Tugas: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

LANGUAGE  is...

Language and speech are not the same thing.  Speech is a broad term simply referring to patterned verbal behavior.  In contrast, a language is a set of rules for generating speech.  A dialect is a variant of a language.  If it is associated with a geographically isolated speech community, it is referred to as a regional dialect.  However, if it is spoken by a speech community that is merely socially isolated, it is called a social dialect.  These latter dialects are mostly based on class, ethnicity , gender , age, and particular social situations.

A word is one or more sounds that in combination have a specific meaning assigned by a language.  The symbolic meaning of words can be so powerful that people are willing to risk their lives for them or take the lives of others.  For instance, words such as "queer" and "nigger" have symbolic meaning that is highly charged emotionally in America today for many people.  They are much more than just a sequence of sounds to us.

A major advantage of human language being a learned symbolic communication system is that it is infinitely flexible.  Meanings can be changed and new symbols created.  This is evidenced by the fact that new words are invented daily and the meaning of old ones change.  For example, the English word "nice" now generally means pleasing, agreeable, polite, and kind.  In the15th century it meant foolish, wanton, lascivious, and even wicked.   Languages evolve in response to changing historical and social conditions.  Some language transformations typically occur in a generation or less.  For instance, the slang words used by your parents were very likely different from those that you use today.  You also probably are familiar with many technical terms, such as "text messaging" and "high definition TV", that were not in general use even a decade ago.  

Mental faculty, organ or instinct

One definition sees language primarily as the mental faculty that allows humans to undertake linguistic behaviour: to learn languages and to produce and understand utterances. This definition stresses the universality of language to all humans, and it emphasizes the biological basis for the human capacity for language as a unique development of the human brain. Proponents of the view that the drive to language acquisition is innate in humans argue that this is supported by the fact that all cognitively normal children raised in an environment where language is accessible will acquire language without formal instruction. Languages may even develop spontaneously in environments where people live or grow up together without a common language; for example, creole languages and spontaneously developed sign languages such as Nicaraguan Sign Language.

  

Formal symbolic system

Another definition sees language as a formal system of signs governed by grammatical rules of combination to communicate meaning. This definition stresses that human languages can be described as closed structural systems consisting of rules that relate particular signs to particular meanings. This structuralist view of language was first introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure,and his structuralism remains foundational for many approaches to language.

Tool for communication

Yet another definition sees language as a system of communication that enables humans to exchange verbal or symbolic utterances. This definition stresses the social functions of language and the fact that humans use it to express themselves and to manipulate objects in their environment. Functional theories of grammar explain grammatical structures by their communicative functions, and understand the grammatical structures of language to be the result of an adaptive process by which grammar was "tailored" to serve the communicative needs of its users.

Unique status of human language

Human language is unique in comparison to other forms of communication, such as those used by non-human animals. Communication systems used by other animals such as bees or apes are closed systems that consist of a finite, usually very limited, number of possible ideas that can be expressed.

In contrast, human language is open-ended and productive, meaning that it allows humans to produce a vast range of utterances from a finite set of elements, and to create new words and sentences. This is possible because human language is based on a dual code, in which a finite number of elements which are meaningless in themselves (e.g. sounds, letters or gestures) can be combined to form an almost infinite number of larger units of meaning (words and sentences). Furthermore, the symbols and grammatical rules of any particular language are largely arbitrary, so that the system can only be acquired through social interaction.The known systems of communication used by animals, on the other hand, can only express a finite number of utterances that are mostly genetically determined.

Culture

that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." Alternatively, in a contemporary variant, 'Culture is defined as a social domain that emphasizes the practices, discourses, and material expressions, which, over time, express the continuities and discontinuities of social meaning of a life held in common.

As a defining aspect of what it means to be human, culture is a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies. The word is used in a general sense as the evolved ability to categorize and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and creatively. This ability arose with the evolution of behavioral modernity in humans around 50,000 years ago.

 This capacity is often thought to be unique to humans, although some other species have demonstrated similar, though much less complex abilities for social learning. It is also used to denote the complex networks of practices and accumulated knowledge and ideas that is transmitted through social interaction and exist in specific human groups, or cultures, using the plural form. Some aspects of human behavior, such as language, social practices such as kinship, gender and marriage, expressive forms such as art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and technologies such as cooking, shelter, clothing are said to be cultural universals, found in all human societies. The concept material culture covers the physical expressions of culture, such as technology, architecture and art, whereas the immaterial aspects of culture such as principles of social organization (including, practices of political organization and social institutions), mythology, philosophy, literature (both written and oral), and science make up the intangible cultural heritage of a society.