Can language be defined in terms of being a structure or a system?

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Author: Mustapha Boughoulid

Keywords: Communication, systematicity, regularity, elegance, idiosyncrasies, stimulus.

Abstract: When it comes to the definition of language, many linguists take it for granted by assuming that the nature of language is easily perceived. Their pre-supposed understanding of language hinders them from viewing how it is constitutive of society. Is it then a system of communication? In fact, language cannot be defined in terms of being symmetrical because there are many symmetries in English and there are many aspects, which are not symmetrical in the sense that there are many phenomena in natural languages, which are predicted by regular rules and others, which are not. In terms of elegance, we can consider the perfect example of elegance that occurs between the reflexives himself and herself and the pronouns him and her, but this elegance disappears when it comes to the description of some idiosyncrasies in terms of the lexicon and how there are no specific rules for how many arguments each predicate should take. Hence, such phenomena make it so difficult to define language in terms of its systematicity, regularity or even elegance. However, we should assume that our act of communication should be meaningful in the sense that when we communicate, we communicate meaning by being free from any stimulus.

DOI: 10.22161/ijeel.1.4.4

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Page No: 31-36