A Reflection of human language
Wardhaugh (2002) defines language as the knowledge of rules and principle of the ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words, and sentences rather than just the knowledge of specific sounds, words, and sentences. Anjola (2013) describes language as the basic tool of effective communication, in line with this is Keller’s (1994) take on language as a product of social interaction created through series of processes whose main purpose is to get something.
Human language in particular is very special and unique. Other animal form of communication usually serves functional purposes such as to warn their pact of an upcoming danger or simply serves as an emotive expression. It’s like their way of saying that they are hungry, they are angry, or sad, or threatened and so on and so forth. It is simple and practical.
Human language, on the other hand, is compositional. It has structure of subjects, verbs, objects, and it has all sorts of word categories such as noun, adverb, adjectives, and others. Human language can also recognize time differences, whether something happens in the present, future, or past. Moreover, it is not limited to only speeches and sequence of words and sentences. Human language also involves body movement such as gestures, facial expression as well as pitch and intonation as tools to communicate their means. Those elements of speech that are not vowels and consonant are called prosody.
What enables human language to function as sophisticatedly is the transcription gene known as FOXP2. Human’s version of FOXP2 differs from that of our ape cousins by 2 amino acids. Those 2 amino acids are the reason human being can talk about sports, or about the weather, and compose dozens of letters that will make hundreds of thousands of words which can be arranged into endless possibility of sentences.
This FOXP2 creates a sophisticated connection between Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area, and the other hemisphere of the brain that regulates prosody which allow human to use language as the conveyor of idea and messages and pass it to someone else. This transmission of information goes beyond the understanding of words and sentences only, it is also about understanding the context of one piece of information by the way someone delivers it.
If there is a damage in one’s Broca’s area, it will be difficult for that person to speak. If there is a damage in the Wernicke’s area, that person will have difficulty in understanding speeches. If there is a problem in the part of the brain that regulates prosody, one will not have the ability to comprehend a full meaning of a sentence because they won’t be able to pick up the tone in which the sentence is being subjected to or the social context that is implied within the sentence.
For example, if someone comes up to you and says “please write down something, anything you want”. Will you write down whatever it is that is in your mind or will you take the sentence as a command for you to write down “something, anything you want”? Understanding not only the literal meaning of a sentence but also its context is crucial in day to day life. It is used widely when someone is being cynical, it is also used as a mean of passing on important message during war.
Humans are very adaptable, in fact, maybe humankind is the only species that may have the capability to inhabit every place on earth. This may be due to our ability to use language to transmit and receive information thus making it easy for them to process the information faster and more precisely and use it to help them with adaptation process.
The whole elements of language and speech can be used as survival tools, as a mean of entertainment and art, and as an instrument to identify someone’s characteristic by judging the way they talk, how long the silent pause, and which vocal pitch they use when they talk. These multitude depths of language, from its physiological aspect to its psychological and social aspects, are fascinating to dwell on. By learning about language we can learn about humanity as well.
Anonymous writer
