QUESTION 1

DEFINITIONS OF LANGUAGE

Bloch and Trager (1942): “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social gorup co-operates”.

Noam Chomsky(1957): “Language is a set of finite number sentences, each finite in lingth and constructed out of a finite set of elements”

Michael Halliday (2003): “A language is a system of meaning- a semiotic system”

DEFINITIONS OF LANGUAGE Muharrem Ergin(1990): “Language is a natural means to

enable communication among people, a living entity that it has its own peculiar laws, by means of which alone can it develop, a system of contracts whose foundation was laid in times unknown, and a social institution interwoven with sounds”.

Language is a purely human and non instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols (Sapir 1921)

DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE Language is a medium/ tool used for communication. It is

about what human speaks, writes and signals. It brings meaning intentionally and unintentionally.

QUESTION 2

Properties Concept Example

Communicative and informative signals

Communicative: • signals which we have not

intentionally sent through body language

Communicative: • A person has cold.

(if he sneeze)• A cat is mewing. (if

he is hungry)

Informative: • signals we use intentionally to

communicate something through language.

Informative: • I got straight As in

my exam.• My father is a

millionaire.

Displacement • Can refer or talk about the past and future time or event, other locations, and things.

• Can talk about also the events that do not actually exist.

• However, animal did not have that characteristic. (They only care about now and here.)

I celebrated my birthday at Tanjung Aru last week.

Properties Concept Meaning

Arbitrariness • The absence of any natural or necessary connection between a word's meaning and its sound or form.

• Different languages can use different signs to refer to one and the same thing.

• When language tries to mirror the sounds made by animals and objects, this is called onomatop(o)eia.

• “The rice is burning!”(that utterance is just as likely to send the parent hurtling to the kitchen) • A flower in English is a

bunga in Bahasa Melayu or a hua in Mandarin.

• Cuckoo

Productivity • The limitless ability to use language to say new things.

• Also known as creativity• Have no difficulty in

understanding

• Shakespeare wrote his plays in Swahili, and they were translated into English by his African bodyguards.

Properties Concept Example

Cultural transmission • Learn, or acquire their native or foreign language from other speakers.

• However, many animal is born knowing their entire language system.

• A child born in Korea to Korean parents but then adopted by French parents in France will tend to grow up speaking French as his/her first language and not Korean.

Duality • The discrete parts of a language(phonetic) can be recombined to create new forms.

• Two separate layers of language working together

• N, b, I• Bin• Nib

REFERENCES Hyde, K. (1998). The feature of human language.

Retrieved from http://people.exeter.ac.uk/bosthaus/Lecture/hockett1.htm

Yule,G. (1996). The study of language (4th ed.). Retrieved from http://staff.neu.edu.tr/~dpopescu/Cambridge.The.Study.Of.Language.4th.Edition.Apr. 2010.eBook-ELOHiM.pdf