Understanding Language: Definition and Role

What is Language.

• The entirety of a society's thinking created it
• A symbol, a sign of ideas and feelings
• Serves as a vehicle for conveying ideas or opinions through spoken or written words
• Represents a nation's soul, people's thoughts, and independent unity of purpose and feeling.
• Conveys thoughts and feelings through spoken words.
• Language functions as a phenomenon within society, possessing the power to influence, dictate, teach, assist, control, intimidate, eliminate, and shape reality within its specific capabilities.
• Language has the ability to shape the global perspective of people
• Serves as an ideology, encompassing diverse interpretations, perspectives, understandings, and experiences influenced by individual positions and roles within their respective societies.
• The study of language within society is a discipline that deserves attention and research
• The study gives clarity of its conditions or status for our improvement as language practitioners
• A systematic structure of spoken sounds chosen and arranged arbitrarily for people to communicate within a culture
• System of communication between people using written or spoken symbols
• It is the primary and most elaborate form of human symbolic form.
• It encompasses a collection of symbols, sounds, and related regulations to express thoughts.

Gleason's language

• The orderly arrangement of language signifies structure and order
• It has two systematic frameworks: the structure of sounds and the structure of meanings.
• Filipino meaningful sounds such as /p/, /a/, /l/, and /a/ are systematically combined like /pala/, /lapa/ to give meaning
• Each language around the world has unique systematic frameworks, language can form sentences without verbs such as "life as a college student is hard"

Spoken sounds

• Not all sounds within the environments are considered language
• The alarm clock, thunder, police siren, the hiss of frying fish are not
• Speech components; tongue, lips, vocal cords produce language sounds
• It is spoken, while writing uses symbols such as letters

Arbitrary Arrangement

• The meaning napagkasunduan is arbitrary since each language chooses and arranges the way people use it
• Maranao, Japanese, Arabic, Mandarin are literal or physical languages
• Constant interaction creates a language used by a group in a non written set of laws

Qualities

• All can acquire any language despite the culture, ethnicity, or status in life although language varies, words are based on needed education, cultural environment, politically, economically and other important factors
• English is taught in schools making it natural to learn, despite not being a national language It has seven characteristics, the first four are from Gleason's meaning:
• Systematically framed
• Uttered in sound
• Arbitrary
• Directly related to culture
• Language is natural
• Language changes, it is dynamic
• Language is used in communication

Importance

• God's creation included language
• Language is the medium to express oneself
• Used to clearly and effectively express feelings and thoughts
• Reflects culture and time
• A good tool to disseminate knowledge

M.A.K Halliday's Functions

• Maintaining social relationships, such as greetings for different occasions, teasing, joking, inviting, thanking, exchanging ideas on a particular issue
• Teenager slang, pen pal letters, gay language, professional jargon, ritualistic exchange, and regional dialect
• Helps people do what they want to do
• Addresses the needs of people like interacting with others
• Can be used in preaching, verbal expression, suggestion, request, command, request, business letter and showing ads about a product
• Regulatory, has regulatory use, which means that it can be used to control the behavior or behavior of other people, situations or events
• Includes the giving of rules or policies and guidelines, approval and/or disapproval, giving permission and/or prohibition, praise and/or criticism, agreement and/or disagreement, giving reminders, warnings and giving instructions.
• Giving directions such as teaching the location, directions for cooking a dish, directions for answering the exam and directions for doing anything are examples of regulatory duties.
• Expresses personality and feelings

Roman Jakobson's Language Ways

• Expressing feelings (Emotive) - Expressing feelings, emotions, and mood such as crying or getting angry
• Persuasive - Affecting and influencing other people
• Starting communication - Language functions used to connect with each other and start a conversation such as greeting
• Using as a reference - Shows the use of the language from books and other sources such as Google and Wikipedia
• Commentary - Language through commentary using a code or law such as Commonwealth Act No. 184 the establishment of the National Language Institute which is now the Commission of the Filipino Language
• Poetic - Expressing creatively such a poem.

Language Level

• It’s important in society and used in daily interaction
• It is instrumental in communication

Tumangan's views

• Language an important part of society as it facilitates communication.

Formal

• Standard since it’s accepted and used by educated

Pambansa

• Used in books, circulated throughout the archipelago and all schools is also the language used by the government and taught to those who are studying

Pampanitikan

• Lofty, deep, heavy, colorful and deliberately high class words it is what writers and academics use

Di Pormal

• The informal words are the common words often used in everyday conversation

Lalawiganin

• Known in the place it is used but not outside of the province in the Philippines
• Regional words are the push of regional customs.

Balbal

• It is what the English call slang, previously unacceptable to parents and educated people because it sounds bad
• The words are also called corner words, street words, students language, teen-age lingo
• Informal language used by a particular subculture of people

Kolokyal

• Everyday words but with vulgarity and exposure, although there are refined and clean forms according to who is speaking
• Everyday casual words, they can be rude or polite depending social status and circumstance

Origin Of Language

• Despite modernization people still find the origin of where language came from
• Many theories of language attempting to prove where it originated

Categories Of Language

• Biblical Theory
• Scientific Theory
• Psychological Theory

Biblical Theory

• Genesis said language was created when God created everything on Earth
• Book of Genesis tell the story and origin of different languages, wherein people spoke a similar language for unity
• The construction of a tower to reach to the sky lead God to diversify language destroying all unity
• From the New Testament the apostles learned languages by the Grace of the Holy Spirit.

Scientific Theory

• Bow-wow - language came from sound of the environment such as water or animals; it is natural
• Dog barks sounded like aw aw, compared to ham ham in Albania and Taiwan
• Ding-dong - language came from sounds of the environment such as doorbell, train since people has its own sound
• Plato/Pythagoras supported this but refuted since it doesn't symbolize meaning
• Yum-yum - language was created through movements/gestures of the parts of people like nodding means denial.
• Ta-ta- - Ta-ta is from French for goodbye/farewell since sign language is used for deaf
• Pooh-pooh - Language comes from people's feelings/emotions like when a finger is stuck in the door one says aray!
• Yoheho - Language from the sounds created from force
• Tarara-Boom-De-Ay- Language came from ceremony with dancing and chanting, allowing it to be a part of culture
• La-la- Language development from love which David Crystal refuted over difficulty to determine emotion

Pyschological Theories

• Behaviorism - everyone can learn language from imitating like baby saying mama constantly hearing until they can pronounce

Innate

• Language by chromosomes.
• Theory of language development that argues children have a pre-wired capacity to learn language.
• All children acquire language in very similar ways and stages

Interactionist Views

• Language development from complex relationship in environment
• Piaget said language has no module rather it is used to represent how you are through people
• L. Vygotsky suggested thoughts came from a person/environment.

Humane Theory

• Emotion, feelings etc are important in language like one should enjoy learning Cognitive - Occurs after things are understood where mistakes show development

Linguistic Diversity

• Variety from where a word is, what it's like or its different qualities

Bickerton's Views

• Variety is okay since people adapt to the world

Gleason's Views

• Language is a social event that is based on tradition and system of living

Paz's Views

• Accepting the language is the attitude

Varieties Of Language

• Universal Lingua Franca
• National Lingua Franca (Saligang Batas ng 1987, Artikulo XIV Seksiyon 6)
• Regional Lingua Franca

Philippine Lingua Franca

• The variations
• Tagalog
• Taglish/Enggalog
• Bertaglish

Language variants in the Philippines

• Dialect-variant or the type of language spoken in a particular geographical location differences within the language
• Regional dialect-language used indicates a difference in pronunciation which can show the location and diversity of the region

Society

• Differences based on economic levels

Idyolek

• Idiolect- individual
• Register of Language or Jargon ex emergency room in hospitals
• Slang or invention of words
• Gay Lingo/Bekimon ex: language of the nation is filipinetch
• Jejemon- shortened words .ex wer na u? are you there?
• Ethnolect- words from ethnic groups: cabalen- compatriot
• Pidgin language created that the language native to nobody, since comes between two languages
• Creole- native language that originated from pidgin.
• Ekolek - is a language for home.

Module 5 - Meaning

• Group of symbols and pronunciation create a language
• It is a group of symbols with over 6000-7000 different types in the world

Explore the definition and multifaceted role of language in society. Language serves as a vehicle for conveying ideas and opinions, and it represents a nation's soul. It shapes global perspectives and functions as an ideology influenced by individual positions and societal roles.