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Pragmatics essay
Concepts of pragmatics
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The history of language probably started when our earliest ancestors had the need to communicate with each other. Since beginning that era, language had evolved into this ever-growing and seemingly governed system of that same communicative property our ancestors used. But is language really rule-governed? Is the current evolutionary status of language really comparable to that of our ancient brethren? Is the level of complexity of our ancestors’ language, disregarding the difference in level of language if there is, is the same as ours in current society? Language is indeed rule-governed, and it is this ever-increasingly stricter and ever-expanding system that differentiates our level of language and its complexity from our ancestors.
Language is rule-governed, but the rules are not ratified by an authority, but rather by these invisible set of human-abided rules, which are shaped from the pragmatism of the different forms of language. Two large components of language that contribute to the successful projection of sense of meaning are vocabulary, the meaning of a word, and grammar, the correct usage of the word. Vocabulary is human rule-governed shaped by its usefulness in society. Everyone knows that an apple is. An apple is usually red, sometimes green; is a fruit; grows on trees; etc. But that is simply the meaning of what human society gave the word ‘apple’ to intend. What truly is an apple? It is this solid collection of atoms. But, to take something as literally as this statement would not be very useful for human language. In that sense, then people are all atoms, because we are all solid collections of atoms. Vocabulary can then be said to have been shaped by its pragmatic uses in human society. Grammar is also human...
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...y had become deeper from the earlier eras, sacrificing flexibility for precision.
Language is rule-governed, and more developed in terms of vocabulary, grammar, and complexity than that of our ancestors. Along with greater language prowess grew also our capability of knowing and perceiving something. Take for example the example of the color red. If I had lived in earlier eras where the word ‘red’ was just limited to ‘red,’ then I could have easily said that my school’s uniform is the same color to that of the McDonald’s waitress’ uniform. But, seeing as how I live in the modern era, I could easily distinguish my school’s uniform as maroon, and the McDonald’s waitress’ uniform as more of a scarlet tone. With this, there is no true way of ‘knowing’ something, especially in such a complex way, unless the language one understands welcomes the idea of that something.
Perhaps the most ubiquitous quality shared between humans is the capacity to know. The English language seems stark and stale when considering a definition for the word itself that encompasses the various feelings that can be summoned in knowing something. John Farella examines the inequality that exists in the relationship between the West...
How can it be that something so uniquely human and commonplace in our everyday existence as language, could transcend the limits of our immediate understanding? We all know how to speak and comprehend at least one language, but defining what we actually know about that language an infinitely more demanding process. How can a child without previous knowledge of the construction and concepts of language be born into the world with an innate ability to apprehend any dialect? Mark Baker, in his book The Atoms of Language, seeks to address these unsettling questions, proposing as a solution, a set of underlying linguistic ingredients, which interact to generate the wide variety of languages we see today.
The prehistoric times stand evidence to the power of language as a tool for communication and growth. Language has proven to be an effective medium and factor surrounding the evolution of man. Language has played a big role in the development of individuals and societies. What is spoken and/or written, help in the initiation of imagination, expression of feelings, and conveyance of thoughts and ideas.
Sometimes we think that words are a way to express what we have on our minds. Right? Think again. Guy Deutscher justifies just that. Our mother tongue does train our brains into thinking a certain type of way, also altering our perceptions of reality. In the NY Times article, “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?,” Guy points out that the mother tongue is Hebrew and leaves us with how we perceive the world. Guy’s protestor, Benjamin Lee Whorf, exclaims that language doesn’t have a particular word for a concept and that the concept itself could not be understood by the speaker. Guy argues that he does not have enough evidence that will substantiate the theory. He claims that Whorf is wrong on so many
John McWhorter, the author of The Power of Babel, gives a brief history of human languages. The title is from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The story tells of the people had only one language and decided to build a tower. Then, God gives them different languages. As a result, the event was the derivation of different cultures and languages. Through McWhorter’s view of how languages derived from the past 150,000 years, he states that the one original language transformed into six thousand new languages. The book has seven chapters and an epilogue. The first chapter is “The First Language Morphs into Six Thousand New Ones” discusses the question, “What happened to the first language?”( McWhorter 16). The second chapter is “The Six Thousand Languages Develop into Clusters of Sublanguages.” Then, The third chapter
Hill, Jane H., P. J. Mistry, and Lyle Campbell. The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright. Berlin [etc.: Mouton De Gruyter, 1998. Print.
My younger brother used to ask questions all the time about how certain words were invented. “Who came up with the word sky? Why did they call it that?” were some of many questions I was asked when we were growing up. I always had to tell him that I had no idea or that it just happened. What Jonathan was questioning is a concept that linguists and anthropologists are still trying to answer today. The evolution of language is an incredibly difficult process to determine. Robbins Burling has written an entire book about, The Talking Ape, and still cannot definitively prove that the theories he presents are the exact way that language developed. However, Burling points out a plethora of evidence that points in such a direction. One piece of
Humans can spread ideas and concepts through to use of words alone. Words also give humans the ability to put names to objects (Langer 108). This what happens to infants who are able to speak the first time, they put certain words to certain objects. Langer describes a young child who receives a toy horse. The child yelps “horsey” over and over again. When he does this, he is conceptualizing the toy horse that is right in front of him (Langer 108). He knows that is a horse, and the next time he witnesses a horse, he will know that is one. The symbol to the child was the word horse. He was taught that they toy was a model of a horse, that the word “horse” symbolized what the toy was. That symbol, which is language, came to life when that boy conceptualized that language and objects can be
Suzanne K. Langer, the author of “Language and Thought” states that “the birth of language is the dawn of humanity” (120). The “dawn of humanity” refers to the beginning of time, the beginning of life, the beginning of society, and we, as people need language to survive every day in civilization. Humans haven’t always had the glory of language. Millions of years ago, science has proven that we have evolved from chimpanzees because of our fairly similar DNA. We have similar facial structure, body language, and protective instincts; although language is what defines us as human and what allows us to become individuals. However, the challenges we would face to grow a relationship in our modern society would become increasingly difficult because
Languages are continually changing and developing, and these changes occur in many different ways and for a variety of reasons. Language change is detectable to some extent in all languages, and ‘similar paths of change’ can be recognised in numerous unrelated languages (Bybee, 2015, p. 139). Since users of language all over the world have ‘the same mental processes’ and ‘use communication for the same or very similar ends’ (Bybee, 2015, p. 1), similar changes occur on the same linguistic aspects, and in many cases these changes produce similar results in multiple languages. However, language change is limited by the function it performs. Languages must be learnt to such an extent which allows communication between the generation above and below one’s own (McMahon, 1994, p. 5). Hence language change is a gradual, lethargic process, as only small changes in
Language refers to the method that humans use to communicate, either through speech or written. It consists of the use of the word in a structured and conventional way. Language has been referred to as ‘our means of classifying and ordering the world; our means of manipulating reality’. In structure and in its use, we bring the world into realisation and if it is inherently inaccurate, then we are misled. Dale Spender, 1980.Language has power that allows us to make sense out of the reality we live in.
Next, we shall evaluate the key features of language which are; communicative, arbitrary, structured, generative, and dynamic. Communicative, language can allow one to interact with another. According to Willingham (2007), the bond found with the elements in language and what they mean is arbitrary. The way language is set up shows how the symbols are not arbitrary. The set up language shows precisely how intricate it can be. Generative, one is able to build countless number of meanings from words. Dynamic, language never stays the same, therefore it can be known as sporadic. According to Willingham (2007), changes are being made all the time as new words get added and as the ways of grammar change. These elements can be quite critical when it comes to language.
Have you ever wondered who taught you to talk the way you do? People learn to talk and express themselves everyday of their lives. Starting from the day you were born you used language or some form of it to communicate with those around you. As a baby you usually show your displeasure with your new surroundings by crying, and if you don’t the doctor will make sure you do. Everyday we express our point of view to others in some form of language. Whether it is through verbal communication, written discourse or through body language, you can tell if a person is upset, angry, or happy. We as human beings don’t realize how much language has to do with our lives. How can you determine if one of your friends is angry with you? Is there a different tone to their voice? Do they have a stern look on their face? Of course they do, your friend feels the need to express their anger to you by these different forms of language. Where do we learn to use these different forms of language? How are our uses of these languages shaped? The three main contributing factors to how we express ourselves through language come from our schooling, our friends, and most of all from our families.
Language is a means of human communication whether verbally or nonverbally. In everyday life we use language to express our thoughts, feelings ,attitudes,etc.A great amount of social interactions takes place every day over the telephone ,by online chats, face –to face interaction or at workplaces .We use language of different forms for different functions as in to inform, question , and sometimes to strengthen social relationships or just to keep the social wheels turning smoothly. Moreover, understanding one's own language and even other cultures’ language is important to arrive at a successful and effective communication with others . The study of language can be undertaken in various ways .Semantics and pragmatics are two branches of linguistics which are concerned with the study of meaning.
Secondly, it is that language in entertwined with the structure of the relationship between the Individual and Other, meaning that language is integral to any relation between consciousnesses. Ones language is