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Language As A System Of Communication

Satisfactory Essays

Language is an important aspect in our day to day life because it enables us to communicate. The effective communication is made possible with the help of language. Language and communication are so closely related that they are almost the same. If we used a dictionary to find alternative words for language the top alternative is 'verbal communication ', 'words ', 'speech ' and 'talking '. Consider the following definitions of language found in dictionaries and introductory textbooks:
a. Language is a system of arbitrary, vocal symbols which permit all people in a given culture, or other people who have learned the system of that culture, to communicate or interact (Finocchario 1964:8)
b. Language is a system of communication by sound, operating through the organs of speech and hearing, among members of a given community, and using vocal symbols possessing arbitrary conventional meanings (Pei 1966:141)
c. Language is any set or symbols of linguistic symbols as used in a more or less uniform fashion by a number of people who are thus enabled to communicate intelligibly with one another (Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1966:806).
d. Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication (Wardhaugh 1972:3).
e. [Language is] any means, vocal or other, of expressing or communicating feeling or thought ... a system of conventionalized signs, especially words or gestures having fixed meanings. (Webster 's New International Dictionary of the

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