The Defining Characteristics of Language ~ KNOWPLUS

First, language is a set of sounds. This is perhaps the least important characteristic, since the communication of mammals and birds is also a set of sounds. ⇒ On the other hand, the system of communication which is in some ways most strikingly like language, that of bees, is a set of body movements, not sounds. It would be easy, further, to imagine a language based on something else than sound, but no human language is so constructed. Even the manual language o the deaf is derived from the preexistent spoken language of the community.

Second, the connection between the sounds, or sequences of sounds, and objects of the outside world is arbitrary and unpredictable. ⇒ That is to say, a visitor from mars would be unable to predict that in London a given animal is connected with the sound sequence written dog, in Paris with sequence chien, in Madrid with perro. The arbitrary quality of language symbols is not infrequently denied, or for a number of reasons.

Sometimes the denial is based on nothing more than the notion that the forms of one's native language are so inevitably right that they must be instinctive for all proper men. Sometimes the denial is more subtle, It is often maintained that all languages, even though now largely arbitrary, must once have been a systematic imitation of objects by means of sound. is true that there are some imitative words of all languages, but they are at best a limited part of the vocabulary. It is easy to imitate the noise of a barking dog, for instance, but difficult if not possible to imitate a noiseless object, such as a rainbow, though imitative words show similarity in many languages, absolute identity is rare. 

It is assumed that language is arbitrary, what is meant by the statement? Just that the sounds of speech and their connection with entities of experience are passed on to all members of any community. Therefore, a human being cut off from contact with a speech community can never learn to talk at all. In essence, to say that language is arbitrary is merely to say that it is social. This is perhaps the most important statement that can be made about language.

In contrast, much of animal communication is instinctive rather than social. That is to say, all cats mew and purr, and would do so even if they were cut off from all communication with other cats. On the other hand, some animal communication seems to share the social nature of human speech and is therefore learned activity. Nor should it be thought that all human communication is social, a part of our communication consists of instinctive reactions which accompany language, like the trembling of fear or the suffusion of blood which accompanies anger. It is now clear that there is more arbitrary and socially learned behavior that had at one time been supposed.

Third, language is systematic. As in any system, language entities are arranged in recurrent designs, so that if a pan of the design is seen, predictions can be made about the whole of it, as a triangle can be drawn if one side and two angles are given. ⇒ Suppose there is an incomplete sentence like "John___s Mary a___." A good deal about what must fill the two blanks s Mary a like "John is obvious. The first must be a verb, the second a noun. Furthermore, not all verbs will go in the first blank, since it requires a verb whose third person singular is spelled with ___s and which can take two objects. Nor will all nouns fit in the second place, since an initial vowel is required, and the noun must be one which takes an article. There is no difficulty in deciding that the sentence could be either "John gives Mary an apple" or "John hands Mary an aspirin," but not "John gives Mary an book".

Another observation that can be made about language system is that every occurrence of language is a substitution frame. Any sentence is a series of entities, for each of which a whole group of other entities can be substituted without changing the frame. Thus the sentence "John gives Mary an apple" is such a substitution frame. For John there can be replacements like he, Jack, William, the man, her husband, or many others. For the verb, entities like buys, offers, as well as the alternatives hands or gives, may be used. 

Still another characteristic of language systems is that entities of language are grouped into classes, always simpler, more predictable, and more sharply separated than the infinite variety of objects in the world. For instance, a whole series of objects is grouped under the single word chair, and chair is put into the large class of nouns. In dealing with objects in the outside world it may be difficult to decide whether something is a chair, a stool, or merely a rock. in language, we think of nouns and verbs as quite separate and are apt to say that one class represents things, the other events. But in the outside world, it is often hard to decide whether an object is best described as thing or as event.

Fourth, language is a set of symbols. That is to say, language has meaning. In this form the statement is a platitude and does not distinguish language from other activities which are also symbolic. ⇒ The nature of language symbols turns out to be rather different from the symbols of other types of communication, The simplest nonlinguistic symbol can be defined as a substitute stimulus. Nonlinguistic symbols can also be substitute responses, and these can also be taught to animals. In human speech, however, one of the most striking facts is that we can talk about things which are not present, and we can talk about things which ordinarily produce a strong physical reaction without experiencing that reaction. This type of language, which occurs without an immediately present stimulus or response, is called displaced speech, and it is obviously of great importance. It is what enables man to know something of the past and of the world beyond the limited range of his vision and hearing at a given moment. By means of language men make elaborate models of distance experience and eventually test their accuracy by acting upon them. All that is known of animal communication leads to the supposition that precisely what is absent from it is the kind of symbolic activity here described, symbolic activity connected not merely with experience but with all parts of the symbol systems itself. We believe, in short, that animals are incapable of displaced speech.

Fifth, language is complete. By this is meant that whenever a human language has been accurately observed, it has been found to be so elaborated that its speakers can make a linguistic response to any experience they may undergo. ⇒ This complex elaboration is such a regular characteristic of all languages, even those of the simplest societies, that linguists have long ago accepted it as a universal characteristic The statement that human language is complete once again serves to distinguish it from animal activity, the subjects of systematic discourse are severely limited.

CONCLUSION

The statement that human language is always complete should not be interpreted to mean that every language has a word for everything. It is a characteristic of vocabulary that, except in languages which have gone out of use, it is always expansible, in spite of the fact that resistance to new forms may frequently appear. Since language enables the user to make appropriate responses to all things and since vocabulary is thus characteristically "open", differences in vocabulary between two languages are not an accurate measure of the difference in efficiency or excellence of the two tongues.