AEN 100: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE

There have been various attempts at the definition of language. According to the Routledge Dictionary of
Language and Linguistics, language is a ‘vehicle for the expression or exchanging of thoughts, concepts,
knowledge, and information as well as the fixing and transmission of experience and knowledge’.
According to this definition, language refers to a specific form of expression that is restricted to humans.

Brinton (2000:3) defines language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols (signs) used for human
communication. Language is said to be what distinguishes human beings from other animals which can
only communicate about their present circumstances in response to particular stimuli.

Bloch and Trager (1942) define language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a
social group co-operates.

Noam Chomsky (1942) views language as a set of finite number of sentences, each finite in length and
constructed out of a finite set of elements.

Michael Halliday defines language as a system of meaning – a semiotic system.

When one knows a language, they:

i) Have an unconscious knowledge of the sound system of the language and what
combinations are permissible in that language and what aren’t. For example, the sounds
/i/ /s/ /p/ /t/ can combine to form the words spit, pits, and tips in English but not ispt, tisp,
ptis etc or Kiswahili mw and not wm.
ii) Know words in that language. This means knowing what sequences of words are related to
specific concepts or meanings and which are not. For example the word pen in English does
not have the same meaning as pin; neither does it refer to the same thing.
iii) Know how words combine to form larger units such as the sentence e.g. Kiswahili ‘Kijana
yule ni rafiki yangu’ and not ‘Rafiki yule kijana ni yangu
iv) Can speak it and be understood by others who know that language. This means one is able
to produce a sequence of sounds which signify certain meanings and also interpret sounds or
utterances produced by others in that language.
v) Are creative and can produce new sentences never produced before and understand those
never heard before. This also means one knows the rules for the combination of the words in
the language. This knowledge need not be conscious.
 Knowledge of the aspects mentioned above is called competence. This however is different from
performance which refers to how you use this knowledge in actual speech production and
comprehension. This means one can know a language but choose not to speak it. In this case he/ she
still has knowledge of it as opposed to one who does not know it at all and therefore cannot speak it at
all.

THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

No one really knows how language originated since there isn’t any direct physical evidence relating to the
speech of early humans. Evidence of written language dates back to about 5000 years ago. For this
reason, we shall consider some of the theories of the origin of human language.

1. The Divine Source

This is also referred to as the Genesis theory. In the biblical tradition, God created Adam whom He gave
the power to name. ‘… whatsoever Adam called every creature, that was the name thereof’ (Genesis 2:
9). There are other religious beliefs too. The Egyptians believed the creator of speech was the god Thoth.
Babylonians believed the language giver was the god Nabu. The Hindus believed that Sarasvati, the wife
of Brahma, the creator of the universe gave language to humans. In many religions, only special
languages may be used in prayers and rituals e.g. only Latin in the Catholic Church until recently. Among
Muslims, the Koran was not to be translated into any other language and could only be read in Arabic.

Strengths of the Genesis Theory

a) Adam had come into possession of the unique power of language since he named the animals.
This also means the animals had no ability to name themselves – to date. Clearly, animals
did/do not have the power of language.
b) The Genesis Theory has permanence since ‘… whatsoever Adam called every creature, that
was the name thereof’. Even though most of the animals that existed during Adam’s time
have become extinct, their names existed long after this extinction.
c) In the story of the tower of Babel, the writer of genesis also observes the diversity of
languages in the world. He tries to explain why languages are diverse when originally there
was only one in Genesis 11: 9 ‘… because the Lord did there confound the language of all the
earth’
Weaknesses of the Divine Origin Theory

a) The theory does not satisfactorily answer questions on the origin of language. For example, it
still isn’t clear what specific language Adam used.
b) Even if the language Adam used were known, he only named the animals. This data would be
insufficient for any kind of study.

This theory cannot scientifically be proved or disapproved.

2. The Invention Theory

This theory posits that language arose from people making instinctive sounds caused by pain, fear,
surprise, anger, pleasure etc. hence words such as ouch, wow, yuck, ah and so on. These they shared with
animals. Rousseau (1712-1772) argued that man invented language out of these natural sounds/cries since
the emotive cries and gestures were inefficient for communication. According to Rousseau, man shared
these cries with animals initially but later sought to free himself. This means it was his desire to free
himself and not his ability to reason that made him different from animals.

Weakness

a) Rousseau separated speech from the capacity of the human mind to reason.
b) This theory does not account for how human beings were able to acquire the ability for abstract
thought through their use of concrete words if they did not posses any special abilities.
c) Interjections such as ouch, wow and yuck have different counterparts in other languages.
3. The Natural Sound Source

This theory stipulates that primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which the
early men and women heard around them. When an object flew by and made a sound e.g. caw-caw, early
humans tried to imitate this and used it to refer to things associated with the sound. This explains the
origin of words such as cuckoo (from coo-coo), splash, bang boom, rattle, buzz, hiss, screech etc. these
words are onomatopoeic: they echo natural sounds.

Strength

The theory explains the origin of onomatopoeic words and these are found in all languages.
Weakness

a) Theory doesn’t account for how soundless concepts/ abstract things were named. How were these
named since language echoed only the natural sounds?
b) It is difficult to see how the imitation of natural sounds could have been developed into language
as we know it.
4. Herder’s View

Herder (1179) a German philosopher and poet refuted both the Divine theory and the Invention Theory.
He argued that language was invented by man but this was within his reasoning power. He further argued
that man isolated one object from the all the others. The isolated object was retained in the mind in the
mind hence became a word in the soul. This isolation, according to him, demonstrated man’s reasoning
ability. This was through man’s own resources, to demonstrate his own powers and not through divine
instruction. Herder’s argued that it is the people in the society that determine vocabulary and the way
things are named.

5. The Evolution Theory

This theory posits that evolution resulted in the development of a vocal tract capable of producing a wide
range of sounds utilized by humans. Human beings possess certain apparatus that support speech
production. This is something non humans/ animals lack:

a) Upright (as opposed to slanting like in apes) teeth that are roughly even in height. These are
helpful in the production of the sounds /f/ and /v/
b) More flexible lips. These are helpful in the production of the sounds /p/ and /b/.
c) The human mouth is relatively smaller and can be opened and closed rapidly.
d) The mouth contains a tongue that is smaller, thicker and more muscular than that of other
primates. This is used in the production of sound such as /t/, /d/, /k/, /i/ etc.
e) The larynx/ voice box of humans contains the vocal cords differs in position from other
primates’. Through the evolution process the larynx dropped to a lower position and created a
longer cavity called the pharynx above the vocal cords. This acts as a resonator for increased
range and clarity of the sounds produced through the larynx.

Evolutionary changes in the development of language relate to evolutionary changes in the brain.
 Strength

The theory explains the development of a vocal tract that can produce a wide range of speech sounds,
hence the study of the vocal tract today in phonetics and phonology in a bid to understand human
speech sounds.

Weakness

The theory cannot explain sign language which doesn’t rely on the vocal tract but is a human
language all the same. The deaf and dumb do communicate but not through speech.

6. The Genetic Source

This is also referred to as the innateness hypothesis. The human offspring are born with a special
innate capacity for language that no other creature seems to have. Even those born deaf or dumb
posses this ability hence their fluency later in sign language. This feature is not tied to any
specific variety of language. The theory points to something in human genetics as the source of
human language. This can be likened to how computers work. They can be programmed or hard
wired. To date, scientists still search for the special language gene which only human beings
posses.

PROPERTIES OF LANGUAGE

Language has certain characteristics or features. It is:

a) Rule- governed
This means that at every level of language (e.g. phonological, morphological, syntactic etc), there
are rules that operate. In Kiswahili for example, at the phonological level a word like mtoto
meaning ‘child’ is acceptable. However, motto to mean the same is not acceptable. Syntactically
we can talk of ‘watoto wale ni wazuri’ and not ‘Watoto wale wazuri ni’.
b) Universal
Languages have certain features in common. Any language for example would have an
acceptable word order for example SVO for English and VSO for Maasai. All languages also
have acceptable ways of marking or expressing morphological features such as tense, aspect,
number and so on. All languages also have similar grammatical categories like verbs, nouns and
so on. Compare/ contrast these in English and your L1.
c) Creative
This means that it is possible for one to produce new sentences never spoken before and to
understand sentences never heard before because the number of sentences in a language is
infinite. However, knowledge of the rules of forming e.g. words or sentences is important if the
new words or sentences are to be accepted in the language.
d) Innate
Chomsky argued out that every child is born with a LAD (Language Acquisition Device) that
helps them learn or acquire any language they are exposed to. This means that every human being
has an inborn ability to learn language.
e) Arbitrary
This means there is no one to one relationship between a sequence of sounds (or letters) and what
it refers to. The relationship between speech sounds and the meaning they represent in a language
is arbitrary. As one acquires a language, they learn that the sounds represented by certain letters
(e.g. tree) signify a certain concept (e.g ). This also means that this concept ( ) will be
represented by different letters in different languages e.g. ‘mti’ in Kiswahili and ‘kumusala’ in
Lubukusu.
f) Culturally transmitted
Cultural transmission refers to the process by which human language is passed on from one
generation to another. Although, as Chomsky argues out, human beings are born with an LAD,
they are not born with the ability to speak a specific language say English, Kiswahili or Dholuo.
The specific language(s) learned is transmitted culturally. A human being brought up in isolation
does not acquire language.
g) Duality
Human language has between 30 and 40 phonemes. Each of these has no meaning on its own but
when combined with others becomes meaningful. These two levels give human language the
property of duality or double articulation. Different combinations of sounds can form new
meaningful larger units e.g. /s/, /p/, /t/, /o/ can form the words spot, pots, stop, opts and post.
h) Discreteness
Human language consists of units that can be isolated and repeated. These units are distinct and
this can be seen when different phonemes or sounds that are almost similar are combined with the
same sounds and result in a difference in meaning e.g. /v/ and /f/ in the words fan and van.
i) Displacement
Only human beings are able to refer to events remote in space and time. This feature of language
is referred to as displacement. Human beings can talk about events in the past, present and future.
 They can even talk about things that are abstract and only exist in the mind. Animals on the other
hand lack this capacity.

ANIMAL LANGUAGE

Animal communication doesn’t consist of random, emotional outbursts but is both complex and
organized. It is optimally in tune with the survival requirements of each species. Most animals posses
some kind of signaling communication system.

Animal language is stimulus bound and symptomatic. This means it only occurs when triggered by
exposure to certain stimulus (external or internal) e.g. hunger and fear or for certain specific ends.
Animals do not communicate about anything but the here and now.

Animal language is not deliberate or conscious. For example, it is unlikely that a monkey in the forest
can asses a situation then deliberately choose to warn members of its troupe of danger by selecting a sign
from a repertoire of meaningful sound symbols at its disposal. It would however give a certain cry in the
presence of danger, spontaneously signaling its fear by vocalizing. This vocalization is interpreted and
used by other members for their own benefit.

The language of animals shows few traces of discreet structuring beyond the obvious fact that one
group of symptomatic, graded signals may sound different from another e.g. whining in dogs is different
from barking. Both however are symptomatic and the two may grade (merge) into each other. However,
unlike humans who can combine phonemes, morphemes and words to form different messages, animals
(e.g. dogs) cannot do the same. Dogs for example cannot combine whines and barks to come up with a
message e.g. happy + ness = happiness.

In the human language directed to animals (e.g. dogs, cats, cows and circus animals), it would be wrong
to assume that non-humans do understand human language. Animals produce a particular behavior in
response to a particular sound-stimulus or ‘noise’, but do not actually ‘understand’ what the words in the
noise mean.

Some animal communication systems

a) Non-human primates
The galago, a small tree dwelling primate that lives in the dense forest whistles to communicate
danger. This kind of communication is ideal for nocturnal communication in a dense forest. The
galago however cannot combine whistles to signal something it has never conveyed before.
 Several experiments have been carried out to find out whether or not non humans can use
language in the same way humans can. In the 1930s an infant chimpanzee was raised by two
scientists Luella and Winthrop Kellogg together with their son. It was reported that the chimp
could understand 100 words but could not ‘say’ any of them. Needless to say, the child could.
Another one named viki was raised by a different scientist couple in their home exactly as if she
was a human child. The foster parents spent five years trying to get viki to ‘say’ English words by
trying to shape her mouth as she produced the sounds. Eventually she managed to produce three
poorly articulated words: mama, papa and cup.
b) Birds
Birds communicate through songs and calls which, as is the case for other animals, are stimulus
bound. They have ‘dialects’ within the same species. Their calls consist of one or more short
notes that convey messages associated with the environment around them such as flocking,
danger, feeding, nesting and so on. To mark territory and attract mates, birds use songs that have
much more complex patterns of notes. These, unlike human language do not have structure. They
cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful parts.
c) Bees
Honey bees communicate through dance. A forager bee (the one that hunts for food) returns to
the hive after finding a source of food and does a dance on the wall of the hive which
communicates to the other members of the colony the location and quality of the food. This can
be one of three possible patterns:
 Round – the location is near the hive; about twenty feet away
 Sickle – twenty to sixty feet away from the hive
 Tail-wagging – more than sixty feet away from the hive

The subject of communication is however limited to the distance of the food source from the bee
hive.

d) Spiders
The spiders have a system of courtship that is complex. The male spider performs an elaborate
series of gestures to inform the female spider that he is indeed a spider and not any other animal
or an insect to be eaten. This courtship ritual is fixed and not even a creative spider can change or
add anything to it. One set of gestures can only communicate one meaning. This is as opposed to
human language that has a finite set of rules from which we can come up with an infinite number
of sentences. Crabs have a similar ‘gesture’ language.
 e) Jungle frogs
Small jungle frogs in Southern Amazon communicate by sticking out their long and colorful legs.
This is ideal for sending messages in the deem and noisy jungle. They however cannot try out
new combinations of leg movements in order to come up with an original message.

From the examples above, it is evident that unlike human communication, animal communication is
severely limited in the messages it can convey.

Human language vis–a–vis animal language

1. Interchangeability

In human language all members can both send and receive messages unlike bee dancing where the
forager is the one that sends messages. In bird calls, the males are the ones that communicate.

2. Feedback

In human language, users are aware of what they are transmitting. The speaker hears everything of what
he/ she says and can correct or modify it.

3. Specialization

The communication system of animals serves no other function but to communicate. Human language
represents reality – both external (real world) and internal (states and beliefs)

4. Semanticity

Linguistic signs are connected to elements and features of the world. In human language, meaning is
through arbitrary symbols. Animals e.g. bees and birds have a limited range. Their system conveys
meaning through a set of fixed relationships among signifiers (physical form that can be seen), referents
(name/ word that refers) and the actual meaning (the signified).

5. Arbitrariness

There is no natural connection between a word and its meaning apart from rare instances of onomatopoeia
e.g. the word ‘pen’ and the object itself have no natural connection.
 6. Discreetness

Human language consists of units that can be isolated and separated. It shows distinctive features such as
phonemes, syllables, morphemes, words etc. different leg movements of jungle frogs cannot come up
with a different message.

7. Displacement

Human language has the ability to refer to events remote in both time and space e.g. one can talk about
ten years ago, next year or the USA etc. This isn’t the case with animal language.

8. Productivity

New messages on any topic can be created any time in human language. This is lacking in animal
communication

9. Duality of patterning

Meaningless units (phonemes) are combined to form arbitrary signs. This means they can form new,
meaningful, larger units. E.g. the phonemes /psto/ can combine differently to come up with the words
spot, tops, pots, stop, opt and post. There is no such evidence in animal language.

10. Tradition

At least certain aspects of the system must be transmitted from an experienced user to a learner hence
language acquisition.

11. Prevarication

This is deliberate act of deviating from the truth. The human language system allows users to talk non
sense or to lie. This is not the case for animal language.

12. Learnability

A user of the human language system can learn other variants (different languages)

13. Reflexiveness

This refers to the ability to use the communication system to discuss the system itself. Only human beings
can write grammars or linguistics text books.
ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES

An artificial language is one that is invented by people for specific uses such as international
communication, machine coding or computer programming. Unlike a natural language, an artificial
language has not evolved naturally following the natural stages of language diversity and convergence.
Artificial languages are created in the hope that they can be spoken universally hence universal peace.
Many of the artificial languages created have not been successful either because people were not
interested in them or because the reasons for their creation and introduction were questionable. A number
of artificial languages have been created with varying degrees of success:

a) Volapük

This is one of the first artificial languages constructed for use as an auxiliary international language;
based largely on English but with some French and Latin roots. This was created by a German parish
priest called Monsignor Johann Martin Schleyer who thought that all natural languages were defective
because their grammars were irrational and irregular and his aim was to develop a language which would
be simple to learn, grammatically regular and in which thought could be clearly and adequately
expressed. Volapuk however had its own shortcomings and was not successful.

b) Esperanto

Esperanto means ‘hope’. It was invented by a Polish scholar called Zamenhof and has had some level of
success. Esperanto is one of the languages that were created for general use in an attempt to provide a
general tongue neutral to all (Large, 1985). Zamenhof’s aim was to provide an international language, one
that could be adopted by all nations and be the common property of the whole world, without belonging
in any way to any existing nationality. The language has a regular grammar, is easily pronounced and
even has a dictionary. Its vocabulary is based mainly on European languages such as Latin, Romance
(group of languages derived from Latin e.g. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian),
Germanic and Greek. It has a written literature being taught in a number of institutions. It is also officially
recognized by some international organizations.

Esperanto, 100 years old in 1987), has eight million speakers from 130 countries, some of whom have
learnt it as a first language. According to those who speak the language, any intelligent person can easily
learn their language. This however may not be the case since its grammar and vocabulary are drawn from
languages that are different from many speakers’. For example, a person that does not speak German,
Latin, Greek or any of the languages from which Esperanto is drawn would find it difficult to understand
the language – intelligent or not.
Esperanto has also been criticized for its circumflexed (A diacritical mark (^) placed above a vowel in
some languages to indicate a special phonetic quality) letters which make typing and writing difficult. In
addition, its words are not easily recognizable by those familiar with the natural language words from
which they are derived. This means even such speakers have to learn the languages anew.

c) Ido

This resembles Esperanto but is less well known. It is still in fairly wide use

d) Occidental

This artificial language was created by Edgar von Wahl following dissatisfaction with Ido. It was
conceived as a language for use in the western world alone. Its vocabulary is largely made up from
‘international’ roots found in the chief Romance languages of Western Europe, or from Latin roots when
no such common form could be found.

SIGN LANGUAGE

Sign language is human language that does not use sounds to express meanings. It is a visual gestural
system that uses hand, body and gestures as the forms used to represent words. It is normally used by the
deaf and should therefore not be identified with the signed versions of spoken languages and cannot be
translated sign-for-word into speech. Fully developed languages and signers can develop and comprehend
unlimited numbers of new sentences, just as speakers of spoken languages do. Until fairly recently (the
1960s), sign language was not treated as a possible language at all.

Sign languages of deaf communities provide evidence to support the notion that humans are born with the
ability to acquire language and that these are governed by the same universal properties. Though deaf
children do not acquire language like hearing children do, when exposed to sign language, they learn it in
stages that parallel those of hearing children learning spoken language.

Sign language is not international. Just as there are many different spoken languages, there are many
different sign languages and these are independent from each other. For example, BSL, ASL and ISL
(Irish Sign Language) are mutually unintelligible despite the use of English in all three countries. Many
signs in sign languages are visually motivated though the sources (of the visual motivations) are rarely
transparent (visibly/ obviously related to the meaning), often culturally determined and are often
metaphorical. An example of cultural differences can be seen in the in the BSL sign for DOOR in which
the hands appear to represent a door opening at its hinges. Japanese Sign Language on the other hand
reflects a door sliding since Japanese doors do not have hinges, but slide. Languages can also focus on
different aspects of a referent even when cultural elements are not relevant. For example, the American
sign HORSE represents the ears of a horse, while the BSL sign represents riding. The BSL sign PENCIL
is motivated by the action of writing with a pencil, but the Uganda Sign Language sign represents
sharpening a pencil.

BSL, just like spoken languages, has varieties. This variation may be attributed to the social experience
and identity of signers or to the setting in which interaction occurs e.g. social class, sex/ gender, ethnicity,
religion, age, geographical region, situation (register) etc. (explain a bit of varieties of English)

Some types of sign language

1. American Sign Language (Ameslan / ASL)

This is the major language of the signing community in America. ASL developed from the French Sign
Language used in a Paris school and introduced into America by one teacher (a deaf instructor) called
Laurent Clerc. The imported language incorporated features of indigenous natural sign languages used by
the American deaf, hence making it different from BSL (British Sign Language). It has its own grammar
with a system of gestures equivalent to the sound system of spoken languages as well as morphological,
syntactic and semantic rules and a mental lexicon of signs. Primes (originally called cheremes)
correspond to the term phoneme. Signs corresponding to morphemes or words of spoken language can be
specified by primes of three different sets:

a) Hand configuration
b) The motion of the hand(s) towards or away from the body
c) The place of articulation or the locus of the sign’s movement.

The sign for the word ‘arm’ can be described as a flat hand, moving to touch the upper arm. It therefore
has three features: flat hand, motion towards, upper arm. Just as in spoken language, sign language has
minimal pairs. This is achieved using contrasts in hand configuration, place of articulation and movement.
Sign language just like spoken language has evolved. Not only have new signs entered the language, but
the forms of the signs have changed, in ways similar to the historical changes in the phonological
structure in spoken language. It also has forbidden combinations of features just like spoken language has
certain sequences of sounds that are not permitted. These differ from one language to another. If there is
no sign, signers use finger spelling instead. This method is used to add new proper nouns or technical
vocabulary to the language.
 2. British Sign Language (BSL)

BSL is the major language used by the signing community in United Kingdom (UK). The first school for
the deaf in Britain was established by Thomas Braidwood in 1760. A likely method of teaching (he kept
his teaching methods secret) for him was a combination of speech, lip-reading and signs. Other schools
came up after this. Signing was also used in ‘missions’ often attached to the schools. The missions have
developed into centers for the deaf and are found in most large British towns.

BSL makes use of space and involves movement of the hands, body, face and head. For example, the sign
for ‘thank you’ in BSL is described as a flat hand in front of the chin and sweep outwards or forwards. A
forward tilt of the body indicates astonishment, interest or curiosity while a backward tilt indicates
defiance or suspicion. The eyes are used to show surprise (wide eyes) and doubt (narrow eyes).

Just like ASL and spoken language, BSL has a well developed phonology and grammar (tense, aspect
number and so on). The phonology is defined by elements such as hand shape, orientation, location and
motion. Just like ASL and spoken language, BSL has minimal pairs. It also has what would be equated to
onomatopoeia (words that imitate natural sounds) in spoken language: some manual signs imitate actions,
shapes, sizes, directions etc for example, in the sign for ‘drink’, the hand imitates she shape and
movement involved in holding a glass and putting it to ones lips. Such a sign would be transparent
because it can be understood even by people who do not know sign language. Other signs would be
translucent (the link between meaning and form only becomes apparent when it is explained) and
encoded (signs give no visual clues to their meaning).

3. Sign Supported English

SSE or Siglish is a sign language where hearing people (e.g. hearing relatives, interpreters etc)
communicate with the deaf. It uses the same signs as BSL but not every word is signed. SSE does not
have its own grammar system like BSL hence enables hearing people to use the same system without
having to learn a whole new grammatical structure.

LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN