UNDERSTAN

DING
LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION TO
LANGUAGE

Definition Of
Language

Communication by voice in the distinctively human manner, using

arbitrary sounds in conventional ways with conventional meanings.

It is also the system of linguistic signs or symbols considered in the

abstract ( as opposed to speech).
It is any setor system of such symbols as used in a more or less
uniform fashion by a number of people, who are thus enabled to
communicate intelligibly with one another.
Also any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures
conceived as a meaning of communicating thought, emotion,

Concept Of
Language
This help children
understand that speech
can come in the form of
writing.

Transformational Genetive
Grammara theory developed by
Noam Chomsky contains the idea
that a sentence has two meanings
within it.

In the 1990s, Chomsky

suggested that sentence
structure included Logical
Form and Phonetic Form.

He believed that language did

not have the same deep
structure in all languages but
rather languages had similarities
of structure.

The two include a deep

structure and a surface
structure.

THE COMMUNICATION
PROCESS
Communication is a process of exchanging verbal and non verbal
messages.
It is a continuous process.
Communication is a two way process and is incomplete without a
feedback from the recipient to the sender on how well the
message is understood by him.

COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION
PROCESS
1. Context
- Every communication proceeds with context
- This context may be physical, social, chronological or cultural.
- The sender chooses the message to communicate within a
context.

2. Sender / Encoder
- The Sender / Encoder is a person who sends the message.
- A sender makes use of symbols (words or graphic or visual
aids) to convey
the message and produce the required response.

Sender may be an individual or a group or an organization.

3. Message
- Message is a key idea that the sender wants to communicate.
- Communication process begins with deciding about the
message to be
conveyed.

It must be ensured that the main objective of the message is

clear.

4. Medium
- Medium is used to exchange / transmit the message.
- The sender must choose an appropriate medium for
transmitting the message
else the message might not be conveyed to the desired
recipients.

The choice of appropriate medium of communication is essential for making

the
message effective and correctly interpreted by the recipient.

5. Recipient / Decoder
- Recipient / Decoder is a person for whom the message is intended / aimed /
targeted.

The degree which message the decoder can understands is dependent upon
various factors such as knowledge of recipient, their responsiveness to the
message, and the reliance of encoder on decoder.

6. Feedback
- Feedback is the main component of communication process as it permits the
sender to analyze the efficacy of the message.

It helps the sender in confirming the correct interpretation of message

by the decoder

Components of
language

Human language involves both

receptive and productive use
Receptive language use occurs
during the comprehension or
understanding of words and
sentences.
Productive language use involves
idea generation and the
articulation of words in speech.

Semantics
The system of meanings that are expressed
by words and phrases.

Semantics refers to the ways in

which a language conveys
meaning.

each new word is a major learning

task for children

Phonology

The system of the sound segments that humans use to build

up words.
Each language has a different set of these segments or
phonemes, and children quickly come to recognize and then
produce the speech segments that are characteristic of their
native language

Morphology

Moving to the next level of language, we find the

study of the smallest units of meaning,
morphemes.
Morphemes include base words, such as hat,
dog, or love, as well as affixes, such as un-,
re-, the plural s or es, and the past tense
ed.
Knowledge of the morphology of our language is
critical to vocabulary development and reflects
the smallest building blocks for comprehension.

Syntax
The study of how individual words and their most basic
meaningful units are combined to create sentences is
known as syntax. As words are grouped together when
we communicate, we must follow the rules of grammar
for our language, in other words, its syntax. It is the
knowledge of syntax that allows us to recognize that
the following two sentences, while containing different
word order and levels of complexity, have the same
meaning.
The boy hit the ball.
The ball was hit by the boy.
Syntax also allows us to accept I went to
the store as a meaningful (grammatical)
sentence while To store went I would not

Pragma
tics
The system of patterns that determine how humans can use
language in particular social settings for particular
conversational purposes.
Children learn that conversations customarily begin with a
greeting, require turn taking, and concern a shared topic.
They come to adjust the content of their communications to
match their listener's interests, knowledge, and language ability.
Pragmatics refers to the ways the members of the speech
community achieve their goals using language. The way we
speak to our parents is not the same as the way we interact.

Factors affecting
language learning /
acquisition

Externall
factors
Internal
factors

Internal factors
Age
Native
language

Personality

Cognition

Motivation
Experience
s

Curriculu
m

Access
to native
speakers

Motivati
on

Instructi
on

External
factors

Culture
and
status