- Hello. I'm Julian Northbrook from doing DoingEnglish.com.
Here's an interesting question for you.
You would think this would be a fairly straightforward
and simple question to answer but far from it.
It is actually quite difficult to say
So here in this video, I want to give you the definition
that language scientists have come up with.
In the 1960s, the linguist Charles F. Hockett came up
with a set of features that characterise human language.
I say, human language because although animals
do have language it's clearly not the same
as the language, that we as human beings, produce.
I'll make a separate video another day
For us here battling with the question of: What is language?
Hockett's features are a great starting point.
Originally, there were 13 of these
language characterising features.
However, arguably some of them actually
aren't necessary for language.
For example, speaking and listening.
Although we generally think of language
as being something that is spoken,
people who are deaf and dumb use sign language
and that is just as much language as the spoken equivalent.
So, speaking and listening actually are not necessary
for a language to be language.
The first feature of language is that
language must always communicate meaning.
When I say something, when I gesture something
my intention is always to communicate
some kind of meaning to the comprehender.
This much is fairly obvious and fairly simple to understand.
Second, language itself is actually completely arbitrary.
What we mean by this is that the words that we use
to convey a certain meaning is
simply a symbol that does nothing to tell us
about the actual thing we are talking about.
For example, the word book does nothing
to describe the physical properties of a book
and it's no better than the word "hon"
the Japanese equivalent of book.
"Hon", book, either way it does nothing
to tell us about what this actually is.
I could call this object a "blingle-bopper"
and although nobody would actually understand me
it is just as good of a symbol as book or "hon".
Third, the sounds of any language
must fit into a limited number of distinct categories.
This number will be different depending
on what language we're talking about.
But for example English has 44 phonemes.
Japanese has 46. Some languages have far more.
Some languages have far less but the point is,
no language can ever have an unlimited number of sounds.
Next, and perhaps most importantly, language must be able
to convey information about things or events
that take place outside of the current space and time.
This is important because monkeys for example,
can make different calls for different kinds of predators.
If they see a predator coming from the air,
they will make one kind of call.
A predator coming from the ground
will elicit a different kind of call.
These monkeys, however, cannot convey information
about these predators when the predators are not present.
Human languages can talk about things that are not currently
present or did not take place this exact point in time.
Finally, in order to be a language it must be generative.
And this means that a limited number of units,
whether words, chunks, phrases, rules,
expressions, or what have you, are able
to combine to produce an unlimited number of sentences.
These features do a wonderful job of categorising
and defining language in a scientific manner.
However, in my opinion they do very little
to get to the core of the problem,
the heart of the question of what language is.
Language, in my opinion, is far more than just a tool
that we use to communicate meanings and ideas.
Language is much deeper than that.
Language is fundamental to what it means to be human.
It is core to our very existence.
Could you imagine life without language for example?
That there is my criticism of academia in general.
Whilst academia has to be precise in order
to progress scientific knowledge
it often does so at the expense
of practicality and real-world usefulness.
So in my book, Master English Fast,
in chapter 3: Language Learning 101,
I give my own personal definition of what language is
and why that matters to you as the language learner.
Of course in this book we also go step-by-step
through the process of improving your English and speaking.
Not just language as defined by language scientists
but extraordinarily good language
that is useful in the real-world.
head over to MasterEnglishFAST.com.
I'll see you on the other side.
Before I go, go ahead leave a comment
what do you believe to be the most important
Tell us in the comments. I wanna hear,
and I'm sure everybody else does as well.
Of course, if you're new to this channel
If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up
and if you hated it, go ahead (rock music)