Question

I need help with a response to my classmate's discussion post. Thank you!

How is language different from communication? What are the design features that characterize languages? Communication is an exchange of information, connecting an individual to another. While language represents words and is a form of communication. The four major design features of language are: Productivity – the ability to combine words into a variety of messages; displacement- allows people to talk about the non-current; Traditional transmission- shows that language is learned in social settings; Duality of patterning- this the quality of distinct sounds a language is made up.

Traditional transmission- learning your language and dialect of a language from a parent or extended family.

Example: My daughter was born in Germany. My definition of extended family is my military friends: One friend who is white from Minnesota, one friend who is black from Georgia, the baby sitter who is from Ecuador and I am from Alabama and my husband from Virginia. By the time we left Germany my two-year-old was understanding and counting to ten in Spanish with a southern drawl asking for pop.

What are the advantages of this concept for human language? The advantage she has was and is able to understand people in any area around where she may go.

How does this concept make human language different from nonhuman communication?While humans have the ability to understand different languages, nonhuman don’t seem to understand intricate language communication.

Answer 1

Communication is a vast area where language is one of the media that is used to communicate knowledge, skills, ideas and attitudes from one to the other. Other media are signs and symbols and body language. Language also comprises of spoken form and written form. Thus, communication is a vast area in which language plays a major part. Children learn language from their parents and immediate circle of relatives and friends and later in the school. Thus whatever language they are exposed to during the childhood days, they would be able to learn them. Having a language means one would be able to communicate well with others who know that language which would make them more sociable and give better connections and opportunities. Only humans have explicit language while non-humans communicate through different sounds and formations such as birds flying in a particular pattern and fish swimming in a formation etc. One of the most important invention of human beings is language and they use it for their benefit and the benefit of others.

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