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1、Lecture 2 What is Language? - The nature of human language,Contents of this lecture,1. Definitions of language 2. Features of language (chapter 2) 3. Origins of language (chapter1) 4. Functions of language 5. Forms of Language (chapter 16) 6. Gestures and signs of language (chapter 15),Questions: 1.
2、 What is language 2. What if we had no language? 3. Is language important? Is it more important than (less important, as important as) our eyes, hands, ears or legs?,1. Definitions,辞海（1989年版，第446页） 人类最重要的交际工具。它同思维有密切的联 系，是人类思维和表达思想的手段，也是人类社 会最基本的信息载体。人们借助语言保存和传递 人类文明的成果。语言是人区别于其他动物的本 质特征之一。共同的语言又常是民
3、族的特征。语 言是以语音为物质外壳，以语词为建筑材料，以 语法为结构规律而构成的符号体系。,语言是一种特殊的社会现象，它随着社会 的产生而产生，发展而发展。语言没有阶 级性，一视同仁地为社会各阶层服务。社 会各阶级，阶层或社会集群也会影响到语 言，因而造成语言在使用上的不同特点或 差异。,Language “is not to be confused with human speech, of which it is only a definite part, though certainly an essential one. It is both a social product of t
4、he faculty of speech and a collection of necessary conventions that have been adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty”. (Ferdinand de Saussure 1857-1913),Language is a set of sentences, each infinite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. (Chomsky,
5、 1957),Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols. (Sapir, 1921),“ A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates.” - Bernard Bloch (1907-1965) & George Tr
6、ager (1906-1992): Outline of Linguistic Analysis (1942) “ A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members of a society interact in terms of their total culture.” - George Trager: The Field of Linguistics (1949),“Language is a means of verbal communication. It is instr
7、umental in that communicating by speaking or writing is a purposeful act. It is social and conventional in that language is a social semiotic and communication can only take place effectively if all the users share a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonve
8、rbal cues, motivation, and socio-cultural roles. - Hu zhuanglin(2006),Liao, Meizhen (2008) 语言是什么？语言是人。人是什么？人是语 言。We exist because we speak. （我说故我 在）。Man is man only when man does not regard (take) language as a tool.（只有当人不把语言 作工具的时候，人才成为真正意义的人）。,当人把语言当作工具的时候，人以为自己是主人，其实人是奴隶。当人无论是在显意识还是潜意识中都不把语言当作工具的
9、时候，人才能真正地得到解放，人文精神才真正地实现。否则人永远是奴隶。把语言看作工具永远无法得到语言和语言研究的真谛。,Qian Guanlian (2005) 语言是人类的最后家园:人活在语言中,人不得不 活在语言中,人活在程式性语言行为中.语言实际 上是人类的一种社会活动.是一种行为.,顾曰国 (2008) “学一门语言是懂一个人的心声，懂一个文化。就是整个文化的大门给你开放了，整个文明给你开放了。 我感觉语言这个东西，不要把它看成是一个简单的符号。它是一个心。另外对于个人来说，是一个文化的大门，一个文明的大门向你开放了，这个太有意思。我现在正在准备学蒙古语。我想看看蒙古人怎么看世界。” h
10、ttp:/ Defined as such, language is seen as unique to human beings. In broad terms, linguists all agree to define language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication (the primary function of language). Language is a social act.,Questions: 1. Do other creatures have their own
11、communication systems? 2. Are communication systems possessed by other creatures qualitatively different from human languages?,1) Communication can be achieved by two signals: - specifically communicative signals - unintentionally informative signals Human language is a means of intentional communic
12、ation. 2) Human language possesses some design features which differentiate it from all other forms of signaling and make language a unique type of communication system.,2. Design Features of human languages,1) reflexivity 2) arbitrariness 3) duality 4) displacement 5) productivity 6) cultural trans
13、mission,Reflexivity,Human beings can reflect on the way they create their communicative messages or reviewing how they work. We can use language to talk and think about language itself. e.g. 1) What do you mean? 2) I mean 3) word, sentence, this, that 4) I wish he wouldnt use some many technical ter
14、ms.,Arbitrariness,Language is arbitrary. All languages are arbitrary.,Arbitrariness,The relationship between speech sounds and the meanings they represent in the languages of the world is, for the most part, an arbitrary one. The Swiss linguist de Saussure regarded the linguistic sign as composed of
15、 signifier (sound image) and signified (referent). In his view, there is no inherent relation between the two.,For the majority of animal signals, there does appear to be a clear connection between the conveyed message and the signal used to convey it . Animal signaling is non-arbitrary.,Duality,Lan
16、guage is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously. This property is called duality. Or double articulation. At one level, we have distinct sounds, and, at another level, we have distinct meanings. This is important for the workings of language. A small number of sounds can be grouped and reg
17、rouped into a large number of units of meaning (words), and the units of meaning can be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of sentences.,No animal communication system has duality. The barks of a dog are not analyzable. Animal communication systems cannot be cut into segments and then b
18、e reorganized into meaningful sequences. In other words, human languages are discrete while animal communication systems are non-discrete.,Creativity / productivity,Language is resourceful because of its duality and its recursiveness. We can use it to create new meanings. Words can be used in new wa
19、ys to mean new things, and can be instantly understood by people who have never come across that usage before.,Creativity / productivity,Language provides opportunities for sending messages that have never been sent before and for understanding novel messages. The grammatical rules and the words of
20、a language are finite, but the sentences are infinite. Every speaker uses language creatively.,Even a child acquiring his mother tongue can put speech sounds and words into novel combinations to express meanings. This feature is not found in animal communication systems. Talking birds such as parrot
21、s can imitate human utterances.,Examples for creativity: (a) Make up new words 三个代表, smart phone, smart drink, hypertext, toy boy, ragazine (rag+magazine) (tabloid), body double (b) Use old words in new ways: Cool (c) Compose infinite sentences You know I know you know I know you know. He bought a b
22、ook which was written by a teacher who taught in a school which was known for its graduates who .,Displacement,Human language-users can refer to past and future time, and to other locations. This property of human language is called displacement. It allows the users of language to talk about things
23、and events not present in the immediate environment. This feature of language is due to the fact that the human brain is specially structured for language and that the brains of other species are not comparable in terms of the capacities of memory and abstraction.,Displacement benefits human beings
24、by giving us the power to handle generalizations and abstractions. Once we can talk about physically distant thing, we acquire the ability to understand concepts which denote “non-things”, such as truth and beauty.,It seems that animal communication is almost exclusively designed for this moment, he
25、re and now. It cannot effectively be used to relate events which are far removed in time and place. A philosopher once marked: “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.” However, it has been proposed that bee communication does have the prope
26、rty of displacement. The honeybees dance exhibits displacement a little bit: he can refer to a source of food, which is remote in time and space when he reports on it.,Cultural Transmission,A Chinese speaker and an English speaker are not mutually intelligible. This shows that language is culturally
27、 transmitted. That is, it is passed on from one generation to the next by teaching and learning, rather than by instinct. While it has been argued that humans are born with an predisposition to acquire language, it is clear that they are not born with the ability to produce utterances in a specific
28、language. As language is arbitrary and conventional, a child can only acquire his mother tongue through interacting with people around.,Animal call systems are genetically transmitted. Human languages are culturally transmitted.,Summary Linguists have observed other characteristics, but the ones dis
29、cussed above are more striking.These are universal features possessed by all human languages. Although some animal communication systems possess, to a very limited degree, one or another of these features except creativity and duality, none is found to have all the features. Language distinguishes h
30、uman beings from animals in that it is far more sophisticated than any animal communication system. On this basis linguists tend to conclude that human languages are qualitatively different from animal communication systems. Human language is a unique form of communication.,Question: Would other cre
31、atures be able to understand and produce this specialized human mode of expression? No.,Reasons: 1) Human language: unique form of communication. 2) Other creatures cannot develop an understanding of human mode of expression 3) Stimulus-response of animals: Riders say WHOA Say Heel to dogs Circus an
32、imals go Up, Down, Roll over, etc 4) Difficult to conceive animals “understanding” human language, even less likely to produce human language 5) One species of animals do not produce the signals of another species. 6) Apes can communicate with a wide range of vocal calls, but they cannot make human
33、speech sounds.,7) -Animal communication is normally under “immediate stimulus control”. For instance, a warning cry of a bird instantly announces danger. - Human language is stimulus-free. What we are talking about need not be triggered by any external stimulus in the world or any internal state.,Wh
34、at achievements have Washoe, Sarah, Lana, Nim,Kanzi made in the process of learning human language ? Can they “use language”?,Using language: - in a broad sense, language does serve as a type of communication system that can be observed in a variety of different situation. - in another sense, chimpa
35、nzees are interacting with human they know. They are using language in this sense. Some chimpanzees can be taught to speak, to use forms of language and even to interact with humans, but they could not possess the capability to develop a highly complex system of sounds and structures, plus a set of
36、computational procedure, that will allow the child to produce extended discourse containing a potentially infinite number of novel utterances.,Question: Since language is unique for human beings, What are the origins of human speech?,3. Origins of language,Spoken form of language- written form of la
37、nguage- no evidence relating to the speech- speculations 1) The divine source 2) The natural sound source 3) The social interaction source 4) The physical adaptation source 5) The tool-making source 6) The genetic source,1) The Divine Source,In most religions, there appears to be a divine source who
38、 provides humans with language.,Christian belief, God created Adam and “whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof” (Genesis 2:19),A few experiments have been carried out, with rather conflicting results. The basic hypothesis seems to have been that, if infants were allo
39、wed to grow up without hearing any language, then they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language.,Conclusion 1) It is unfortunate that all other cases of children who have been discovered living in isolation, without coming into contact with human speech, tend not to confirm th
40、e results of either of these “divine-source” experiments. 2) Children living without access to human speech in their early years grow up with no language at all.,2) The natural-sound source,1 ) Imitating natural sounds (bow-wow theory) In primitive times people imitated the sounds of the animal call
41、s in the wild environment they live and speech developed from that Onomatopoeic words seem to be a convenient evidence for this theory. But they are very different in the degree of resemblance they express with the natural sounds. And abstract concepts could not echo natural sounds. This theory lack
42、s supportive evidence.,2) The “pooh-pooh” theory In the hard life of our primitive ancestors, they utter instinctive sounds of pain, anger and joy. As for evidence, we can only cite the universal use of sounds as interjections. What makes the theory problematic is that there is only a limited number
43、 of interjections in almost all languages.,The by-now fruitless search for the origin of languages reflects peoples concern with the origin of humanity and may come up with enlightening findings in future. One thing we can say for certain is that language evolves within specific historical, social a
44、nd cultural contexts.,3) The social interaction source,The “yo-heave-ho” theory: - the idea is that the sounds of a person involved in physical effort could be the source of our language, especially when that physical effort involved several people and the interaction had to be coordinated. - this p
45、roposal places the development of human language in a social context. - human sounds must have had some principled use within the life and social interaction of early human groups.,4) The physical adaptation source,Teeth: helpful for making sounds such as f or v Lips: intricate muscle interlacing Mo
46、uth: small, open and close, Tongue: to shape a wide variety of sounds inside the oral cavity. Nose:to close off the airway and create more air pressure on the mouth Larynx: “voice box”; the larynx dropped to a lower position than the throat because of an upright posture. Pharynx: a longer cavity act
47、ing as a resonator for increased ranged and clarity of the sounds produced via the larynx and the vocal tract.,5) The tool-making source,-manual gesture may have been a precursor of language. - right-handed and making tools - tool-making is evidence of a brain at work. - human brain: large and later
48、alized - motor movements of speaking and making tools are controlled by some part of the brain in the left hemisphere.,6) The genetic source,- The process of first language acquisition led scholars to believe that human offspring are born with a special capacity for language- Innateness hypothesis -
49、 language gene - the biological basis of the formation and development of human language.,4. Functions of language,1) What do we do with language? 2) What kind of things can language do?,Function is generally used in linguistics to refer to the roles language plays in our life or in society. Even in this sense, function may refer to specific roles or general roles. -The specific roles language plays fulfill an individuals purpose