#2 Discussion Board

1. Can animals communicate? Explain your answer.

- Animals can communicate. As example given in The Nature of Language, whales sing,
wolves howl, dogs bark, and birds chirp. They often communicate as part of their
instinct. They use sound, sometimes their body, to state their emotion, to warn, or just
as a response to their stimuli.
2. Can monkeys produce language? Explain your answer.
- Monkeys are not capable of producing language. They may signal to their partner about
sharing, as said in the book, but it is not considered as a language. There are
requirements for a language to be identified as a language. As defined in the book, it has
a system of rules (grammar), sound (phonology), and vocabulary (lexicon). When a
monkey produces sounds and gestures to communicate, it doesn’t meet these
requirements. “What the monkey is producing is not a language at its strictest form.”
3. What is the difference between language acquisition and language learning?
- When you belong in a speech community, the process of being able to speak the
language in that community is called Language acquisition. It is when we subconsciously
learn a language, like how we acquire our first language while growing up. Unlike
language acquisition, language learning is the process of learning languages consciously.
It is when we learn about a language by studying, often in school or just by our own.
4. What is the difference between the first language (L1) and second language (L2)?
- First language, also referred as mother tongue, is the language acquired from birth. It is
the language spoken in the household or community while growing up. With that, if a
child is exposed to more than one language during that period he/she can have more
than one L1. The language learned after some period is then called the second language.
Just like L1, L2 can be more than one. Second language/s are often common and learned
in school, like the English language for most of us Filipinos. L2 are needed for various
reasons and one of it is to enable a person to communicate with another person with
different language.
5. What happens after a language comes into contact with another?
- When a language comes into contact with another language (language contact), a
language change may happen. As a situation given in The Nature of Language, when you
and your Chinese friend attempt to communicate with each other, you both will produce
a new language that is understandable by both of you. This situation shows how
language evolve, how mixed language such as TagLish, were formed.