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C. The English Language
1. The Nature of Language
Language is basic to human. People express feelings and their thought by language and stimulate action and reaction through language. Language is basic for the
acquisition of the understanding, attitudes, and ideals that are important to individuals, group, and society in general.
Language serves three very important meanings in life. Firstly, language allows people to communicate with others. Secondly, language facilitates the thinking process,
and thirdly, it allows people to recall information beyond the limits of people’s memory stores.
There are some definitions of language proposed by some linguists. Finocchairo 1964: 8 stated that:
“Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols which permit all people in a given culture, or other people who have learned the
system of that culture, to communicate or to interact.”
Language is audible, articulate human speech as produced by the action of the tongue and adjacent vocal organs Petty and Jensen, 1980: 17. The fundamental forms
of language activity are the sequences of sounds made by human lips, tongues, and vocal cords. It is the system of human communication originating in the sound stream
produced by the organs of speech. Language is possible because everyone in a particular culture or setting agrees that certain sounds or combinations of sounds represent
objects, ideas, and emotions about which they need to communicate with one another.
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Language is a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized sign, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, 1961: 1270 as quoted in Brown, 1996: 4. Language then means the basic of communication that
permits people to express feeling, to communicate, and to interact with others. According to Brown, a consolidation of the definition of language yields the
following composite definition: 1.
Language is systematic and generative 2.
Language is a set of arbitrary symbols 3.
Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual 4.
The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they 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
Petty and Jensen 1980: 18 proposed five characteristics of language: 1.
Language is symbolic. It is a thing of itself, quite distinct from the matter to which it relates.
2. Language is systematic. For this reason it can be learned.
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3. Language is human. It is the most characteristic human activity, completely
different in kind from the “language” of animals. 4.
Language is a social instrument. 5.
Language is noninstinctive. It needs to be learned. There are three functions of language proposed by Halliday:
1. Ideal Function
Language serves for the expression of ‘content’ that is of the speaker’s experience of the real world, including the inner world of his own
consciousness. 2.
Interpersonal Function Language serves to establish and maintain social relations.
3. Textual Functions
Language has to provide for making links with itself and with features of the situation in which it is used.
2. The Language Used in Classroom Activity
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