What Is Language?

TOK:

What is the definition of language?

Language: n. 1. system of sounds, symbols, etc. for communicating thought. 2. particular system usecd by a nation or people. 3. style or method of expression. 4. system of words and symbols for computer programming.

Chris Parsholt

IB TOK year 2

What is the definition of language?

Language is something that is as universal as the world we live in. It is different from one culture to another but always has the same unique point. Language is a tool used to convey meaning, expressions and feelings from one individual to another, an individual to a set object or from one object to another. There is no real limit as to what boundaries encap language. For example, a person from Mexico and an American go to a Starbucks in San Diego. The Mexican might order "una cafe" whereas the american might order "a coffee". Both customers would be ordering the same just in two different ways, in two different languages; they would to put it bluntly be expressing their needs in two different ways. This is what it really boils down to, language is a way of expression that might be different from one sunject to another. This doesn't really matter though, because looking at the topic at hand from a greater perspective, it is the same universal thing.

Language is something that we all use in our daily lives, whether it is when we are talking to someone and thereby communicating information and ideas to another person who will have to speak the same language or wether it is when we are typing at our computer and our computer translates and processes the infromation from my language into computer language which is binary, language is all around us. There are different kinds of degrees of language. Language is something that you can acquire

by skill and learning (for example learning a new language). It is therefore only true that a person that has no skill in one language will have difficulty communicating ideas fluently. This does not mean that a person is stupid only that they lack that ability and skill to develop, process and pass on thoughtful ideas from one subject to another (in that language that is).

Language that is spoken is not the only language that we can find. Anything that has expression in it contains some form of language. Art for example has a great deal of expression in it, and is in it's own sense a language. Unfortunately art is not as exact in describing ideas and information as direct words. If a teacher came up to me and said that I had to use my mind it would be more accurate and easily understandable (to me that is) then if a teacher came up to me quoting the Richard Wilbur poem "Mind". The intentions might be the same but the way they are expressed differ in the sense that one is more precise and straightforward than the other. This case as well as all other languages is something that may differ from one person to another. As I stated, speakingg or expressing yourself in a certain language is an acquire

d skill (for example interpreting poems in my previous example). If a person would have no experience in this, there would be a lacking of understanding. Based on this idea we