this presentation will consider what it is that linguists mean by the term
language
first take a minute to think about what you mean when you use the word language
what do you mean by it what do you mean when you say a person uses bad language
not many curse words but meaning they don't speak English well or you say they
have bad english vs good English bad ASL vs good ASL and then what would make it
good
probably what you mean is not exactly what linguists mean
so we need to shift our thinking just a little bit first of all we must
understand that by the term language lingusts mean either the human ability
to use particular languages or the particular languages themselves on the
one hand
humans have this ability to manipulate symbols according to rules to say
anything they want to say that's the general linguistic ability
we call that language we say language does this in the brain or language is
stored in the brain we're talking about this general ability on the other hand
we talk about the specific examples of disability and call them languages as well
by that we mean things like ASL English Spanish Mexican sign language Italian
sign language or Colombian sign language
now linguists have noticed that languages have particular features
first of all there's an- there's a infinite number of things that we can
say even though we only have a finite a limited number of elements or symbols
that we use now I use the term symbol because it could be word or sign and
either one of those is a symbol a sign is a symbol for an idea a word is also
a symbol for an idea
and even though we have lots of signs and lots of words we don't have an
infinite number of signs or an infinite number of words there are a few thousand
signs facial expressions and movements that we use when we combine them
together in a way to produce an infinite number of utterances we can say an
infinite number of things even English might have some 600 or 700 thousand
words
that's still a limited number but we can combine them in
infinite number of ways to say whatever we want to say
and notice too the rules that we use are arbitrary they're not like the rules of
math of the rules of logic they don't have to be the way they are in English we put
adjectives before nouns
so we say the red house but in spanish they put adjective sometimes after now
so you'll se la casa roja the word casa meaning house and word roja meaning red
that's house red but depending on which language you're using you have to
use different rules the rules are arbitrary you only know that by
socializing with the people use those rules
so this complex structure has evolved that could be used to discuss an
infinite number of things
so sometimes we use the term language in a way that may or may not be correct but
sometimes exclude things that are languages and include things that aren't
for instance Morse code is not a language it is a system of dots short dots
and long dots that are used to represent letters but there's only a certain
number of things that Morse code can express a certain number of letters
numbers punctuation marks can be expressed with the dots and dashes
now if you happen to know English or no Spanish you can use Morse code to then
speak the language that is a real language but Morse code itself is not
bee communication while fascinating isn't a language
bees are able to move their bodies in a particular way that shows where nectar
is located how far away
nectar can be found how much nectar is there but that seems to be all they can
say we certainly don't think that these are able to say all there was more
nectar here yesterday
too bad we came all this way or to say I hope that the nectar will be in the
shade because I'm awfully hot
these can't say everything that comes to their mind therefore they can't say an
infinite number they can't express an infinite number of ideas
therefore it's not language unwritten Aboriginal communication is however
language sometimes we think oh well if it's not written down it's not a real
language but that's not true
aboriginal languages can be used to express an infinite number of
ideas according to arbitrary an arbitrary system
rules with a limited number of symbols there for Aboriginal language is in fact
language whether it's written or not
in fact many of the world's languages have never been written down while
spoken language came about
thousands or tens of thousands of years ago actually written language has only
been around for a few thousand years and that's okay
humans have been using language before they developed the system of writing
dolphin communication is another fascinating example something that seems
like it might be language but probably fails the test while we know that
dolphins can communicate a large number of ideas to one another in a very
interesting way
what they're doing doesn't seem to be quite the same as what humans are doing
they don't seem to be using this this set of finite terms or symbols
according to an arbitrary rule system to express an infinite number of ideas
while it's true that they could probably express thousands of ideas and while
it's true that they haven't a unique way of expressing ideas that are that is
different from the way humans do it
it doesn't seem like it's the same thing so humans are so linguists are careful
to not say the dolphin communication is a language so as we wrap up our
discussion of what languages are we need to be careful about the term rules
because languages are governed by rules there are specific patterns of how words
and sounds and sentences all go together but be careful not to think of these
rules as the things that you learn in textbooks because that's not really the
rules that linguists are talking about
think about this you knew where to put english adjectives that english
adjectives come before nouns before you ever went to school you probably learned
it when you were about two years old and maybe even 18 months old
you know that you said the red house and not the house red
and that's okay the rules that are written in books come in after the rules
that were first that you learned growing up
it's the rules that you learned growing up those rules that you learned from
simply interacting with English speakers that linguists are concerned about
matter of fact the rules that make it into books are only a particular set of
rules the rules of those of the language spoken by people who have money and
influence in France for instance it's not the language of the peasant that
gets written down in the book those rules
in fact aren't interesting to most people instead it's the rules that of
the of the language spoken by the elites that gets written down in the same
English maybe even the same in ASL the linguist don't do that
linguists are not interested in prescribing how people should talk
that is inguists aren't interested in saying oh you must talk like these people or you must
Sign like these people instead we're interested in finding out how you do talk
let me give you an example
my grandmother speaks a dialect of English that is spoken in southern
Georgia and central florida in that dialect
if you wish to indicate that a person is doing something in spite of something
else
you can use the "a ing" form
so if i said i asked him to stop but he kept right on a walking or if I said I
thought he was full but he kept a eating that "a eating" and "a walking" form is a
way of indicating that a person is doing something in spite of something else now
those rules aren't written down in grammar books about English unless you're
interested in you know finding a linguistic description of English
most people aren't most people want to speak English like they speak it in
washington DC not like my grandmother speaks it on her back door
or back porch but linguists are interested in these rules
a matter of fact the rules of the English that are spoken in washington DC are no
more complex and are no more correct than the rules spoken on my grandmother's
back porch
it just happens to be that one particular type of language became
prestigious and it became written down in books
the other type of language is equally rule-governed it's equally complicated
it's equally developed equally complex yet most people are interested in that
linguists are linguists are interested in describing what people actually do
that's true that in this course we're going to tell you how to sign but
remember we're not telling deaf people how to sign
what we're doing is we're looking at how native users of ASL use the language and
telling you that
so that you can emulate them we're not interested in prescribing how deaf
people should sign we're interested in describing how they do sign
regardless of what some book says we want to know what deaf people actually
do so that we can do that because that's what the language is the language
is not what's written in a textbook
the language is what's in the head of a native user and those are the rules that
we have to get at it