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September 10, 2005
What Is Language?
This entire chapter seemed to be hinting at the question "What Is Language?" and I definetely think it is a difficult thing to define. Certainly, I could give a textbook answer, but I think language is so much more complex than that. I really enjoyed the questions at the end of this chapter because they made me think about what I had just read in a fun, creative way. I definetely think that for something to be language, the individual producing it has to be capable of producing unique, new language. Language that is just regurgitated and spit out is certainly not language, it is simply that--regurgitation. However, I am not as adamant as our text book in distinguishing the difference between language and "not language". I understand the texts' reasons for doing so, yet I do not agree with them. I think that language is whatever you make of it. If an animal is able to communicate with a series of "tale-wags", then all the more power to it. In the same way, I think that language must be defined seperately for each species. The differences between animals and humans are so complex that I do not think we can compare language.
As far as the next discussion question, I do not think the two statements are equally probable. I think the statement "I learned a new word today" makes much more sense because the individual saying it is acknowledging that they acquired a new word that was not in their vocabulary previously. The statement "I learned a new sentence" makes less sense because the individual already had the components for that sentence in their head, they had just not combined them in this unique way yet.
Posted by lciscotis at September 10, 2005 09:45 PM