LESSON ONE WHAT IS LANGUAGE What is linguistics

LESSON ONE WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

What is linguistics ? First year Syllabus?

HUNDREDS OF DEFINITIONS EACH DEFINES LANGUAGE FROM ITS OWN PERSPECTIVE:

-a method -A means -Code -an instrument -A way -Faculty -Ability -An organ -a tool ………. etc

« A Human System of communication used with each other to express feelings , ideas emotions, thoughts and needs using signals , sounds and written symbols …within the same social group »

THE WORD ETYMOLOGY: The English word language derives from Latin « Lingua » = "language, tongue". This metaphoric relation between language and the tongue exists in many languages (eg: Arabic- )ﺍﻟﻠﺴﺎﻥ and testifies to the historical prominence of spoken languages.

(1921) « Language is purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntary produced symbols » . Edward Sapir

1 -Species –Specific and species uniform

C. HALL (1968) IN ESSAY ON LANGUAGE Language is the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other, by means of habitually used-oralauditory or arbitrary symbols » . «

(1957) : « From now on , I’ll consider language to be a set of sentences each finite in length and constructed out of the finite set of elements » . Noam Chomsky

5 -Robins(1979) : a)- Extensibility b)-Modifiability (adaptability)