understanding language

2. INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE
Definition Of Language
Communication by voice in the distinctively human manner, using
arbitrary sounds in conventional ways with conventional meanings.
It is also the system of linguistic signs or symbols considered in
the abstract ( as opposed to speech).
It is any set or system of such 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.
Also any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures
conceived as a meaning of communicating thought, emotion,

3. Concept Of
Language
Transformational Genetive
Grammara theory developed by
Noam Chomsky contains the idea
that a sentence has two meanings
within it.
The two include a deep
structure and a surface
structure.
He believed that language did
not have the same deep
structure in all languages but
rather languages had similarities
of structure.
In the 1990s, Chomsky
suggested that sentence
structure included Logical
Form and Phonetic Form.
This help children
understand that speech
can come in the form of
writing.

4. THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
 Communication is a process of exchanging verbal and non verbal messages.
 It is a continuous process.
 Communication is a two way process and is incomplete without a feedback from
the recipient to the sender on how well the message is understood by him.

5. COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION PROCESS
1. Context
- Every communication proceeds with context
- This context may be physical, social, chronological or cultural.
- The sender chooses the message to communicate within a context.
2. Sender / Encoder
- The Sender / Encoder is a person who sends the message.
- A sender makes use of symbols (words or graphic or visual aids) to convey
the message and produce the required response.

6. - Sender may be an individual or a group or an organization.
3. Message
- Message is a key idea that the sender wants to communicate.
- Communication process begins with deciding about the message to be
conveyed.
- It must be ensured that the main objective of the message is clear.
4. Medium
- Medium is used to exchange / transmit the message.
- The sender must choose an appropriate medium for transmitting the message
else the message might not be conveyed to the desired recipients.

7. - The choice of appropriate medium of communication is essential for making the
message effective and correctly interpreted by the recipient.
5. Recipient / Decoder
- Recipient / Decoder is a person for whom the message is intended / aimed /
targeted.
- The degree which message the decoder can understands is dependent upon
various factors such as knowledge of recipient, their responsiveness to the
message, and the reliance of encoder on decoder.
6. Feedback
- Feedback is the main component of communication process as it permits the
sender to analyze the efficacy of the message.
- It helps the sender in confirming the correct interpretation of message by the
decoder

8. Components of language
• Human language involves both
receptive and productive use
Receptive language use occurs during the
comprehension or understanding of words
and sentences.
Productive language use involves idea
generation and the articulation of words in
speech.

9. Semantics
The system of meanings that are expressed
by words and phrases.
Semantics refers to the ways in
which a language conveys
meaning.
each new word is a major
learning task for children

10. Phonology
 The system of the sound segments that humans use to build up
words.
 Each language has a different set of these segments or
phonemes, and children quickly come to recognize and then
produce the speech segments that are characteristic of their
native language

11.  Moving to the next level of language, we find the study of the
smallest units of meaning, morphemes.
 Morphemes include base words, such as “hat,” “dog,” or
“love,” as well as affixes, such as “un-,” “re-,” the plural “s” or
“es,” and the past tense “ed.”
 Knowledge of the morphology of our language is critical to
vocabulary development and reflects the smallest building
blocks for comprehension.

12. The study of how individual words and their most basic
meaningful units are combined to create sentences is
known as syntax. As words are grouped together when
we communicate, we must follow the rules of grammar
for our language, in other words, its syntax. It is the
knowledge of syntax that allows us to recognize that
the following two sentences, while containing different
word order and levels of complexity, have the same
meaning.
The boy hit the ball.
The ball was hit by the boy.
Syntax also allows us to accept “I went to the store” as
a meaningful (grammatical) sentence while “To store
went I” would not be acceptable English.

13.  The system of patterns that determine how humans can use
language in particular social settings for particular
conversational purposes.
 Children learn that conversations customarily begin with a
greeting, require turn taking, and concern a shared topic.
 They come to adjust the content of their communications to
match their listener's interests, knowledge, and language ability.
“‘Pragmatics’ refers to the ways the members of the speech
community achieve their goals using language.” The way we
speak to our parents is not the same as the way we interact.

14. Factors affecting
language learning /
acquisition
Internal factors
Externall factors

15. Age
Personality
Motivation
Experiences
Cognition
Native
language

16. External
factors
Curriculum
Instruction
Culture
and status
Motivation
Access to
native
speakers