LANGUAGE

                                                                   LANGUAGE

 Many definitions of language have been proposed. Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language scholar, stated “Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.” The American linguists Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager formulated the following definition. “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.” Any succinct definition of language makes a number of presuppositions and begs a number of questions. The first, for example, puts excessive weight on “thought,” and the second uses “arbitrary” in a specialized, though legitimate, way.

   According to Edward Sapir in his book entitled language: An introduction to the study of speeech. The concept of communicative language teaching has grown out of the notion that solely teaching grammar is not enough to prepare students for using the language independently. This method of teaching proposes that students need to understand the meaning and the communicative function of a language in order to learn the language. Next, The relationship between language and culture is a complex one due largely in part to the great diffi culty in understanding people’s cognitive processes when they communicate. Below, Wardhaugh and Thanasoulas each define language in a somewhat different way, with the former explaining it for what it does, and the latter viewing it as it relates to culture. 

After that, the function of keeping communication lines open, and keeping social relationships in good repair. We can say about this function that it is used for normal talks. An example of this, when two people meet each other accidently in a place. They start talking about something unimportant for the sake of communication like, how are you? How is your children? We can say that it is a kind of daily talking. It is does not have meaning but is good.

Lastly, we can define language as a system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences.