Language+Use+&+Functions



  INTRODUCTION __//**    
 * MEMBERS :**
 * **AHMADILIMAN BIN IBRAHIM @ TANRAHIM**
 * **CAROLINE CHRIS**
 * **SIVARANJINI RADHAKRISNAN**
 * **PATHMASRI RAGHAVAN**
 * //__
 *  A language is a system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages ", the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind . In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols, each referring to linguistic concepts with semantic or logical or otherwise expressive meanings.
 *  The most obvious manifestations are spoken languages such as English or Spoken Chinese . However, there are also written languages and other systems of visual symbols such as sign languages.
 *  Although some other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, and these are sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language in the strict sense.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> When discussed more technically as a general phenomenon then, "language" always implies a particular type of human thought which can be present even when communication is not the result, and this way of thinking is also sometimes treated as indistinguishable from language itself.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> In Western philosophy for example, language has long been closely associated with reason, which is also a uniquely human way of using symbols. In Ancient Greek philosophical terminology, the same word, logos, was used as a term for both language or speech and reason, and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the English word "speech" so that it similarly could refer to reason.

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 * //__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> HUMAN LANGUAGE __//**
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Human languages are usually referred to as natural languages, and the science of studying them falls under the purview of linguistic . A common progression for natural languages is that they are considered to be first spoken, then written, and then an understanding and explanation of their grammar is attempted.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Languages live, die, move from place to place, and change with time. Any language that ceases to change or develop is categorized as a dead language . Conversely, any language that is in a continuous state of change is known as a living language or modern language.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Making a principled distinction between one language and another is usually impossible. For instance, there are a few dialects of German similar to some dialects of Dutch . The transition between languages within the same language family is sometimes gradual.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Some like to make parallels with biology, where it is not possible to make a well-defined distinction between one species and the next. In either case, the ultimate difficulty may stem from the interactions between languages and populations.

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 * //__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> ANIMAL COMMUNICATION __//**
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> The term "animal language " is often used for non-human systems of communication. Linguists do not consider these to be "language", but describe them as animal communication, because the interaction between animals in such communication is fundamentally different in its underlying principles from human language. Nevertheless, some scholars have tried to disprove this mainstream premise through experiments on training chimpanzees to talk. Karl von Frisch received the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his proof of the language and dialects of the bees. Current research indicates that signaling codes are the most fundamental precondition for every coordination within and between cells, tissues, organs and organisms of all organismic kingdoms. All of these signaling codes follow combinatorial (syntactic), context-sensitive (pragmatic) and content-specific (semantic) rules. In contrast to linguists, biolinguistics and biosemiotics consider these codes to be real languages.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> In several publicized instances, non-human animals have been taught to understand certain features of human language. Chimpanzees, gorillas, and orang utans have been taught hand signs based on American Sign Language . The African Grey Parrot , which possesses the ability to mimic human speech with a high degree of accuracy, is suspected of having sufficient intelligence to comprehend some of the speech it mimics. Most species of parrot, despite expert mimicry, are believed to have no linguistic comprehension at all.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> While proponents of animal communication systems have debated levels of semantics, these systems have not been found to have anything approaching human language syntax.

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 * //__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> THE USES OF LANGUAGE __//**
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> We use language in many different ways and for many different purposes. We write, speak, and sign it. We work with language, play with language, and earn our living with language. We court and seduce, buy and sell, insult and praise, all by means of language. Much of the material in subsequent chapters of this book will present techniques for simplifying language and its use. In doing so, it is important that we not forget the complexity behind what we are doing. Logic is one, but only one, approach to the study of language.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> One way, though not the only way, we use language is to reason. It is this use of language with which logic is primarily concerned. The purpose of logic is to improve our critical thinking. To think critically is to recognize, construct, analyze, and evaluate arguments. Doing these things requires that we be able to separate the argumentative uses of language from the other uses.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> Arguments, as understood by the logician, are not disputes or confrontations between people, though the logician's analysis of arguments may well have a bearing on such disputes. An argument in logic is a linguistic entity, an object having properties that can be discovered and described.


 * //__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE __//**
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">A means of conveying information example, "The Kyneton train is now approaching on platform 4." This example is conveying to those waiting for the Kyneton train that it has now arrived.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">An instrument of action example, "Don't forget to feed the dog." This example is telling the second person in the conversation to do something.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">To maintain social relationships example, "G'day, how ya going?" Here we see that this function allows us to make and keep friends. This function is usually more informal than others.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Acting as a marker of groups example, "He was out for a duck." This example would only be heard by someone talking about the cricket, therefore establishing that the people involved in the conversation are involved with cricket in one way or another, marking them as a group.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">As an instrument of cognitive and conceptual development. This is the power of language to influence thinking. This is why we have many words that mean basically the same thing, because they all have slight differences or are used in different circumstances. For example if you could only say you were happy, but not excited, thrilled, etc, then you would not be able to give as much detail.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">As an art form, language can be purposed towards beauty for beauty's sake.


 * //__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> KIND OF AGREEMENT AND DISAGREEMENT __//**
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> In fact, an excessive reliance on emotively charged language can create the appearance of disagreement between parties who do not differ on the facts at all, and it can just as easily disguise substantive disputes under a veneer of emotive agreement. Since the degrees of agreement in belief and attitude are independent of each other, there are four possible combinations at work here:

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> 1. Agreement in belief and agreement in attitude: There aren't any problems in this instance, since both parties hold the same positions and have the same feelings about them.

2. Agreement in belief but disagreement in attitude: This case, if unnoticed, may become the cause of endless (but pointless) shouting between people whose feelings differ sharply about some fact upon which they are in total agreement.

3. Disagreement in belief but agreement in attitude: In this situation, parties may never recognize, much less resolve, their fundamental difference of opinion, since they are lulled by their shared feelings into supposing themselves allied.

4. Disagreement in belief and disagreement in attitude: Here the parties have so little in common that communication between them often breaks down entirely.

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 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> It is often valuable, then, to recognize the levels of agreement or disagreement at work in any exchange of views. That won't always resolve the dispute between two parties, of course, but it will ensure that they don't waste their time on an inappropriate method of argument or persuasion.

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