Language

Language

by Farrah Sharpe

Language as defined by the Miriam Webster dictionary is words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community. This explains why there are almost over 7000 languages being spoken on Earth today. There are countless communities of people with their own unique dialect. Language is also described as being a perceptible sound, coherent and significantly fashioned by the action of the vocal organs. This means to the audible sounds made with the spoken language. Every language is a systematic way of communicating the thoughts, ideas and feelings of the people of that culture. Sometimes language can be silent and communicated by symbols and pictures, and body language.

Every language has well understood meanings by the people who use the dialect & body language. Language has evolved from nonverbal expressions to now being written using symbols or letters that represent the language this is called the alphabet. A lexicon is a collection of these written words and is described by the Miriam Webster dictionary is a book containing an alphabetical arrangement of the words in a language and their definitions. Essentially a lexicon is the tangible vocabulary of a language provided to a group for the means of storing the representations of the culmination of thoughts, words and symbols. Lexicons store parts of speech, spelling and the pronunciation of formal words and some slang words of a culture. This is how a collective body of knowledge is created and shared. Language is comprehensible only if the person speaking is articulating the information well. Body language is very successful in filling in for the absence of words.

There are key features that are critical to the communication process and serve as the link between people in subjective relationships. Language bridges the gap and allows for fluent communication between people. The combinations of language and forms of communication are limitless and one could use any number of basic words, symbols and body movements to describe anything they choose.  There are four levels of language structure and processing. Phonemes describe the first level and phonemes relate to phonetics, which it the study of how sounds of speech are produced by the mouth. Phonetics plays a major role in communication and can be tricky when communicating some of the more difficult words. Sometimes if a word is not phonetically pronounced correctly the word can lose its meaning and mean something totally different. As in with the Chinese characters are composed of semantic and phonetic radicals and the sublexical processing of these radicals plays an important role in the recognition of whole characters (Tsang & Chen, this issue 2009) It is a must that some form of phonetics his heard so that one may give the correct pronunciation.

The second level is words; words fit together and create over 500,000 words in the English language alone. The third level is sentences, which help to arrange words to assist in constructing complete ideas and thoughts. The fourth level is text. Text is important because it allows one to communicate an idea through writing down the subject matter.

Spoken language seems to be a specifically human attribute although we do not understand a dog’s bark or a cat’s meow; these could also be forms of language and even specific types of verbal communication. It is obvious that animals do communicate with one another and usually of its own species. It seems as if they are not capable of depth of thought or spoken language and they lack the ability to teach their form of language to other species. Nonetheless spoken words seem to be a gift to the human race.

Cognitive psychology is the study of learning and involves individual perceptions, ways of thinking, reasoning and decision making skills. These are unique processes bestowed upon the human race and take in to account the conscious and unconscious mental actives of any individual. There are many ways that people learn and communicate but the most common is how they learn concepts of language so they may properly communicate with the world around them if a person cannot properly communicate their words phonetically then it will be difficult for them to verbally translate and communicate their thoughts. If a person does not understand the semantics of a given language it will prove to be difficult to speak clearly and put things in to context based on their individual perceptions and decisions. If a person can make sense of the context of language and culture then they can continue to grow and mature mentally. They will have a much greater influence on the people around them and change their lives in countless ways verses someone who lacks proper speech and their lives seem to remain at a standstill.

New words are being added to lexicons all over the world every day. As the human mind evolves new levels of understanding are opening up creating more experiences that need to be expressed and understood. Mankind is limitless only in his ability to know him or herself. Language is a means of communicating what is taking place in the inner world is making it visible to the outer world. Language and cognitive psychology are dependent upon each other because both deal with the brain and its memory functions with importance on mental process. As our species continues to make advances in cognitive psychology so will we continue to make advances in the benefits of understanding language. The author of this paper wonders if the human species did not have language, would we be a civilized species? And in consideration of the self inflicted wars and poverty we cause ourselves, I wonder, even though we have the advantage of language are we using it? Are we even civilized now?

 References

Dale, Rick, (2004) Cognitive and Behavioral Approaches to Language Acquisition: Conceptual and Empirical Intersections, The Behavioral Analyst Today, Vol 6, Issue 4.
Miriam Webster, (2012). Define language. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/language
Miriam Webster, (2012). Define lexicon. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/%20lexicon
Tsang, Y.-K., & Chen, H.-C. (2009). Do position-general radicals have a role to play in processing Chinese characters? Language and Cognitive Processes, 24(7/8), 947966.