of Hebrew. In the middle Ages in Europe, the written
language is developed, and for the first time there is differentiation of phones and
phonemes. During European colonialism, a wide variety of languages mix, thus they
established what is now known as the comparative method.
According to Oxford Dictionary, Linguistic is “The scientific study of language and its
structure, including the study of grammar, syntax, and phonetics”. So as to be a science, it
must follow certain characteristics. For example:
-
Introspection
Observation
Hypothesizing
Experimentation
Modeling
Theorizing
Linguistic studies cover two major branches:
- Microlinguistic, which includes phonetics (How sounds are produced),
phonology (the sounds of language), Morphology (study forms and words), Syntax
(sentences structure) and semantics (meaning).
- Macrolinguistic, which includes pragmatics (use of language in specific
situations), Sociolinguistic (study of language and society), historical linguistic
(history of language and its changes), Psychological linguistic (language and the
mind), applied linguistic (application of linguistic to language teaching).
There 3 areas of languages:
-
Meaning: lexis, semantic and pragmatic
Form: grammar and sintax
Context: Macrolinguistics
Lina Añazco
Luis Gutiérrez
Sofía Reyes
Victor Hernández
References
George Yule, “The study of language”, Cambridge University Press, 2006 - 273 pages,
chapters 1-2.
John Moore and M. Polinsky, ( 2003) The Nature of Explanation in Linguistic Theory, SLI
and University of Chicago Press.
Oxford online Dictionary, http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/