Language

Teacher Tanya Tomlinson

Definition
• language, a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or
written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a
social group and participants in its culture, express themselves.
• Language is a structured system of communication that consists of
grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans
convey meaning, both in spoken and written forms, and may also be
conveyed through sign languages.
• When you know a language, you can speak (or sign) and be
understood by others who know that language.
Function

• The functions of
language include
communication, the
expression of identity,
play, imaginative
expression, and
emotional release.
Function
Geoffery Leech, who lived in 1936-2014 years, was a
specialist in English language linguistics. He has
published over 30 books and 120 different papers on
semantics, stylistics, pragmatics, grammar, and other
directions. He played an important role in the
development of English and in the overall
understanding of language and its functions. He
distinguished 5 functions of language:

• The Informational Function

• The Expressive Function
• The Directive Function
• The Aesthetic Function
• The Phatic Function
Informational Function
This function can be considered the most important
among others because it is responsible for describing
things and delivering messages that provide readers
or listeners with new information. This function is
used to:
• Affirm or deny propositions, as in science or the
statement of a fact.
• Describe the world or some reasons for it (what
state of affairs has occurred, what might have led
to this situation, etc.).
• Convey a truth value, and therefore contribute to
logic.
The examples of the informational function can be
found in encyclopedias, formal articles, textbooks,
manuals, etc.
 People use this function of language each time when they need to share their feelings. When your
goal is to express attitude, it is not necessarily to deliver any specific information but the words
Expressiv that show your emotions. The simplest examples of expressive language are various exclamations,
words of admiration, gratitude, etc. This function can be used separately from the previous one
e since it doesn't deliver a message; it is aimed to express feelings and impressions.
The expressive function of language helps readers to receive the bigger picture of the characters'
Function personalities and their emotions. If the informational function is used in encyclopedia articles, this
one is common for fiction literature and poetry. Every time you say a phrase like "I really hate this
song," you don't provide your interlocutor with specific information about this song, you just share
your personal, subjective opinion.
Directive Function
This function is somewhat similar to the previous one
because the general meaning of the phrase is not as
important here as affective and situational meanings.
People use it to induce specific reactions or actions. It
can be a command, a request, for example, "For your
own sake, close the door".
This function is primarily common for interpersonal
interaction. What is interesting about it is that the idea
expressed by an addresser doesn't matter pretty much.
We can define whether it achieved the target only with
a reaction of the addressee to this phrase. Speaking
about our example, the phrase "Close the door" makes
no sense when the door is still open.
Sometimes directive phrases can have several
meanings. For example, if you say "I'm thirsty", it
means both information about you and a request for
water. It can also be interpreted as an expression of
your feelings, so, according to Geoffery Leech, even
one short sentence is able to represent 3 functions of
language at the same time.
Aesthetic Function
Leech doesn't distinguish any specific purpose
of this function and considers its words and
sentences to be linguistic artifacts. They don't
convey messages or requests but serve as a
tool of poetic art. Just like an expressive
function, this one can be used in fiction
literature, poetry, music, movies, and other art
directions where it is necessary to show
beauty.
The interesting fact about this function is that
its implementation depends on specific cultural
norms. Hermann Jacobsohn had been studying
this issue in 1933 by comparing different
poems and diaries to show that different
generations have different methods to apply
the examples of aesthetic function.
 Phatic Function
The last language function, according to Geoffery
Leech, is the phatic one. It has a primary purpose to
establish social relationships, to maintain a
conversation. A good example from British culture is
small talk when people don't aim to discuss a topic in
detail, to express their feelings, to command or
request something.
They use the language to interact with other people.
Of course, their words can share some useful
information, for example, when discussing the
weather, stock market fluctuations, parenting, etc.,
but it is not necessary.
Communication
Language is a system of communication that
relies on verbal or non-verbal codes to
transfer information. Communication is a way
of interchanging messages or information
between two or more people, focusing on the
message.
Language is a tool of communication.
Communication is a process of transferring
messages.
Language involves the meaningful
arrangement of sounds into words according
to rules for their combination and appropriate
usage.
 Orthographies that use alphabets and syllabaries are based on the principle
that the written symbols (graphemes) correspond to units of sound of the
spoken language: phonemes in the former case, and syllables in the latter.
However, in virtually all cases, this correspondence is not exact. Different
Orthography languages' orthographies offer different degrees of correspondence between
spelling and pronunciation. English orthography, French orthography and
Danish orthography, for example, are highly irregular, whereas the
orthographies of languages such as Russian, German and Spanish represent
pronunciation much more faithfully, although the correspondence between
letters and phonemes is still not exact.
Orthography
English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken
English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to
meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation,
capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most letters represent multiple pronunciations depending on their
position in a word and the context.
An orthography in which the correspondences between spelling and
pronunciation are highly complex or inconsistent is called a deep
orthography (or less formally, the language is said to have irregular
spelling). An orthography with relatively simple and consistent
correspondences is called shallow (and the language has regular
spelling).
Phonetics
Phonetics is the scientific study of sounds used in language- how the
sounds are produced, how they are transferred from the speaker to
the hearer and how they are heard and perceived.

Phonetics is the study of the production of and the written

representation of speech sounds. In other words, in this course we are
going to learn to produce all the speech sounds of Standard English
correctly and at the same time learn to recognize and write the
symbols used to represent these sounds.
Why do we need to
study Phonetics?
We need to study Phonetics so that we can improve
our pronunciation by learning to produce each
sound of Standard English correctly.
We also need to study Phonetics so that we can
interpret the symbols used in dictionaries, which
represent the pronunciation of radio announcers
and educated English- speaking people.
Most often the pronunciation given is that of the
Standard American English dialect which is the
dialect of prestige.
LET’S PLAY!!
Guess the
gibberish!!

•ABE LESS SING

•WANDER HER WOMB
HEN
•HIGH DANCE EEK
•WHOLE IMP PIG AIMS
•THIEF HEARS LATE HE
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