GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE

Language can be seen as a means by which human communicate information, ideas and feelings. Since it is almost natural for every human being to want to express one thing or the other to fellow human being. It then becomes pertinent for a resource to be put to use for that purpose. Therefore, any resource that serves the purpose of delivering message of whatever kind to people is known as language. What the above suggest is that, language extends beyond the conventional notion of spoken language, as it is inclusive of surrogate language, sign language among others. However, our present concern is on spoken language such as, English language, German, French, Yoruba etc. as it is unique to people in the view of their characteristics. There is however, a lucid discrepancy between the terms: “language” and “a language”. While the term “Language” is generic, “a language” is specific.

The term “language” is used to describe all universal language (i.e all language of the world) used to communicate among human beings. “A language” on the other hand refers to a particular human language used by people to communicate such as, French, German, Yoruba, Swahili, Igbo etc. while we cannot talk about dialects of language, a language can have several dialects, all of which are mutually intelligible. For instance, Ijebu, Oyo, Igbomina and Egba are some of the dialects of Yoruba.

Characteristics of language

There are numerous features of language, but some, which we consider more important than the rest are listed below.

  • Innateness
  • Arbitrariness
  • Conventionality
  • Cultural transmission
  • Displacement
  • Prevarication


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