Definitions of Language:

"Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by
means of voluntarily produced symbols."
(Edward Sapir, Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech . Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921)

"A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates." (B. Bloch
and G. Trager, Outline of Linguistic Analysis. Waverly Press, 1942)

"From now on I will consider a language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length
and constructed out of a finite set of elements."
(Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, 1957)

"[L]anguage is behaviour which utilizes body parts: the vocal apparatus and the auditory system for oral
language; the brachial apparatus and the visual system for sign language. . . . Such body parts are
controlled by none other than the brain for their functions." (Fred C.C. Peng, Language in the Brain: Critical
Assessments. Continuum, 2005)

"A language consists of symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be
used to generate an infinite variety of messages."
(Wayne Weiten, Psychology: Themes And Variations, 7th ed. Thomson Wadsworth, 2007)

"We can define language as a system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express
our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences."
(E. Bruce Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience , 2nd ed.
Thomson, 2008)

"Language is a structure, a functioning whole in which the different parts are determined by one another”
Ferdinand de Saussure. Swiss linguist and semiotician

“Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined
into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.” Henry Sweet, an English
phonetician and language scholar

“A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.” American
linguists Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager

L is an anonymous, collective, unconscious art. The result of the creativity of thousands of generations.
Definitions of Teaching

Teaching is the process of attending to people’s needs, experiences and feelings, and intervening so
that they learn particular things, and go beyond the given.

Impart knowledge to or instruct (someone) as to how to do something; or cause (someone) to learn

or understand something by example or experience.

The origin of the word ‘teach’ lies in the Old English tæcan meaning ‘show, present, point out’
(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/teach ).

Definitions of learning

1. “A change in human disposition or capability that persists over a period of time and is not
simply ascribable to processes of growth.”
— From The Conditions of Learning by Robert Gagne
2. “Learning is the relatively permanent change in a person’s knowledge or behavior due to
experience.
–From Learning in Encyclopedia of Educational Research, Richard E. Mayer
3. “We define learning as the transformative process of taking in information that—when
internalized and mixed with what we have experienced—changes what we know and builds
on what we do. It’s based on input, process, and reflection. It is what changes us.”
–From The New Social Learning by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner
4. “Acquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so you
can make sense of future problems and opportunities.”
From Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L.
Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel
5. “The process of gaining knowledge and expertise.”
From The Adult Learner by Malcolm Knowles