The Term of Language

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 The Term of Language

A text is inseparable part of language. Before creating a text, first, we should understand about language. Because a text, both spoken or written, is arranged by an understanding of language. Furthermore, language plays an important role in social life. People can communicate with each other by using language. People can catch our idea after we express it through language, spoken or written. Many ancient Greek, Egyptian, Sumerians use some signs as language to express their notion or their idea. R Holme, 2004. Signs are any form of meaningful entity. They can be accidental or natural. Since that time we know symbols which encode meaning as a result of an agreed convention. One of the symbols we have is the alphabet. Then we use it to arrange text. So, what is a language? There are many definitions of language. Language, in social – semiotic perspective, is understood in its relationship to social structure. Halliday and Hasan, 1989: 4. A sophisticated statement from Pinker’s The Language Instinct 1994 about language as follows : “Language is complex, specialized skill, which develop in the child spontaneously without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same in every individual and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently”. H. Douglas Brown, 2005. 13 A consolidation of a number of possible definitions of language yields the following composite definition: 1. Language is systematic. 2. Language is a set arbitrary symbol. 3. Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual. 4. The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which refer. 5. Language is used for communication. 6. Language operates in a speech community or culture. 7. Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to humans. 8. Language is acquired by all people in much the same way, language and language learning both have universal characteristics. H. Daouglas Brown, 2000 : 5 The sociolinguist Del Hymes 1974 : 196 saw a language as ‘ socially constituted’. By this he meant that what we do in society and the knowledge we have of this will be responsible for the linguistic forms that we use. He suggested to see a language not only as an expression of a social function, but also understand that language is such a function. Holme, 2004. In the frequently- quoted words of Saussure, language is a social fact. It originates spontaneously in the individual, for the imitative and symbolic instinct is inherent in all intelligent beings, whether men or animals, like that of poetry and the arts, its development is social. Furthermore, Jenny Hammond et al 1992 in English for Social Purposes stated that systemic-functional 14 linguistics has a number of tenets that make it particularly useful as a basis for developing literacy program. We can thus make the following conclusion : 1 Language is functional, that is, language is the way it is because of the meaning it makes. 2 It is a theory of language in context, and suggests that language can only be understood in relation to the context in which it is used. 3 The theory focuses on language at the level of whole text. By text is meant any connected stretch of language that is doing a job within a social context. The following model of language will demonstrate this correlation clearly : Table 2.1 The Model of Language GENRE - PURP0SE SITUATION Who is involved ? Tenor The subject The channel matter Mode Field REGISTER Derewianka, 1990 CULTURE TEXT 15

2.2 Text