M. A. I english P. C3 & C6 Modern Linguistics title pmd

1.3.1 Nature of Human Language 
There are several ways in which human beings communicate. They 
communicate through pictures, symbols, body 
movements, facial 
expressions, gestures, actions, etc. All these are means of communication. 
Language is also a way of communication. It makes use of words. Hence, it 
is a verbal communication system. It is a memory-based phenomenon as the 
speakers of language have to remember words and use them as and when 
required. 

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Language is a common human phenomenon. Hence, literary critics, 
linguists, philosophers, psychologists and many others have been interested 
in language. A few of them have tried to define language in their own ways. 
Following are some definitions of language.
 
‘Speech is the representation of the experience of the mind.’- Aristotle
 
‘Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of 
communicating ideas, emotion and desires by means of a system of 
voluntarily produced symbols.’- Edward Sapir: Language.
 
‘Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech sounds 
combined into words.’- Henry Sweet 
 
‘A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols, by means of which 
a social group co-operates.’- Bloch and Trager: Outline of Linguistic 
Analysis.
 
‘The totality of the utterances that can be made in a speech 
community is the language of that speech community.’- Edward 
Bloom: Language.
 
‘Language is human… a verbal systematic symbolism… a means of 
transmitting information… a form of social behaviour… [with a] high 
degree of convention.’ J. Whatmough: Language.
 
‘A language [is a] symbol system… based on pure or arbitrary 
convention…infinitely extendable and modifiable according to the 
changing needs and conditions of the speakers.’ R. H. Robins: 
General Linguistics 

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 
‘Human languages are unlimited… and unlimited set of discrete 
signals… have great structural complexity… structure on at least two 
levels… are open-ended… allow for the transmission of information.’ 
R. W. Langacker: Language and its Structure.
 
‘When we study human language, we are approaching what some 
might call “human essence”, the distinctive qualities of mind that are, 
so far as we know, unique to man.’ Noam Chomsky: Language and 
Mind.
(This list of definitions of language is reproduced. Source: Verma, S.K. 
& N. Krishnaswamy, Modern Linguistics: an Introduction, OUP, New Delhi. 
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impression, 2015. Print.)