Human Communication Assignment PDF
Added on 2021-04-17
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Running Head: LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM Language as A SystemName of Student Name of University Author note
LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM 1Some notable findings in Semantics argue that the entire purpose and objective oflanguage is to make some sense; that is to be meaningful in the context of conversations.Languages around the world are developed and structured accordingly to meet thecommunication requirements in all aspects. What makes the study of language so difficult andabstruse is the variety and multifariousness of human communication that is subjected toperpetual changes with evolving cultures. Language has traditionally been defined as theexpression and instrument of thought, although this interpretation is too narrow for something asvast as the subject is. Expressing thought is one of the several functions that language performsin daily life and eventful circumstances. The idea of language as an abstract system appearedinitially in the linguistic theory of Ferdinand De Saussure. The idea that the process of usinglanguage involves choosing from a specifiable set of actions, which is established in Semioticsby Saussure (Mick, 1986). His concept of value and signs in a system, reveals how diplomaticlinguistic theories are their abstract dimension of meaning. This essay examines the studiesconducted on the meaning in language and determines how semiotics and linguistics must beable to account for both language usage and language as an abstract meaning system. The objective of using language for communication revolves around the development ofthe desired meaning. If an individual knows a language, he/she knows whether the linguisticexpression is meaningful or meaningless, if it has more than one meaning, if two linguisticexpressions have the same meaning or if that expression refers to the real or the imaginativeworld and also whether it is true or false. All of these are rooted in relativity and that is preciselywhat linguistic scholars over the ages have termed as ‘play in meanings’. Language is used bothliterally and non-literally, depending on the context of usage and the message it intends toconvey. The popular non-literal usage of language include literary devices like metaphor,
LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM 2metonymy, Synaesthesias and sychendoche (Marchalik and Nortom, 2015). These non-literaldevices often makes use of substitution or similarity for expressing an implicit meaning withinthe subtext of language. Another crucial element of meaning is sense, it refers to the manner inwhich an expression presents the reference of the word or a sentence. Sense signifies therelationship between the different expressions of language. This can be explained better with theexample of lexical relations in language like synonyms and antonyms. Synonyms are words orexpressions that have the same meaning in same contexts while antonyms are words that areopposite in meanings. It is because a certain word means exactly the same as another, sensesuggests that there must be words that are the exact opposite of it. The relationship between thedifferent expressions are comprehended through the interplay of differences. For referring to language as a whole unit, linguistics also uses the idea of language as asystem. according to Jelebki, language is a multi-dimensional system, open to multipleinterpretations. The results of the notion of system as used by several experts in semiotics, whoconsider linguistics as a systems that furnishes the foundation for structural elements. Theopinions of Halliday suggest that unlike a system in the similar sense in which eminent linguistused it was a conception only found in the theories of preliminary linguistics. Under this system,any feature of language, grammatical or structural are considered to be understood best whendescribed as groups of actions (Halliday., 2013). Therefore, the most theoretical categories of thegrammatical description or the systems together with their alternatives are methodically differentin terms of grammar and syntax. Halliday’s in his early works considered the treatment oflanguage as a system to be one of four essential categories for theorizing grammar as a system.The remaining three aspects being class, unit and structure. The viewing of language form asystematic perspective, the functional aspect of linguistics becomes rather a 21st than a 20th
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